Tippyverse in 5e?

[DrEntropy]

So has anyone given a lot of thought to how the tippyverse looks in 5e? We still have teleportation circles in major cities (mentioned explicitly in the 5e DMG!) but I wonder about the rest.

I could see sending stone networks developing, so for a fee you could go to your local "magicgraph" office and send a short message to a friend in another town. Given the 24h cooldown I suppose that fee could be quite high. But I think a business plan could be drawn up :)

[Forrestfire]

True Polymorph does everything that wish traps for items would have done, just slower. Simulacra armies with the spell would be able to churn out high-level magic items. Maybe it could make custom ones for eliminating scarcity?

[Madfellow]

I don't think Tippyverse works as well in 5e. 3e was very focused on simulation, so it had rules for determining how many wizards live in a settlement of any given size. From the number and power of the wizards, you can extrapolate what they're able and expected to accomplish. That information slowly transforms the Medieval European setting assumed by the game into the magically metropolitan Tippyverse.

5e doesn't have those rules, because it's more focused on storytelling than simulation. How many wizards live in that settlement? I dunno; ask the GM (btw, I think this is a good thing). Settlements aren't assumed to have spellcasters or magic items or teleportation circles unless the GM decides that they do. A GM can certainly create a Tippyverse if they want to, but I don't think it's something the players can reasonably expect to happen in this edition.

[Psyren]

Just wanted to point out, the answer in 3.5/PF is "ask the GM" for those things too. The difference is that 3e provides guidelines to help two inexperienced GMs come up with fairly consistent numbers if there is no narrative reason for it to be otherwise.

Also, 3e players don't "reasonably" expect a Tippyverse either, unless of course they are being GM'ed by the man himself or one of his disciples.

[archaeo]

Just wanted to point out, the answer in 3.5/PF is "ask the GM" for those things too. The difference is that 3e provides guidelines to help two inexperienced GMs come up with fairly consistent numbers if there is no narrative reason for it to be otherwise.

Are consistent numbers desirable?

[Psyren]

Are consistent numbers desirable?

Guidelines are desirable, because then you can have something in mind when you deviate from them instead of being thrown to the four winds. We could all freeform these game if we really wanted to, yet we buy books instead, because altering an existing framework is almost always easier than building one from scratch.

[archaeo]

Guidelines are desirable, because then you can have something in mind when you deviate from them instead of being thrown to the four winds. We could all freeform these game if we really wanted to, yet we buy books instead, because altering an existing framework is almost always easier than building one from scratch.

Maybe I shouldn't have been so succinct. Obviously, we buy books to get rules, and we want those rules to be useful and consistent. 5e has a bit of that consistency, anyway; the PHB certainly suggests that you're likely to find casters for hire that can provide low-level spells, and that it might be possible to find more in bigger cities, though asking for more requires paying more.

Perhaps the better question is "Are the specific and consistent guidelines that logically end in Tippyverse desirable?"

[Madfellow]

Perhaps the better question is "Are the specific and consistent guidelines that logically end in Tippyverse desirable?"

Speaking only for myself? No. Sure, Tippyverse is an interesting world, and it might be fun to play a game in it, but if all of a sudden every world starts looking like Tippyverse, it's gonna get old real quick.

[Talakeal]

Is teleportation circle still around in 5e? Because I am pretty sure that Tippy has stated that is the only thing required for the setting to work, everything else is just gravy.

[Madfellow]

Is teleportation circle still around in 5e? Because I am pretty sure that Tippy has stated that is the only thing required for the setting to work, everything else is just gravy.

Yes to the first, no to the second.

Tippy said the teleportation circle was what STARTED it, but once he really started thinking about it, the question became, "What would this world look like if all of this magic was truly available to everyone?"

[Psyren]

Maybe I shouldn't have been so succinct. Obviously, we buy books to get rules, and we want those rules to be useful and consistent. 5e has a bit of that consistency, anyway; the PHB certainly suggests that you're likely to find casters for hire that can provide low-level spells, and that it might be possible to find more in bigger cities, though asking for more requires paying more.

To me, guidelines that vague are basically a waste of text. "You might find more powerful wizards in a big city than a village" is so obvious it doesn't even need to be stated in a rulebook, if you're not going to add anything beyond that. It's like saying "you're more likely to find a 5-star hotel in Richmond than in Stoolbend."


Perhaps the better question is "Are the specific and consistent guidelines that logically end in Tippyverse desirable?"

"There are a bunch of wizards in that city, and even more in that bigger city" is not what leads to Tippyverse. Every D&D setting has a "a bunch of wizards in that city," and none of them become that specific setting.

What leads to it is (a) an emphasis on RAW over RAI or even RACSD when interpreting what magic can do, and (b) a completely atheistic or agnostic cosmology in which mortals are given free rein to do whatever said RAW says they can do. And then that is combined with a treating a number of other guidelines (like resetting traps) as ironclad laws.

But providing numbers - especially "typical," "general" or "sample" numbers to stimulate a DM's imagination - are not going to "logically end in Tippyverse." Indeed, I would argue that doing so requires the DM abandoning logic, or at least common sense, more than embracing it.


Speaking only for myself? No. Sure, Tippyverse is an interesting world, and it might be fun to play a game in it, but if all of a sudden every world starts looking like Tippyverse, it's gonna get old real quick.

Agreed and I'd never want to play in that setting myself. (No offense to those who do like it.)

[archaeo]

To me, guidelines that vague are basically a waste of text. "You might find more powerful wizards in a big city than a village" is so obvious it doesn't even need to be stated in a rulebook, if you're not going to add anything beyond that. It's like saying "you're more likely to find a 5-star hotel in Richmond than in Stoolbend."

Fair enough. I tend to think that guidelines like this are fine, insofar as they say, "PCs can expect to at least have access to low-level magic, and the DM gets to decide anything further than that." It's not like the book takes some absurd amount of space to say it, anyway. But I understand the sentiment; I just don't think that providing numbers in this exact case is likely to be very useful except at tables that really care about granular simulation, a niche 5e doesn't seem all that interested in filling.

That said, the DMG contains a lot of useful information in its world-building segments, and covers this issue pretty well without laying out a bunch of sample numbers, at least in my opinion.


What leads to it is (a) an emphasis on RAW over RAI or even RACSD when interpreting what magic can do, and (b) a completely atheistic or agnostic cosmology in which mortals are given free rein to do whatever said RAW says they can do. And then that is combined with a treating a number of other guidelines (like resetting traps) as ironclad laws.

But providing numbers - especially "typical," "general" or "sample" numbers to stimulate a DM's imagination - are not going to "logically end in Tippyverse." Indeed, I would argue that doing so requires the DM abandoning logic, or at least common sense, more than embracing it.

I mean, that sure sounds like having codified rules, paired with the expectation that the Rules As Written must be adhered to, leads to problematic gameplay when you extend those rules to their logical conclusion.

Note that I'm using "logical conclusion" in a (very roughly) formal sense, as in the end-point of a series of logical problems. "If every city of a sufficient size has this many high-level casters, and NPC casters are built exactly like PC casters, and PC casters can accomplish all these things," etc., until you inevitably end with high-level casters ruling the world because it makes sense, given all we know about casters and how frequently they reach high levels.

[Psyren]

Fair enough. I tend to think that guidelines like this are fine, insofar as they say, "PCs can expect to at least have access to low-level magic, and the DM gets to decide anything further than that." It's not like the book takes some absurd amount of space to say it, anyway. But I understand the sentiment; I just don't think that providing numbers in this exact case is likely to be very useful except at tables that really care about granular simulation, a niche 5e doesn't seem all that interested in filling.

That said, the DMG contains a lot of useful information in its world-building segments, and covers this issue pretty well without laying out a bunch of sample numbers, at least in my opinion.

The numbers contain all kinds of useful info. You don't need them to know, for instance, that fighters and rogues (street toughs and footpads) are more common than wizards and clerics - that should be obvious just by understanding in-universe how easy it is to join the former professions than the latter. But it does help you perform more esoteric demographic comparisons, like figuring out how barbarians compare to rangers, or how clerics compare to wizards. Knowing a designer's assumptions is an important part of subverting them, especially since it might give a fledgling designer - or fledgling DM, which are often the same thing - more insight as to what to keep and what to discard.



I mean, that sure sounds like having codified rules, paired with the expectation that the Rules As Written must be adhered to, leads to problematic gameplay when you extend those rules to their logical conclusion.

Note that I'm using "logical conclusion" in a (very roughly) formal sense, as in the end-point of a series of logical problems. "If every city of a sufficient size has this many high-level casters, and NPC casters are built exactly like PC casters, and PC casters can accomplish all these things," etc., until you inevitably end with high-level casters ruling the world because it makes sense, given all we know about casters and how frequently they reach high levels.

Tippy's assumptions rely on a lot of narrow premises that only work in his specific setting. For instance, he believes that high Intelligence means wizards behave rationally, but even the most intelligent people (and monsters!) very frequently do the opposite of that. Look at Dragons for instance - even the most scholarly 32-Int Great Wyrm Gold nevertheless hoards shinies like a magpie without ever understanding why, and then swallows the whole thing near the end of its life without bequeathing it to heirs or good societies to steward. He also assumes that powerful and immortal wish-granting outsiders, like Solars, have no banded together to solve the "spell component pouches contain all of our toenails" problem that allows a wizard of any alignment to create Ice Assassin duplicates of them and use them for nefarious or even just self-serving ends. He further assumes that no powerful monsters have bothered to organize and/or use the level-gaining techniques his wizards use to achieve dominance first. If a human psion can one day absorb every power and spell into his mind to become T(-1), why have no mind flayers or elder brains done so first? And most importantly of all, where are the gods in all this? Even if the good ones are okay with a world-wide armistice and every nation achieving prosperity by caring for its citizens and harvesting joy/ambrosia from them to keep the streetlights on, the gods of chaos, conflict, plague and destruction would not be satisfied with such a static state of affairs. And if they have already been killed or otherwise neutralized, what has happened to their portfolios? Can anyone still die at all, or are we hurriedly making more and more demiplanes to house everyone?

The Tippyverse is a fine thought experiment as far as such things go, but the reality is it couldn't happen in any D&D setting we've been presented with, and therefore there is no problem with going into more details in rulebooks that assume a non-Tippy setting. Things like gods and monster behavior are all discussed in core books, thus they are core assumptions of the game itself, and saying that too many numbers cause problems while overlooking those core assumptions is missing the forest for the trees.

[Knaight]

Guidelines are desirable, because then you can have something in mind when you deviate from them instead of being thrown to the four winds. We could all freeform these game if we really wanted to, yet we buy books instead, because altering an existing framework is almost always easier than building one from scratch.

Sure, but we also don't buy books for other systems that are more defined. I know a lot of people who came from 5e from 3.x and still think Rolemaster over defined just about everything. There's some level of definition which is desirable, which varies from person to person and between subjects as regards individual people. More is not always better.

As for the Tippyverse, the absolute core of it is the teleportation circles, which are still there. That has a lot of implications for goods transportation, personal mobility, etc. Even on its own, it can be a pretty big deal, and that sort of thing makes sense within the 5e rules set (though it is far from the only thing that does). With that said, other characteristic elements of the 3e Tippyverse won't make it in. Infinite food and water traps, other infinite traps for extremely easy mass production, etc. aren't included. Agriculture involving actual farmers is still necessary, trades where people produce things in workshops are still necessary, and while the world would look pretty advanced in some ways, it wouldn't look like some sort of borderline post-scarcity far future technology setting.

[Psyren]

Sure, but we also don't buy books for other systems that are more defined. I know a lot of people who came from 5e from 3.x and still think Rolemaster over defined just about everything. There's some level of definition which is desirable, which varies from person to person and between subjects as regards individual people. More is not always better.

I agree Rolemaster levels are going too far, but I do think 5e is going too much in the opposite direction. For instance, under Athletics in Basic, a check might be called for if "you try to jump an unusually long distance." No guidelines for this are given - what is "unusually long?" Across a stream or chasm? Up or down a flight of stairs? Over a mountain? To the moon? Any of those could be "unusual" - or even not, depending on who or what is doing the jumping. Whereas 3e gives you some numbers to work with based on how strong you are, how fast you're going, what items or spells you have on you etc. And if needed for a specific monster, they could just staple in a bonus (or penalty) to jump checks that allows it to be strong without being springy.


As for the Tippyverse, the absolute core of it is the teleportation circles, which are still there. That has a lot of implications for goods transportation, personal mobility, etc. Even on its own, it can be a pretty big deal, and that sort of thing makes sense within the 5e rules set (though it is far from the only thing that does). With that said, other characteristic elements of the 3e Tippyverse won't make it in. Infinite food and water traps, other infinite traps for extremely easy mass production, etc. aren't included. Agriculture involving actual farmers is still necessary, trades where people produce things in workshops are still necessary, and while the world would look pretty advanced in some ways, it wouldn't look like some sort of borderline post-scarcity far future technology setting.

For starters, Teleport Circles are modified in 5e - you have to "know their sigil sequence" now, whereas in 3e even a child could stumble into one and end up at their destination. So already they are not as universally useful as they used to be. Second, I don't know if the PHB or DMG cover this, but Basic certainly provides no means of creating one, nor for Wishing you and your army to drop into a city for that matter, which was the main incentive for Tippy-zations to play nice with one another. Without that zero-sum game and with scarcity reintroduced due to the lack of magic wish traps, what you end up with is not going to look like a Tippyverse at all.

[Knaight]

I agree Rolemaster levels are going too far, but I do think 5e is going too much in the opposite direction. For instance, under Athletics in Basic, a check might be called for if "you try to jump an unusually long distance." No guidelines for this are given - what is "unusually long?" Across a stream or chasm? Up or down a flight of stairs? Over a mountain? To the moon? Any of those could be "unusual" - or even not, depending on who or what is doing the jumping. Whereas 3e gives you some numbers to work with based on how strong you are, how fast you're going, what items or spells you have on you etc. And if needed for a specific monster, they could just staple in a bonus (or penalty) to jump checks that allows it to be strong without being springy.

