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This is more of a fluff and world building thought experiment.
with Pathfinder's magic system, some of our historical and fantasy assumptions seem a bit off without some fluff explanation. Some explanations are better than others.
One thing that bugs me is the creation of a fluff explanation for large wooden cargo ships. Skull and Shackles needs large wood ships to work, yet it seems that looking at our history the cost and time was a massive investment to build these things (months of round the clock labor from hundreds of people). High level magic could replace this with teleport circles and such, since such a massive cost and so many people are required in the alternative.
Yet without wood cargo ships, there are no cool naval and piracy on the high seas campaigns. Maybe exploration, yet that is about it.
I have tackled castles before (ones built with labor would place magical protections on them similar to Forbiddance - placed into key bricks in a castle. Ones that appear through deck of many things or wishes lack such fancy protections, though could be added). In such a scenario castles become relevant again, yet I have problems justifying large wooden ships. Any thoughts?
If you have several high level wizards in every City and they are happy to work as cargo Crew then you are rigth.
That is one of the main reasons that i dont have that.
Most folks are not high level magic users and all those that are not highlevel magic users still do stuff to get by.
How do you justify the PCs ever get a chance at doing adventure when there are high level wizards in the World?
Building a basic cargo ship costs 10,000 gp. I believe having a 17th level wizard cast permanency and teleportation circle would be 25,880 or so. So both are reasonable for an adventuring party or large town. The problem lies in finding a 17th level wizard.
In general, the rules are that there aren't random NPCs of greater than 13th level. While there are higher level characters, they should be rare and important. There wont be sufficient number of them to do this sort of thing, and they would know that doing such would disrupt a large portion of the worldwide economy.
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Teleport Circles are also easy to destroy.
A 10th level Wizard can cast, oh, call it twenty 3rd level spells (to be very conservative, I think on average he can do it in seven tries vs. a 17th level caster) over the course of a couple weeks and probably destroy it. Which costs something around 6000gp (2100 if he makes it in seven tries), and a fraction of what it cost to create.
So...unles absolutely nobody would benefit from the teleport circle not working, this is a very risky strategy. Now sure, you can add security (and that'll certainly drive up the price of the sabotage), but the kind of security that can't be casually overcome by a 10th level Wizard is expensive as hell.
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Reason for wooden ships in a high-magic campaign: Wood Shape
Finding a few clerics 3 with Artifice domain (or a willing druid) should be a bit easier than a wizard 17.
... I just got this vision of an ulfen shipwright/cleric of Torag making the fastest longships in Golarion.
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You guys keep ignoring the volume of stuff a teleportation circle can carry.
It takes (or could take) a fleet of ships weeks or months to carry as much stuff a teleportation circle could carry in a day.
A teleportation circle doesn't replace 1 ship, it replaces all of them that go to the target destination.
Sure does. Now...how are you getting the money to build one? And to protect it from people who want to sabotage it. And where are you finding a 17th level Wizard to build a pair of them for you?
It's not that this tactic is impossible, it's that it has too high a start up cost, and too rare a necessary prerequisite (a 17th level Wizard) to be remotely common.
Ships could be useful for short voyages where you make many stops along the way I guess, but teleportation circles can move an incredible amount of stuff incredibly fast.
Again, sure, but how are you gonna convince a guy who can create his own demiplane and casually make thousands of gp a day (or more) that what he really wants is to get into mercantile ventures with you?
Also, teleportation circle only teleports creatures, not objects. So in order to make this strategy viable, you would also need something like a portable hole to haul your cargo in… Actually a lot of them, since a 6 foot round hole, 10 feet deep doesn’t hold much. So, add the cost of 25 or so of those to your budget and now it’s ridiculous. All that, just to get the same effect of 1 ship. That only costs 10,000 gp to buy. Now I suppose you could buy 1 portable hole and make multiple trips, but you still have to load and unload those things, which involves crawling down in there to place and retrieve the goods. Meh, it’s just one big flaming nightmare. Also, what self respecting wizard is going to waste his time on being a UPS man? And if you did find a wizard to do it, he certainly would end up charging you just as much if not more for the service. Like I said, nightmare. I'm probably blowing this out of proportion a bit, but you get the point.
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How big is a teleportation circle? Circumference, I mean.
It's got a 5 foot radius. Though a Bag of Holding can carry 60 lbs of stuff, and you can do it every couple of rounds or so. That's at least 180 lbs a minute. Multiply that by 8 hour work day, and we're talking over 43 tons in that period. Go with three shifts and you can get 129 tons a day. That's...really quite a bit, and you can probably manage it both ways.
