Magical trains versus Teleportation circles

[Ormur]

I'm thinking about my next campaign setting (using Ernir's Vancian to Psionics translation (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=194002) (oh boy, he's one of my players)).

Now I want the setting to be a pretty realistic extrapolation of the system so I've taken a few cues from the Tippyverse and also Eberron which fits nicely considering industrialization (or thaumatization or something) and colonialism are supposed to be kind of the themes of the game.

To keep it a bit grounded I'm going to skip the traps, not only for the wish abuse and food and water traps rendering everything outside of the cities a wasteland but also because I'm not all that sure the original intention behind traps is so solid. The Homebrew spell system is also seemingly less broken and unbalanced so some of the revolutionary effects of magic and the hegemony of magicians are gone.

That still leaves a system of teleportation circles connecting large cities (by pre-modern standards) and I'm fine with that. They're pretty much exactly the same, you need 19 spell points and 4500XP to create a permanent one.

One thing that really tempted me in adition to that was having magical trains a la Eberron. I was thinking about mass transit within cities or maybe something for the countryside, still needed for food but without close access to teleportation circles.

I was thinking about gargantuan animated objects as locomotives. With wheels and under favourable conditions they could tow 55920 lbs. at a 50ft speed, more at slower speeds. Don't know how run actions work without a constitution score but speed is secondary anyway.

The trouble is that a permanent animated object like that costs just a many spell points and only 1500XP less. I don't think that makes up for slower speeds, less carrying capacity and infrastructure like rails and tunnels. Even for mass transit a system of telportation rings would probably beat it since I bet you'd need fewer stops than trains.

I guess I could go with lodestones but that seems a bit inelegant somehow, I don't want to handwave trains if they don't make sense according to the rules. Is there any economic case for trains coexisting with teleportation circles and can you think of another way to make trains? Having them towed by dinosaurs maybe?

[Telonius]

I'm thinking about my next campaign setting (using Ernir's Vancian to Psionics translation (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=194002) (oh boy, he's one of my players)).

Now I want the setting to be a pretty realistic extrapolation of the system so I've taken a few queues from the Tippyverse and also Eberron which fits nicely considering industrialization (or thaumatization or something) and colonialism are supposed to be kind of the themes of the game.

To keep it a bit grounded I'm going to skip the traps, not only for the wish abuse and food and water traps rendering everything outside of the cities a wasteland but also because I'm not all that sure the original intention behind traps is so solid. The Homebrew spell system is also seemingly less broken and unbalanced so some of the revolutionary effects of magic and the hegemony of magicians are gone.

That still leaves a system of teleportation circles connecting large cities (by pre-modern standards) and I'm fine with that. They're pretty much exactly the same, you need 19 spell points and 4500XP to create a permanent one.

One thing that really tempted me in adition to that was having magical trains a la Eberron. I was thinking about mass transit within cities or maybe something for the countryside, still needed for food but without close access to teleportation circles.

I was thinking about gargantuan animated objects as locomotives. With wheels and under favourable conditions they could tow 55920 lbs. at a 50ft speed, more at slower speeds. Don't know how run actions work without a constitution score but speed is secondary anyway.

The trouble is that a permanent animated object like that costs just a many spell points and only 1500XP less. I don't think that makes up for slower speeds, less carrying capacity and infrastructure like rails and tunnels. Even for mass transit a system of telportation rings would probably beat it since I bet you'd need fewer stops than trains.

I guess I could go with lodestones but that seems a bit inelegant somehow, I don't want to handwave trains if they don't make sense according to the rules. Is there any economic case for trains coexisting with teleportation circles and can you think of another way to make trains? Having them towed by dinosaurs maybe?

To use a modern analogy...

Teleportation Circle = Shipping a gigantic amount of stuff by ship
Magical Train = Taking that stuff and parceling it out to deliver by truck

If you're using a teleportation circle as shipping, it has a big advantage of being always on and pretty much instantaneous. Its drawback is that it's only point A to point B. Not every merchant is going to want to (or even be able to) set up shop right at the circle. Once the goods are through the portal, they have to get where they're going. A "light lightning rail" system could achieve that.

(EDIT: Another advantage of a rail system is that you could pay the XP cost once and have multiple destinations, whereas the teleportation network would involve the XP cost with each destination).

[Fouredged Sword]

I think the ship analogy is a good one. Basically there are what, 3-4 major ports on the eastern seabord of the USA. Huge container ship ports are expensive. Trains are used to move things to and from the connections created by the ports.

So you have that, but are not attached to the coast.