I like where 5e is with this, but my broader point is that there's a wide range that depends on the person. 5e clearly goes too far in the opposite direction for you, I found 3e over-defined and tedious, and favor the simple adjective description (easy, hard, etc.). There are people way off on the highly defined side that think Rolemaster didn't go far enough, there are people who actually do favor straight free form. It's a wide spectrum, and 5e is comparatively central. I certainly wouldn't hold its level of definition against it, even holding it to the standard of the industry flagship and likely first game of almost all players and only game of a good portion.

[archaeo]

I like where 5e is with this, but my broader point is that there's a wide range that depends on the person. 5e clearly goes too far in the opposite direction for you, I found 3e over-defined and tedious, and favor the simple adjective description (easy, hard, etc.). There are people way off on the highly defined side that think Rolemaster didn't go far enough, there are people who actually do favor straight free form. It's a wide spectrum, and 5e is comparatively central. I certainly wouldn't hold its level of definition against it, even holding it to the standard of the industry flagship and likely first game of almost all players and only game of a good portion.

Indeed, 5e shows every sign of being designed with the "Big Tent" role the game plays foremost in Mearls & Co.'s minds. Ideally, for them, 5e offers both "classic D&D" via its default system assumptions and "customized D&D" via its numerous options, and the enterprising table can bend the system toward a wide variety of TRPG archetypes.

I kind of expect those firmer guidelines Psyren is wondering about in more setting-specific books, but in my opinion, the DMG does a fairly decent job of explaining the core foundation of the "default" setting, and what it means to alter those foundational elements in search of new settings.

[Psyren]

I doubt we'll get anything firmer, guideline-wise, than what we've gotten as that appears to be against this edition's design philosophy. (Though if we do, it'll most likely be paywalled, so I at least will be the last one to know anyway.) At best we might a suggested DC for a specific encounter or task in a module, with the explicit or implicit qualifier that that number only applies to that singular situation.

Regardless, I've said what I came here to say - Tippyverse requires a very singular way of thinking and some very, if not unrealistic, then at least unique, highly unintended and controversial interpretations and assumptions of various items in the 3e rules to take place. Thus, assuming the entire edition would head that way just because one individual aligned the stars in his custom setting to make them happen is, in my view, unfounded.

[hawklost]

I doubt we'll get anything firmer, guideline-wise, than what we've gotten as that appears to be against this edition's design philosophy. (Though if we do, it'll most likely be paywalled, so I at least will be the last one to know anyway.) At best we might a suggested DC for a specific encounter or task in a module, with the explicit or implicit qualifier that that number only applies to that singular situation.

Regardless, I've said what I came here to say - Tippyverse requires a very singular way of thinking and some very, if not unrealistic, then at least unique, highly unintended and controversial interpretations and assumptions of various items in the 3e rules to take place. Thus, assuming the entire edition would head that way just because one individual aligned the stars in his custom setting to make them happen is, in my view, unfounded.

You are stating that the tippyverse requires specifics to work in a certain way and you don't seem to see it as odd that every single one of the campaign settings are exactly like that?

Have you ever asked yourself why Greyhawk is the way it is?

Eberron?

Dragonlance?

Forgotten Realms?

All of those are because very specific occurances happened. The Gods do something one way which doesn't always make sense. The Monsters act in a different way, which won't always be in their best interests. So claiming that a single verse is odd because things just worked out that way is kinda a silly argument.

[Talderas]

For starters, Teleport Circles are modified in 5e - you have to "know their sigil sequence" now, whereas in 3e even a child could stumble into one and end up at their destination. So already they are not as universally useful as they used to be.

This is incorrect. A teleportation network is more time consuming to setup in 5th edition but can be done at far earlier levels than in 3.5. 3.5 requires a 17th level wizard or sorcerer (or equivilent) with 4,500xp for permanency for each circle put in place. In 5th edition you merely need a 9th level (bard|sorcerer|wizard) who knows the destination sigil. You only need the sigil to cast teleportation circle, you do not need it to use the circle. When a circle is active merely entering it is sufficient to be teleported. Once a sending circle has been permanently setup, which requires casting it on the same spot for 365 days in a row, the teleportation link is established and no further need of the sigil is required. So the big thing about the Tippyverse was the rules for casters in a settlement and what size would be necessary for a sufficiently leveled character to know about and start a teleportation network. There were far fewer characters capable of creating and building the network in the Tippyverse whereas if we apply even a roughly similar breakdown to 5th edition there will be far more 9th level bards/sorcerers/wizards. It's not unreasonable to suggest that any nation could have a working teleportation network in a year.

[Psyren]

You only need the sigil to cast teleportation circle, you do not need it to use the circle.

Unless they issued errata I don't know about, Basic says:

"Familiarity: "Permanent Circle" means a permanent teleportation circle whose sigil sequence you know."

Stepping into one you don't know is therefore not even on the table - your guess is as good as mine what that ends up meaning.


You are stating that the tippyverse requires specifics to work in a certain way and you don't seem to see it as odd that every single one of the campaign settings are exactly like that?

Have you ever asked yourself why Greyhawk is the way it is?

Eberron?

Dragonlance?

Forgotten Realms?

All of those are because very specific occurances happened. The Gods do something one way which doesn't always make sense. The Monsters act in a different way, which won't always be in their best interests. So claiming that a single verse is odd because things just worked out that way is kinda a silly argument.

It's the only one with those very specific circumstances + RAW being applied to the narrative as much as to the mechanics. So yes, I am comfortable seeing it as an outlier.

Or are you arguing that artifacts and deity toenails being inside a component pouch is an expected assumption for any of the other settings you listed?

[hawklost]

Unless they issued errata I don't know about, Basic says:

"Familiarity: "Permanent Circle" means a permanent teleportation circle whose sigil sequence you know."

Stepping into one you don't know is therefore not even on the table - your guess is as good as mine what that ends up meaning.

Lets look at the modern phone then in comparison.

You can pick up a phone and call any other phone whose number sequence you know.

That does not stop me or you from picking up the phone and calling a random number and assuming the number is active getting a connection.

I figure the Teleportation Circle does the same, I can 'dial' a random circle by using a Sigil sequence and hope that it connects but that doesn't mean I know where I am going to end up.

[Tvtyrant]

Actually I thought the Sigil codes made it better, since enemies can't just dominate a peasant and strap an explosive note bomb on their chest before pushing them through.

Also Hallow spells are now permanent instead of a year, so cities with domes of perpetual light over an area which no one can teleport into are easy to make. Imagine electric streetlamps being replaced with a sun that simply never goes away!

[archaeo]

I doubt we'll get anything firmer, guideline-wise, than what we've gotten as that appears to be against this edition's design philosophy. (Though if we do, it'll most likely be paywalled, so I at least will be the last one to know anyway.) At best we might a suggested DC for a specific encounter or task in a module, with the explicit or implicit qualifier that that number only applies to that singular situation.

I mean, WotC has been more or less open about the fact that they plan to reintroduce settings as the edition rolls onward, and the setting handbooks seem like great places for that kind of stuff.

CyberThread also linked to an Escapist article that seemed to suggest that a chunk of rules from the upcoming Elemental Evil books will get posted to the WotC website for free, as they did with Tyranny of Dragons. I feel pretty confident in assuming that the pattern will be sort of like Basic vs. the PHB; a sampling of "essential" content alongside a "premium" complete product.

[Psyren]

Lets look at the modern phone then in comparison.

You can pick up a phone and call any other phone whose number sequence you know.

That does not stop me or you from picking up the phone and calling a random number and assuming the number is active getting a connection.

I figure the Teleportation Circle does the same, I can 'dial' a random circle by using a Sigil sequence and hope that it connects but that doesn't mean I know where I am going to end up.

But the assumption of the 3.5 Circle (and thus the Tippyverse) is that the destination is reliable. If it only works for the folks who have every sigil memorized, or worse, sends the ones that don't to random destinations - much like dialing random phone numbers would connect you to random people - then it is not open to the masses as a safe form of large-scale transit as the setting assumes.


Actually I thought the Sigil codes made it better, since enemies can't just dominate a peasant and strap an explosive note bomb on their chest before pushing them through.

Also Hallow spells are now permanent instead of a year, so cities with domes of perpetual light over an area which no one can teleport into are easy to make. Imagine electric streetlamps being replaced with a sun that simply never goes away!

If you can block teleportation then that is another facet of the Tippyverse that did not make it to 5e. In TV, one of the things that keeps the nations playing nice is the fact that they could invade one another in moments via a Wish-army, which gets around any anti-teleportation measures the others could use. The only thing stopping them from doing so was the fact that they would be left vulnerable to their neighbors doing the same thing to them. It's basically peace by giving everyone one nuke.

Whereas if you can go on the offensive while also protecting your base, there is no incentive not to go after a neighbor and add his power to yours.

[Tvtyrant]

If you can block teleportation then that is another facet of the Tippyverse that did not make it to 5e. In TV, one of the things that keeps the nations playing nice is the fact that they could invade one another in moments via a Wish-army, which gets around any anti-teleportation measures the others could use. The only thing stopping them from doing so was the fact that they would be left vulnerable to their neighbors doing the same thing to them. It's basically peace by giving everyone one nuke.

Whereas if you can go on the offensive while also protecting your base, there is no incentive not to go after a neighbor and add his power to yours.

Except that 5E armies take unholy casualties. Unlike older editions low level combatants are capable of harming high level ones (AC doesn't go up nearly as much) but they still die in droves. You get a weird Illiad style combat where small numbers of mid to high level casters and soldiers butcher everything around them, but both sides need large numbers of suicidal mooks or their guys will be focus fired. Warfare in 5E is a depopulating event, like running spearmen at machine guns.

[druid91]

A permanent teleportation circle is always active. It's usable by anyone and goes to it's destination. Someone setting up a circle can aim it at any other circle who's sigil sequence they know. But once set up, you walk through the circle and you're there. So you have an enterprising 9-th level caster set the whole thing up, and then it just works.

[Talderas]

Unless they issued errata I don't know about, Basic says:

"Familiarity: "Permanent Circle" means a permanent teleportation circle whose sigil sequence you know."

Stepping into one you don't know is therefore not even on the table - your guess is as good as mine what that ends up meaning.

That text you quoted is from the 7th level spell Teleport not from the 5th level spell Teleportation Circle. You can use Teleport to go to a teleportation circle if you know the sigil sequence which is basically the requirement for casting any teleportation spell to target an existing permanent teleportation circle. There relevant line from Teleportation Circle is "As you cast the spell, you draw a 10-foot-diameter circle on the ground inscribed with sigils that link your location to a permanent teleportation circle of your choice whose sigil sequence you know and that is on the same plane of existence as you." The spell then goes on to explicitly mention that anyone can then use the portal as long as its open, which is until the end of your next turn.

As soon as you cast Teleportation Circle a portal is opened and anyone can use it. Casting Teleportation Circle on the same spot every day for a year makes it permanent which means a permanent portal is created that anyone could use to get to a target location and presumably this circle is given a unique sigil sequence at that time so it takes just 2 years to create a functioning and reliable 2-way link. Casting TP Circle in this fashion doesn't require that a portal be opened but it can. They only question I have, given the rules in the PHB, is what other methods are there for creating permanent teleportation circles. The spell, as written, cannot be cast unless you know the sigil sequence of a teleportation circle. If there's no circles then there's no sequences to know and therefore the spell cannot be cast and thus you can never create the first permanent circle. However the lines regarding making it permanent do say that a portal need not be opened which could imply that one doesn't need to know or even have a sigil sequence to create a permanent circle that has no active portal.

So the key takeaways for while a teleportation circle network is still viable in 5e are basically that only the caster that is creating permanent circles needs to know the sigil sequence and that it takes a year to setup a permanent one way portal.

[Psyren]

That text you quoted is from the 7th level spell Teleport not from the 5th level spell Teleportation Circle.
*snip*

I'll have to take your word for it, they paywalled this 5th-level spell you speak of so it's not in Basic.

[DrEntropy]

The spell, as written, cannot be cast unless you know the sigil sequence of a teleportation circle. If there's no circles then there's no sequences to know and therefore the spell cannot be cast and thus you can never create the first permanent circle. .
I never noticed this logical conundrum in the spell description. It seems it should be possible to create a teleportation circle to any place, not just another circle. Perhaps that is a little known alternate form of the spell, or that is how I would run it in my game.

[Naanomi]

So, given visions of a future tippyverse mageocracy; players rush around the world destroying all teleportation circles around the plane; making it impossible for the first 'seed' link to ever be established?

[Talderas]

I never noticed this logical conundrum in the spell description. It seems it should be possible to create a teleportation circle to any place, not just another circle. Perhaps that is a little known alternate form of the spell, or that is how I would run it in my game.

It's a chicken/egg problem, no doubt, as TP Circle requires you know the destination sigil when casting it. Without stretching the interpretation of TP Circle you need 1 permanent teleportation circle before you can create any other with the spell since logically every permanent TP circle should have its own sigil sequence.

[Naanomi]

You have to import the seed portal from another plane?

[Knaight]

They only question I have, given the rules in the PHB, is what other methods are there for creating permanent teleportation circles. The spell, as written, cannot be cast unless you know the sigil sequence of a teleportation circle. If there's no circles then there's no sequences to know and therefore the spell cannot be cast and thus you can never create the first permanent circle. However the lines regarding making it permanent do say that a portal need not be opened which could imply that one doesn't need to know or even have a sigil sequence to create a permanent circle that has no active portal.

If we're looking at strict RAW here, does the spell say that it can't be cast unless you know the sigil sequence of a teleportation circle other than the one you're making? Because if it doesn't you can technically cast the spell so that the circle teleports you to itself, which is completely useless, other than as a basis for another circle later (or a secured one way link, I suppose).

[Talderas]

You have to import the seed portal from another plane?

