How much grain can go through a Teleportation Circle?

[JoeJ]

This came up because I've been thinking about how magic might affect everyday society.

Assume for the sake of argument that objects can pass through a Teleportation Circle (the spell just says creatures). An enterprising wizard wants to deliver grain to a distant city by dropping it from a bin down a chute and through a Teleportation Circle to a destination circle located inside a warehouse, where there's another bin for the grain to fall into. The circle is 10 feet in diameter, so about 78.5 square feet in area. How many bushels grain can get through that portal in the 1 round that it's open?

[Keltest]

You need to tell us how big your bushels of grain are. Are they packed in containers or just uncontained bushels?

[JoeJ]

You need to tell us how big your bushels of grain are. Are they packed in containers or just uncontained bushels?

The grain is running down a chute, so it's going through in bulk. By bushel I mean the imperial bushel of about 36.4 liters, but an answer in any common unit of volume is fine.

[sktarq]

Well if you get it falling from high enough you could have a 9'11" barrel falling through at terminal velocity (any faster would need a Bigby's hand spell or something for more force) Figure out one round in seconds (classically 6) -so from terminal velocity and the six seconds you can get a height-a cylinder of that by ten foot is total volume you could get in. Multiply by density of whole grain wheat.
All those numbers should be a couple Google/Bing searches away.

[MaxWilson]

Well if you get it falling from high enough you could have a 9'11" barrel falling through at terminal velocity (any faster would need a Bigby's hand spell or something for more force)

Or just a vacuum, since terminal velocity occurs when air resistance balances gravity.

Although I'm not sure that the physics of falling and terminal velocity work the same way in D&D as in real life. The falling damage rules suggest a much higher viscosity of air than on Earth--so your Google searches may give you bad info.

Ask your DM.

[pwykersotz]

This came up because I've been thinking about how magic might affect everyday society.

Assume for the sake of argument that objects can pass through a Teleportation Circle (the spell just says creatures). An enterprising wizard wants to deliver grain to a distant city by dropping it from a bin down a chute and through a Teleportation Circle to a destination circle located inside a warehouse, where there's another bin for the grain to fall into. The circle is 10 feet in diameter, so about 78.5 square feet in area. How many bushels grain can get through that portal in the 1 round that it's open?

I would rule that if it was set up efficiently, double the initial capacity. The initial capacity would be filled prior to the circle being engaged, and in the 1 round, it could fill up to full once more.

This is based less on physics and more on wanting it to be playable and rewarding without worrying about terminal velocity calculations. :smalltongue:

[JoeJ]

Ask your DM.

Since this is in the context of designing a world, I'm afraid that suggesting is not quite as practical as it might appear. I would be the DM.

[MaxWilson]

Since this is in the context of designing a world, I'm afraid that suggesting is not quite as practical as it might appear. I would be the DM.

Ah, okay. Then my question for you would be, how do you deal with terminal velocity? Earth physics? Vacuums allowed? Is lightspeed a thing? Do you really want the theoretical maximum, or just a decent practical maximum? Are the chutes frictionless? What is the geometry of the chutes?

If you just want a decent practical maximum I endorse pwykersotz's approach: pick an integer multiple of regular volume, and just assume that all the other factors like chute geometry happen to work out in such a way that the integer multiple works. I.e. handwave it.

[mgshamster]

So.

Ignoring friction. If we were to make a tube X feet high that could drop in to the teleportation circle.

The formula for determining the distance for an object falling from rest is 1/2g*t^2.

t = 9 seconds (from the time you cast it until the end of your next turn, so I'm estimating a turn and a half).

g = 32.2 ft/s^2

So our theoretical height is about 1345 ft.

The area is 10 ft circle, or 3.14*25 = 78.5 ft^2

So that's about 105,583 cubic feet per casting, assuming everything else is set up and you have a frictionless tube (which could really just be a high level grease spell).

Or approximately 23 Boeing 747s hallowed out and filled with grain.

:)

[Keltest]

Out of curiosity, is this something you actually intend to be a relevant detail, or are you just trying to figure out if its practical or not?

[mgshamster]

In game, I'd say a wagon full per turn.

Figure out the average carrying capacity of a wagon or the average volume (x1.5 for overloading the wagon and mounding it up) and that's about how much will go through.

[MaxWilson]

The area is 10 ft circle, or 3.14*25 = 78.5 ft^2

So that's about 105,583 cubic feet per casting, assuming everything else is set up and you have a frictionless tube (which could really just be a high level grease spell).

Or approximately 23 Boeing 747s hallowed out and filled with grain.

:)

Thanks for doing the calculations, but here's an interesting detail: despite the name, Teleportation Circle does not actually turn the whole circle into a teleportation region. There's a portal within the circle that appears, normally perpendicular to the circle. The spell doesn't say how large it is, or whether it is possible to affect the orientation of the portal.

We can treat your calculations as a practical upper bound on the grain transfer, if the portal can be expanded to fill the entire circle horizontally. But the lower bound depends on the details of the portal, which aren't specified.

[Foxhound438]

optimally you would have a setup that allows a column of rice to fall through the portal with no friction.

so the max volume would be the area of the circle * the height of a column that can fall through

you have to do a simple integral to find the well-known x=1/2*a*t^2

The duration is 1 round, or 6 seconds

78.5 ft^2 * .5*32.17(ft/s^s)*(6s)^2 = 45456.21 ft^3, however many barrels or whatever conversion you need.

rice is about 45 lbs/ft^3, and costs about 2 dollars per pound, so it's over 4 million dollars of rice, optimally.

You could get a lot more through if you let the column of rice freefall for a time, but then you have to expend resources raising it up to a height in the first place.

[Foxhound438]

Thanks for doing the calculations, but here's an interesting detail: despite the name, Teleportation Circle does not actually turn the whole circle into a teleportation region. There's a portal within the circle that appears, normally perpendicular to the circle. The spell doesn't say how large it is, or whether it is possible to affect the orientation of the portal.

We can treat your calculations as a practical upper bound on the grain transfer, if the portal can be expanded to fill the entire circle horizontally. But the lower bound depends on the details of the portal, which aren't specified.

you would assume the actual portal can be made to fit in the entire region, or else you would never be able to actually calculate it until you have a ruling on the exact size of it.