You would have a nation's capitol with a network of teleportation circles. It may take crossing 4-5 to get where you want, but you can get there within a day. Blocking out time to move a heavy cargo lift would be paperwork and cost a great deal to claim the circle all to yourself for even a few minutes.

Trains are a more economic solution. One can add enough cargo capacity to a train that while it is slower, for massive quantities of things like food, it is more economic. Also, the train can make stops along the route, also good for dispersed industries like agriculture.

Really, you would have a city hub that is connected to all the farming communities and industry in an area through a network of roads and trains. This would all supplement a shipping industry.

Maintaining two way traffic through a 10ft circle actually restricts the total volume of travel considerably, especially because you can't see through it. It would have to set up a system of laning and allow for enough clearance between one traveler and the next to prevent a pileup on one side as people walk into the back of a crowd they can't see.

The more I think about it, it would act more like airplanes. A safe affordable system of quick travel for small items and people, but ill suited to mass transport of bulk shipping. Magitech trains and large magitech ships would seem a better solution. (control weather makes cargo ships able to ignore much of the risk of sailing)

[Telok]

Why not use steam engines? A few decanters of endless water and some permanent heat metal spells would do fine.

[ellindsey]

Why not use steam engines? A few decanters of endless water and some permanent heat metal spells would do fine.

Actually making a working steam engine capable of pulling a significant load without exploding requires fairly advanced metallurgy and machining technology. You can cheat with the Shape Metal spell, but you still need a fair amount of mathematics and engineering knowledge to make things like valves and steam cylinders. Much easier and safer to use Animate Object to just make the magic train's wheels turn, or build a golem and have it run on a treadwheel or something for your power source. In a world with easily accessible magic, I suspect the steam engine would take a very long time to ever actually be invented.

[Fouredged Sword]

Or you just bind a fire elemental into a core of mythral and adimntium, and force it to spin the engine.

Or bind an earth elemental to push.

Magic makes things better.

[Yukitsu]

I found I could make a magical, non-steam train that moves pretty darn fast using all level 6 or so characters. A TC network requires that your setting have at least a level 17 wizard making and maintaining the network. Personally, I prefer the trains for that reason, as less strange questions crop up when you don't include the top level casters.

[watchwood]

Actually making a working steam engine capable of pulling a significant load without exploding requires fairly advanced metallurgy and machining technology. You can cheat with the Shape Metal spell, but you still need a fair amount of mathematics and engineering knowledge to make things like valves and steam cylinders. Much easier and safer to use Animate Object to just make the magic train's wheels turn, or build a golem and have it run on a treadwheel or something for your power source. In a world with easily accessible magic, I suspect the steam engine would take a very long time to ever actually be invented.

Why would it? Clever use of a few low level spells is far more cost effective then a couple of high level spells or expensive constructs. And if you've got spellcasters that can cast permanent magic circles, then having someone make the string of skill checks needed to research a halfway reliable steam engine system would be child's play in comparison. Especially when the level 2/0 spells are vastly more cost effective for use.

[ellindsey]

If you're really going to introduce the required technology to make complicated engines, you can actually fairly easily build a power source without using steam or heat metal. Have an alchemist distill some ammonia as a working fluid. You store the ammonia in a tank surrounded by brown mold, which will always maintain a temperature low enough to keep the ammonia liquid. Let some of the ammonia out and run it through a heat exchanger with the outside air, and it will boil. Use the expanding, boiling gas to power a piston engine or turbine or whatever, then run it through a heat exchanger surrounded by more brown mold to liquify it again. Perpetual motion, no spells required other than uses of Shape Metal or Fabricate or the like in building it, and it even works in an antimagic field. Just be very careful not to let anyone bring open flames near that brown mold tank.

[Togo]

What's the safety like on trains and teleportations?

I teleported home one night
With Ed and Sid and Meg
Meg stole Eddy's heart away
And I got Sidney's leg.

(Douglas Adams)

[Angelmaker]

Actually making a working steam engine capable of pulling a significant load without exploding requires fairly advanced metallurgy and machining technology. You can cheat with the Shape Metal spell, but you still need a fair amount of mathematics and engineering knowledge to make things like valves and steam cylinders. Much easier and safer to use Animate Object to just make the magic train's wheels turn, or build a golem and have it run on a treadwheel or something for your power source. In a world with easily accessible magic, I suspect the steam engine would take a very long time to ever actually be invented.
In a world where emgineering bonusses are litterally cheap as dirt in terms of investment cost ( one or two magic items for the leading position as chief engineer in a kingdom for centuries ) this isretty much a non issue. Races that are maturally inclined to tinkering like gnomes would've invented firearms and the steam engine between nreakfast and lunch.