5e is a far more simple ruleset than 3e and relies a lot more on DM fiat. Seed circles for a network would exist because a DM says they do and they're constructed however a DM decides. The rules in the PHB imply, and I certainly agree, that a TP circle network towards a Tippyverse is not really a project that players would be engaged in. TP Circle is definitely intended to be a lower level TP spell that gives you some pretty specific destinations to setup while reserving general teleportation to wherever you want for higher levels and I believe the additional 1 year wording is mostly there for the players to construct a TP circle in a stronghold of their creation to a valued destination.

[archaeo]

It seems like the easiest handwave is just saying that establishing a network of teleportation circles without any prior development is the sort of hard problem that PCs just aren't really built to handle. The kind of work it takes a lifetime to do, a lifetime adventurers don't really have since they're busy adventuring.

[Talderas]

It seems like the easiest handwave is just saying that establishing a network of teleportation circles without any prior development is the sort of hard problem that PCs just aren't really built to handle. The kind of work it takes a lifetime to do, a lifetime adventurers don't really have since they're busy adventuring.

However a Tippyverse doesn't come about from the actions of player characters. It is the creation of non-player characters and PCs are just let loose in it.

[hawklost]

Answer to the conundrum of Teleportation Circles. There is an Ancient secret that was lost long ago that knew how to create the 'Seed Circle'. This knowledge was developed by X but never taught to another, when he died, his knowledge of the Teleportation Circle (As known of in Magic today) was found but never the Seed Circle. This led to people making Teleportation Circles and now it is all but impossible to find and destroy every single one of them.

Tada, answered the issue with Teleportation Circles.

Just cause there isn't any known magic that can do something in the 'present day' of DnD, does not mean someone somewhere did not figure out a way after a lifetime of study but never passed the knowledge on. Therefore things that PCs cannot do (Without Massive time studying and Not Adventuring) can still exist in the world.

[SiuiS]

As for the Tippyverse, the absolute core of it is the teleportation circles, which are still there.

The teleportation circle spell, not just teleportation circles. The ability to cast a spell and suddenly you can ship anything to any location. If that specific function along with the inability to handle this being used offensively, the ability to bypass sufficient cost restrictions.

If it's not basically free, if it requires anything more than twenty minutes of thought and prep, and if there's anything in the setting that can deny teleportation, then no. No tippyverse. That's what kept us from doing it back in 1e, anyway.

[Talderas]

The teleportation circle spell, not just teleportation circles. The ability to cast a spell and suddenly you can ship anything to any location. If that specific function along with the inability to handle this being used offensively, the ability to bypass sufficient cost restrictions.

If it's not basically free, if it requires anything more than twenty minutes of thought and prep, and if there's anything in the setting that can deny teleportation, then no. No tippyverse. That's what kept us from doing it back in 1e, anyway.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?222007-The-Definitive-Guide-to-the-Tippyverse-By-Emperor-Tippy

The definition of what constitutes a Tippyverse which is "The Tippyverse (TV henceforth) was created when I was looking at the impact of long distance teleportation magic on a setting; more precisely just how badly such magic mangles the traditional settings. Let’s look at the military and economic implications of such magic." Anything else is simply just an extension of that line of thought. Tippyverse is not a specific outcome, Points of Light is a specific Tippyverse and what most people think of when they hear the term Tippyverse, but it is not the only one. A Tippyverse is simply what the world would look like if the rules as written are taken through to their full logical conclusion. Impeding teleportation magic does not prevent a Tippyverse it simply will alter the outcome of it.

[DrEntropy]

It's a chicken/egg problem, no doubt, as TP Circle requires you know the destination sigil when casting it. .

Actually a solution just occurred to me. What sets the 'sigil sequence' for a new circle? Presumably the constructing mage can set it to be whatever he wants. If so then this is how you start with no circles:

At site A, the wizard sets up a permanent circle with a sigil sequence he makes up (sequence A), and a destination sigil sequence he also makes up (sequence B)
At the end of this process, the portal goes no where, but that is ok. (Unless he made a lucky guess, but I presume the sigil sequence space is large enough to make this unlikely)

At site B, the wizard sets up a permanent circle, setting it up to use sequence b, and targeting sequence A.


Finally, there is no reason this cannot be done at the same time by different mages, resulting in a two way permanent link in a year.

[XmonkTad]

Actually, I was a bit surprised to see this in the DMG (p24):

The presence of permanent teleportation circles in major cities helps cement their place in the economy of a fantasy world. Spells such as Plane Shift, Teleport, and Teleportation Circle connect with these circles, which are found in temples, academies, the headquarters of arcane organizations, and prominent civic locations.

So it seems to me that the DMG addresses the Tippyverse. Well, in so much as it says that such permanent circles exist and are important economically.

[Talderas]

Actually a solution just occurred to me. What sets the 'sigil sequence' for a new circle? Presumably the constructing mage can set it to be whatever he wants. If so then this is how you start with no circles:

At site A, the wizard sets up a permanent circle with a sigil sequence he makes up (sequence A), and a destination sigil sequence he also makes up (sequence B)
At the end of this process, the portal goes no where, but that is ok. (Unless he made a lucky guess, but I presume the sigil sequence space is large enough to make this unlikely)

At site B, the wizard sets up a permanent circle, setting it up to use sequence b, and targeting sequence A.


Finally, there is no reason this cannot be done at the same time by different mages, resulting in a two way permanent link in a year.

Presumably means you're making assumptions. The rules on TP Circle are pretty clear. "As you cast the spell, you draw a 10-foot-diameter circle on the ground inscribed with sigils that link your location to a permanent teleportation circle of your choice whose sigil sequence you know and that is on the same plane of existence as you." If the circle doesn't exist it fails the final criteria by virtue of not being on the same plane as you. Without a valid target, as defined by the spell text, you cannot cast the spell. The only way, by the rules as written (which is what a Tippyverse is), you cannot create a permanent TP circle without first having a seed circle and so far there are no methods that are described by the rules that permit you to create a TP circle without first having a destination circle.

However I want to go back and point out that the Tippyverse is essentially the logical conclusion of applying the written rules with almost no DM intervention. It is a thought experiment but the problem with this thought experiment applying in 5e is that there aren't heavy rules for things to the degree that was present in 3e. 5e edition requires a certain element of DM fiat and unilateral declarations such as the declaration of permanent teleportation circles. So in 3e a TP network can crop up on its own but in 5e it can only crop up if a GM seeded at least one portal. Therefore the Tippyverse thought experiment is not one that can really be well applied in 5th edition because there are gaps in the rules. For example, the Tippyverse in 5e might actually result in a world entirely devoid of human habitat.

[WickerNipple]

However a Tippyverse doesn't come about from the actions of player characters. It is the creation of non-player characters and PCs are just let loose in it.

Actually, and I could be wrong - it's been years since I went through all that - but didn't his players actually play through the creation of that world?

[Talderas]

Actually, and I could be wrong - it's been years since I went through all that - but didn't his players actually play through the creation of that world?

They may have but players aren't required for the outcome I had previously linked. That outcome would occur assuming the postulates Tippy posted and the rules contained within 3rd Edition. If the players didn't do it the NPC mages were more than capable of causing it.

[SaintRidley]

Away from book, so don't mind me if I'm missing something about duration on Teleportation Circle.

Day 1:

At noon, wizard 1 casts Teleportation Circle, gives it Sigil Sequence BUTTS. Doesn't give it a target circle. The circle does nothing, but it is an existing and active circle.

Six seconds later and fifty feet away, wizard 2 casts Teleportation Circle, gives it Sigil Sequence EX. Targets the circle made by wizard 1.

Day 2:

At noon wizard 1 casts Teleportation Circle to renew the circle with Sigil Sequence BUTTS. Gives it a target circle, now, though of EX.

Six seconds later, wizard 2 repeats what she did on Day 1.

Day 3-365: Repeat Day 2.

Now we have the EXBUTTS hub set up and teleportation circles can begun to be made elsewhere to teleport anyone who needs to to EXBUTTS. More can be built at EXBUTTS to teleport out to those places.

[Talderas]

Away from book, so don't mind me if I'm missing something about duration on Teleportation Circle.

There are four requirements when casting teleportation circle.


You must have a target teleportation circle.
The target circle must be a permanent teleportation circle.
You must know the target circle's sigil sequence.
The target circle must be on the same plane as you.


Day 1 step one of you plan fails on the first, second, and third criteria. Day 1 step two fails on the second criteria. Day 2 and every day after is basically doing exactly what you did on the first day and thus fail for the same reasons.

Teleportation circle only lasts until the end of your next turn and the spell takes one minute to cast. The second caster wouldn't be able to start to create his circle until after the first circle finishes casting.

Feel free to come up with methods by which someone could use this spell to start creating a network from scratch but any such method is a houserule.

[AttilaTheGeek]

Under the assumption that a network can be created somehow, is there any way to magically generate the gems needed for various high-level spells? Creation now specifies that you can't create material components, and Gate says that you don't gain any control over the creature you summon, so you can't wish-chain. If there's no way to get expensive material components through magic, then the world would eventually develop huge mines in addition to cities.

[Knaight]

Under the assumption that a network can be created somehow, is there any way to magically generate the gems needed for various high-level spells? Creation now specifies that you can't create material components, and Gate says that you don't gain any control over the creature you summon, so you can't wish-chain. If there's no way to get expensive material components through magic, then the world would eventually develop huge mines in addition to cities.

As far as I know, there's no way around intensive mining. That doesn't negate the main point of the teleport circle though, much as the need for intensive farming doesn't make the ability to transport food between cities on different continents in an instant unimpressive.

[AttilaTheGeek]

As far as I know, there's no way around intensive mining. That doesn't negate the main point of the teleport circle though, much as the need for intensive farming doesn't make the ability to transport food between cities on different continents in an instant unimpressive.

The teleport circle is still impressive, but the fact that you need intensive mining means that the population living outside cities is, at the very least, non-negligible.

[Knaight]

The teleport circle is still impressive, but the fact that you need intensive mining means that the population living outside cities is, at the very least, non-negligible.

It's a drop in the bucket compared to the agriculture, and even the 3.5 Tippyverse assumed a fair amount of people outside of the big cities. Everyone living in the cities isn't a setting conceit, the core is the teleportation circle, and that's intact.

[Tvtyrant]

It's a drop in the bucket compared to the agriculture, and even the 3.5 Tippyverse assumed a fair amount of people outside of the big cities. Everyone living in the cities isn't a setting conceit, the core is the teleportation circle, and that's intact.

He does mention that the majority of the population live in super-cities, and the areas between them are wild.

[Kane0]

Better question: Has big T or a similar entity tried 5e yet? If so, how long would it take for him/her to extrapolate a Tippyverse of some kind?

[Talderas]

Under the assumption that a network can be created somehow, is there any way to magically generate the gems needed for various high-level spells? Creation now specifies that you can't create material components, and Gate says that you don't gain any control over the creature you summon, so you can't wish-chain. If there's no way to get expensive material components through magic, then the world would eventually develop huge mines in addition to cities.

The primary issue of TP circles in 3e was being able to dump armies wherever you wanted. It also lasted for 10m/level which means that someone capable of casting the spell would create a portal that could stay open for at least 170 minutes. Think of the number of people you could shuffle through that portal in that time and now realize that the portal can target anywhere. Megacities were a function of defensive measures to consolidate forces to defend against an invading force since the invading force could arrive enmasse at any time.

5e changes a lot of those basic assumptions. First of all the portal only lasts for 1 round. There's an effective limit on how many creatures can use a non-permanent teleportation circle. The second is that TP circle has a limited number of valid destinations. If there's only one permanent TP circle in a city then that is the only point of ingress. The combination of these means that the need of massive standing forces to repel a potential attack that could occur anywhere in your realm is greatly diminished. It also means that defending outlier settlements is now feasible... which is good considering the increased need for raw materials necessitating populations outside of a megacity.

Now, TP circle does still pose a threat, after all a valid tactic for conquering another city would be to infiltrate mages to setup permanent circles that the owner of the city doesn't know about. You're still left with the 1rd duration for casting TP circle so you're talking a minimum two year investment in planning and execution in order to create a permanent portal to flood forces through.

[Emperor Tippy]

Does 5e have teleportation circles that are permanent? Yes, apparently (haven't bothered to read the rules yet, been too busy recently).

Is a "Tippyverse" just as inevitable in 5e as in 3.5e if the rules as written are followed? Yes, because teleportation circles exist.

The military impact of Teleportation Circles was important but it wasn't what causes a Tippyverse to exist, more a response to a Tippyverse existing.

The core issue is that Teleportation Circles link two (or more if a whole network is set up) locations together without any need to pass through the intervening distance. They make it so that there is no effective difference between two cities that are a mile apart and two cities are are on opposite sides of the world, in both cases the cities in question can interact with one another just as easily.

If you have major city 1, its biggest trading partner is liable to be major city 2. Now, in a traditional world, the land between those two major cities will be dotted with small towns and villages roughly a days travel by wagon from one another because merchants need to move goods between the major cities and those small towns and villages are unimportant but still somewhat profitable markets.

But a Teleportation Circle means that that entire trade route dies. It is safer, faster, cheaper, and easier to move the goods between the two major markets by the TC than by traditional means and so every small population center between the two major cities crashes as they were all (to a greater or lesser extent) economically dependent upon that trade route.

I need to head out but everything else follows from the effects of the elimination of trade routes between major population centers.

[GorinichSerpant]

Wait, if teleportation circles make a two citys right next to each other, could they effectively become the same city? Say if there are enough portals to connect the two so that you could freely walk from one to the other, then wouldn't they share diseases, people, books, culture and so forth? That assumes that any authoritys are short sighted enough to not consider that this will allow criminals two country sides to run away to. If people in D&D are anything like us, then that seems likely to happen.

[johnbragg]

Are consistent numbers desirable?

Yes. It helps to create a consistent baseline setting. If you start playing in Joe's Tuesday Generic-D&D campaign, and you join Heather's Friday gaming group, you won't have wildly different settings (unless one of those DMs makes a conscious choice to tweak the setting).


Perhaps the better question is "Are the specific and consistent guidelines that logically end in Tippyverse desirable?"