[MaxWilson]

you would assume the actual portal can be made to fit in the entire region, or else you would never be able to actually calculate it until you have a ruling on the exact size of it.

In this case we have the actual DM available (JoeJ) so we don't have to make assumptions--we can find out for sure.

[Laserlight]

Of all the things you can send through a Teleportal, you want bullk grain? High volume, low value, not particularly perishable. I would expect it would be more economical to put 100 tons on a ship with ten crew, no class levels needed.

Now, if you're teleporting a pile of gems, spices, something like that...

[mgshamster]

Of all the things you can send through a Teleportal, you want bullk grain? High volume, low value, not particularly perishable. I would expect it would be more economical to put 100 tons on a ship with ten crew, no class levels needed.

Now, if you're teleporting a pile of gems, spices, something like that...

Never discount the value of food.

[JoeJ]

Out of curiosity, is this something you actually intend to be a relevant detail, or are you just trying to figure out if its practical or not?

This is actually relevant. I'm working on a Spelljammer setting and trying to think through the logistics of feeding the 12,000 people living on the Rock of Bral (which I've renamed Turtle Rock, although that doesn't matter).

As described in canon, the bottom of the rock is used for agriculture, but that's much too small. Based on figures from Piggott's book Ancient Europe, a household of 5 people should require just over 7 acres to provide enough food if they're mainly growing wheat. For maize, it would be more like 5 acres per household, based on Schroeder's Maize Productivity in the Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains of North America. I don't have figures for rice, but they're probably similar. The bottom line is that the underside of the Rock only has room to grow enough food for about 500-700 people, even counting the effects of Plant Growth.

They can, of course, make up the difference by bringing food in with ships. But it occurred to me that a 9th level wizard (by which I actually mean a wizard, bard, or sorcerer, take your pick) can cast Teleportation Circle once a day, or twice at 10th level. Even if spellcasters maintain an aristocratic lifestyle, one wizard probably costs a lot less than maintaining a fleet of ships large enough to transport the same quantity of food.

For simplicity, I can do a back of the envelope calculation assuming a continuous stream of grain falling for about 1 second before reaching the portal. That's a 16 foot drop, which seems reasonable for a grain bin. So a steady stream of grain passing through a 10 foot diameter portal at 32 feet per second for six seconds should be just over 15,000 cubic feet, or 11,679 imperial bushels. That's enough to provide the full caloric requirement of well over 1,000 people for a full year. Falling grain wouldn't be tightly packed, however, so maybe half or less of that actually gets through.

Does that sound about right? In my day job I'm an archaeologist, not a physicist, so I might have made a mistake somewhere.

[Waar]

This is actually relevant. I'm working on a Spelljammer setting and trying to think through the logistics of feeding the 12,000 people living on the Rock of Bral (which I've renamed Turtle Rock, although that doesn't matter).

As described in canon, the bottom of the rock is used for agriculture, but that's much too small. Based on figures from Piggott's book Ancient Europe, a household of 5 people should require just over 7 acres to provide enough food if they're mainly growing wheat. For maize, it would be more like 5 acres per household, based on Schroeder's Maize Productivity in the Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains of North America. I don't have figures for rice, but they're probably similar. The bottom line is that the underside of the Rock only has room to grow enough food for about 500-700 people, even counting the effects of Plant Growth.

They can, of course, make up the difference by bringing food in with ships. But it occurred to me that a 9th level wizard (by which I actually mean a wizard, bard, or sorcerer, take your pick) can cast Teleportation Circle once a day, or twice at 10th level. Even if spellcasters maintain an aristocratic lifestyle, one wizard probably costs a lot less than maintaining a fleet of ships large enough to transport the same quantity of food.

For simplicity, I can do a back of the envelope calculation assuming a continuous stream of grain falling for about 1 second before reaching the portal. That's a 16 foot drop, which seems reasonable for a grain bin. So a steady stream of grain passing through a 10 foot diameter portal at 32 feet per second for six seconds should be just over 15,000 cubic feet, or 11,679 imperial bushels. That's enough to provide the full caloric requirement of well over 1,000 people for a full year. Falling grain wouldn't be tightly packed, however, so maybe half or less of that actually gets through.

Does that sound about right? In my day job I'm an archaeologist, not a physicist, so I might have made a mistake somewhere.

The reasoning sound solid, and so does the math, in practice you could fit in more grain it you tried alot, but your figures seem fine.

[manny2510]

Have you solved for the optimized magic creation of food? For example, troll flayers, hydra flayers, tarrasque flayers, and create food and water.

[Naanomi]

0 level Varient Human->magic initiate->goodberry

Eating real grown food is for the rich, everyone else eats at McGoodberry's

[mgshamster]

Instead of making it a hole in the ground from which you could drop food, make it perpendicular to the ground for which a wagon could drive through.

Cast Teleporation Circle in the same spot every day for a year, and it's now permanent. Then you can have a trade route from one location where the farms are to another location where the city is.

Assume some number of people can be fed per wagon full of food (say 1000 people per wagon - just making that up). Now you need 12 wagons full of [food] per [unit of time] to feed the city.

Make the math simple and handwave the rest away. If it ever comes up as a plot point, then just make it so the portal isn't working for some reason (magic made it go somewhere else, for example, or it stopped) or have the farms attacked.

Heck, you could even set up a giant farming location that supplies several off world communities via permanent teleportation circles. It could also work as a central travel hub between those locations. Of course, there's a high tax for using the teleportation circles for anything other than food or water (they want to make a profit, but they're good aligned and set up laws and regulations to prevent massive profits on basic necessities).

I might do this for my next campaign. :)

[ericgrau]

Well if you get it falling from high enough you could have a 9'11" barrel falling through at terminal velocity (any faster would need a Bigby's hand spell or something for more force) Figure out one round in seconds (classically 6) -so from terminal velocity and the six seconds you can get a height-a cylinder of that by ten foot is total volume you could get in. Multiply by density of whole grain wheat.
All those numbers should be a couple Google/Bing searches away.

50 m/s * (77.24 SF = 0.09 m^2) * 750 kg/m^3 = 3,375 kg/s = 7.425 lbs/s = 44,550 lbs per round.