And in a much greater perfection than anything we could invent in our modern society. Just the magical item bonus would be higher than anything we could develop and study in a skill. It all depends on how old your setting is, since scientific developments progress on what has already been discovered. Actually I can totally see gnomes in ancient settings who are flying to the moon while other kingdoms still have no running water toilets.

@ Port amalogy: it pretty much sucks. Teleportation circles are instant. Every kingdom will have more than just the major cities invested with these, simply because of the tactical advantage it offers. Being able to relocate YOUR ENTIRE FRIGGING ARMY litterally from one side of the country to the other within a matter of hours is nothing a port could ever do.

[Ravens_cry]

I have a setting in the works where teleportation circles are common feature in market towns of the local empire. Their primary use is for the Roman army analogue to travel from place to place, putting out brushfire wars and unrest, but merchants with small volume, high value goods, like spices, gems and magic items, as well as people of value, like priests and mages, often pay a tax to use them as a rapid form of transportation. It's really too expensive for most people for common use, but for the above uses they are invaluable.

[Drachasor]

The biggest problem with Teleporation Circle to transport goods is that it only activates for CREATURES. So you need some sort of workforce actually transporting things.

The cost of TC isn't that much, 25k per circle. Compared to constructs moving things around (which is what a train would be like) this is very cheap.

Anyhow, I don't think you'd see a train...it's not all realistic in a D&D setting. Flying is pretty easy in D&D so flying ships are more likely. They don't need a track and those are expensive, and they can go anywhere since they aren't limited by a track.

What you might see are permanent animated objects or other flying constructs for transport. The advantage here is that they could use a Teleportation Circle. Under this scheme they'd likely be the only thing legallly allowed to use TCs given the expense and the fact they could carry a huge number of passengers.

[Ravens_cry]

The biggest problem with Teleporation Circle to transport goods is that it only activates for CREATURES. So you need some sort of workforce actually transporting things.

Not really an issue. Just get some strong quadrupeds, magically enhancement of their strength and carrying capacity would probably be cost effective, and send them across loaded with goods. You don't even need constructs, just send trained animals.

[Drachasor]

Not really an issue. Just get some strong quadrupeds, magically enhancement of their strength and carrying capacity would probably be cost effective, and send them across loaded with goods. You don't even need constructs, just send trained animals.

Point is, that limits the uses and increases the cost a lot as well as adding more logistics issues (such as how it requires all TCs to be two-way).

[Fouredged Sword]

Then again, an elephant with a the pathfinder ant haul belt and the straps that increase strength could hall a silly amount of weight on a track. It would be a low tech magic train system.

[Ravens_cry]

Point is, that limits the uses and increases the cost a lot as well as adding more logistics issues (such as how it requires all TCs to be two-way).
How does it limit the uses? Goods, you send them in pack mule, people, you send by . . . people. Messages you send via messenger, though that can be as simple as the old message tied to a bird's leg standby. The individual teleportation circles don't have to be two way, you just need matched pairs..

[Drachasor]

Then again, an elephant with a the pathfinder ant haul belt and the straps that increase strength could hall a silly amount of weight on a track. It would be a low tech magic train system.

That costs 8k for the Elephant and items, and then additional costs for the track (which is not going to be cheap). It's limited by how fast the Elephant can move and by the fact the elephant is biologically (and so gets tired and can't do this for more than 8 or so hours per day). 5k for each additional elephant. This doesn't include money for food for them (not sure if there are rules on this, but elephants are expensive to feed in real life).

If you're going with PF, then a flying Ship or Castle would cost Ship/Castle + 60k (A non-warship is about 10k in PF, but it is possible to get cheaper massive objects to enchant). A flying gargantuan object would be object + 40k. Seems more expensive, except they can work 24 hours a day, hold more, and run everywhere.


How does it limit the uses? Goods, you send them in pack mule, people, you send by . . . people. Messages you send via messenger, though that can be as simple as the old message tied to a bird's leg standby. The individual teleportation circles don't have to be two way, you just need matched pairs..

Since it needs creatures you can't...
1. Have a slide that leads down to the TC, where you can dump grain or other goods (other side of the TC can be in air and could allow for multiple exit slides to be moved in place). Multiple slides could even be merged together on the entrance end allow faster good transport. This could scale up quite a bit even with the limited TC portal.