Again, the people who can do this are so vanishingly rare and it's so easy to sabotage that I doubt it'll be common, but it's impressive anywhere it's actually used.
A different viewpoint: how do you motivate a lvl 17 wizard to do this? If he's just after money he can likely make that faster with other spells that don't change the world map and have unforseen political, economic and military consequences.
A teleportation circle doesn't replace 1 ship, it replaces all of them that go to the target destination.
If you are a merchant already owning a fleet of ships, you might be more motivated to sabotage the circle than to pay for its use. If you are an evil empire, the military applications of the circle makes it a prime target to conquer and control (and squeeze max taxes out of).
Also, a ship is a lower initial investment, can move to another more profitable route, can escape war/taxman/evil empire. Many groups can compete in shipping but only the big power blocks can compete with circles.
Ships could be useful for short voyages where you make many stops along the way I guess, but teleportation circles can move an incredible amount of stuff incredibly fast.
Indeed, with circles the systems would most likely complement each other: circles for massive transport between major hubs and ships for regional transport.
The general accepted practice with teleportation circles, is gigantic creature of some sort loaded with goods.
Also, the wizard doesn't load or unload. He just casts permanency and teleportation circle. After that, the rest is up to the "owners".
Yeah, I imagine that such circle would be very open to sabotage. Or being used against you, to invade. I mean, sure they only go one way. But were talking about making them in pairs. Are you comfortable that your neighbor will never invade you or that they'll never be invaded and put you next on the list with this convenient entrance?
by having ships and all that stuff you keep a lot of folks alive. By giving spending it all on the same wizard you only support his need for diamond dust.
If you see the money as seperate from the economy the wizard move May be good but imagine the problems with all the newly unnemployed. And in the future a single Tower with a wizard that takes all your gold is no substitute for a City.
If magic solutions are too cheap just double the cost until they are more balanced.
A gigantic creature through a five foot circle?The general accepted practice with teleportation circles, is gigantic creature of some sort loaded with goods.
Also, the wizard doesn't load or unload. He just casts permanency and teleportation circle. After that, the rest is up to the "owners".
Yeah, I imagine that such circle would be very open to sabotage. Or being used against you, to invade. I mean, sure they only go one way. But were talking about making them in pairs. Are you comfortable that your neighbor will never invade you or that they'll never be invaded and put you next on the list with this convenient entrance?
It's not through. You step on the circle and are teleported. The circle only exist to denote where the effect will happen. There is not a size limitation on what creature can be teleported.
When you have the ability to cast a wish and create demiplanes, why bother with commerce? Money is a means to an end, funding eldritch experiments of all sorts, not the end of itself. Odds are pretty good that cheating Death/Pharasma of your soul is far, far higher on the priority list than something as mundane as ... commerce.
If you're using high level magic made permanent for commerce, you're going to go with permanent gates routed through a permanent demiplane whose sole purpose of existence is collecting tolls on the cargo that routes through it. You have to secure it. The cargo has to get to one of your gates - which generally means that for this network to become popular, it also needs to be easily accessible. So you need LOTS of portals. Depending on the tolls involved, a great deal of bulk trade goods won't be an option as the profit will be largely dissolved.
Most rulers are not going to permit such strategically threatening portals to exist in the heart of their domains.
Much like the fabricate "why haven't wizards/artifice clerics of 9th level+ taken over the world's economy?" question, the answer is fairly simple: Why indeed? There are many reasons, up to and including the deities of the settings themselves as active forces, as to why not. Perhaps the Gods have seen these thoughts crop up in their bailiwick time and again over the aeons and nipped it in the bud. Deific power is *not* quantified in PF, so an "idea wipe" or "lock" is done and done.
" I had this idea to ... " *wipe/lock* ... research immortality! "
On Golarion, Abadar and Torag, among others, seem rather likely to frown heavily on such things. 9th level characters are not long in the world against a Herald, let alone any "back up" they bring along. Not even mind blank withstands the scrutiny of the Gods.
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Perhaps the Gods have seen these thoughts crop up in their bailiwick time and again over the aeons and nipped it in the bud. Deific power is *not* quantified in PF, so an "idea wipe" or "lock" is done and done.
" I had this idea to ... " *wipe/lock* ... research immortality! "
So THAT is why there are so many liches in the world. The gods would rather have liches than wizards destroying economies. Destroying economies could end up starving everyone on the planet (until no one is left to buy your fabrications), but liches can only kill so many people.
or just put the circle on a 10x10 board and turn it upside down (into a pit of spikes) when you don't expect visitors
Teleportation circle doesn't work that way. The circle is entry point. Exit point is just a fixed point in space, just like for greater teleport. You can't change its location once it's cast (unless you design a spell doing exactly that).