Note that 50 m/s is human terminal velocity and a dense barrel will probably have a higher terminal velocity. But it would also have to be dropped from a very large height to reach that velocity. 50 m/s for example requires a height of at least (50 m/s)^2 / (2* 9.8 m/s) = 127.5 meters = 418 feet. And actually a little more than that due to air resistance. Not a lot more because air resistance is low until you get close to terminal velocity. But I'm guessing a good 500 feet.

It seems like plenty of grain so you might accept a lower dropping height and lower velocity.

[Slipperychicken]

Have you solved for the optimized magic creation of food? For example, troll flayers, hydra flayers, tarrasque flayers, and create food and water.

I get the feeling troll meat hardly makes for a satisfying or pleasant meal.

[mgshamster]

I get the feeling troll meat hardly makes for a satisfying or pleasant meal.

Just add in some spices. That'll fix everything. :)

[Amaranthine]

Instead of making it a hole in the ground from which you could drop food, make it perpendicular to the ground for which a wagon could drive through.

Cast Teleporation Circle in the same spot every day for a year, and it's now permanent. Then you can have a trade route from one location where the farms are to another location where the city is.
The permanent Teleportation Circle created is not permanently open. It is just permanently available as a target for a Teleport spell.

[mgshamster]

The permanent Teleportation Circle created is not permanently open. It is just permanently available as a target for a Teleport spell.

Lame. Oh well, just Houserule the change to make the campaign setting viable.

[Laserlight]

Never discount the value of food.

Unless you're in a siege, food generally has a low value per unit. 50lb of rice would cost me $28; 50lb of silver would be about $11,000. And silver is about 18 times as dense as rice, so the disparity on basis of volume is about 7000:1.

I'm not saying "there are no circumstances under which teleporting grain would be economical", just pointing out that you have two factors to consider:
a. what is the price of "hiring L9 casters plus maintaining the portal" vs "hiring a ship and crew"--which includes "what else could we use that spell slot for instead of teleport"?
b. what is the opportunity cost of using that tport to transport something cheap and bulky instead of expensive and small?

[Petrocorus]

They can, of course, make up the difference by bringing food in with ships. But it occurred to me that a 9th level wizard (by which I actually mean a wizard, bard, or sorcerer, take your pick) can cast Teleportation Circle once a day, or twice at 10th level. Even if spellcasters maintain an aristocratic lifestyle, one wizard probably costs a lot less than maintaining a fleet of ships large enough to transport the same quantity of food.

Well, if your wizard cast the spell once a day for a year, the TC become permanent and then you don't really need to make any more calculation. And the TC could be use in many more ways than for supplies.

Of course, this is a step toward a Tippyverse.



For simplicity, I can do a back of the envelope calculation assuming a continuous stream of grain falling for about 1 second before reaching the portal. That's a 16 foot drop, which seems reasonable for a grain bin. So a steady stream of grain passing through a 10 foot diameter portal at 32 feet per second for six seconds should be just over 15,000 cubic feet, or 11,679 imperial bushels. That's enough to provide the full caloric requirement of well over 1,000 people for a full year. Falling grain wouldn't be tightly packed, however, so maybe half or less of that actually gets through.

I can't really help with your calculation, since your cubic feet and bushels sound alien to me, but i'm interesting in your data. What caloric requirement did you used, an average of 2000 kcal per person?
You also need to transport other food than grain. Wheat, oats or maize alone are not enough far a balance diet.


Have you solved for the optimized magic creation of food? For example, troll flayers, hydra flayers, tarrasque flayers, and create food and water.

Is there many people who'd want to eat troll or hydra meat?

[Slipperychicken]

Unless you're in a siege, food generally has a low value per unit. 50lb of rice would cost me $28; 50lb of silver would be about $11,000. And silver is about 18 times as dense as rice, so the disparity on basis of volume is about 7000:1.

I'm not saying "there are no circumstances under which teleporting grain would be economical", just pointing out that you have two factors to consider:
a. what is the price of "hiring L9 casters plus maintaining the portal" vs "hiring a ship and crew"--which includes "what else could we use that spell slot for instead of teleport"?
b. what is the opportunity cost of using that tport to transport something cheap and bulky instead of expensive and small?

As a business major, this kind of stuff always bothers me.


For getting common non-perishable goods to a place, people will generally use the cheapest method available and move it in bulk. Some rich dude might be willing to pay extra for fresh lobster, but the majority will simply eat the cheapest palatable fare. You're not going to airlift normal food to a place unless it's a dire need and consumers can't wait for the normal channels.


If you have very fast transportation like a teleporter, then you'll want to move things that are time-sensitive, have security requirements (i.e. you don't want it getting intercepted in transit), and/or have high value per weight. That means information, parcels, and perishables. If you can get a message or a gift to a faraway city within a day, that's a lot faster than conventional means. And you can also achieve some returns moving exotic perishable foods (such as fresh seafood from the other side of the world) to noblemen with expensive tastes.


And there's the obvious option of moving human beings. Some people will pay a high price to move between cities that quickly. You might even offer this service at a discount to the government (and other powerful actors) in exchange for favorable treatment.

[Segev]

Well, if your wizard cast the spell once a day for a year, the TC become permanent and then you don't really need to make any more calculation. And the TC could be use in many more ways than for supplies.

Actually, in context, "permanent teleportation circle" doesn't seem to mean "permanently active," but rather a valid target point for other teleportation circles to link to. In other words, you'd still have to cast the spell to get it to work.

[JoeJ]

Unless you're in a siege, food generally has a low value per unit. 50lb of rice would cost me $28; 50lb of silver would be about $11,000. And silver is about 18 times as dense as rice, so the disparity on basis of volume is about 7000:1.

I'm not saying "there are no circumstances under which teleporting grain would be economical", just pointing out that you have two factors to consider:
a. what is the price of "hiring L9 casters plus maintaining the portal" vs "hiring a ship and crew"--which includes "what else could we use that spell slot for instead of teleport"?
b. what is the opportunity cost of using that tport to transport something cheap and bulky instead of expensive and small?

First of all, it takes a year to set up the receiving end. That's much more likely to be justified for regular bulk shipments than for the occasional high value transport. For the latter, the higher level Teleport spell would be preferable.