2. You MUST have another TC to return (and yeah, you certainly wouldn't want them to be matched up in space...that just causes traffic jams), otherwise you'll run short on animals or whatever is hauling cargo. If it could just transport goods, then you wouldn't need that (payment could be handled via a slower route or some alternate means since it is much more portable than massive goods).

3. Animals restrict how fast goods can be moved, since you aren't just dumping it into the circle as quickly as possible. You're limited by movement speeds and carrying capacity.

4. You need more animals if they have to cross over with the goods since that's a further distance from the goods origin they have to travel. In fact, you probably have a bunch of animals JUST for transport through the TC since that's going to be more efficient and work better than demanding everyone with goods use their own animal (or you'd have companies with specialized animals for transport, which amounts to much the same thing).

[Ravens_cry]

An undead elephant on the other hand is a one time cost.:smallamused:
It's really amazing how efficient rails can be (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsecar).

[Drachasor]

An undead elephant on the other hand is a one time cost.:smallamused:
It's really amazing how efficient rails can be (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsecar).

Except it isn't really that efficient in D&D when you have alternate transport options that include easy flying. Tracks are expensive to build and maintain relative to D&D options.

Undead Elephants are limited by a few factors. There are political factors and the fact that the number of undead elephants you can have caps at the number of casters or others capable of undead control willing to order them about.

[Fouredged Sword]

Or one guy with a eternal wand of control undead. He can control 1 of them for as long as needed.

Undead may not be the solution though. An effigy elephant is also an option. More expensive, but still able to pull some heavy loads.

Or a team of effigy oxen or horses.

[Zirconia]

In a world where emgineering bonusses are litterally cheap as dirt in terms of investment cost ( one or two magic items for the leading position as chief engineer in a kingdom for centuries ) this isretty much a non issue. Races that are maturally inclined to tinkering like gnomes would've invented firearms and the steam engine between nreakfast and lunch.

Tinkering does not equal inventing useful things; the Chinese had gunpowder for centuries without ever inventing guns, they had water clocks and excellent craftsmen without inventing mechanical clocks, and so on. Invention of new things proceeded much slower than it "needed" to throughout human history, because things like a steam engine are not obvious except in retrospect.

And that is without factoring in the likelihood that with magic, the "best and brightest" minds will tend to go into that field rather than working on building mechanical things which are already unnecessary because of things like golems. Randall Garret had a nice alternative history series on that, his "Magician" series with a Sherlock Holmes like detective who worked with a forensic magician.

Or the fact that a lot of the physical laws which were painfully worked out here don't apply in a D&D/magic world, see the recent thread on "where does the water go with Lower Water" for an example. That would further muddy the waters for developing science and engineering.

[Drachasor]

Or one guy with a eternal wand of control undead. He can control 1 of them for as long as needed.

Undead may not be the solution though. An effigy elephant is also an option. More expensive, but still able to pull some heavy loads.

Or a team of effigy oxen or horses.

And again, stuff like that quickly becomes pricey.

Undead are the cheapest ground-based solution, but most people aren't going to want to be using inherently evil creatures. But if you're talking about making a track system...well, that's going to be very expensive and it just isn't worth it compared to flying creatures to transport goods.

Flight is VERY cheap in D&D compared to other methods or the real world.

[Angelmaker]

All valid points, drachasor, but honestly, are the limits you have shown really practical limit? Given for example an animal that drags a five ton cart and assuming a living being needs 5 kg of food and water and one trip takes an hour to and and hour back ( with loading times ) then you can haul 20 tons with a single animal/cart for example from a farming community to the city, which means being able to supply 4.000 people easily with one cart thanks to the teleportation circle in an 8 hour shift. Multiply by x carts.

I agree though that rails are pretty mich a bad idea. You want to be able to distribute the goods easily though the city anyway. So it makes NO SENSE whatsoever to reload from cart to train and back again from the train to carts.

Even if you only have one teleportation circle where you use odd hours to and even hours from and a single cart takes ten rounds to transfer you still can transport 60 carts in one direction per hour which equals to roughly 300 Tons per hour. Teleportation circles beat anything, even flying vehicels, by far! With just a little bit of optimization, flying is pretty much only for strategical/recreational purposes, since carts/animals and skilled labourers ( not even talking about constructs ) is that much more cheap.

[Mutazoia]

Actually making a working steam engine capable of pulling a significant load without exploding requires fairly advanced metallurgy and machining technology. You can cheat with the Shape Metal spell, but you still need a fair amount of mathematics and engineering knowledge to make things like valves and steam cylinders. Much easier and safer to use Animate Object to just make the magic train's wheels turn, or build a golem and have it run on a treadwheel or something for your power source. In a world with easily accessible magic, I suspect the steam engine would take a very long time to ever actually be invented.