I would say no, but no meaning "the numbers in the tables are wrong*" rather than "having the tables is wrong". *Note that "wrong" in this instance means "clashes with assumptions and implications of other tables that I prefer. YMMV.


But providing numbers - especially "typical," "general" or "sample" numbers to stimulate a DM's imagination - are not going to "logically end in Tippyverse." Indeed, I would argue that doing so requires the DM abandoning logic, or at least common sense, more than embracing it.


You have a situation where a lot of different tables and descriptive texts are canonical, and their logical implications are conflicting. So you either sacrifice logical consistency (a perfectly valid option in a role-playing fantasy game "Dammit, I cannot abide the complete lack of logic in considering the socioeconomic consequences of spells cast by planetouched elves and warlocks with infernal heritage!"), or sacrifice one table or the other. (I, personally, am inclined to say that the DMG tables wildly overestimate the population of high-level NPCs, given the amount of XP available in the ecosystem.)



But a Teleportation Circle means that that entire trade route dies. It is safer, faster, cheaper, and easier to move the goods between the two major markets by the TC than by traditional means and so every small population center between the two major cities crashes as they were all (to a greater or lesser extent) economically dependent upon that trade route..

Or, in other words, the backstory of "Cars", with the entire world as Radiator Springs, the forsaken, forgotten wasteland outside the gleaming cities.


Wait, if teleportation circles make a two citys right next to each other, could they effectively become the same city? Say if there are enough portals to connect the two so that you could freely walk from one to the other, then wouldn't they share diseases, people, books, culture and so forth? That assumes that any authoritys are short sighted enough to not consider that this will allow criminals two country sides to run away to. If people in D&D are anything like us, then that seems likely to happen.

If there are enough portals that the portals don't serve as chokepoints, and portal creation is not a herculean task, then yes, the city "borders" become completely permeable.

[Naanomi]

However without Magic traps to make food, mega-cities in a 5e Tippyverse will still need farming communities around them and so won't be as centralized; and will need more traditional fantasy armies and the like to keep those safe (the cost of putting teleportation circles in each farming village being pretty expensive... 18,250 gold and a years worth of attention from a 'regional hero' level caster)

Hallow being able to make anti-teleportation areas might change the logistics of it all as well.

[Kane0]

However without Magic traps to make food, mega-cities in a 5e Tippyverse will still need farming communities around them and so won't be as centralized; and will need more traditional fantasy armies and the like to keep those safe.

Isnt create food/water still a thing? If so, you just need a means of producing the components on a large scale rather than expansive farms and whatnot

Lack of a permanency spell really puts a damper on things though.

[Naanomi]

Isnt create food/water still a thing?
A 3rd level spell slot feeds 15 people a day. At least in my mind there are not enough casters in almost any community to make that a sustainable food model for a large population.

Question: how are people interpreting the Teleportation Circle being 'permanent'? Always open to teleport without material componants or spell slots, or just as a permenant anchor in a network that still requires the spell to operate.

I picture the second myself, but the distinction makes huge differences in an emergent Tippyverse. Only goods worth more than 50g and a sixth level spell slot (that are small enough to ram through a 10x10 portal in one round) would be worth teleporting... Meaning trade routes would still need to exist for lumber, food, and stone at the very least.

[Psyren]

If you need the spell to actually use them, then a Tippyverse will not come into being because then only the most valuable/expensive goods will be transported that way. You'll therefore still need a standard supply chain to exist, settlements outside of the cities, and the wilderness will have to be kept back from them to some extent. Thus the "points of light" will never truly form.

There's also the problem that even if the circles exist, there are no rules for creating one. Thus it is left to the GM - and in-universe, the gods - to get the network going. And if there are gods, some or all may mandate that races do not abandon the wilderness anyway even if it makes logical sense to do so.

[TrollCapAmerica]

Does 5e have teleportation circles that are permanent? Yes, apparently (haven't bothered to read the rules yet, been too busy recently).

Is a "Tippyverse" just as inevitable in 5e as in 3.5e if the rules as written are followed? Yes, because teleportation circles exist.

The military impact of Teleportation Circles was important but it wasn't what causes a Tippyverse to exist, more a response to a Tippyverse existing.

The core issue is that Teleportation Circles link two (or more if a whole network is set up) locations together without any need to pass through the intervening distance. They make it so that there is no effective difference between two cities that are a mile apart and two cities are are on opposite sides of the world, in both cases the cities in question can interact with one another just as easily.

If you have major city 1, its biggest trading partner is liable to be major city 2. Now, in a traditional world, the land between those two major cities will be dotted with small towns and villages roughly a days travel by wagon from one another because merchants need to move goods between the major cities and those small towns and villages are unimportant but still somewhat profitable markets.

But a Teleportation Circle means that that entire trade route dies. It is safer, faster, cheaper, and easier to move the goods between the two major markets by the TC than by traditional means and so every small population center between the two major cities crashes as they were all (to a greater or lesser extent) economically dependent upon that trade route.

I need to head out but everything else follows from the effects of the elimination of trade routes between major population centers.

First off id like to preface this by saying congratulations.I believe WOTC has actually altered the telportation circle entirely based on you. To avoid the Tippverse they now

1] Can only be made permanent by casting it in the same spot everyday for a year.

2] Only works for a person that knows the sigils to operate the circle and casts a 9th lv teleportation circle

3] Only stays open until the casters next turn and drops the person with 5ft or the nearest unoccupied space

4] Theres no indication that anyone but a high level wizard can even learn the sigils to operate a portal or that they work without casting the spell

The thought of the people running the D&D game living in fear of a Pillsbury Doughboy amuses me greatly

[MinotaurWarrior]

Doing some back-of-the-envelope math, every node costs 18,250gp in materials to establish, and 50gp per use, in materials cost. A ninth-level sorcerer can get 41 sorcery points per short rest, and one natural 5th level spell slot. If they're employed full-time in this pursuit, and can rest while travelling (in a carriage, sedan chair, or palanquin, for example) they can establish a maximum of roughly 21 teleportation circles per year. In a working network, a sorcerer can use extend spell to open a teleportation circle for two rounds 6 times, and for one round a seventh time, for a total of 13 rounds of active portal, costing 350gp per rest cycle. The circle is 10 ft in diameter. How it deals with height is uncertain, but I will assume it is literally a two-dimensional circle, and works roughly like a Stargate from the TV show of the same name - thus, to transport goods through it, you must push the goods through the circle. The receiving capacity of a circle is infinite - additional goods will be placed at the nearest location within reach, no matter how far away that is. The sending capacity of a circle is roughly 45,500 cubic feet per round, assuming goods are arranged in a cylinder, and allowed to engage in freefall.

Magical food generation does not appear economical to me under normal assumptions in 5th ed, especially the fee for service required to get spells cast on your behalf in the PhB. So let's look at mundane agriculture, because that's the sine qua non of a civilization. 1lb of wheat trades for 1cp per the PhB. Converting the sending capacity of a circle into bushels, we get about 36,600 bushels per casting, 21,960 gp worth of wheat at market. Using http://www.basvanleeuwen.net/bestanden/agriclongrun1250to1850.pdf (these) http://extension.missouri.edu/publications/DisplayPub.aspx?P=G4020 (two) sources, it seems roughly reasonable to assume a medieval farm can net roughly 8 bushels per acre. So this is ~ the produce of 4575 acres, or about 7 square miles. The DMG recommends a kingdom-level map have 6 square mile hexes, so a "hex of hexes" with 7 hexes has the capacity to produce 6 rounds worth of grain, netting just under 132K gp. A transportation mage could handle two such regions per rest cycle. Basically, getting harvests to market is a one-man job, after the farmers get their grain to the silos. This is clearly quite economical - the mage can break even in the first year servicing just seven such regions, giving back about 97% of all proceeds to the farmers themselves - something I'm sure they weren't getting before. This entrepreneurial mage is incurring the opportunity cost of not having either (1) spent this first year adventuring or (2) working in the city collecting fees for his spellcasting. However, he's now in the most powerful economic position in the world.

So, we have a mega-city which isn't connected to the farmlands by roads, but by a single level 9 sorcerer. How much of a security risk is the TC to that city?

Not a huge amount. The TC is fairly defensible. First off, to access it requires knowledge of a code that can be kept secret fairly easily. You really only need one silo harvester in the entire kingdom, and he's the only person who really needs to know how to access that portal. But you also have free reign of determining the placement of your TC, and fortifying it heavily. For instance, it might sensibly be located at a great height, and very heavily protected with effects like Hallow and Glyph of Warding. Fully invasion-prepping your TC is a serious investment, but it's quite possible.

The real vulnerability is the countryside - especially local grain silos. I don't think anything about TCs takes that away. In fact, the ability of rogue sorcerers to use their own TCs to steal your agricultural produce is probably one of the most serious threats to national security faced by a 5e society. I suspect this looks just like the sort of classic pseudo-feudal image of DnD, where lords and their militia collect the harvest and guard their communities - probably with a focus on level 6+ Paladins. Because the job of your army is really basically just to stop enemy spellcasters from getting within 10ft of your silos for any period of time.

The city can benefit from enormous economies of scale, just in simple things like milling flour. Again, given what the PhB says about the cost of getting a wizard to cast a spell for you, I don't think that mage-made wares will dominate - mundane labor will likely be cheaper than Fabricate, for most things - but just having the ability to cheaply get so much food all in one place, and then so much labor, it'll make sense to transport raw materials the same way. Mines will feed directly into forges, which may feed directly into workshops. 5e lacks a lot of the runaway functionality of 3.5. You're no longer going to be living in a world where every last thing is a wondrous item. But the nature of resource extraction and the meaning of distance can be radically altered.

I think the closest 5e brings us in the direction of a tippyverse is single-city megakingdoms with heavily-warded import TCs - one or two for each different main type of raw resource (grain, lumber, ore, et cetera), giant, wondrous, possibly magic-made works (mills, forges, et cetera), and a vast, somewhat vulnerable countryside with local heroes but little in the way of regional centers. This is divergent from what we probably imagine as a standard setting, but doesn't have either the sort of mago-industry or risk of super-invasions as 3.5.

Also: if your world doesn't have any TCs to start, you learn 2 TCs on other worlds in the material plane. That's the logical conclusion from the PhB.

[SiuiS]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?222007-The-Definitive-Guide-to-the-Tippyverse-By-Emperor-Tippy

The definition of what constitutes a Tippyverse which is "The Tippyverse (TV henceforth) was created when I was looking at the impact of long distance teleportation magic on a setting; more precisely just how badly such magic mangles the traditional settings. Let’s look at the military and economic implications of such magic." Anything else is simply just an extension of that line of thought.

And the magic in 5e does not create the implications which lead to tippyverse.

Those implications are that the spell is easy enough to cast with any designated location[/i] from [i]any designated start point, creating the ability to deploy troops far more efficiently than you could ever defend any area because There are no cost-effective defenses against people teleporting on top of you.

Does this happen? I would say no. The NPC:PC disparity means a king being a legendary monster with access to lair actions in his castle and being able to shut down teleportation means that many of the assumptions that are valid in 3e are not valid in Next.


Tippyverse is not a specific outcome, Points of Light is a specific Tippyverse and what most people think of when they hear the term Tippyverse, but it is not the only one. A Tippyverse is simply what the world would look like if the rules as written are taken through to their full logical conclusion. Impeding teleportation magic does not prevent a Tippyverse it simply will alter the outcome of it.

And the rules as written in Next are not only sufficiently different but include within themselves instructions to read and utilize them differently enough that it doesn't happen. Points of light is irrelevant. The 3e end result is not guaranteed to be the 5e end result, not least of which is that there is no implicit laisse Faire DMing in this game.


Presumably means you're making assumptions.

5e is written such that these assumptions are valid and part of the rules as they are written. This is not a valid dismissal.


There are four requirements when casting teleportation circle.


You must have a target teleportation circle.
The target circle must be a permanent teleportation circle.
You must know the target circle's sigil sequence.
The target circle must be on the same plane as you.


Day 1 step one of you plan fails on the first, second, and third criteria. Day 1 step two fails on the second criteria. Day 2 and every day after is basically doing exactly what you did on the first day and thus fail for the same reasons.

Teleportation circle only lasts until the end of your next turn and the spell takes one minute to cast. The second caster wouldn't be able to start to create his circle until after the first circle finishes casting.

Feel free to come up with methods by which someone could use this spell to start creating a network from scratch but any such method is a houserule.

Seems pretty clear to me.

[archaeo]

9th lv teleportation circle

Just as a note, it only seems to require 5th level casting to do anything related to teleportation. 5th level casting doesn't seem like it'd be all that common; the Mage NPC statblock pegs it at CR 6, which suggests to me that 5e's "default setting" allows for a fair number of 5th level casters to people its worlds.

However, the rest of it is broadly true. You also forgot to mention that scribing a permanent circle will cost 18,250 gold in material components, and that "until the caster's next turn" functionally means that the portal is open for 6 seconds. While moving some VIPs or guild leaders through a teleportation circle might be fine, it doesn't really work as a backbone for commerce. And how could it; escorting caravans is an adventurer's bread and butter, after all.

edit: ninja'd

[Talderas]

However without Magic traps to make food, mega-cities in a 5e Tippyverse will still need farming communities around them and so won't be as centralized; and will need more traditional fantasy armies and the like to keep those safe (the cost of putting teleportation circles in each farming village being pretty expensive... 18,250 gold and a years worth of attention from a 'regional hero' level caster)

Yes. There will still be places to produce food and other raw materials but the core principle is that the teleportation circle makes trade routes pointless. In a traditional D&D setting there exists cities and towns whose sole purpose is an intersection for trade. The city itself doesn't create anything but it's economy is entirely reliant on providing inns, food, and services for those passing through it to other locations. When a teleportation circle can link a farming community or mine directly to a big city then that trade city lacks any reason for existence. The same thing can be said for port cities as well. Their size and potentially existence are entirely dependent on the trade that is done via ships.

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First off id like to preface this by saying congratulations.I believe WOTC has actually altered the telportation circle entirely based on you.

I doubt that.


1] Can only be made permanent by casting it in the same spot everyday for a year.