Second, it misses the point. The question was not, "What's the most profitable commodity to move through a Teleportation Circle?" but "What's the most practical way to move hundreds of tons of food across millions of miles of wild space?" Using the napkin calculations above and allowing for a 50% reduction from the grain not being tightly packed, the wizard is sending through about 175 tons of grain with each casting. That's a little more than 7 fully loaded squid ships, each of which has a crew of 12, including at least one spellcaster to operate the helm. Figure that you're paying the crews for at least several days to possibly several weeks of travel time round trip, plus additional handling to get the grain from the dock to the warehouse.


To Petrocorus: I'm using Schroeder's figures of 2,500 calories per adult and 1,910 per child for a five-person household (2 adults and 3 children). This assumes that 100% of the calories come from the grain, which is obviously not completely realistic. Grain can be traded for other foods, however, so it's a lot simpler just to calculate it this way and add the footnote that some of the "grain" is actually other things. Since all I needed was a ballpark figure to tell me whether or not the idea is feasible, that should be close enough.

[JackPhoenix]

First of all, it takes a year to set up the receiving end. That's much more likely to be justified for regular bulk shipments than for the occasional high value transport. For the latter, the higher level Teleport spell would be preferable.

Second, it misses the point. The question was not, "What's the most profitable commodity to move through a Teleportation Circle?" but "What's the most practical way to move hundreds of tons of food across millions of miles of wild space?" Using the napkin calculations above and allowing for a 50% reduction from the grain not being tightly packed, the wizard is sending through about 175 tons of grain with each casting. That's a little more than 7 fully loaded squid ships, each of which has a crew of 12, including at least one spellcaster to operate the helm. Figure that you're paying the crews for at least several days to possibly several weeks of travel time round trip, plus additional handling to get the grain from the dock to the warehouse.


To Petrocorus: I'm using Schroeder's figures of 2,500 calories per adult and 1,910 per child for a five-person household (2 adults and 3 children). This assumes that 100% of the calories come from the grain, which is obviously not completely realistic. Grain can be traded for other foods, however, so it's a lot simpler just to calculate it this way and add the footnote that some of the "grain" is actually other things. Since all I needed was a ballpark figure to tell me whether or not the idea is feasible, that should be close enough.

If you want to go by simple route of the rules instead of counting calories or something, a character needs pound of food per day (PHB p. 185), meaning you would need 12 000 pounds of food for 12 000 people (presumably, children needs less, and some will eat more, so in the end, it would average).

PHB doesn't have weight capacity for wagons and such, but short search informed me that typical 4-wheeled horse drawn wagon had a capacity of about 3000 pounds (no idea if that's true)...so you need to find a way to get 4 such wagons through.

[Slipperychicken]

PHB doesn't have weight capacity for wagons and such

The animals' carry capacity, times five, minus the weight of the vehicle.

PHB 155 - 157
"An animal pulling a carriage, cart, chariot, sled, or wagon can move weight up to five times its base carrying capacity, including the weight of the vehicle. If multiple animals pull the same vehicle, they can add their carrying capacity together."


For example, a wagon pulled by a pair of mules can carry up to (420 pounds* 2 mules * 5) - 400 for the wagon itself = 3,800 pounds of goods or passengers. If we assume the wagon's driver and all his personal belongings (including his own tent, food, spare wheel, and so on) to weigh no more than a combined 300 pounds, that leaves 3,500 for his goods.

[bid]

Dashing at speed 60', you can send anyone within 12 squares or about 625 individuals. With Str10, that's 150 lbs each and 93750 lbs of food per casting.

[mgshamster]

I'm using Schroeder's figures of 2,500 calories per adult and 1,910 per child for a five-person household (2 adults and 3 children). This assumes that 100% of the calories come from the grain, which is obviously not completely realistic. Grain can be traded for other foods, however, so it's a lot simpler just to calculate it this way and add the footnote that some of the "grain" is actually other things. Since all I needed was a ballpark figure to tell me whether or not the idea is feasible, that should be close enough.

Don't make it complicated. The PHB says a character needs 1 pound of food per day and 1 gallon of water per day. There's no mention on whether the character is small, medium, or any other size. So let's use that figure for everyone and the difference in children will be balanced out by those who simply eat more than usual.

Our city of 12,000 people needs approximately 12,000 pounds of food and 12,000 gallons of water every day.

Based on the lower calculation in this thread (thank you, Foxhound), we're rounding up and estimating a maximum of 50,000 cubic feet of rice/grain/[food].

Let's assume 10 lbs of food per cubic foot (I know we found the figure of 45 lbs of rice per cubic foot, so this estimation is to account for other food types and containers). Each casting gives us a potential 500,000 lbs of food transportation.

For water, it's 7.5 gallons per cubic foot. Let's round down to 5 to account for containers. That's 250,000 gallons of water per casting.

So 3 castings will supply our city of 12,000 with enough food and water to last about 40 days.

[Slipperychicken]

Dashing at speed 60', you can send anyone within 12 squares or about 625 individuals. With Str10, that's 150 lbs each and 93750 lbs of food per casting.

If you want more, just replace most of the people with mules. They are medium sized, have carry capacity 420lb each and a move speed of 40 feet. So you can have a 16 square radius of pack animals stampede through the portal.

You can make it more efficient if a cart will go through with a mule pulling it. Just put a medium cart behind the mule, and that gets you 1900lb per two squares (already subtracted the cart's own weight), which is 950lb per square within 16 squares of the portal.

[JoeJ]

Don't make it complicated. The PHB says a character needs 1 pound of food per day and 1 gallon of water per day. There's no mention on whether the character is small, medium, or any other size. So let's use that figure for everyone and the difference in children will be balanced out by those who simply eat more than usual.

Our city of 12,000 people needs approximately 12,000 pounds of food and 12,000 gallons of water every day.

Based on the lower calculation in this thread (thank you, Foxhound), we're rounding up and estimating a maximum of 50,000 cubic feet of rice/grain/[food].

Let's assume 10 lbs of food per cubic foot (I know we found the figure of 45 lbs of rice per cubic foot, so this estimation is to account for other food types and containers). Each casting gives us a potential 500,000 lbs of food transportation.

For water, it's 7.5 gallons per cubic foot. Let's round down to 5 to account for containers. That's 250,000 gallons of water per casting.