Mono-tube boilers don't explode..they just dump the water.

A simple pressure activated valve would release excess pressure before a catastrophic failure would occur, and they don't require a lot of engineering skill (but engineering is a skill in D&D)...a simple valve plate held in place by a spring would do it. When the pressure reaches a certain point (decided upon by the thickness of the spring) the valve is pushed open and pressure escapes.

But then...we're dealing with magic and mythical metals that have a much higher tensile strength than real-world metals so a lot of the problems inherent with steam technology are non-existent in a magical setting.

Also, real world boilers explode because they are made from several pieces of metal. When pressure gets too high those seams fail. A boiler constructed magically could be made from one solid piece of metal, thus reducing the likely hood of an explosive failure.

And honestly....as a DM you don't really have to worry about how it all works...it works because you say it works. Most people in the real world use machines that they don't understand the actual workings of, and they don't really care to find out.

[Larkas]

Hmmm, I think this could be explained by Economics. (I'm posting from a phone, so I apologize in advance for any inconsistencies.)

To cast Teleportation Circle, you have to be able to cast 9th level spells, which means that you're looking at ECL 17 minimum. While I understand that a Tippyverse-like game assumes that characters of that level are available, it doesn't assume that they are more common than ECL 11 characters - the minimum required to cast Animate Objects. Hence, even if the non-human (or rather, non-sentient) cost to set up both solutions is comparable, or even the same, the human (or sentient) cost should be wildly different, what with the service provided by an ECL 11 caster being far more common than the one provided by an ECL 17 one. It could thus be much more cost-efficient to set up "animated trains" than a Teleportation Circle, specially for shorter distances (one should not forget that operating a "railway" should have variable costs, whereas the cost for a Teleportation Circle trap is pretty much fixed). Of course, this leads to a situation where very wealthy merchants may drive the competition away simply because they can set up circles and are hence more efficient. This would lead to a market failure, so it might be best to support an industry specialized in Teleportation Circles that charge some amount for their use...

Anyways, I digress, and the game doesn't model any of this. :smallredface:

[Ravens_cry]

Except it isn't really that efficient in D&D when you have alternate transport options that include easy flying. Tracks are expensive to build and maintain relative to D&D options.

A flying creature can't fly carrying more than its maximum load, while rail's low rolling resistance would, in my opinion, count as "favourable conditions" for dragging or, leaving the rules a little since wheels aren't really covered, even better. So, as far as pulling capacity, rails do have advantages. It's why they became popular in the first place. Also, in a more structured, dare I say strict, society, they control more where people can go.
That may be an advantage for certain cultures.


Undead Elephants are limited by a few factors. There are political factors and the fact that the number of undead elephants you can have caps at the number of casters or others capable of undead control willing to order them about.
Given that 9th level spells are being mentioned as a possibility for creating a transportation network, I doubt spellcasting logistics is much of an issue. As for the political issues, that depends on the nation in question.

[ellindsey]

Mono-tube boilers don't explode..they just dump the water.

A simple pressure activated valve would release excess pressure before a catastrophic failure would occur, and they don't require a lot of engineering skill (but engineering is a skill in D&D)...a simple valve plate held in place by a spring would do it. When the pressure reaches a certain point (decided upon by the thickness of the spring) the valve is pushed open and pressure escapes.

But then...we're dealing with magic and mythical metals that have a much higher tensile strength than real-world metals so a lot of the problems inherent with steam technology are non-existent in a magical setting.

Also, real world boilers explode because they are made from several pieces of metal. When pressure gets too high those seams fail. A boiler constructed magically could be made from one solid piece of metal, thus reducing the likely hood of an explosive failure.

And honestly....as a DM you don't really have to worry about how it all works...it works because you say it works. Most people in the real world use machines that they don't understand the actual workings of, and they don't really care to find out.

It's less the boilers that would be the problem than the moving parts of the engine itself. Pistons, seals, valve seats, bearings and shafts, and other parts that have to be made to a high degree of precision in order to work. The description of the Shape Metal spell says you can't do fine detail and that (as per Stone Shape) any shape including moving parts has a 30% chance of not working. That implies to me that you can't use Shape Metal to replace a lathe or other precision machine tools for turning metal shapes.

Ad a GM, I have races in my game world who build that kind of thing anyway. After all, when you have people with 20+ Int and magical boosts to skill rolls, inventing machine tools isn't that difficult. But steam (or ammonia/brown mold) engines still take a lot more to build and maintain than a nice simple animate object spell powered vehicle.

