Tippyverse Question

[Schadenfreuda]

I've been reading through a bunch of old threads about the Tippyverse, its variations, and whether or not it's as likely as Tippy himself proclaims. Many arguments I saw against it boiled down to: a) divine intervention, b) no high-level characters who might be needed to create Permanencied Teleportation Circles exist as per the DMG's guidelines on city demographics, or c) Teleportation Circles are too fragile to support the kind of permanent transportation network Tippy presented.

As sort of a small sidenote to all these things, why are Teleportation Circles needed? Traps of Teleport or Greater Teleport or Limited Wish/Teleport would serve the same function, and can't be dispelled the way that a Permanencied spell could. Not to mention, it doesn't require nearly epic-level mages, just access to 5th or at most 7th-level spells, access which is considerably easier to come by, thus making the incentive to create Teleport trap networks even stronger.

Is there some other disadvantage to using Teleport traps that I haven't thought of?

[Ramza00]

Your point stands but let me do some minor changes that doesn't really change the form of your point. :smallwink:

From an economic standpoint it really has to be Greater Teleport (7th level) for Greater Teleport works so much better for there is a chance of failure with Teleport.

If you are familiar with Dune folding space is easy but you need a Guild Navigatorwho is addicted to spice or there is like a 1 in 100 chance (I am not going to look up the exact amount) of your folding space / interstellar teleport effect may lead to death or being teleport to the wrong place. Thus Folding Space with human passengers being involved requires Guild Navigators and thus it requires a continuous source of spice long term.


“Stop playing the fool,” Paul barked. “The Guild is like a village beside a river. They need the water, but can only dip out what they require. They cannot dam the river and control it, because that focuses attention on what they take, it brings down eventual destruction. The spice flow, that’s their river, and I have built a dam. But my dam is such that you cannot destroy it without destroying the river.”

Sure you could build an economy without human passengers where one planet sends raw materials or non human based constructed trade goods without guild navigators but this in turn is hard to do without thinking machines. (And there is some machines in Dune but nothing with enough creative thinking that could replace a human.)

-----

The advantage of Teleport Circle over Greater Teleport is that it works continuously without the use of actions and does more matter per round than Greater Teleport. Aka this is a problem of scale where a 9th level spell is just doing more stuff per round than a 7th level spell. That said the 7th level spell has some advantages that you listed there, and in an economy that has been jump-started (enough surplus capital caused by trade) that both type of continuous teleport effects would exist. Lords and other people of power would seek out a greater teleport trap to add to their security even if the city itself thrives just fine on permanent teleport circles.

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Your analysis is correct we are now just arguing over specifics for the 3.5 system is very specific at specific places.

[Florian]

Schadenfreude, the thing with the Tippyverse is, that it is a more or less pure expoleration of both, the 3E rules as well as understanding the 3E rules as physical facts.

Thing is not ability/possibility (we sent ships and caravans around the world), but reliability/negating chance of loss (none of us would drive a truck today if there was a 5% chance of death - per route (might be different if you live in the middle east, tho)).

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Schadenfreuda
I've been reading through a bunch of old threads about the Tippyverse....

For ease of reference, would you be able to post those threads here? It would be nice to have them all in one place.

[Schadenfreuda]

For ease of reference, would you be able to post those threads here? It would be nice to have them all in one place.

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

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?327950-Debunking-the-Tippyverse

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?575530-Markets-and-At-Will-Teleportation

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?98188-The-Introduction-of-magic-into-a-D-amp-D-Economy

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?86944-Magic-Factories

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?247468-Tippyverse-question

I'm pretty sure there were others, but I deleted my history recently so these are the only ones I found there

[Schadenfreuda]

Thing is not ability/possibility (we sent ships and caravans around the world), but reliability/negating chance of loss (none of us would drive a truck today if there was a 5% chance of death - per route (might be different if you live in the middle east, tho)).

If the Teleport trap has a set destination, and its somewhere the caster/builder has already been, the chance of mishap is 3% (1d100 97-100), not 5%. Even if you go a little off-target, ignoring hundreds to over a thousand miles of travel still negates most of the risks involved in long-distance trade. Piracy, highway banditry, and being taken hostage by local governments or rulers (the single biggest problem for medieval travellers, especially in feudal Europe and along the Silk Road through Central Asia) simply cease to be problems, drastically diminishing the risks of long-distance voyages.

Moreover, risky jobs like whaling still drew numerous people to the promise of pay, and even now people in desperate situations gamble their lives for jobs like ship-breaking. Certainly, trading by teleportation is nowhere near as risky as adventuring, which is basically guaranteed death for most low-level adventurers, and not as risky as something like climbing K2 (23% casualties) or Mount Everest (6.5%), which most people don't even do to make money.

[Florian]

Point being that we talk about the "watershed line" when we have reduced chance to zero.

