Permanent Teleportation circles- need help!

[BabyDM]

Ok so, I’m DMing a 5e game for a couple of friends and we’ve had a disagreement on how we understand how teleportation circles become permanent. I know it’s expensive but the way I’ve understood it, because the spell uses up the components to cast it, it would do so every time the spell is cast every day for a year to make it permanent, but it’s this act of marking out the circle and casting the spell burns the sigil into the place it’s being repeatedly cast. It makes the cost of said spell to become permanent to be 18,270 GP. At least that’s how I understand it, even if it’s inordinately expensive.

My player insists that it would be possible to create the symbols for the array through carving or metal work- which would make creating a permanent teleportation spell by simply having the caster use that in place of the drawn out chalk, using up the components. I think that’s how he explained it to me, he made reference to Dragon Horde but I haven’t played or run that one..

While I understand the reason in that, it’s not how I understand the spell working when trying to make it permanent.

Help please! It’s not effecting the game, but I would like a clearer answer so I might use it in future.

[Zhorn]

Unfortunately for your friend, if they are not spending the required material components of the spell, then the spell isn't being cast.

Making a physically persistent sigil sequence is not the same as imprinting said sigil sequence into the Weave (magical fabric of reality) as a constantly active spell anchor. They can craft or engrave their sigil sequence, but it doesn't mean it is magical enough to serve as a permanent teleportation circle.

Assuming this is a home game and not bound by AL rules, you can change it to be how you'd rather it be (I know I have), but don't feel pressured into doing the change your friend wants just because it's what he wants.

[JackPhoenix]

Nope. You must provide the material component every time you cast the spell. There would be an exception if the component in question had no listed price and wasn't consumed, in which case it could be replaced by arcane/druidic focus or holy symbol, but that is not the case for Teleportation Circle.

[Zhorn]

he made reference to Dragon Horde but I haven’t played or run that one.

Looking into this one, the teleportation circle he is referencing in Hoard of the Dragon Queen is carved into the ground, but there is no reference from what I can see about the timing of its construction. It could very well been carved into the ground and just traced over with the expensive chalk every day for a year, casting the spell each time, with the carving just for convenience and aesthetics. If I were setting one of those up, I'd do a carving too, just to make the task easier and have a neat looking feature afterwards.

On top of that, the circle in the module behaves a bit differently to the PHB spell, as it is password activated.

Now if they were really wanting to justify a difference in ease and timing of creating a permanent sigil, Tomb of Annihilation (as discussed in another recent thread) has an example of a permanent circle being established in a time frame as short as 20 days.
But there is still the possibility that such a circle could have been created on a movable surface and placed at such a location after it was finished.

Lesson to take from this: modules a good for discussions and setting precedence for house rules, but are not air tight enough to base official rulings off. As a DM, use them as inspiration for changes you want to make. As a player use them for making request. But also as a player, don't use them as ground to demand a deviation from the PHB, it's always up to the DM.

[Keravath]

The interpretation you describe is how I read it as well. It costs 18k+ gold and takes a year to permanently mark the weave with the sigil "address" of that location so it can be targeted with a teleportation circle spell cast anywhere else using that sigil as the address.

If creating permanent teleportation circles was easy, then consider how many of them would have proliferated throughout the world over the millenia? For a rich person 18k+ gold and a year isn't that much of an investment. This means that you could expect kings and wealthy organizations to have the ability to directly teleport to their facilities. It would not be something commonly available.

However, if all it required was drawing some sigils in metal to make them permanent then every blacksmith could have a circle if they wanted it. Each town might have hundreds of circles over time since even small businesses might want one to serve wealthy customers.

I kind of depends on how commons wizards and others capable of casting the spell or scribing a scroll for it might be in your world but keeping the costs expensive helps make the teleportation circles more rare and unique.

[Lupine]

However, if all it required was drawing some sigils in metal to make them permanent then every blacksmith could have a circle if they wanted it. Each town might have hundreds of circles over time since even small businesses might want one to serve wealthy customers.

That could be an interesting adventure location: a town that found out how to make sigils cheaply, and now has fallen apart due to the magnitude of portals interrupting daily life. Fast forward hundreds of years, some of the portals have broken down, and now the location teleport people all over the town. Imagine the entertainment of combat, if you could move that frequently.

[Zhorn]

That could be an interesting adventure location: a town that found out how to make sigils cheaply, and now has fallen apart due to the magnitude of portals interrupting daily life. Fast forward hundreds of years, some of the portals have broken down, and now the location teleport people all over the town. Imagine the entertainment of combat, if you could move that frequently.

Now you're thinking with portals

[LordEntrails]

$18k+ to make a permanent circle, and I suggest you key it else others will use it when you don't want them to.

[Keravath]

That could be an interesting adventure location: a town that found out how to make sigils cheaply, and now has fallen apart due to the magnitude of portals interrupting daily life. Fast forward hundreds of years, some of the portals have broken down, and now the location teleport people all over the town. Imagine the entertainment of combat, if you could move that frequently.

This depends on how you interpret the permanent teleportation circle :)

As I read it, a permanent teleportation circle creates an ADDRESS made of sigils that can always be used as the target when casting another teleportation circle spell as long as you know the sequence of sigils. A permanent teleportation circle does NOT create a portal, you still need to cast a teleportation circle spell to open the link.

However, you could imagine a town that learned how to make so many teleportation circles that the number of them caused a disruption of the weave by overlapping and creating interference, perhaps enhanced by a local region of wild magic. A side effect of this could be that the teleportation circles randomly teleport you to other circles in the town without having to cast the spell :)

[Lupine]

This depends on how you interpret the permanent teleportation circle :)

As I read it, a permanent teleportation circle creates an ADDRESS made of sigils that can always be used as the target when casting another teleportation circle spell as long as you know the sequence of sigils. A permanent teleportation circle does NOT create a portal, you still need to cast a teleportation circle spell to open the link.

However, you could imagine a town that learned how to make so many teleportation circles that the number of them caused a disruption of the weave by overlapping and creating interference, perhaps enhanced by a local region of wild magic. A side effect of this could be that the teleportation circles randomly teleport you to other circles in the town without having to cast the spell :)

Exactly. Kind of like that thor movie.

[Segev]

5e module writers seem not to really understand how 5e teleportation circle works.

The spell, as written in 5e, does one of two things:

1. If cast while the caster thinks of a particular sigil sequence associated with an established circle, it teleports him and everyone else he legally targets to the circle in question, regardless of distance.
2. If cast on a particular location, it does nothing at first. But cast there at the same place every day for 1 year, it creates a new circle with a unique sigil sequence, to which anybody casting teleportation circle as a transport spell may go, as long as they know the sigil sequence.

Think of it as Town Portal from Diablo.


Sadly, the way it's used in Tomb of Annihilation, for example, they act as if it's a point-to-point network that doesn't require additional castings. Or at the least, they forget the 1 year timeframe required to make one.