D&D 5E (2024) World Building Magic, Magic Items, The DMG, and joined up thinking.

[UngainlyTitan]

Let's just say it cuts out some potential story space and limits the DM's options. I know I was a little frustrated when my players took the teleport spell. Anecdote time: we were playing through Rise of Tiamat, and we had gotten to Xonthal's Tower. In this chapter, the PCs search a tower full of dragon cultists for an artefact, and the climax of the adventure is that a blue dragon--a returning antagonist that the PCs should theoretically get some satisfaction from defeating--arrives and lands on the roof. Only, my PCs never even knew the dragon was there, because as soon as they got the item, they cast teleport and left.


Do you think, then, that going straight to "we should never travel" is the best way to fix it?


I don't see creating your own teleport circles as a big issue in most APs because they usually have the need for travel factored in. They'll either give the PCs an opportunity to get a ship or mention that there are already teleport circles in the major locations or something similar. And if a group really feels that it's negatively impacting their fun, nothing stops the DM from giving them a magic item that would bypass the need to spend a year on casting the circle. I feel like a minority of groups would really need that in order to enjoy the adventure, though.

(Also, my first campaign started with the Tyranny of Dragons adventure path, but instead of starting over when we finished, I added another arc afterward to take the PCs up to level 20. That was when we had the year of downtime.)

Arguing about the travel time or rules is kind of missing the point. Which evidently I was not sufficiently clear about in the OP.
But it is more cost and time effective in the Rules (per Xanathar's for crafting) to create an item that replicated the effect than to use the spells as given.
That and comparing the costs of making those spell permanent and the costs of items and scroll make very little sense either, other than gatekeeping. The DM can do gatekeeping.

 

[Oofta]

Ok, I have no problem with your campaign, it is your campaign and between you and your players. Also, I really don't care about your campaign. That is not what I am driving here.
What I am driving at is: I really like the flavour and world building included in a spell like Teleportation Circle (There are other spells with similar elements that I love also).

Now the issue: A Helm of Teleportation costs 2k gp and takes 10 weeks to make versus the 1 year and over 18k for the permanent Teleportation Circle by use of repeated casting of the spell "Teleportation Circle".
This make no sense, why would one ever bother making a permanent Teleportation Circle by the prescribed method when instead they could make a Rare magic item (Wonderous) that take 10 weeks and 2k gp? and does the same thing?

Look at the cost of scroll vs magic items (wands)

Consider this from a world building point of view. Let's say you have a relatively high magic world. There could be a group that sponsors teleportation circles and then offers to teleport people and goods for a fee. It's a 10 foot diameter circle that you just have to enter. Line people up, have them march straight through. At 30 foot movement 2 people at a time and you could have 60 people get sent anywhere in the world. Have them run and double it. Alternatively send carts loaded with people and/or goods through, just coordinate with the other end and build the circles with the proper elevation change. If sending high value items and passengers willing to pay the fee and it could be a lucrative business.

The maximum capacity for teleportation circle is far, far higher than the teleportation spell that you can cast maybe 3 times per day.

P.S. We did the calculations for teleportation circle when we had to evacuate a village in a previous campaign. We knew a safe location, the caster did teleportation circle a few times on our side and all the NPCs escaped.

 

[jayoungr]

But it is more cost and time effective in the Rules (per Xanathar's for crafting) to create an item that replicated the effect than to use the spells as given.
That and comparing the costs of making those spell permanent and the costs of items and scroll make very little sense either, other than gatekeeping. The DM can do gatekeeping.

A helm of teleportation does not replicate the effect of placing a permanent teleport circle in a location, for two big reasons:

1. The helm of teleportation has a chance of failure unless your destination is a permanent circle or an item that you can see.
2. Anyone who knows the sigil sequence can use a permanent circle, while the teleport spell (as cast by the helm) is only for the caster and companions.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Consider this from a world building point of view. Let's say you have a relatively high magic world. There could be a group that sponsors teleportation circles and then offers to teleport people and goods for a fee. It's a 10 foot diameter circle that you just have to enter. Line people up, have them march straight through. At 30 foot movement 2 people at a time and you could have 60 people get sent anywhere in the world. Have them run and double it. Alternatively send carts loaded with people and/or goods through, just coordinate with the other end and build the circles with the proper elevation change. If sending high value items and passengers willing to pay the fee and it could be a lucrative business.

The maximum capacity for teleportation circle is far, far higher than the teleportation spell that you can cast maybe 3 times per day.

P.S. We did the calculations for teleportation circle when we had to evacuate a village in a previous campaign. We knew a safe location, the caster did teleportation circle a few times on our side and all the NPCs escaped.

First off you are not addressing my general point, which is, that these spells (not just Teleport Circle) are undercut in game by the Magic Item creation rules.

