D&D 5E Question about Teleportation Circle

[James Gasik]

I'm working on an adventure and this came up. I know how I'm going to rule it, but I'm curious if this has been covered elsewhere and/or what other peopel think.

In the adventure, Zora, an 11th level Drow Wizard, has been casting Teleportation Circle in a gold mine each day to deliver a shipment of gold to the Underdark. Now if she does this for a year, it becomes a permanent circle.

However, I'm curious if there is a "gate address" for this temporary circle before the year is up; ie, could she use a scroll of Teleportation Circle to travel to the location in the mine?

I can't think of a reason why not to allow this for players and NPC's alike, but maybe someone else can.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

i would rule, no that there is no gate address until the gate is permanent. I would allow 2 casters to attempt to coordinate their casting (using sending or the like) to coordinate their casting to connect two temporary gates though.

 

[GMMichael]

In the adventure, Zora, an 11th level Drow Wizard, has been casting Teleportation Circle in a gold mine each day to deliver a shipment of gold to the Underdark. Now if she does this for a year, it becomes a permanent circle.

However, I'm curious if there is a "gate address" for this temporary circle before the year is up; ie, could she use a scroll of Teleportation Circle to travel to the location in the mine?

So, does the casting location in the mine have its own sigil sequence? Can Zora teleport back to the mine after dropping off the gold?

Yes, every point in the universe has a sigil sequence. Can she teleport back to it with Teleportation Circle? No, because that circle/sequence isn't permanent.

But... who wants to be bound by D&D's rules?

 

[ichabod]

I would say that it has no sigil sequence of it's own until it is permanent. That means you can't use it as the end point of another teleportation circle.

 

[NotAYakk]

I'd assume that making a teleportation circle consists of combining the sigils representing this location with the sigils representing the destination location in the locally drawn circle.

The locally drawn circle, with its fixed sigils, becomes permanent if you cast teleportation circle repeatedly every day for a year. As I prefer gritty rests (longer than 1 night), I change this to every week for a year, with the last casting costing 300x the usual material components to make it permanent.

The spell descriptions cover the usual use of spells. These are the proven, standard uses of that specific spell. Attempts to use magic in ways that don't match the standard uses of the spell require arcana checks to know what is possible, and spell casting attribute checks to succeed at it, and possibly other checks to help it along.

In this case, I'd have the teleportation circle you create be a possible destination for a short but growing window as the year progresses. Attempts to teleport to it would be risky, especially initially, and the possibility that teleported creatures or objects would be lost would be a real concern.

Ie, it would be something you would do in an emergency.

OTOH, it is possible that (for plot reasons) I might make it more reliable than this, if I wanted the PCs to have a base they can teleport back to.

Because knowing how it works is gated behind an arcana check, I can change this conclusion to depend on what suits the current state of the game at the point when the question is asked. And it might even depend on specific world details, like ley-line alignment and other nonsense, so I could make it give a different answer at different spots and times in the same world.

 

[SkidAce]

I'm working on an adventure and this came up. I know how I'm going to rule it, but I'm curious if this has been covered elsewhere and/or what other peopel think.

In the adventure, Zora, an 11th level Drow Wizard, has been casting Teleportation Circle in a gold mine each day to deliver a shipment of gold to the Underdark. Now if she does this for a year, it becomes a permanent circle.

However, I'm curious if there is a "gate address" for this temporary circle before the year is up; ie, could she use a scroll of Teleportation Circle to travel to the location in the mine?

I can't think of a reason why not to allow this for players and NPC's alike, but maybe someone else can.

A point I haven't seen mentioned.

Zora might be casting the spell every day, but the duration is only 1 round, so even IF it had a sigil sequence, its only there for someone to teleport TO for six seconds.

Its not freestanding/permanent until "poof" a year of castings is reached.

 

[James Gasik]

Thanks for the replies so far, it feels to me like the spell description is a bit lacking on this point.

As I read it, the spell lets you, after casting teleport from where you are to a pre-existing circle.

Then if you cast it in the same spot for a year, you create a circle others can teleport to. The spell does specify that you don't have to teleport if you're casting the spell to create a permanent circle.

Just by that reading, you can teleport away from a place by casting the spell, but never back to it unless you prepare in advance for a year, which makes it's use really inconvenient. Which I suppose is the point, but it makes this rough.

See, it's an old adventure, back when an 11th level caster had access to regular teleport, which is now a 7th level spell, not a 5th, so I was thinking "well ok, if it's to a set location, teleportation circle will do just as well". I didn't want to use "DM fiat", and there are reasons having a permanent circle at the location set up already doesn't make sense.

 

[LordEntrails]

However, I'm curious if there is a "gate address" for this temporary circle before the year is up; ie, could she use a scroll of Teleportation Circle to travel to the location in the mine?

Yes. Justification is that she knows this location exceptionally well. She's be porting from it for many days , weeks or months. Second, is that it makes no sense to me that on day 364 the circle has no address, but on day 365 it suddenly does.

You could so something like make the error chance decrease as it gets closer to permeance, but not sure how detailed this needs to be if it's DM fiat anyway.