A nuisance but not a hurdle to setting up. It operates more as a function of what sort of downtime would be needed for players to create permanent circles. A year to set one up is a minor nuisance for any organization with the resources and manpower.


2] Only works for a person that knows the sigils to operate the circle and casts a 9th lv teleportation circle

Entirely incorrect. You only need the sigil sequence to cast teleportation circle and teleportation circle is a level 5 spell not level 9.


3] Only stays open until the casters next turn and drops the person with 5ft or the nearest unoccupied space

It's a huge hit to duration when casting the circle but a permanently opened portal is open perpetually. The latter concern part is part and parcel standard for teleportation rules.


4] Theres no indication that anyone but a high level wizard can even learn the sigils to operate a portal or that they work without casting the spell

Level 9 is hardly high level but there are no rules governing what it takes to learn the sigil sequence for a permanent circle. Only that you know two sigil sequences when you learn the spell.

--


Not a huge amount. The TC is fairly defensible. First off, to access it requires knowledge of a code that can be kept secret fairly easily.

I keep reading this but I cannot, for the life of me, find any rules that suggest this is the case once a teleportation circle has been made permanent. The spell states that it is made permanent by casting it each day for a year and a portal is part of the spell. Therefore a teleportation circle made permanent will have an open portal and that means it will be usable by anyone who has physical access to it.

The sigil sequence is certainly still a piece of knowledge that needs to be protected because you don't want hostile organizations setting up a permanent circle pointing to your permanent circle since they could flood enemies through it unless you destroy the circle, although such a defense is going to be drastically easier since you know where the enemy will be arriving. It's also worth noting that any forces you send through the portal won't have an easy way back to where the arrived from so they're committed once they go through until such time that they can break out from an encirclement, albeit an encirclement where you can get supplies and reinforcements.

--


5e is written such that these assumptions are valid and part of the rules as they are written. This is not a valid dismissal.

Tippy wrote out a response that pretty much points out how other points of your post are wrong but I'm going to respond to this one directly. It's an assumption and there's multiple ways on which any given DM may rule the sigil sequence might work which means that anything based on said assumption will only hold true so long as that assumption is true. The major flaw with the assumption that the wizard creating the circle sets the sigil sequence is the fact that it permits two teleportation circles to exist on the same plane with the same sigil sequence. In fact it is just as reasonable that the sigil sequence for a teleportation circle is based on its physical location which usefully avoids duplicate sigil sequences. The sigil sequence itself might just randomly be generated and avoid duplicates when the circle becomes permanent. Any assumption of how a sigil sequence is created needs to take into account to avoid duplicates. There's no telling if the sigil sequence is advertised on the circle or if it's intimate knowledge that only the caster knows. All we know is that you have to know the sigil sequence and when you learn the spell you already know two sequences.

[archaeo]

It's a huge hit to duration when casting the circle but a permanently opened portal is open perpetually. The latter concern part is part and parcel standard for teleportation rules.

Can you point me to where the spell says this? As I read teleportation circle, you must cast the spell for a portal to appear; the wording doesn't make sense otherwise, as how can you teleport to a permanent circle if a portal is constantly open within it?


There's no telling if the sigil sequence is advertised on the circle or if it's intimate knowledge that only the caster knows. All we know is that you have to know the sigil sequence and when you learn the spell you already know two sequences.

It seems fair to assume that a) you must know teleportation circle to learn sigil sequences, and b) it requires a minute of uninterrupted study to learn a new sequence. Therefore, it seems self-evident that the sigil sequence can be derived from the circle so long as you understand how they are created.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

One of the big flaws of grain teleporting to me is the notion that mages would yoke themselves to such 'menial work'. or, even if they were willing, that it would the most rational use of their time from an individual perspective. Mage time is at a premium. From an economic perspective, you can't gauge whether mage-teleporting is worthwhile without including an estimate of the wages that the wizard would demand. The costs of casting the spell are capital overhead rather than solid guideline.

No human society is a perfectly rational commune. Enormous ego seems necessary to be a powerful mage (or at least correlated, for numerous reasons).

Besides, any genre-savvy warlord would know keeping a bunch of Stargates around is just asking for a band of unlikely heroes to use them for amazing feats of derring-do and sabotage.

[Talderas]

Doing some back-of-the-envelope math, every node costs 18,250gp in materials to establish, and 50gp per use, in materials cost. A ninth-level sorcerer can get 41 sorcery points per short rest, and one natural 5th level spell slot. If they're employed full-time in this pursuit, and can rest while travelling (in a carriage, sedan chair, or palanquin, for example) they can establish a maximum of roughly 21 teleportation circles per year.

I have to go over your math here because this doesn't seem at all close to right. It costs 7 sorcery points to create a 5th level spell slot and he has 9 sorcery points. You regain spell points when you complete a long rest, not a short rest. Since it takes 8 hours to complete a long rest you can only complete 2 long rests per day which means 18 total sorcery point and two 5th level spell slots. So a sorcerer has only the capacity for simultaneously setting up four permanent circles assuming travel times are favorable.

The gp cost is accurate though but it's cost is not a huge problem. Using a pair of scrolls would cost you 14,950 for permancy and teleportation circle and that scroll of permanency only covered 2,000/4,500 xp for the permanency effect. Permanency scrolls are 9,000 gp above other 5th level scrolls and the only added cost item is the experience so just a rough estimate that the costs on 5th edition are definitely not more than 3rd edition and may in fact be drastically cheaper.

--


Can you point me to where the spell says this? As I read teleportation circle, you must cast the spell for a portal to appear; the wording doesn't make sense otherwise, as how can you teleport to a permanent circle if a portal is constantly open within it?

The text of the spell itself has the answer "Any creature that enters the portal instantly appears within 5 feet of the destination circle or in the nearest unoccupied space if that space is occupied."

I think people might be thinking of TP circles like stargates, which is a useful way to explain them but not accurate. With the stargate network no one can connect to a stargate that is currently open. There's no such restriction with TP circles. You can have multiple permanent TP cricles all pointing to the same destination and every single one can be used at any given time and simulatneously. You don't even appear inside the circle on the ground when you arrive.

Now I've been working solely off the PHB spell description so if there's something in the DMG that contradicts anything I've written I apologize since I don't have ready access to that.

In the end a TP network is going to have two major methods of operation. The first method is to setup a permanent circle at each end. The second method is to setup at the end that is usually the destination and permanent station a 5th level caster to handle the TP circle requests that come. However I think the latter would pretty much be rendered pointless from an investment perspective if you want to move stuff any more frequently than twenty times a year which will be roughly 6-7 years to make a return on investment.

[archaeo]

It's always worth pointing out that, if you want to play in a setting with permanent portals open between major cities and all that that implies, it's trivial to do so. You don't even have to give players the ability to do it; maybe they're ancient magic items, maybe teleportation magic that powerful requires a lifetime of study that adventurers don't have time for, maybe making a circle have a permanently opened portal requires some kind of sacrifice. Whatever. If you want it, homebrewing it requires little time or effort.


The text of the spell itself has the answer "Any creature that enters the portal instantly appears within 5 feet of the destination circle or in the nearest unoccupied space if that space is occupied."

That doesn't say anything at all about permanency. It just says that, when you enter a portal within the window of time in which the portal is open, you pop out on the other side. It certainly prevents problems like "I can't teleport there because there's another portal already in the way," but that's all it does.


Now I've been working solely off the PHB spell description so if there's something in the DMG that contradicts anything I've written I apologize since I don't have ready access to that.

As far as I know, the DMG doesn't include anything on teleportation circles.

[Talderas]

That doesn't say anything at all about permanency. It just says that, when you enter a portal within the window of time in which the portal is open, you pop out on the other side. It certainly prevents problems like "I can't teleport there because there's another portal already in the way," but that's all it does.

I guess I don't see the problem then. The spell gives a method by which it is made permanent and there are a handful of spells that can be made permanent by some method described within the spell. Are you suggesting that a portion of the spell's effect, the portal, is not also a permanent fixture?

[metaridley18]

One of the big flaws of grain teleporting to me is the notion that mages would yoke themselves to such 'menial work'. or, even if they were willing, that it would the most rational use of their time from an individual perspective. Mage time is at a premium. From an economic perspective, you can't gauge whether mage-teleporting is worthwhile without including an estimate of the wages that the wizard would demand. The costs of casting the spell are capital overhead rather than solid guideline.

No human society is a perfectly rational commune. Enormous ego seems necessary to be a powerful mage (or at least correlated, for numerous reasons).

Besides, any genre-savvy warlord would know keeping a bunch of Stargates around is just asking for a band of unlikely heroes to use them for amazing feats of derring-do and sabotage.

As Talderas points out, the spell appears to set up a permanent one-way portal that anybody can use if they have physical access to it. It also works as a valid destination for a casting of Teleport Circle if someone knows the sigil sequence.

So the enterprising mage sets up a tower that serves as his research tower and home in a fertile countryside. He sets up a permanent portal to the main economic hub X distance away. He'll want to do this anyway for his own convenience to save on spell casting and for the ability to use Teleport Circle to return to his tower.

Under those circumstances it's trivial to charge a small fee to allow the locals the ability to use his portal. His assistant can man the door and collect the fee, the farmers may have to walk back, but who's going to balk at cutting a normal trip in half for a price if it's low enough? (And if he really wanted, he could set up a return portal in the city, but I would be hesitant to do so in that mage's position, as then people can jump to your home assuming you can't guard the other portal well enough).


EDIT: For the record, as a DM, I would probably rule that setting up a permanent teleportation circle does not keep the portal open in perpetuity. Rather, it creates a permanent anchor for the 5th level and 7th level version of teleport, and you could use it to cast the spell Teleport Circle (with another permanent circle as the target) without spending the 50g material component (since the circle is already drawn). I don't believe this interpretation is supported by RAW but I like the way it functions better than the implication of permanent portals existing.

[Naanomi]

I guess I don't see the problem then. The spell gives a method by which it is made permanent and there are a handful of spells that can be made permanent by some method described within the spell. Are you suggesting that a portion of the spell's effect, the portal, is not also a permanent fixture?
I think it could be interpreted either way. It could mean the portal is being made permenant, in which case full-on Tippyverse time.

However it can also read the *circle* is permanent; as in a permanent place to 'dial into' from other teleportation circles; and the spell and material component still needed but the anchor point being made perminant.

Either way, I think roads might still be necessary to move troops. Invading armies will crash your teleportation network or set up an ambush at the circle spot; and if you are using them to feed large population centers the loss of even a few farm circles would start starvation.

[hawklost]

Just a curiosity, but has anyone actually calculated how many people could enter a teleportation circle in 1 round?

I mean, I feel that even with everyone being limited to a 5ft space to wait for the circle, you are still talking about 10s to 100s of people being able to enter a single one in 1 round.

[strangebloke]

Just a curiosity, but has anyone actually calculated how many people could enter a teleportation circle in 1 round?

I mean, I feel that even with everyone being limited to a 5ft space to wait for the circle, you are still talking about 10s to 100s of people being able to enter a single one in 1 round.

I would argue that this is entirely dependent on movement speed and being sure that you can physically allocate the people who move through the portal.

With enough magic (moving sidewalks, elevators, etc.) you can send an arbitrarily large amount of people through a portal. Even without magic help (other than the circle itself) you can still send int everyone within a 20-foot radius of the portal. Which is somewhere around a hundred. Granted, its a little silly, but it is possible by RAW.

I don't really think that a circle that only lasts for a few seconds would still be available for your average commoner, though. Even if a few hundred people make it through... There just aren't enough wizards and sorcerers around to make it practical.

[hawklost]

I would argue that this is entirely dependent on movement speed and being sure that you can physically allocate the people who move through the portal.

With enough magic (moving sidewalks, elevators, etc.) you can send an arbitrarily large amount of people through a portal. Even without magic help (other than the circle itself) you can still send int everyone within a 20-foot radius of the portal. Which is somewhere around a hundred. Granted, its a little silly, but it is possible by RAW.

I don't really think that a circle that only lasts for a few seconds would still be available for your average commoner, though. Even if a few hundred people make it through... There just aren't enough wizards and sorcerers around to make it practical.

So I just ran through a rough estimate related to RAW

Assumptions:
30ft Speed (not slowed)
5ft per person
infinite space to stand around circle (Infinite space around exit circle)
Everyone is ready to go in order from closest to farthest from circle

What I got was that it was possible to get 480 people through the teleportation circle in a single round (I am counting the Caster here). This requires them enter from the closest to the farther and for the farthest to be dashing (60ft movement) to get in.

If someone really wants to make this complicated, they could figure out how many heavily armed (slow) people could get through (as well as the rest be not slowed down)
super crazy would be to calculate how many of the fastest single turn movement people could make it through the portal in a single round.

[SiuiS]

Tippy wrote out a response that pretty much points out how other points of your post are wrong.

Not quite, no. A setting wherein everything is moved via teleport is not a tippyverse. It's Star Trek. If the only definition is teleportation is used for freight in any capacity, then it's too dilute to be a word worth having.
If the only definition is a setting where the rules of D&D are used, it's too dilute to be worth noting.
If the only definition is a setting where a magical spell given the name teleportation circle exists, then it's too dilute a word to be worth noting.

Remove "teleportation circle" and replace it with what he means by teleportation circle. "A tippyverse is a setting where [the ability to create permanent magical architecture that costs only the initial investment and nothing more for continuous magical instantaneous transport] exists." Okay, that's workable.

5e does not have that. 5e's magic is [spell that can create a permanent circle which still requires expenditure of spell slots on the entry point to activate and which only goes to a single specific set of locations which cannot be influenced], which does not create a tippyverse. It's the difference between a Star Trek transporter, and a bus stop you might not have bought a day pass for.


I guess I don't see the problem then. The spell gives a method by which it is made permanent and there are a handful of spells that can be made permanent by some method described within the spell. Are you suggesting that a portion of the spell's effect, the portal, is not also a permanent fixture?