[Ormur]

I figured railed might qualify as more than just favourable conditions so the carrying capacity of trains towed by animated objects or elepahants or something would be even greater than the rules presume.

Still, the problem is that animated objects of sufficient strenght and size cost just as many spell points as a TC. If we're down to huge animated objects with strenght 20 the loads are getting pretty low, at least just comparable to living things. That probably relegates rails to situations where horse drawn carts were used in real life.

I'm not going with the ideas of races being inherently prone to something like inventing steam engines. The proper incentives and know-how are unlikely to arise in a world of TCs. Simpler magically powered engines are interesting though.

I wonder then what's the most cost-efficient draught animal in D&D, something that isn't icky and dangerous like the undead that is.

[Ravens_cry]

I wonder then what's the most cost-efficient draught animal in D&D, something that isn't icky and dangerous like the undead that is.
That's vitalist!:smallyuk: A mindless skeleton is no more dangerous than any engine of mechanical design, and well boiled bones hardly smell a bit. :smallyuk:

[Yukitsu]

That's vitalist!:smallyuk: A mindless skeleton is no more dangerous than any engine of mechanical design, and well boiled bones hardly smell a bit. :smallyuk:

Mindless undead have a few easier to access means of subverting their loyalty, which makes them not so much dangerous, but it's a measure where they aren't as secure when compared to constructs. It's actually not too hard for a fairly low level cleric to hijack a caravan of undead, it's harder and requires higher levels to assume control of constructs without rare domains.

[Ormur]

I think the city states and empires in question will be staunchly vitalist for the most part.

[Fouredged Sword]

The you may consider fabricate and wall of iron to make cheap railways with ring of sustenance on a large pack animal to pull.

Yes, the 2000gp is a largish investment, but now your pack animal (dire elephant) has no need to eat or drink, and can sleep only two hours a night. One can invest in some low level healing magic (an adept of level 3 or 4) to guide it and heal the non-lethal damage from marching for more than 8 hours. For a few thousand gold and some labor investment one could set up a train.

Said dire elephant could pull quite a haul.

One could lay rail very cheaply and move a lot of cargo across it. That is worth a great deal, especially if you are making frequent stops to gather goods as you go. A major part of logistics is gathering and dispensing goods from the central hubs of commerce.

[Hurnn]

The train I think could be done relatively cheaply and effectively with low lvl magic and lots of cheep or free labor. The train is Ideal for transporting huge quantities of bulk goods and large items.

Tp circles on the other hand are quite expensive and require a huge jump in spell level to make them, with the addition that the only work for creatures you are now really limited to what you can put on a person or a pack animal, so low volume or small size high value items.

The part of the argument that the TP circles are so cheep to haul all this stuff is you have to pay someone to make each trip, want to move 10 tons of product you are looking at 400 trips. You then have to pay 50 -100 dudes to move it all from the circle to its end destination in any reasonable amount of time. By the time you are done the margins probably suck.

The "train" I can have 4 Skeleton elephants each pulling 96000 pounds under optimal conditions, (192 tons) if the "train" is say 20% of that i'm still moving 153.6 tons of goods at an easy 4.5 mph. In 1 day they can haul it a little over 100 miles. Cars can be loaded off site and brought to the train yard hooked up and sent on their way. Elephants cost me 500 gp each, less if i can just kill them and raise them locally, and you are going to be able to lay a lot of track for the remaining 20k gold after elephants and trains.

Both would have their place within the same system. Both would also be used for personal travel but TP circles would be more like taking a plane vs taking a bus across country, one costs a lot less but is a lot slower, the common people and low lvl adventurers would be using the trains.

[TuggyNE]

The part of the argument that the TP circles are so cheep to haul all this stuff is you have to pay someone to make each trip, want to move 10 tons of product you are looking at 400 trips. You then have to pay 50 -100 dudes to move it all from the circle to its end destination in any reasonable amount of time. By the time you are done the margins probably suck.

Wouldn't you have to pay almost the same amount to load or unload any other transportation method, though? In some cases it might be more, in fact, since with TP circles you can have porters move through without having to deal with intermodal loading at all.

As such, since TP circles have no inherent variable cost, their fixed cost can be spread out across all uses forever, so this is a classic economy of scale/investment case. (In fact, TP circles are probably one of the purest investment opportunities I can think of.)

