What are some ways to communicate over long distances, relatively cheaply? I was thinking a series of beacons, but that also comes with being unable to convey detailed messages.
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How long range? How rapid? Message, Whispering Wind, Animal Messenger, and Sending are all good for this, but they each have their own faults, like lack of detail and long cast time. If you've got a large budget to work with, a set of Crystal Balls with Telepathy could work. A permanent Telepathic Bond is probably the best of all options, but, again, has issues like only working between two people.
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How far is a "long distance?"
The Whispering Wind spell has a range of 1 mile/level, but only allows up to 25 words.
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1st level druids and wizards could use flying companions or familiars to rely messages. 2nd level adepts might be more common for small communities, and also have familiars.
An NPC expert could use Handle Animal skill to tame something similar to carrier pigeons, without the link / empathy benefits of a druid or wizard.
Long distance is something on the order of a few hundred miles. The objective is to figure out a way to relay short messages between cities on different continents, so we can teleport where we need to respond to threats. There are too many cities, so it's not feasible to teleport just to check, and since they are communicating with us, they don't necessarily have access to the resources of an adventuring party
Telepathic bond is a good idea, but it seems to be a tad on the expensive side.
The Dancing Lights cantrip can create four "torches" over 100' in the air. On a clear night that should be visible from quite a distance, and with four lights to work with a "dancing light code" should be easy to come up with.
A single use, use activated custom magic item (Spell level x caster level x 50gp) of Sending costs 1,400gp. It only allows 25 words, but is unlimited range, and the recipient can send a response. It can even work across planar boundaries (with a 5% chance of failure).
You would have to replace the item after every use, but since it is for emergencies only, that shouldn't happen very often.
Dancing lights are a great idea, but the question is: what do you do when it's day time?
Some sort of scroll of sending or item might be useful here. I suppose the cities could probably afford them if they needed our help. It also has the advantage of being very fast, since the idea is that as soon there is a threat, we can port in to take care of it.
Thanks for the advice, guys!
A city should certainly be able to afford a scroll of sending.
Another option would be lesser planar binding to call a teleporting outsider -- lantern archons, perhaps, or hound archons? Carrying a message to save a city would be right up their bailiwick.
For a non-magic solution, a series of heliograph beacons for daylight transmitters, & torch/fire beacons for night. Use of a complex Morse code could send fairly long messages, and the system shouldn't cost much more to run than hiring couriers would, less maybe, once the beacons are in place. Lighthouses have been used as beacons for thousands of years,after all. Thinking about it ,use of mirrors,lenses, and a simple light spell might even be able to turn this into a system useable at day or night, but such an apparatus would no doubt be much more costly.
In other words, The clacks...
Watch out fore the code in the clacks!
This.
Nice, I like that idea. It has all the flavor of the beacons while actually being feasible over the ocean.
It would also give some sort of way to disrupt the emergency communication, which is actually also a perk (adventure, plot line?)
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VRMH - great idea, but line-of-sight to the horizon based on height is only
1.22*sqrt(height)
So 100 feet could only be seen 12 miles away. That would go up with caster level, but not quickly because of the square root.
Still, great idea for shorter distances! I'll have to remember that one...
All (including OP) : that formula applies in general, and to the "clacks" (credit where due, tho - that basic concept was actually done a lot historically!), so a "3 story" tower (30 feet?) would have to be within 6-7 miles of the next one, max.