So 3 castings will supply our city of 12,000 with enough food and water to last about 40 days.

Water comes from a large lake, which is replenished by dropping pieces of ice asteroids into it every few years. So it looks like a single wizard needs to work for about two weeks every year at harvest time to bring in enough food for the next year (plus some extra to cover losses and emergencies).

[mgshamster]

Water comes from a large lake, which is replenished by dropping pieces of ice asteroids into it every few years. So it looks like a single wizard needs to work for about two weeks every year at harvest time to bring in enough food for the next year (plus some extra to cover losses and emergencies).

If you remove the water, then it's 1 casting per 40 days. For a standard earth year, that's 9.1 castings, rounding up to an even 10. So a single caster has to cast the spell 10 times a year to supply the city - either all at once or spread throughout the year to represent different harvests for different food types.

This is all assuming you already have the contraption built to shoot [food] through a frictionless tube from X feet high (part of which can be accounted for by our significant rounding down) into the teleportation circle, and the other side has the cabaility to catch it, move it, and store it.

[8wGremlin]

Should you look at this another way.

The problem is how to feed your population given that you have a restricted viable land mass/growing area.

What assets do you have?
For instance as stated above a first level Druid with some berries can feed 10 people.
They also have guidance cantrip to help with skills, and control flames for fire and light control. Some Druids can have create water, others have purify food and drink.

100 1st level Druids could provide 1000 people food from blackberry vines that are very hardy.

With vines of berries you can grow up as well as across your growing area.

Also it doesn't require high level casters.

[JoeJ]

Should you look at this another way.

The problem is how to feed your population given that you have a restricted viable land mass/growing area.

What assets do you have?
For instance as stated above a first level Druid with some berries can feed 10 people.
They also have guidance cantrip to help with skills, and control flames for fire and light control. Some Druids can have create water, others have purify food and drink.

100 1st level Druids could provide 1000 people food from blackberry vines that are very hardy.

With vines of berries you can grow up as well as across your growing area.

Also it doesn't require high level casters.

1,200 1st level druids seems like rather a lot to find living in a city of 12,000. I should think that a single 9th level wizard, sorcerer, or bard would be more likely, especially in a Spelljammer setting. (Not that having 1/10 of the population be low level druids couldn't be interesting in its own right.)

[mgshamster]

Should you look at this another way.

The problem is how to feed your population given that you have a restricted viable land mass/growing area.

What assets do you have?
For instance as stated above a first level Druid with some berries can feed 10 people.
They also have guidance cantrip to help with skills, and control flames for fire and light control. Some Druids can have create water, others have purify food and drink.

100 1st level Druids could provide 1000 people food from blackberry vines that are very hardy.

With vines of berries you can grow up as well as across your growing area.

Also it doesn't require high level casters.

This requires about 10% of your population to be dedicated to food production. Doesn't have to be Druids; could be some with the magic initiate feat as well.

What we need is 1200 spell slots. A person with magic initiate can cast it once a day. A 1st level Druid can cast it twice a day. A 3rd level Druid can cast it 6x per day using second level spell slots.

If we just have 3rd level Druids, we only need 200 of them to feed the city. Maybe have the leader be a few levels higher and the majority be 1st level Druids or magic initiate people. So we likely need somewhere around 6-700 people to produce Goodberry for a population of 12,000.

[8wGremlin]

1,200 1st level druids seems like rather a lot to find living in a city of 12,000. I should think that a single 9th level wizard, sorcerer, or bard would be more likely, especially in a Spelljammer setting. (Not that having 1/10 of the population be low level druids couldn't be interesting in its own right.)

True. The high percentage of Druids might be a mandatory testing. You are trying to keep your population over what it can sustain.

[Slipperychicken]

What assets do you have?
For instance as stated above a first level Druid with some berries can feed 10 people.
They also have guidance cantrip to help with skills, and control flames for fire and light control. Some Druids can have create water, others have purify food and drink.


Wouldn't people get tired of goodberries all the time?

[mgshamster]

Wouldn't people get tired of goodberries all the time?

I did that in my game. My players were feeding the party and all the NPCs with them goodberries to survive. After a few weeks of it some of the NPCs started to rebel.

As soon as they found a herd of walking meat, they immediately attacked just to have something else to eat.

[Logosloki]

Wouldn't people get tired of goodberries all the time?
Prestidigitation is your friend.

[Kadzar]

This is actually relevant. I'm working on a Spelljammer setting I don't know if it's appropriate for this thread, but I'd be very interested in what sort of resources you're using/what kind of conversion you've done.

[JackPhoenix]

Prestidigitation is your friend.

That can only change the taste...it won't change the fact it's just one berry and while you'll get all the nutritions you need, your stomach will still be empty.

[JoeJ]

I don't know if it's appropriate for this thread, but I'd be very interested in what sort of resources you're using/what kind of conversion you've done.

I posted my adaptation of the basic spelljamming rules (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?458652-5e-Spelljamming&highlight=Spelljammer) in the Homebrew forum a while ago.

[Amaranthine]

Teleport (7th level spell) doesn't have the costly material component and can send a 10 foot cube, as long as it is a single object.

So a 10' x 10' x 10' crate (filled with whatever) could be sent with a single casting.

[Naanomi]

Given it is a Spelljammer setting, why are they not just using produce-carrying Spelljammer barges?

[Blacky the Blackball]

First of all, it takes a year to set up the receiving end. That's much more likely to be justified for regular bulk shipments than for the occasional high value transport. For the latter, the higher level Teleport spell would be preferable.

Second, it misses the point. The question was not, "What's the most profitable commodity to move through a Teleportation Circle?" but "What's the most practical way to move hundreds of tons of food across millions of miles of wild space?" Using the napkin calculations above and allowing for a 50% reduction from the grain not being tightly packed, the wizard is sending through about 175 tons of grain with each casting. That's a little more than 7 fully loaded squid ships, each of which has a crew of 12, including at least one spellcaster to operate the helm. Figure that you're paying the crews for at least several days to possibly several weeks of travel time round trip, plus additional handling to get the grain from the dock to the warehouse.

How is that wizard carrying the 175 tons of grain? In ten portable holes? Because the 5th level Teleportation Circle spell only works on creatures that enter the circle (and by implication their clothing and handheld items). You can't use it to teleport objects at all.