[Yukitsu]

Wouldn't you have to pay almost the same amount to load or unload any other transportation method, though? In some cases it might be more, in fact, since with TP circles you can have porters move through without having to deal with intermodal loading at all.

As such, since TP circles have no inherent variable cost, their fixed cost can be spread out across all uses forever, so this is a classic economy of scale/investment case. (In fact, TP circles are probably one of the purest investment opportunities I can think of.)

It varies, people seem to assume that they go directly from place to customer, but in reality, most would have to, for security reasons go from specific hub to specific hub which would likely be somewhere that is basically like an internal prison and then hauled off to the specific markets. If it wasn't, a lot of teleport theft would probably happen. The drop-off would have to be manually cleared between cargo drops of about a 10 foot circle area before another load could be ported through. If you're talking wood or other large area cargoes, the logistics can get a bit sticky, as the larger the item you plan on accommodating, the more massive the hub area needs to be. It's not even one clearance zone, you need dozens of clearance zones, and most of them will spend most of their time idle.

Loading and unloading rail cars is fairly convenient, since the car itself can be unloaded then hitched to a new system of conveyance further down the line.

The TC could still be made more convenient, but the logistics and security of using them would if I were DMing the world present a logistical nightmare that the players would be unlikely to solve, because it does necessitate a lot of security and proper architecture. The bigger question is what is the motivation of incredibly rare level 17+ wizards to do this.

[Ravens_cry]

Mindless undead have a few easier to access means of subverting their loyalty, which makes them not so much dangerous, but it's a measure where they aren't as secure when compared to constructs. It's actually not too hard for a fairly low level cleric to hijack a caravan of undead, it's harder and requires higher levels to assume control of constructs without rare domains.
No less so than anyone can fiddle with the controls of a plane if they are in the cockpit, drive a car or locomotive, or fire a gun they stole.
Mindless undead are literally like machines. They could be marked with their owners mark and stealing and subverting without permission would be legally considered theft and/or hijacking and/or sabotage.

[Jack_Simth]

Except it isn't really that efficient in D&D when you have alternate transport options that include easy flying. Tracks are expensive to build and maintain relative to D&D options.

Undead Elephants are limited by a few factors. There are political factors and the fact that the number of undead elephants you can have caps at the number of casters or others capable of undead control willing to order them about.There's actually a simple way around that cap:
For a Cleric, Animate Dead is a 3rd level nonpersonal spell, eligible to be made into an oil. Controller is whoever applied the oil to the corpse. Anyone can have a big hulking pet zombie or skeleton for the one-time cost of the corpse and the potion. Sure, there's a control limit, but you use the caster level of the oil (the crafter's caster level) not the caster level of the guy actually doing it, due to the nature of how oils & potions work in D&D. They can get remarkably cheap. Your basic caster level 5 oil of Animate Dead, in a prepared area (desecrated alter) can animate a 20 HD critter as a skeleton (or a 10 HD critter as a zombie). So if you have a ready source of suitable Int 2 or less critters, well....

[Yukitsu]

No less so than anyone can fiddle with the controls of a plane if they are in the cockpit, drive a car or locomotive, or fire a gun they stole.
Mindless undead are literally like machines. They could be marked with their owners mark and stealing and subverting without permission would be legally considered theft and/or hijacking and/or sabotage.

Actually, barring the firing a gun thing, I think it's easier to hijack a skeleton caravan in D&D than it is to hijack an airplane or car.

[Ravens_cry]

Actually, barring the firing a gun thing, I think it's easier to hijack a skeleton caravan in D&D than it is to hijack an airplane or car.
You don't really need money (for magic items) or above average mental ability (to cast spells) for the latter.
Of course, for really high value goods, see teleportation. It's expensive, but it gets you where you need to go.

[Ormur]

It doesn't seem very clear how things actually travel through the teleportation circles. Do people vanish as soon as they step into them? I assume so since they're also intended as traps, but what about animals hauling carts, would only the animal go or is the cart considered attended, does it have to fit inside the 5ft radius ring? Also how do people exit the ring, do they appear in it or at it's edge maintaining their momentum? What happens if two people go into the ring at opposite sides at the same time?

If people sort of appear at the border of the ring you could use the ring at the same time both ways, just having the lines going through at 90° angles. I imagine that's what underpins the claims the TCs can teleport entire armies in a short time. Realistically the situation would always be a lot messier than just people taking D&D actions at runs speeds on their own turns.

[Hurnn]

TuggyNE, and Yukitsu, you both make good points.