Making the circle permanent creates a "sending" circle, in that there is literally a circle engraved into the ground which can only send to an existing, un-creatable circle. The reading seems to be that you can create this physical object but you still need to cast the TPC spell every time you activate it for a few rounds.

That changes the TPC from a continuous tunnel to a way point that runs on nonrenewable, precious resources that cannot be bought, gotten around or duplicated.

[hawklost]

Not quite, no. A setting wherein everything is moved via teleport is not a tippyverse. It's Star Trek. If the only definition is teleportation is used for freight in any capacity, then it's too dilute to be a word worth having.
If the only definition is a setting where the rules of D&D are used, it's too dilute to be worth noting.
If the only definition is a setting where a magical spell given the name teleportation circle exists, then it's too dilute a word to be worth noting.

Remove "teleportation circle" and replace it with what he means by teleportation circle. "A tippyverse is a setting where [the ability to create permanent magical architecture that costs only the initial investment and nothing more for continuous magical instantaneous transport] exists." Okay, that's workable.

5e does not have that. 5e's magic is [spell that can create a permanent circle which still requires expenditure of spell slots on the entry point to activate and which only goes to a single specific set of locations which cannot be influenced], which does not create a tippyverse. It's the difference between a Star Trek transporter, and a bus stop you might not have bought a day pass for.



Making the circle permanent creates a "sending" circle, in that there is literally a circle engraved into the ground which can only send to an existing, un-creatable circle. The reading seems to be that you can create this physical object but you still need to cast the TPC spell every time you activate it for a few rounds.

That changes the TPC from a continuous tunnel to a way point that runs on nonrenewable, precious resources that cannot be bought, gotten around or duplicated.

Are you just choosing to interpret the rules about permanent teleportation circles your way or does it actually outright state that it requires you to use the resources again (and requrie a caster) to use the Permanent Teleportation Circle?

I have read and read the PHB Teleportation Circle and nowhere does it state that a permanent one requires the person to pay a few to 'activate' it. It doesn't say it is activated sure, but it doesn't say it isn't either. That would mean that it is an interpretation question for the DM to decide (Or clerification on the rules by on high).

Considering that no other spell that is able to be Permanent requires continues use for resources, it seems kind of silly to claim Permanent TPC would.

[Talderas]

Just a curiosity, but has anyone actually calculated how many people could enter a teleportation circle in 1 round?

I mean, I feel that even with everyone being limited to a 5ft space to wait for the circle, you are still talking about 10s to 100s of people being able to enter a single one in 1 round.

It would be difficult to calculate for the following reasons.

There's no definition of the size or shape of the portal beyond the limitation that it is within the circle that has a 10ft diameter. The portal could be 5ft wide or it could be 10ft wide.
Whether you're using 3rd or 4th edition movement rules so that every other diagonal costs 10ft of movement.
Whether the portal can be entered from any direction or whether it has only a single side from which it can be entered.


If you use 4th edition movement rules so every square is 5ft of movement, assume that the portal occupies a 5ft square, and that the portal can be entered from any direction (the most favorable set of conditions) then 224 wild elf rogues can move through the portal expending only a movement. 616 more wild elf rogues can move through the portal by using a movement and the dash action. 1008 more wild elf rogues can move through the portal using movement, the dash action, and dash as a bonus action. That totals to 1848 wild elf rogues.

[SiuiS]

Are you just choosing to interpret the rules about permanent teleportation circles your way or does it actually outright state that it requires you to use the resources again (and requrie a caster) to use the Permanent Teleportation Circle?

I have read and read the PHB Teleportation Circle and nowhere does it state that a permanent one requires the person to pay a few to 'activate' it. It doesn't say it is activated sure, but it doesn't say it isn't either. That would mean that it is an interpretation question for the DM to decide (Or clerification on the rules by on high).

Considering that no other spell that is able to be Permanent requires continues use for resources, it seems kind of silly to claim Permanent TPC would.

If the DM needs to decide then it still removes the possibility of a tippyverse which ostensibly runs without DM involvement.

The number of other people who have made the same point seems corroborative, but honestly the amount of discussion on structure, validity of RAW as a concept in this edition, laying the metagame foundation for interpretation of the rules, etc., needed to really get into it isn't worth it.

[MinotaurWarrior]

I keep reading this but I cannot, for the life of me, find any rules that suggest this is the case once a teleportation circle has been made permanent. The spell states that it is made permanent by casting it each day for a year and a portal is part of the spell. Therefore a teleportation circle made permanent will have an open portal and that means it will be usable by anyone who has physical access to it.

The sigil sequence is certainly still a piece of knowledge that needs to be protected because you don't want hostile organizations setting up a permanent circle pointing to your permanent circle since they could flood enemies through it unless you destroy the circle, although such a defense is going to be drastically easier since you know where the enemy will be arriving. It's also worth noting that any forces you send through the portal won't have an easy way back to where the arrived from so they're committed once they go through until such time that they can break out from an encirclement, albeit an encirclement where you can get supplies and reinforcements.


I think it's unclear whether a "permanent teleportation circle" is an always-open gaping maw to some other place (with the first one on any given world always being to different world) or is its own thing. The way I'd run it is that a permanent circle is destination-only and standing on one doesn't send you anywhere. But that's unnecessary for them to be defensible - it just avoids weirdness related to two PTCs set up on the floor, facing up, and you jumping in and getting bisected by your center of mass.

If the circle is permanent, that's a permanent gate out of the city. That doesn't make attacks on your city any easier, except in that retreats are easier if your TC is pointed to a safe place for some reason. You can have your destination TCs on high, inaccessible points (in fact, that's really the only sensible place to put them for their normal purpose) and have them pointed to either some other world in the material plane you don't care about, or a specially-made garbage-disposal area (again, that just makes a fair bit of utilitarian sense).

To get to a permanent TC absolutely requires a special sequence. PTCs are only useful to invasions as targets for TCs, and you can just lock that knowledge down. The only way this spell changes the nature of invasions is if (1) the sequence for your import PTCs gets out or (2) any enemy makes their own PTC in your city. The latter situation strikes me as very unlikely, just from a practical standpoint. For the first situation, which, over the course of human history, seems like an inevitable possibility, fortifications come into play.

A tenth-level cleric can, over the course of 54 rest cycles, using 10,800gp in spell components, create 54 of Glyphs of Warding triggering guardian spirits (both cast at 5th level), which, ~ 50% of the time, reduces a Tarrasque to 0hp in one turn, and last for ten minutes. That's excessive and simplistic, but proves a point. More generally, I think the model of fortifications looks like this:

Position: PTCs are located high up, facing either down from ceilings or sideways from walls, inside of short-term storage / import processing facilities.

Magic: Hallows are cast, targeting all animate beings with vulnerability to radiant damage. Glyphs of Warding with mostly Spirit Guardians but potentially some other damage-types are arranged to trigger as invaders fall downwards only triggering on still-animate creatures. This is arranged to minimize overkill / over triggering. They're sufficient to kill most any army as it falls down. The greatest concentration is on the bottom floor, so super-tough freaks who land end up dead.

Fortifications: The import processing areas are made with very thick stone walls, and have only a single inclined exit, with a strong gate. Opening the gate is enough to get the resources out via gravity, while there's no internal mechanism to open the gate. So, basically, they need to punch their way out. That 50% chance of a Tarrasque above can usually manage, but most threats can't. A bog-standard Wall of Stone panel has AC 15 and 180 HP.

Armed response: the city probably has 10 minutes to fortify the barrier, because of the Guardian Spirits killing everything. That is, coincidentally, the casting time for Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum. Keeping with this trend of just relying on 9th-10th level casters, you can pretty easily close off the gates. Or, heck, say you really don't want to do that - inverted arrow slits and a marshaled town guard can make short work of most things in 5e. Rangers, by the way, absolutely shine here if we go to level 11, as they have spammable AOE attacks in the form of Volley, and all your enemies will necessarily be coming out within 10ft of each other. Overflow out of the corpse silo can be prevented by having permanent Mordenkainen's Private Sanctums arranged all around the barrier of the import PTC.


One of the big flaws of grain teleporting to me is the notion that mages would yoke themselves to such 'menial work'. or, even if they were willing, that it would the most rational use of their time from an individual perspective. Mage time is at a premium. From an economic perspective, you can't gauge whether mage-teleporting is worthwhile without including an estimate of the wages that the wizard would demand. The costs of casting the spell are capital overhead rather than solid guideline.

Basically, the dude who sets this up becomes the economy. Barring interplanar-style rewards (like going to an awesome afterlife, or getting genie-style wealth), nothing else could possibly be more worthwhile. And this really could just be one guy. Members of other classes might be better at individual parts, but a single level 10 bard can do it all, and reap all of the rewards. It only takes one entrepreneurial spellcaster.


I have to go over your math here because this doesn't seem at all close to right. It costs 7 sorcery points to create a 5th level spell slot and he has 9 sorcery points. You regain spell points when you complete a long rest, not a short rest. Since it takes 8 hours to complete a long rest you can only complete 2 long rests per day which means 18 total sorcery point and two 5th level spell slots. So a sorcerer has only the capacity for simultaneously setting up four permanent circles assuming travel times are favorable.

The gp cost is accurate though but it's cost is not a huge problem. Using a pair of scrolls would cost you 14,950 for permancy and teleportation circle and that scroll of permanency only covered 2,000/4,500 xp for the permanency effect. Permanency scrolls are 9,000 gp above other 5th level scrolls and the only added cost item is the experience so just a rough estimate that the costs on 5th edition are definitely not more than 3rd edition and may in fact be drastically cheaper.

Sorcerers can sacrifice lower-level spells for sorcery points. If you go over the rest of the math, you may end up with slightly different results if (1) you round off the net agricultural yields differently or (2) you don't round as frequently as I did from step-to step. I'm curious to see what someone else might get with a more careful analysis, but I think I was accurate enough to answer the question of feasibility.

Permanency isn't a spell anymore, so I don't know what you're talking about there. The crafting rules are completely different now - XP costs are no longer a thing as far as I can tell, and you require a "formula" (no origin given) to make any magic item, on top of the ability to cast involved spells.


You don't even appear inside the circle on the ground when you arrive.

By default you do, or at least within 5 feet of it.



In the end a TP network is going to have two major methods of operation. The first method is to setup a permanent circle at each end. The second method is to setup at the end that is usually the destination and permanent station a 5th level caster to handle the TP circle requests that come. However I think the latter would pretty much be rendered pointless from an investment perspective if you want to move stuff any more frequently than twenty times a year which will be roughly 6-7 years to make a return on investment.

I mean, this really depends. I didn't go with PTCs at resource extraction points just to show how easy everything would be to set up and because I just prefer the non-gaping-maw interpretation, but even with gaping maws - harvests happen once a year. It would take 365 years of uninterrupted use to make the investment break even, treating the cost of transportation at harvest time and the cost of keeping a level 9 caster sitting in the hinterlands twiddling his thumbs as a wash.

Maybe with other goods, PTCs at both ends make a lot of sense. But for agriculture in particular, I really don't think it does.


Just a curiosity, but has anyone actually calculated how many people could enter a teleportation circle in 1 round?

I mean, I feel that even with everyone being limited to a 5ft space to wait for the circle, you are still talking about 10s to 100s of people being able to enter a single one in 1 round.

Depends on a lot of factors. The easy ones are move-speed and size. The hard ones are weird transportation methods. Freefall is going to be sort of the baseline - I don't know that many things can beat, basically, a grain silo full of gnomes (somehow being kept from asphyxiating). But, for sure, a grain silo full of gnomes, with a big lid on it, with ropes attached, being pulled by super-fast creatures, could. Things would get weird, fast.

It is, by the way, super amusing to really take the time and picture just what a failed gnome-silo invasion would look like - both one thwarted by a well-defended PTC, and one that succeeds.

[Draken]

The way the spell is written leads me to believe that the "Permanent Teleporation Circle" created is inert until activated by a casting of the spell.

That reading is based on a few lines.


As you cast the spell, you draw a 10-foot-diameter
circle on the ground inscribed with sigils that link
your location to a permanent teleportation circle of
your choice w hose sigil sequence you know and that is
on the same plane o f existence as you.


Many major temples, guilds, and other important
places have permanent teleportation circles inscribed
somewhere within their confines. Each such circle
includes a unique sigil sequence—a string o f magical
runes arranged in a particular pattern.


You can create a permanent teleportation circle by
casting this spell in the same location every day for one
year. You need not use the circle to teleport when you
cast the spell in this way.

The last sentence is particularly relevant "You do not need to use the circle to teleport when you cast the spell in this way" could be taken to mean that if you are creating a permanent rune circle, that casting doesn't need to lead anywhere else.

[Kornaki]

The last sentence is particularly relevant "You do not need to use the circle to teleport when you cast the spell in this way" could be taken to mean that if you are creating a permanent rune circle, that casting doesn't need to lead anywhere else.

That's saying if you want to create a permanent teleport circle, you don't actually have to teleport to your destination every day for a year, then find a way back so you can re-cast the spell tomorrow. I don't see what that has to do with whether the circle is inert after the last casting of the year.

[SiuiS]

Simple. The teleportation circle spell creates a magic circle which then gets activated. Primary and permanent-capable function of the spell is to create a circle, not to open it. The circle, which is expensive and the main component of the spell, can be made permanent. The activation is not the main component of the spell. It's an acrobat able function.

Teleportation circle is "you create a temporary magic item which can be turned on with teleportation spells, to transfer to a specific location. You can make this item permanent by casting this spell a lot." You make a permanent item called a teleportation circle. Activating that item requires use of a spell after the initial creation, when it sits there. Seems pretty clear.

[hawklost]

As a DM, when people talk about the cost of casting it, I would ask myself one thing. What is the Material Component for the cost that is actually worth money and what common sense time during the spell would it be used.

In the case of the TPC. The spell requires chalk and oils with gems in them to create the circle. Well, the Circle has permanently been ingraved already, so why would the caster need to use 50gp of chalk and oils in the creation again?

So even if I did require a Caster to be present who could activate it (which is one of the interpretations of the spell). I would not require it to cost anything to activate it.

otherwise, I would have the circle be always on and activate when someone steps on the spot.