You could use the higher level Teleport spell to teleport a bag or crate of grain, but that is limited to a single object that can fit inside a 10' cube (so no more than the wizard could carry in a single portable hole anyway). That's still way less than 175 tons (according to this (http://www.jimahoffman.com/Apprenticeship%2020/Unit%20Three/Charts.htm) it would be about 15-20 tons depending on the type of grain and how thick/sturdy the 10'x10'x10' crate needed to hold it is). And it requires a 13th level wizard and can be done fewer times per day because of the higher level spell slot.

[mgshamster]

How is that wizard carrying the 175 tons of grain? In ten portable holes? Because the 5th level Teleportation Circle spell only works on creatures that enter the circle (and by implication their clothing and handheld items). You can't use it to teleport objects at all.

This is the second time someone has mentioned this fact. It was covered in the opening post:


Assume for the sake of argument that objects can pass through a Teleportation Circle (the spell just says creatures).

[JoeJ]

This is the second time someone has mentioned this fact. It was covered in the opening post:

Yes. We're starting with the assumption that the spell has been houseruled to work on objects as well as creatures.

Nobody is carrying the grain, that's the beauty of this. It's sitting in a large bin with a 10' diameter opening at the bottom. The wizard casts the spell on the platform directly underneath the bin. As the last syllables are spoken, either the wizard or their assistant pulls the chain that causes the doors of the bin to drop open. The grain falls right though the portal into the warehouse. If the bin is the right size, it finishes emptying just as the spell ends so there shouldn't even be a lot of spillage. By building several bins that can be filled and emptied in sequence, the harvesters don't have to exactly keep pace with the wizard, so that would almost certainly be how it would be done.

The permanent circle at the receiving end is in an elevated bin connected with a set of movable chutes to the various storage bins in the warehouse. The workers line things up and open the door. The grain then slides by gravity to whichever bin it's supposed to go into. The only thing magic in this entire operation is the teleportation circle; the rest is just ordinary engineering for handling dry bulk materials.

(I'll admit I was inspired by the grain elevators I saw while driving through Kansas and Missouri this summer.)

[Slipperychicken]

So you're basically using a teleportation circle to move grain from one silo to another?

[JoeJ]

So you're basically using a teleportation circle to move grain from one silo to another?

Exactly. :)

[Kadzar]

I posted my adaptation of the basic spelljamming rules (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?458652-5e-Spelljamming&highlight=Spelljammer) in the Homebrew forum a while ago.

Ah, thank. I didn't think to check there.

[N810]

@mgshamster
Hydara burgers could be quite profitable... :redcloak:
http://38.media.tumblr.com/6ccf6f85fa1cbfc8013d173ce44ffea3/tumblr_inline_navbn9rzd51r4dple.png

[mgshamster]

@mgshamster
Hydara burgers could be quite profitable... :redcloak:


Could do the same thing with a Ring of Regeneration on a cow. :)

Might not be as feasible in this edition.

[Temperjoke]

You know, larger cities might employ this method, such as large kingdoms that might have their "beadbasket" regions at a great distance from the rest of their kingdom. After all, not every major city has their fields outside their gates. Maybe the central receiving area has a schedule that they maintain: food products during this block of time, mail deliveries during a different time; similar to how a train yard functions. If we talking that sort of magical infrastructure, it wouldn't be too far-fetched to imagine that they've developed a physical structure that is capable of generating a teleportation circle on its own, activated by an initiate-level spell.

[Segev]

Teleportation circle is a 5th level spell. I think Sorcerers can get it. Make a Sorcerer 9 who can cast teleportation circle and simulacrum or who can donate his hair clippings to such creations.

Now make as many simulacra of the sorcerer as you want to be able to make transits through your teleportation circles per day. They can't regain spell slots, but they do regain sorcery points. Which they can convert to 5th level spell slots.

[JoeJ]

You know, larger cities might employ this method, such as large kingdoms that might have their "beadbasket" regions at a great distance from the rest of their kingdom. After all, not every major city has their fields outside their gates. Maybe the central receiving area has a schedule that they maintain: food products during this block of time, mail deliveries during a different time; similar to how a train yard functions. If we talking that sort of magical infrastructure, it wouldn't be too far-fetched to imagine that they've developed a physical structure that is capable of generating a teleportation circle on its own, activated by an initiate-level spell.

I was actually thinking that, since a lot of travelers probably don't want to appear inside a huge grain elevator, there could be a separate public teleportation circle somewhere more convenient. The owner might charge a fee to everyone arriving through it.

[Slipperychicken]

I was actually thinking that, since a lot of travelers probably don't want to appear inside a huge grain elevator, there could be a separate public teleportation circle somewhere more convenient. The owner might charge a fee to everyone arriving through it.

The spell shunts people to the nearest unoccupied space. Just set up a contrivance to occupy space such that travelers appear in the desired area.

One way I thought to do this was placing the circle in a walled-off, fully-occupied room with alcoves on the outer walls for travelers to appear in.

[karolusb]

Yes. We're starting with the assumption that the spell has been houseruled to work on objects as well as creatures.

Nobody is carrying the grain, that's the beauty of this. It's sitting in a large bin with a 10' diameter opening at the bottom. The wizard casts the spell on the platform directly underneath the bin. As the last syllables are spoken, either the wizard or their assistant pulls the chain that causes the doors of the bin to drop open. The grain falls right though the portal into the warehouse. If the bin is the right size, it finishes emptying just as the spell ends so there shouldn't even be a lot of spillage. By building several bins that can be filled and emptied in sequence, the harvesters don't have to exactly keep pace with the wizard, so that would almost certainly be how it would be done.



Flow rate (m^3/s)= .75(~9pi)(root(9.8*3) (Beaverloo)

The effective diameter is 3.048-.009, so the estimate of three costs us nothing.

115m^3 per second for six seconds. 1300 lbs wheat per m^3. 897,000 pounds per casting. (In reality we should be at 1700 lb per M^3, but un-milled while better for storage, is worse for actual eating, so the 1300 probably better reflects the actual food value of the wheat in terms of the PHB 1lb per day value).

If the wheat has a high moisture level it has a slowing effect, but due to the effective diameter calculation I suspect the effect would be minimal with the massive effective diameter.