First to TuggyNE: Yukitsu made one of the points I would have made in favor of the trains vs tp in that it you can unload the entire load at your distribution hub with out having to check 100 individual guys 4 times to make sure there was no "shrink". Second I was basing my time on having to get the 10 ton load from the Manufacturing storage location and taking it to the distribution location in the next city, there is going to be travel time unless you set up a tp circle in your warehouses, so I figured a 2-4 hour round trip walking carrying 50 pounds so an 8-16 hour transit time for the full load. With my train I can run a spar to your mine or farm or what not, you load as you produce and as soon as you are ready I have a spare Skeleton draft animal hook up take it to the yard and its on the next train to city x.

BTW the train did a 153.5 ton load in 24 hours.

As I stated the train would be better for high bulk, low value items or things that are just to big to be moved easily through the TP circle, a 25 foot stone statue for example.

The other advantage is it doesn't take a 17th level caster. The base assumption of the "tippyverse" tp circle economic model is magic didn't just appear one day it has always been there. However 9th lvl spells weren't always there.

If we consider magic to be like science it had to be developed, spells researched and built upon over time. 9th level is quantum physics 1st and second level are basic engineering. Heck lets compare it to flight we didn't start out shooting crap into space at thousands of miles per hour or with jumbo jets moving at mach 1, mach 3 stealth fighter planes. We started with hot-air baloons then bi planes, then single wings, then turbo-props and primitive jets now rockets and ion drives in space.

The lower level spells have been around longer and would have been and still would be in much broader use and more available than higher level. So would it not also make sense that someone would have used these lower level spells to do much the same thing as the TP circles at an earlier time to have much the same effect. The train system may be much older than the TP circles, and yes possibly out dated but it was payed for hundreds if not thousands of years ago, and still effective and relatively efficient.


As to the high jacking of the train sure go nuts, steal 153 tons of grain, or iron ore, in the middle of nowhere, yeah you may get to rob any passengers, but they are either poor or low lvl adventures traveling a long way is the risk worth the reward?

[Ormur]

The problem is that animating something big enough requires a caster level similar to TCs but caster level buffing is much harder in the homebrew I'll be using. One could argue that being a lower level spell it would still have found use earlier. I'm fine with animated train networks being a legacy system so that's still a useful idea. TC networks might also be relatively recent and it takes time to build them up so that they entirely replace other modes of travel.

If TCs are the equivalent of aeroplanes then you could say that even if trains cost the same as them and carry less there might still be places with no airports but train stations and even those that had them might have them at locations less convenient than the train stations. People might not be laying down tracks any more but they might still need more trains for the existing ones.

[Rubik]

One thing that I don't think anyone has brought up yet is the fact that most campaign settings are filled to the brim with insanely powerful monsters and individuals, including critters like illithids, dragons, and the tarrasque. Anything stretching overland incurs a significant risk of being stolen or destroyed, including planes, trains, and the train tracks themselves. Teleportation Circles, however, carry no such risk.

Both could be used in conjunction fairly easily, since, as noted, you can use the major cities as hubs and the trains to distribute from there. Major city-states prevail, where the train systems move goods to and from hamlets and burgs surrounding the cities. The tons of grain have to reach the circles somehow, after all.

[Hurnn]

One thing that I don't think anyone has brought up yet is the fact that most campaign settings are filled to the brim with insanely powerful monsters and individuals, including critters like illithids, dragons, and the tarrasque. Anything stretching overland incurs a significant risk of being stolen or destroyed, including planes, trains, and the train tracks themselves. Teleportation Circles, however, carry no such risk.

Both could be used in conjunction fairly easily, since, as noted, you can use the major cities as hubs and the trains to distribute from there. Major city-states prevail, where the train systems move goods to and from hamlets and burgs surrounding the cities. The tons of grain have to reach the circles somehow, after all.

Yes and for most of our actual history the same could be said of any overland or sea transport, funny thing didnt stop us. You arent going to be running these things through huge streches of untamed monster packed wilderness, but between relatively powerful, or super powerfull cities probably within the same kingdom, or possibly to a neighboring one. Monsters dont live in the middle of civilized areas they are at the fringe, any city or kingdom with the wealth and resources to make something like a train system happen has the resources to drive out the undesirables.

[Scootaloo]

That's vitalist!:smallyuk: A mindless skeleton is no more dangerous than any engine of mechanical design, and well boiled bones hardly smell a bit. :smallyuk:

I have no idea what it is, but this topic of yours has given me the great image of undead (Well, undying) elephants with gilt and jeweled bones being used as beasts of burden and howdah mounts by the nobles of Arenal. It's... beautiful.

Thanks!