It´s like talking about a "Decanter of Endless Water" and going by our expectations and experience. In this case, you either have it or you don't. It´s also like saying that you will be shot at least once a year while working at McD ....

[thethird]

Teleportation circle is a 9th level spell in the rune domain.
Divine crusader exists.
Artificers can make traps of teleportation circle at 7th level.
Teleportation circle doesn't care about caster level.
Item familiars become intelligent at 7th level.
Intelligent traps of teleportation circle are posible at 7th level.
Simulacrum is an 8th level spell in the envy domain.

An artificer can make stargates at level 7

[Endarire]

@thethird: Wow! Well put! Alleluia!

[King of Nowhere]

yes, the important condition to get a tippyverse is the cheap and nearly unlimited teleportation, not the specific spell used to achieve it.

[Aquillion]

Teleportation traps are more expensive and take longer to create, I believe. A permanent teleportation circle can be set up in just ten minutes.

A permanent Teleportation Circle costs 4500 XP (for Permanency), 1000 GP (for the circle), and 10 minutes of labor.

A self-resetting Greater Teleportation trap costs:


+500 gp × caster level × spell level, +40 XP × caster level × spell level

...or...

+500 gp × 13 × 7, +40 XP × 13× 7

45500 GP, 3640 XP.

You do save a tiny bit of XP, but more importantly, it takes one day per 500 GP, so 91 days. And the Tippyverse assumes XP costs are not a big deal (either because XP is a river or because you use one of the various ways of cheating it.) The GP cost is also not a huge deal, but the 91 days vs. 10 minutes absolutely is.

[Schadenfreuda]

Teleportation traps are more expensive and take longer to create, I believe. A permanent teleportation circle can be set up in just ten minutes.

A permanent Teleportation Circle costs 4500 XP (for Permanency), 1000 GP (for the circle), and 10 minutes of labor.

A self-resetting Greater Teleportation trap costs 45500 GP, 3640 XP.

You do save a tiny bit of XP, but more importantly, it takes one day per 500 GP, so 91 days. And the Tippyverse assumes XP costs are not a big deal (either because XP is a river or because you use one of the various ways of cheating it.) The GP cost is also not a huge deal, but the 91 days vs. 10 minutes absolutely is.

Indeed it is more expensive, but with the wealth of every merchant in a nation, and indeed probably every merchant on every plane of existence, standing to improve their industry and make a killing in process, one can consider this construction time negligible in the long run; even in the real world, most large building projects like bridges take considerably longer that 91 days. When my university built a new building, for example, it took them about two and a half years to totally complete it, and that was after the years of planning and securing funding that proceeded construction, all for a minor addition to community college. 91 days start to finish for free infinite teleportation is hardly even a cost worthy of note. The main contention I have have is that doing this would be possible and even easy for any mid-sized city with mid-level casters, not the near-epic mages needed for the easier route.

[Aquillion]

I mean, Greater Teleport (needed to create a trap with unlimited distance and which won't occasionally fling people to the wrong destination) is only four levels lower than Teleportation Circle. And high-level mages have Greater Teleport anyway, so if you can pay their price you just have to Sending one and they can pop in to make the circle for you.

[thethird]

@thethird: Wow! Well put! Alleluia!

Thanks I am a bit annoyed that I cant do this by sixth level. That said greater teleport is a 7th level travel domain so at 5th you can make a trap of greater teleport as an artificer.

But this is one of the reasons why my home setting is E8.


Teleportation traps are more expensive and take longer to create, I believe. A permanent teleportation circle can be set up in just ten minutes.

A permanent Teleportation Circle costs 4500 XP (for Permanency), 1000 GP (for the circle), and 10 minutes of labor.

A self-resetting Greater Teleportation trap costs:



...or...


45500 GP, 3640 XP.

You do save a tiny bit of XP, but more importantly, it takes one day per 500 GP, so 91 days. And the Tippyverse assumes XP costs are not a big deal (either because XP is a river or because you use one of the various ways of cheating it.) The GP cost is also not a huge deal, but the 91 days vs. 10 minutes absolutely is.

Traps though can change where the teleportation circle is going by casting the spell again. I am partial to intelligent traps so It is the trap the one that is doing the decision, and casting. If casting time is a concern it is probably a good idea to have practical metamagic + rapid spell on hand to get the casting time to one minute.

Intelligent traps are intelligent items so they can then be simulacred. An intelligent item doesnt gain more hp from becoming intelligent so I think it is reasonable to say it doesnt gain a HD and its HD is 0.

So make the trap as hard as you can. Stack all the methods to increase hardness.

Then make a trap of simulacrum to make simulacrums of the teleportation circle trap.

Does it take longer?

Yes, certainly for one trap it does. But with traps you can basically do factories.