[Talderas]

Sorcerers can sacrifice lower-level spells for sorcery points. If you go over the rest of the math, you may end up with slightly different results if (1) you round off the net agricultural yields differently or (2) you don't round as frequently as I did from step-to step. I'm curious to see what someone else might get with a more careful analysis, but I think I was accurate enough to answer the question of feasibility.

It's 40 sorcery points not 41 in that case. Hardly a huge difference since you need 42 sorcery points to get another 5th level spell to cast so you get 5 (7 sorcery points per 5th level slot) plus your native 1 meaning 6 casting per long rest and two long rests per day is all that you can achieve so only 12 per day, not the 21 you suggest.


Permanency isn't a spell anymore, so I don't know what you're talking about there. The crafting rules are completely different now - XP costs are no longer a thing as far as I can tell, and you require a "formula" (no origin given) to make any magic item, on top of the ability to cast involved spells.

I was quoting the 3e cost of setting up a permanent teleportation circle for comparison against the 5th edition cost. Turns out in absolute gold values the 5e cost per TP circle is probably cheaper.


I mean, this really depends. I didn't go with PTCs at resource extraction points just to show how easy everything would be to set up and because I just prefer the non-gaping-maw interpretation, but even with gaping maws - harvests happen once a year. It would take 365 years of uninterrupted use to make the investment break even, treating the cost of transportation at harvest time and the cost of keeping a level 9 caster sitting in the hinterlands twiddling his thumbs as a wash.

It takes 365 uses of teleportation circle from the source to destination to break even. You're assuming, erroneously I'm quite certain, that you can cast TP circle once and the entire harvest for the year that needs to be shipped can be shuttled through in a single round and that's done once a year. The first error is that the agricultural node is only producing a single crop or even having a single harvest. Different crops can be planted and grown at different times of the year and there can be multiple harvests in a single year. A draft horse pulling a wagon can only haul 2,300 pounds of produce and it moves 40ft a round. There is a limitation on how many horses and wagons you can move through in a round before additional castings would be required.

[archaeo]

It's 40 sorcery points not 41 in that case. Hardly a huge difference since you need 42 sorcery points to get another 5th level spell to cast so you get 5 (7 sorcery points per 5th level slot) plus your native 1 meaning 6 casting per long rest and two long rests per day is all that you can achieve so only 12 per day, not the 21 you suggest..

Just to be clear, you mean making 12 castings of separate teleportation circles, right? Because the PHB seems pretty clear on the fact that it takes a year to make any circle permanent, full stop. That sorcerer could make 12 permanent teleportation circles in a year's span, but each individual circle doesn't get done any faster. That's what you mean, right?

[MinotaurWarrior]

It's 40 sorcery points not 41 in that case. Hardly a huge difference since you need 42 sorcery points to get another 5th level spell to cast so you get 5 (7 sorcery points per 5th level slot) plus your native 1 meaning 6 casting per long rest and two long rests per day is all that you can achieve so only 12 per day, not the 21 you suggest.

My bad both on the 40 v.s. 41 and thinking you can get multiple long rests per day. That was just flat-out wrong.



It takes 365 uses of teleportation circle from the source to destination to break even. You're assuming, erroneously I'm quite certain, that you can cast TP circle once and the entire harvest for the year that needs to be shipped can be shuttled through in a single round and that's done once a year. The first error is that the agricultural node is only producing a single crop or even having a single harvest. Different crops can be planted and grown at different times of the year and there can be multiple harvests in a single year. A draft horse pulling a wagon can only haul 2,300 pounds of produce and it moves 40ft a round. There is a limitation on how many horses and wagons you can move through in a round before additional castings would be required.

Cereal grains in northern medieval europe were generally harvested once per year. Typical garden crops are an added complication I didn't look into, in part because they have no clear listed price in the PhB. I also just realized I completely ignored fallow fields. Intentionally, I've been ignoring the cost of transporting the harvest to the central collection site, and building the collection facility.

According to this source (http://www.netafimindia.com/ginger-india.html) one guy in india in 1995 yielded the equivalent of 4000 lbs of ginger per acre, which the PhB says sells for 4000gp. The website seems to be trying to tell a story about how his farming practices used to be very poor, and only with their help did he later dramatically increase his yields. That's the closest I could get to a source on what a historical yield for ginger should be - as a new world crop, there are no medieval sources, but there should in theory be pre-green revolution records out there, somewhere. That 4000 lbs / acre is almost certainly not right for a DnD farm, but at a price of 1gp/lb, it'd need to be hugely off to not be worth coming by every ginger harvest to teleport the goods.

So, at very least, it's worth casting TC for wheat harvests and for ginger harvests. Assuming at least 1 ginger harvest not at the same time as wheat harvests, that halves the number of years of stability required for TPCs to be worth it. But 182.5 years is still a long time. Imagine you have a harvest every season: that's still nearly 100 years before things break even. 100 years is a long time for nothing to go wrong and you not wanting to replace your PTC. Long enough that I think it's really just a judgement call on how stable your world is.

Wagons are a terrible way of using TCs. Gavity + the minimum animal presence required to have the TC work is probably what you want. Let's say you don't allow a whole grain silo to be comically hitched to a single animal. Then what you need to do is figure out what minimum ratio of grain : animals you require, bundle them in proportion, stack them, and then let them fall. In my calculations, I ignored the minimum animal presence.

You can get faster than this by squishing people down. The sort of absurd upper limit on this, using just DnD rules, is something like using level 20 wood elf monks with the Mobility feat, hasted, carrying transmuter's stones, benefiting from longstrider, dashing with their haste, bonus, and standard actions, all wearing boots of speed, to pull ropes that then press down on a lid over the assembled mass. Those monks are moving ((35+10+10+10+30)*4)*4 = 1520ft, as the height of the cylinder you're pressing down through the TC in one round. But that relies on way more unlikely things existing than just one level 9 sorcerer or level 10 bard. There's probably a whole world of things less absurd than that but still faster than gravity. If you want to get really precise economics, you'll want to make some statements about what's acceptable in your setting, and then get transport times based on that.

[strangebloke]

Tippyverse is technically defined by the teleportation circles, yes, but what its most defining quality is not the teleportation circles themselves, but the extent to to which the market is driven by them and other magical exploits.

Simply put, if RAW unarguably stated rules for making permanent circles, then we technically have Tippyverse. But realistically it isn't going to look much like the Tippyverse we know and love, simply because casters won't be able to achieve the other 99% of the shenanigans typically associated with the setting. Moreover, RAW isn't nearly clear enough on this issue.

If we can temporarily create a teleportation circle then... we don't technically have Tippyverse, regardless of whether such teleporation circles are still useful. You still need a wizard or sorcerer to stand there and teleport people, which is only slightly superior to just casting teleport over and over again.

Are there situations where trade via teleportation circle will be a great idea? Sure. But not always, and you are dependent on DM arbitration to make them useful. What happens when you try to teleport something into an occupied space? does it push through and displace other things? Does it simply refuse to go through? All of these are up to the DM, not RAW.

In short: Pending errata, Tippyverse as a result of RAW isn't a thing in 5e, and even if it were, it wouldn't be much like standard Tippyverse.

[kaoskonfety]

snip... But 182.5 years is still a long time. Imagine you have a harvest every season: that's still nearly 100 years before things break even. 100 years is a long time for nothing to go wrong and you not wanting to replace your PTC. Long enough that I think it's really just a judgement call on how stable your world is.

snip[

Depending on a number of factors 182.5 years can be quite a while, and a casting a day for a year sounds like an investment... but often rulers and church looked longer term.

But depending on how "real medieval" you are taking your game some of the great cathedrals took well over 100 years to make and employed generations of master craftsmen, supported their families, apprentices, quarries etc. Having a 10th level caster in your organization overseeing such a task for a year, to also install a TP circle would be an expense of note - but if done early enough would begin paying off nearly immediately, and the 180 years you present for cost re-cooperation "would just fly by" in the eyes of kings looking at a lineage or the church making great works for the divine.

This is largely disregarding the construction time frames in the DMG in favour of historical accuracy, but whatever floats a boat. Even with the rules presented some of the larger structures cost enough that the material component cost for adding a TP circle would be a side expense - getting a caster to actually do it might be a bit more work or a solid role play opportunity (or a way for the party to "sell" that magic item that no one has enough physical gold to buy ever but that they have no use for)

I'm less sure on foodstuffs in general being transported this way, and it seems clear that invading some place using the spell is much harder regardless of the differing interpretations. But more valuable consumables - spices, wine, tea, sugar? Yes. Healing potions and other magical consumables are also a solid bet if there is trade in them.

I'm not seeing the Tippyverse being a possible emergent property given the spells rewrite, but for 50 gold (plus wizard fees, which most kingdoms are likely already paying in the form of cushy job with all the food and drink you can stand, a sizeable budget for personal projects/research and a work day that averages 6 seconds of spell casting and a few chats with the king a month) being able to reliably traverse the world? Trade in fine/exotic goods and communications would be drastically increased. Now I'm not messing up (as much) when I describe a merchant drinking a coffee while I'm personally exhausted by the 5 hour session - sweet.

[MinotaurWarrior]

So, the main things that are really lacking for a 3.5 style tippyverse are, as far as I can tell, (1) ways to easily and effectively dismantle enemy defenses that fortify the PTCs and (2) post-scarcity inducing magitech. There's a lot of room for diversity in form, but I'm not seeing many strong cases against TCs leading to the establishment of huge mega-cities and the elimination of typical caravans, trade routes, and the small settlements that typically grow up alongside them.

One thing I've sort of glossed over is that, if you want a secure import zone, basically every living thing that passes through your PTC is going to die. The second you create an exception to your defenses, you've made yourself vastly more vulnerable. So, first off, human transportation trough PTCs is going to be rare (and unnecessary - there's only one place worth going to, most of the time) and rely on bringing people back from the dead. Fortunately, there's a third-level spell for that, if it happens quick enough - Revivify.

Other key spells I've ignored in shaping this sort of world are Enlarge / Reduce, and Plant Growth. Enlarge / Reduce can reduce a target's volume to 1/8th of what it was previously, while Plant Growth doubles crop yield. Enlarge / Reduce can be thrown in there as a spell known by the main transportation mage, whereas Plant Growth likely is a job for 5th level druids.

Every 5th level druid can cast the full-power version of Plant growth twice per day, using the remaining 8 hours to rest. You cover the entire countryside with minumum effort by dividing your country into hexagons with one mile between opposite vertices. (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1404944/covering-an-arbitrary-area-with-circles-of-equal-radius) Or, in other words, hexagons with side-lengths of 1/2 mile, and areas of 0.65 miles. The travel time to get from casting location to casting location is negligible, assuming either creatures can maintain combat speeds outside of combat for a minute or two, or that we can use real-world information here. Assuming that this magic works when cast at any time in the year, every 5th level druid can cover 474.5 square miles. So, very roughly, ten of those sorts of "hexes of hexes" from the DMG. It would take thousands of druids to cover an area the size of England. So, I think it's fair to say that, with typical baseline assumptions, this spell is not economical in 5th edition. But in a game where tons of people have class levels, it could work.

Enlarge / Reduce has a huge effect on the math, and, since it lasts for such a relatively short period of time, really just throws TCs as being over-the-top better for transportation, compared with carts and wagons. You can get a cylinder 20 feet in diameter, 1,158.27 (http://www.gravitycalc.com/)in height, 3.64×10^5 cubic feet in volume, to freefall down through a TC. It's noteworthy that such a structure would be several times taller than anything built in the historical medieval era. So we really get into another big question of "what are your baseline assumptions"? You can reduce the height as needed to comply with engineering knowledge, and then work from there. But 364,000 cubic feet is the upper limit for a single round TC. That itself doubles if you have a sorcerer cast it with extend spell, and becomes almost arbitrarily large if it's a PTC.

For certain simple goods, like grain and lumber, that grow over large areas in fairly even distributions, the placement of extraction points is a function of (1) the value of the good (2) the cost of mundane transportation (3) the premium for caster time and (4) the distance from the capital. The fourth is the least important by far, but also the simplest to understand: if there is a farm that's closer to the city than to the nearest extraction point, it'll just use carts. The premium for caster time is the most difficult value to estimate, because of how many assumptions must go into it - how common are spellcasters, how needed are they in daring battles against dastardly evils, how absorbed are they in the study of magic, et cetera - but can probably be simplified to a simple cost in gp. Finally, you add the base materials cost to that premium, and that should be approximately the total cost to get goods from the surrounding area to the resource extraction point - much higher, and there'd be more extraction points, much lower, and there'd be fewer. If travel times are roughly even all across the area where this particular resource is being extracted, then we once again end up with pseudo-hexes being tessellated all across the realm, more or less (even with simplified travel costs, you have the issue of the borders not being perfect hexes, causing the optimal placement of edge extraction points to be slightly off, and then that spills over into the placement of the adjacent extraction zones, and so on). Finally, you've got to make a simple check - does this make money? If no, TCs won't emerge in that market.

That model gets messier when you acknowledge that there's different resources to be extracted all over the place. For just one example: gold mines exist some finite distance away from farms. Essentially, things with different density and value profiles from the surrounding basic good extraction points will warp the ideal hex map. If they're more costly to transport, essentially, they'll increase the density of extraction points, decreasing the size of the extraction zones they belong to, and visa versa.

Finally, you have the question of harvest times. For durable goods like, say, gold ore, this more-or-less doesn't matter - you can just create huge stockpiles and teleport them over whenever. For horticultural goods, there's probably at most four harvest times. But animal products really throw a curveball here. Milk, eggs, and fish come year-round, are highly perishable, and highly desirable. Setting considerations related to them are, along with questions of stability, going to be big players in determining how likely PTCs are to exist in resource extraction points.