I would skip the apprentice with a pull chain, simply make the floor of the silo the teleportation circle, whatever you lose from falling velocity drop (which is actually not going to be a benefit per beaverloo), you gain back from not having miscued timings.

I suspect the biggest limitation is going to be silo size. The above assumes a silo at You need a 690 cubic meter silo for this, it doesn't need to all be vertical, but even so this is a pretty large bit of space. About 2/7 of a Olympic swimming pool.

As to cost, you have to determine your own pricing, but if we imagine the wizard making 5% of the total commodity value, that's 450 gold per casting less expenses. I suspect my wizard would be willing to do that job.

It works much worse with other items, (crates would likely shatter at destination, fall less evenly through the portal). This method really does work best for bulk grain shipment (or water).

[REVISIONIST]

A quick google search came up with a loss of over 4 million tons of merchant goods during WWII, that was from the USCG #'s, and for the
US alone, why wouldn't a Spelljammer setting assume that it was just easier to bulk ship food, grain, etc. and account for the loss, insure it as
much as could be considering a war time footing and not worry about magic users who are almost always flighty at best?

[mgshamster]

A quick google search came up with a loss of over 4 million tons of merchant goods during WWII, that was from the USCG #'s, and for the
US alone, why wouldn't a Spelljammer setting assume that it was just easier to bulk ship food, grain, etc. and account for the loss, insure it as
much as could be considering a war time footing and not worry about magic users who are almost always flighty at best?

Some cities certainly do. This city has employed spellcasters to do the job. The rulers of the city have decided it was more cost efficient.

I don't know why. Maybe the travel route to get to this city is extraordinarily hazardous. Maybe they can't get enough food in by normal means. Maybe it's too far and the food comes in mosty rotted. I'm not quite sure. But whatever their reasons are, they've decided to employ spellcasters to solve their food issues.

[manny2510]

I don't think that the goodberry and troll burger franchise is as crazy as paying for a teleportation circle to deliver goods when the cost of a teleportation circle is overall 18,250 gold as a minimum if you are not paying the caster outside of material components and nothing bad happens to them or the circle. The spell consumes "rare chalks and inks infused with precious gems with 50 GP, which the spell consumes" so I don't think that It is crazy to assume that the circle is drawn in chalk. Destroying that circle is a costly mistake when handling loads of bulk goods, and merits a legitimate concern of planar incursion. The three sigils that are designated to that circle cannot become common knowledge because of the grave consequences of that knowledge passing into the hands of powerful enemies. I am going to assume that the city itself is probably primarily "good" in overall population because of traditional fantasy dynamics. There may not be an "evil" kingdom, but if a 50gp temporary teleportation circle can ruin 18,250 gold of effort with a delayed fireball, an unruly boar, or a troop of skeletons, I'd hesitate to risk my population on this circle. I suppose that there could be fifty of these circles, but too many redundant circles would require an amount of experienced spell-casters that would overpopulate the setting in general. "Hey mate, the mind of the people who see the symbol is erased, people that are near it are vetted with detect thoughts, the circle is made of adamantine, and there is a spell of forbiddance against enemies" sounds like it would take so many spells, that it would invariably be cheaper to feed the population with goodberries and troll meat as a reliable, renewable, and sustainable base for feeding 12,000 people.

I like this thread and sorry for derailing it but I like to make an argument for simplicity in a world of magic requiring volumetric analysis. KISS (keep it sweet and simple).

[tsotate]

why wouldn't a Spelljammer setting assume that it was just easier to bulk ship food, grain, etc. and account for the loss, insure it as
much as could be considering a war time footing and not worry about magic users who are almost always flighty at best?
Because Spelljammer ships require even more of those flighty casters. A caster being used to power shipping is also at much greater risk than one in his home city casting a spell once in a while.

[JellyPooga]

On the subject of Goodberry as a source of food; a Warlock/Druid can produce a lot more Goodberries than a straight Druid.

A single level 2 Warlock 1/Druid 1 can produce 20 berries an hour using Pact Magic, plus an additional 20 berries with his Druid slots. Given a 10 hour working day, he's generating 220 berries a day. 55 "employees" working at that rate would be sufficient to provide for a population of 12,000.

All it takes to work for McGoodberries is an intensive outdoor training programme and to sell your soul...

[tieren]

From a world building perspective I think it makes sense to look at the history of the development of the supply problem.

At some point in the past the agricultural production on site was sufficient to meet the needs of the population, as the population grew it couldn't keep up. Now it is so far out of whack that permanent teleportation circles seem reasonable, but the cost of such a program would have seemed ridiculous when the shortfall was only for a few hundred people.

At that point shipping probably addressed the issue, and as demand grew, so would prices drawing in more shipping. Thats ends up being a lot of spelljammer ships with a lot of casters coming and going.

It wouldn't take much for an enterprising young wizard to give up the shipping routes and open a food cart using create food and prestidigitation. Similarly magic initiates or young druids could create eateries that not only distribute the McGoodberries, but maybe leverage the crops that are grown locally to try to make some interesting goodberry dishes. Just because they don't grow enough grain to meet everyone's dietary needs doesn't mean they can't use some of it to make goodberry sweet buns or chicken fried goodberry rice.

Ultimately, anyone proposing the infrastructure to create the hyperspace grain tube is going to find opposition from all of the merchants, traders, and shippers that will have been meeting the city's needs up to that point. Let alone the local farmers who will see the demand for their crops plummet.

[jkat718]

All it takes to work for McGoodberries is an intensive outdoor training programme and to sell your soul...

Permission to sig? :smallbiggrin:

[JellyPooga]

Permission to sig? :smallbiggrin:

Granted :smallwink:

[mgshamster]

On the subject of Goodberry as a source of food; a Warlock/Druid can produce a lot more Goodberries than a straight Druid.

A single level 2 Warlock 1/Druid 1 can produce 20 berries an hour using Pact Magic, plus an additional 20 berries with his Druid slots. Given a 10 hour working day, he's generating 220 berries a day. 55 "employees" working at that rate would be sufficient to provide for a population of 12,000.

All it takes to work for McGoodberries is an intensive outdoor training programme and to sell your soul...

I think we've found a new warlock patron: The Corporation

[krugaan]

I think we've found a new warlock patron: The Corporation

I had to LOL at this.