However, If there exists a group of people who are mages of 9th level and over that can devote a 5th level slot to facilitate commerce then I suspect the fee is very high. Fed Ex they are not.
A ninth level caster has one fifth level slot. A tenth as 2, and eighteenth as 3, plus some more higher level slots.
That said the existence of such a group is on the DM.
The DM can allow it or not as they wish. they can ban teleport spells or simply not supply the players with circle addresses. Them it is a retreat only thing. The party still has to walk to the adventure.

My issue is that the spell is there in the game. I like the flavour but from the player perspective it is more productive to make a magic item to replicate the effect than to use the spell and that is the bit you are not addressing.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

A helm of teleportation does not replicate the effect of placing a permanent teleport circle in a location, for two big reasons:

1. The helm of teleportation has a chance of failure unless your destination is a permanent circle or an item that you can see.
2. Anyone who knows the sigil sequence can use a permanent circle, while the teleport spell (as cast by the helm) is only for the caster and companions.

I am using the cost of the Helm of Teleportation as a guide to the cost of a magic item that replicates the permanent teleport circle, assume for the moment that the DM allows it.

 

[Baron Opal II]

I do like these spells or rituals. I think that having something that explicitly takes a significant investment in time, talent, and wealth adds to the realism of the campaign. Great works take great effort.

That said, for teleport circle I don't require the magician cast the spell daily, but rather monthly. Starting and hour before and ending an hour after twilight, the magician performs the ritual in full view of Sola and Monas, the Sun and Moon at Full, at a liminal time in order to facilitate a liminal method of travel. After a year, all of the variations of the ley lines' flow are accounted for and the circle is activated. Having it cast daily gives me a modern, workman-like feel that sucks all of the mystery out of it. Having the ritual periodically timed also allows the adventurers to go out for short excursions.

Importantly, things like this are a bag of plot hooks. Who will come to disrupt the ritual? Is there a foe of the party that is doing their own, and how would you disrupt theirs?

...[the point being] these spells (not just Teleport Circle) are undercut in game by the Magic Item creation rules.
...
My issue is that the spell is there in the game. I like the flavour but from the player perspective it is more productive to make a magic item to replicate the effect than to use the spell and that is the bit you are not addressing.

Well, for the scroll it looks like there was some backpedalling. For me, you would need 12 scrolls and it would still take a year. For the helm, that cost is astoundingly cheap for the level of teleport. Regardless of the correctness of the calculation, one made in my campaign would be much more expensive. Is 2000 gp still the price of a common item?

 

[Oofta]

First off you are not addressing my general point, which is, that these spells (not just Teleport Circle) are undercut in game by the Magic Item creation rules.

However, If there exists a group of people who are mages of 9th level and over that can devote a 5th level slot to facilitate commerce then I suspect the fee is very high. Fed Ex they are not.
A ninth level caster has one fifth level slot. A tenth as 2, and eighteenth as 3, plus some more higher level slots.
That said the existence of such a group is on the DM.
The DM can allow it or not as they wish. they can ban teleport spells or simply not supply the players with circle addresses. Them it is a retreat only thing. The party still has to walk to the adventure.

My issue is that the spell is there in the game. I like the flavour but from the player perspective it is more productive to make a magic item to replicate the effect than to use the spell and that is the bit you are not addressing.

You can certainly change it if you want. I think it's fine as is. I've had PCs use it, some aspects of the game won't fit every campaign. As far as use by NPCs, I simply disagree. It's a high up front cost but then it's there effectively forever. Every campaign world is going to handle NPC casters differently of course, but it's not like the NPC casting teleportation does nothing else all day, it could just be one of many services they provide.

It also assumes that NPC casters have exactly the same limitations as PC casters, something I do not. That gets into house rules of course, but even without that if you're in, say, the Forgotten Realms where you can't walk around the corner without bumping into a fairly high level wizard I don't see what the issue is.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm okay with there being a few spells or spell effects, that are impractical for most players.

Yeah, those effects are for NPCs and PCs who have sufficient downtime in their campaigns. Just like every other long term downtime project. All that stuff has to come from somewhere, after all, and it really should take some time to accomplish great feats like this. It really does all depend on the table.

 

[billd91]

Now the issue: A Helm of Teleportation costs 2k gp and takes 10 weeks to make versus the 1 year and over 18k for the permanent Teleportation Circle by use of repeated casting of the spell "Teleportation Circle".
This make no sense, why would one ever bother making a permanent Teleportation Circle by the prescribed method when instead they could make a Rare magic item (Wonderous) that take 10 weeks and 2k gp? and does the same thing?

I might think that a helm of teleportation should probably be very rare rather than just rare since it can do up to three 7th level spells a day. But I'd also argue that it doesn't do quite the same thing as teleport circle. In some ways, the teleport is better - it's faster and doesn't need a teleportation circle as the target. But if you aren't optimizing your target location's familiarity, it's off target pretty frequently.

 

[Vaalingrade]

That may be by design, to stop PCs from just setting up a teleport circle in every town they visit and cutting travel out of the campaign entirely.

It'd be way better if they did something to make travel and exploration fun instead of just a logistics puzzle and resource sink. But I guess just forcing you to engage in it is fine too.