PTCs bring many more investment concepts, like present discounted value, into play as well. This is made even more complicated because teleportation circle implementation is going to have a huge impact on the time-value of money. In a bog-standard medieval setting, interest is fairly negligible. With mega-cities of the sort we're discussing here, it'll increase rapidly. So, in short, this is really complex. But, essentially, factors that make PTCs more likely are peace, stability, low levels of vandalism, high value associated with more frequent extraction of resources, and the existence of greater numbers of casters. Keep in mind that the cost of a PTC isn't just the cost of the actual circle, but also the cost of the increased fortifications.

I think an interesting result of all of this is that, essentially, the only reasons to have multiple cities are irreconcilable political / cultural / biological differences. Any given nation should just collapse into a three-tiered system of mega-city, extraction center, and local resource extraction settlements (farms, mining towns, et cetera). There's a really interesting question about how these different nations would relate. Now, as far as I can tell, the balance of offense and defense has radically shifted from 3.5, and so we no longer have the magical incentives to strike first. The balance is really much more like in traditional settings, where you need to march your army out overland to do bad stuff to your enemies. But there's no such thing as a bordertown, and with overland trade routes essentially dead, there's far less interpersonal contact between nations. At the same time, within a nation people will now be far more connected - the whole urban population lives together, and equidistant from the whole rural population. Unlike in a more standard setting, where ties are closest within villages, and then between neighboring villages, and anything beyond that is only a vague sense at best, regional dialects abound and society is rather fragmented, here everyone is really quite connected. The consequences really depend on initial assumptions. Say, for instance, your world has woodland elves, mountain dwarves, and humans in between, all of whom lean good. You'll likely end up with three mega-nations, each isolated and very different from one another, but connected in trade (each needs the others resources) and overall harmonious, perhaps even united in times of conflict against threats such as orc tribes and evil cults taking root in the hinterlands. A world of multiple human-dominated kingdoms might very much resemble the cold war, with neither side being "evil" or biologically incompatible, but simply philosophically opposed and competing for the same resources. Then you have worlds with strongly-aligned races (say, drow and elves) full of outright hatred and brutal, constant, total war. Finally, biologically incompatible races are very interesting - consider a world of myconids, yuan-ti, thri-kreen, and frost giants. For the most part, they can't expand into each other's territory, and overall, they don't have any reason to either compete or collaborate. The vast, vast, vast majority would never even see a member of another race, and you could expect empathy and cultural understanding to be basically non-existent. Would this lead to pointless conflict, or a long lasting, if unfriendly, peace?

I personally really didn't like 3.5 tippyverse style settings, because of both the post-scarcity elements and the massive first-mover advantages, but I actually think the 5e analog is shaping out to be really cool. I'm currently DMing a campaign I intend to make kinda spelljammer / planescape like at higher levels, and, especially considering how all the vital infrastructure for this sort of world only requires level 10 or so characters, I'm thinking this makes an interesting baseline model for what a world that developed under a Githyanki yoke might end up looking like.

This is probably the last set of original thoughts I'll be having on this topic (unless someone brings up something totally new I hadn't considered) so I'll just close with a character sheet for "The Economy, Stupid" a 10th-level bard.


Race: Half-Elf
Class: Bard 10, College of Lore
Background: Guild Member
Ability Scores: 18 CHA, 16 WIS, 16 INT, 10 CON, 8 DEX, 8 STR
Skills: Arcana, History, Nature, Insight, Persuasion, Deception, Performance, Investigation, Perception, Intimidation
Other proficiencies: Smith's, Alchemist's, Carpenter's, and Mason's tools; Flute, viola, dulcimer
Feats: Skilled
Expertise: Perception, Insight, Persuasion
Cantrips: Friends, Mending, Message, Prestidigitation
1st Level Spells: Unseen Servant
2nd Level Spells: Enlarge / Reduce, Detect Thoughts, Enhance Ability, Heat Metal, Zone of Truth,
3rd Level Spells: Glyph of Warding, Clairvoyance, Spirit Guardians, Sending
4th Level Spells: Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum
5th Level Spells: Teleportation Circle, Legend Lore, Raise Dead

Spells in bold are what's really important for him being the center of the economy. Spells in italics are spells gained from magical secrets.

[DragonSinged]

Since it takes 8 hours to complete a long rest you can only complete 2 long rests per day which means 18 total sorcery point and two 5th level spell slots.

I've seen this mentioned at least twice, and haven't seen anyone comment on it. I'm AFB at the moment, so I can't quote you a page number until I'm off work, but I'm fairly certain the PHB mentions that you can only take one long rest per day. This will probably change your calculations, and is semi important for gameplay - depending on your groups style.

EDIT: PHB page 186: "A character can't benefit from more than one long rest in a 24 hour period, and a character must have at least 1 hit point at the start of the rest to gain its benefits."

[SiuiS]

The 3.5 tippyverse isn't that bad. It's "in your regular D&D game, a bunch of wizards live in the matrix and have secret wars in dimensions you'll never know about. In fact, if I didn't tell you this, you'd probably never know." And that's about it. If you play in the matrix, it's different, but all it does is add on to the normal D&D framework, not replace it.

Any blowback for it is directed at the dogma of it's existence. I dislike assumptions, especially ones for which the premise is clearly flawed when examined. "If there is a spell called teleportation circle, then a tippyverse exists" is one such premise. I'm not interested so much either way in whether it does or does not exist. I'm just really irate that the fundamental, elemental underpinnings of something so grand and sweeping aren't examined beforehand and folks would try to avoid basic scrutiny.


Other than that, the fundamental problem of "why is magic being treated like an agricultural/mechanical advancement instead of a fundamental force that divides the haves from the have not a by their ability to force reality into obedience" is unanswered. I don't understand why it should be a given than any magic user would do anything for some mere mortal who thinks money or political station matter at all. But that's me, just means that my games tend to fall into the half of quantum games wherein the tippy point is not reached. :smallsmile:

[Knaight]

Any blowback for it is directed at the dogma of it's existence. I dislike assumptions, especially ones for which the premise is clearly flawed when examined. "If there is a spell called teleportation circle, then a tippyverse exists" is one such premise. I'm not interested so much either way in whether it does or does not exist. I'm just really irate that the fundamental, elemental underpinnings of something so grand and sweeping aren't examined beforehand and folks would try to avoid basic scrutiny.

That's not an assumption, it's a definition. The tippyverse is specifically defined to be a world where teleportation circles are in use - there's a bunch of other stuff that gets brought up for the 3e tippyverse, but the core definition is just the teleportation circle network.

[Draken]

That's not an assumption, it's a definition. The tippyverse is specifically defined to be a world where teleportation circles are in use - there's a bunch of other stuff that gets brought up for the 3e tippyverse, but the core definition is just the teleportation circle network.

A more proper definition would be "a world where humans will be human and employ any available means to achieve economical and political progress/power". In this case the means is magic, and teleportation circles are the most obvious instance to tackle, since they severely warp the usual limitations on travel and transport.

[SiuiS]

That's not an assumption, it's a definition. The tippyverse is specifically defined to be a world where teleportation circles are in use - there's a bunch of other stuff that gets brought up for the 3e tippyverse, but the core definition is just the teleportation circle network.

No, it's an assumption, because having a spell and calling it teleportation circle does not mean the spell will operate in the exact fashion necessary for a tippyverse to form. For example, 5e has a spell called teleportation circle, but it does not by default allow a tippyverse to form. There is no network that does anything which allows a tippyverse to form.

Unless you mean there is literally nothing more to it than a setting where teleportation is used in a network, in which case there's no such thing as a tippyverse, since it predates tippy by at least fifty years, seeing as how fantasy and science fiction have been doing that for a long time. Definitions need a certain amount of specificity before they're valid.

[Vogonjeltz]

A nuisance but not a hurdle to setting up. It operates more as a function of what sort of downtime would be needed for players to create permanent circles. A year to set one up is a minor nuisance for any organization with the resources and manpower.

I have to disagree about the difficulty. To actually create a link, one would require access to the location 365 consecutive days.

I suppose one could construct an interesting adventure around the idea that some enemy spy is seeking to construct a permanent circle somewhere in the city with the role of the adventurers is to find and disrupt the circle before time runs out!...although given that it's inscribed in chalk, I imagine they can do that pretty easily even if the link is made "permanent".

Anyway, the problem remains one of access. The duration of TC is only 1 round, so without some means of long distance communication, prior to the establishment of a permanent circle, both parties would have to set an agreed upon time to open the doorway. This could be trickier than expected given that accurate time could be incredibly hard to establish, especially from what could be different time zones. Noon at the casting location might be dusk at point B.

The other access problem is who holds the keys. Even doing this requires at least one Bard/Sorcerer/Wizard of 9th level or more. 9th level pretty much at the point of being better than all of the rest of society.


Tippyverse is technically defined by the teleportation circles, yes, but what its most defining quality is not the teleportation circles themselves, but the extent to to which the market is driven by them and other magical exploits.

Yes, but the only methods to activate the circle in 5th edition are using very high level spells. That basically rules out any normal kind of trade as there simply aren't enough people who can even cast the spell to make it reasonable. 3rd edition teleportation circle required no additional magic, 5th does.

[Asmotherion]

-Fabricate; Make expensive stuff (plate armor comes to mind) out of relativelly low cost material, and sell them (yes, you need profficiency with artisan tools to do that; get it). Some may even come for free like cutting down some logs and turning them into a bridge, or finding a big boulder and turning it into the statur of a local noble, who told you he'll buy it.

-Wall of Stone; Once you've concentrated enough, it's duration is "permanent; cannot be dispelled", effectivelly making it as good as "Instantaneus". Shape the walls any way you like, and you can make anything from a Castle, to a full City out of them, given enough time. That's not for your housing though; You have spells like "Mage's Tower" "Alarm" and "Rope Trick" to ensure you'll never be prone and unaware when the DM decides to murder you in your sleep. No, you can use it for profit, building yourself a site that would otherwise cost millions of Gold, workers and Materialls, as long as you find a firm rock formation, and turn around an hour of work and some spell slots into a huge profit.

-Planar Binding; What's better than 1 pair of Hands, especially in an action ecconomy based game? The infamous spell that can fill a vacant party role at the cost of a spell slot and some (though not insignificat) amount of gold. But, we all know how minionmancy always pays out in the end. Planar Binding may be my spell of choice for this, but this is generally about minionmancy spells. All of them deserve a spot in creating a 5e Tippyverse, for their sheer versatility. Unseen Servants/Animate Dead/Create Undead Spells, Conjure Elemental/Woodland etc spells, Infernal/Abysal Calling spells, Planar Ally spells, Dance Macabre/Animate Objects/Gate and any other spell that falls under minionmancy goes into the same category. The reason they are in this list is beyond the combat contribution; It's how those can be used to gain free labor and potentially free spells and affect the ecconomy with them.

-Teleport/Plane Shift/Gate taxi; Yes, when you have the virtual monopoly in Planar and Dimensional Travel, at least loccaly, it can become a VERY profitable buisness. Invest enough time to make some permanent circles, and Tax a fee for using them. Proffit.

-Simulacrum Army; What's better than 1 Spellcaster able to cast 7th level spells? 2 Spellcasters able to cast 7th level spells. What's better than 2 Spellcaster able to cast 7th level spells? An army of 'em. The utility is limitless with this one. Even at entry level, you virtually gain the ability to double your effective spell slots, and esswentially get to play twice in a round, potentially at no cost if you have decent cantrips. Also, you gain more spell slots to do all the tricks discussed above. But, where this truelly shines, is when you gain a few more levels:

-True Polymorph. Polymorph any Object's little cousin that lives in 5e town. Really versatile, can turn people into Dragons, make small armies out of pebbles and other absurd things. Do I really need to describe how a Dragon Army can be turned into Profit? Let your imagination fill the gaps.

-Wish. There is no telling how powerful Wish has become in 5e Days; You can replicate ANY other spell, as long as it's 8th level or less. Period. Oh, and did I mention XP components are not a thing any more? Only if you go the high gambling route are you to suffer consequences. But, hey, who does that? Oh, right. Your simulacrums, who you don't care if they can ever cast wish again, as they are totally expendable. So, if you're looking for a way to replicate the Tippyverse Wish Traps, that's the closest to it you can get. A chain of replicas of yourself, that cast as many Fabricates and other money making spells as they have spell slots to spare, then a simulacrum of yourself/themself (make sure to save some spellslots for it though) and then Wish for whatever you want. Don't worry that they'll suffer stress or whatever, as they can then True Polymorph themselves, and Pinochio can finally become a real boy (Or, heck, even a Dragon version, if you want), who's still under his original personality of being friendly to you and your pals and following his creator's every command. Including "treat this guy as well as me as your creator for all purposes". Rince and repeat indefinatelly.

-Since, by now you have an indefinite amount of spellcasters of the same level as you to help you craft a magic item, you can potentially finish an indefinite amount of Legendary Items within 8 hours of work. Rings of 3 wishes, Legendary Wands of the War Caster, the best Armors in the Game, Rings of Telekinesis... you name it, and it's yours within 8 hours. As your Simulacrum will probably populate a small City, it's time to get ourselves a Bigger Base... Or a network of them... introducing:

-Become immortal via Clone & Demiplane Spells. Yeap, nothing stops you from using your Wish spell to replicate a Clone Spell at 0 cost. Casting Demiplane is also free, so you can have an indefinite amount of Clones of You (in the off-chance you ever meet something able to withstand an indefinite amount of Wish spells thrown at it in the same round) in a virtually inaccessible place waiting, together with some of your simulacrums and a selection of Legendary Items you hoard in this 30 foot room.

Those are in my opinion the spells that contribute in a Tippy-level universe with 5e mechanics. Perhaps there are more, but that's the stuff I currently judge as the "most influential" in a world's ecconomy.

Finally a honorary mention to the "Mold Earth" cantrip, as it can cover multiple worker's effort in a small amount of time (6 seconds = aproximatelly 4 hours of work from an average miner!!!), and make you some quick Gold with minimum effort and at no spell slot cost.

EDIT:

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Damn it... Why did I think I saw this in "recent" threads? :smalleek: Anyway, happy new year to you as well!

[Millstone85]

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[truemane]

Metamagic Mod: nothing says Happy New Year like a closed thread.