Offerings have to be made in bars of gold-pressed latinum.

[mgshamster]

Let's see here... Corporate Patron:

Spells:
1st Level: Command, Charm Person
2nd level: Calm Emotions, Detect Thoughts
3rd level: Clairvoyance, Nondetection
4th level: Dominate Beast, Mordenkainen's Magical Sanctum (aka, secure meeting room)
5th level: Dominate Person, Mislead

Corporate Protection - Shifting the Blame: At 1st level you can use your corporate protection to shield you from harm. Any time you are the target of a spell, attack, or other effect, you can redirect it to another creature within 10' of you. You cannot use this ability again until you've taken a short or long rest.

Corporate Truth: Starting at 6th level, you gain expertise in Persuasion and Deception. You gain double your proficiency bonus on these two skills.

Corporate Protection - Proprietary Information: Starting at 10th level, your mind can't be read by telepathy or any other ability unless you want it to. Additionally, the corporation makes you immune to charm spells, so you won't sell out to someone else.

Corporate Protection - Aggressive Lawyers: At 10th level, whenever a creature deals psychic damage to you, it takes the same amount of psychic damage.

Create Shill: Starting at 14th level, you can turn a creature into a corporate shill. That creature is charmed by you until a Remove Curse spell is cast upon it, the charmed effect is removed from it, or you use this ability again.

[JoeJ]

Flow rate (m^3/s)= .75(~9pi)(root(9.8*3) (Beaverloo)

The effective diameter is 3.048-.009, so the estimate of three costs us nothing.

115m^3 per second for six seconds. 1300 lbs wheat per m^3. 897,000 pounds per casting. (In reality we should be at 1700 lb per M^3, but un-milled while better for storage, is worse for actual eating, so the 1300 probably better reflects the actual food value of the wheat in terms of the PHB 1lb per day value).

If the wheat has a high moisture level it has a slowing effect, but due to the effective diameter calculation I suspect the effect would be minimal with the massive effective diameter.

It looks like most of the estimates are reasonably close together, with about 1-3 weeks of casting being enough to supply the city for a year. That leaves lots of slack to account for spillage, spoilage, and other problems or emergencies. Or to make sure there's enough grain to brew beer as well as bake bread. :smallwink:


I would skip the apprentice with a pull chain, simply make the floor of the silo the teleportation circle, whatever you lose from falling velocity drop (which is actually not going to be a benefit per beaverloo), you gain back from not having miscued timings.

I thought about that, but the spell description says the caster has to draw a circle on the ground. I guess I could houserule that away, but I'd rather not deal with allowing the spell to be cast without the caster seeing the spot where the portal opens. And given the estimates I'm seeing here, it's really not necessary.


I don't think that the goodberry and troll burger franchise is as crazy as paying for a teleportation circle to deliver goods when the cost of a teleportation circle is overall 18,250 gold as a minimum if you are not paying the caster outside of material components and nothing bad happens to them or the circle. The spell consumes "rare chalks and inks infused with precious gems with 50 GP, which the spell consumes" so I don't think that It is crazy to assume that the circle is drawn in chalk. Destroying that circle is a costly mistake when handling loads of bulk goods, and merits a legitimate concern of planar incursion. The three sigils that are designated to that circle cannot become common knowledge because of the grave consequences of that knowledge passing into the hands of powerful enemies. I am going to assume that the city itself is probably primarily "good" in overall population because of traditional fantasy dynamics. There may not be an "evil" kingdom, but if a 50gp temporary teleportation circle can ruin 18,250 gold of effort with a delayed fireball, an unruly boar, or a troop of skeletons, I'd hesitate to risk my population on this circle. I suppose that there could be fifty of these circles, but too many redundant circles would require an amount of experienced spell-casters that would overpopulate the setting in general. "Hey mate, the mind of the people who see the symbol is erased, people that are near it are vetted with detect thoughts, the circle is made of adamantine, and there is a spell of forbiddance against enemies" sounds like it would take so many spells, that it would invariably be cheaper to feed the population with goodberries and troll meat as a reliable, renewable, and sustainable base for feeding 12,000 people.

18,250 gp is not very expensive for setting up a bulk transport system that will be used year after year. Even a single ship costs a lot more than that once you add the spelljamming helm. I don't see anything in the spell description saying that a circle can be erased after it becomes permanent, so I'd say that's a non-issue. There's also nothing about spell effects passing through the portal, but even if they could, so what? The receiving end is a temporary storage bin that's almost always empty - it's only in use while a shipment is actively being received. An enemy that can't find a more useful target to attack has already lost. The sigils would be more like proprietary business secrets than highly classified military information.

Goodberries and troll meat (Are trolls even edible? They look poisonous.) have the problem that the city would cease to exist once everybody left to find a place where they could eat real food.

[mgshamster]

According to the DMG, a warship has the highest cargo capacity at 200 tons. It costs 25,000 GP.

Our Teleportation Circle is more cost efficient. :)

[JoeJ]

According to the DMG, a warship has the highest cargo capacity at 200 tons. It costs 25,000 GP.

Our Teleportation Circle is more cost efficient. :)

For water, however, dropping ice asteroids into the lake still beats out Teleportation Circle because Rule of Cool. :smallwink:

[Temperjoke]

For water, however, dropping ice asteroids into the lake still beats out Teleportation Circle because Rule of Cool. :smallwink:

That only temporarily solves the global warming problem. You'll have to keep doing it every year. A more elegant solution is to have all the magic-users combine together on an island and work together to move the whole planet.

*coughs*

Anyways, if this sort of food delivery system was commonplace for the large-scale cities, I'd imagine that it would lead to alterations in war strategy. I mean, if they can portal food in, it'd be difficult to lay a traditional siege to a city, you either have to attack the food source instead or find a way to block the teleportation magic.


EDIT: Oooh, a plothook! Food goes into the teleportation circle, but the city storehouses are still going empty. Where is all the grain disappearing to?

[JoeJ]

That only temporarily solves the global warming problem. You'll have to keep doing it every year. A more elegant solution is to have all the magic-users combine together on an island and work together to move the whole planet.

There may be another solution. The illithid ambassador has invited the other races to assist with their project of extinguishing the sun.