In a high magic world, would Lyre of Building drive down the cost to build a ship? You would still need to gather the lumber however.
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The cost to make a teleportation circle permanent is 22,500. The cost to do the actual spell itself is 1,000. That makes the total cost 23,500, but we'll just bump it up to 25,000 because I like mentally satisfying numbers.
That is a huge cost, but it's less than the cost of a Galley (30,000) and the benefits are huge. No danger of pirates, no loss of goods to storms, don't have to pay for crews, food, repairs, anything. No kraken tearing your ships apart. And it replaces potentially dozens of galleys. So let's assume two major trade cities manage to make the deal - they'll both build and defend the teleportation circle in their own cities to allow for instantaneous, no threat, low upkeep trade. Almost immediately people will start adopting this new approach - it's fast, safe, increases trade.
Sure, somebody could dispel it, but there are ways to defend against them, and its easier to defend against than, say, dozens of pirate ships roaming the ocean, sea monsters, storms, and scurvy.
Add 100 years and you have the tippyverse - the result of this thought experiment back in 3.5
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?222007-The-Definitive-Guide-t o-the-Tippyverse-By-Emperor-Tippy
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so from this thread so far, we have the following costs:
- Teleportation circle 50k/pair
- Security wages at each location ~100gp/month for personnel (you will want a decent sized force at either end ... this assumes warriors not spellcasters)
- Security initial costs (equipment, barracks, adamantine cage at either end large enough to encompass a 10'x10'x10' area, etc.) ~750k (probably more from the adamantine costs)
- Vehicles to ship from your shipment depot to all points (as unlike traditional shipping you are going only from one point to one other point, not any number of ports) ??? ... but will need a good mix of land and sea vehicles to haul goods from point of delivery to final destination ... estimate 100 ships and 1000 wagons ... figure of 1.5M for the ships, wagons, horses ...
- Wages for transport crew and animal upkeep 30k in stable fees, 12k in monthly wages for teamsters, 18k in monthly wages for ships crews
Teleportation Circle total cost 2.4M+ gp to set up, +25k every time a circle gets dispelled, +10k to replace a ship, and 60k+/month in wages and upkeep.
- Traditional shipping 200 ships ... 2M
- Wages for transport crew 36k in monthly wages for ships crew
Traditional shipping total cost 2M+ gp to set up, +10k to replace a ship, and 36k+/month in wages and upkeep.
Traditional shipping is still cheaper, not only on the initial cost for a 200 ship fleet, but also on monthly expenses. Additionally, since traditional shipping is delivery from port A to port B, not static point A to static point B, it does not need to worry about secondary shipping infrastructure.
And let us not forget the trade wars that would erupt between 17th level 30+Int wizards would be far more devastating to the surrounding areas than a conflict between rival merchants...
If the rules are there to facilitate the story and the World, one thing makes sense. If the World and the story is there for the rules, the other do.
Bulk transport with teleportation circles would end reducing prices of the goods, including exotic ones. Why high level wizards would want the exotic goods price dropped? If a spell requires 1000 gp worth of herbs from the other continent and the price of required herb fell from 1000 gp per ounce to 1000 gp per pound, due to easy availbility, it means that the casting the spell means handling whole pouch instead of just taking a pinch from it. It decreases wizard's comfort.
I would suggest NOT trying to apply the rules of an RPG to build a coherent world. In my experience, the closer you look, the less satisfied you will become.
Is that made explicit somewhere? I read it the same way RDM42 did and that limits much of the abuse.
No, but there's also no explicit restriction on the size of creatures passing through either.
All we get is: 5-ft.-radius circle that teleports those who activate it
It doesn't say you must be in the circle. In my mind when I read it, I interpret it as every creature currently occupying the circle is teleported. In the event the creature is too large for the circle, nothing else can be teleported with it.
I've never before ever had cause to think there was a size restriction intended. If there is, it should probably be more explicit.
You guys keep ignoring the volume of stuff a teleportation circle can carry.
It takes (or could take) a fleet of ships weeks or months to carry as much stuff a teleportation circle could carry in a day.
A teleportation circle doesn't replace 1 ship, it replaces all of them that go to the target destination.
Ships could be useful for short voyages where you make many stops along the way I guess, but teleportation circles can move an incredible amount of stuff incredibly fast.
You are absolutely correct, IF you are shipping a whole bunch of stuff from one location to just one other location very often. However, that isn't what usually happens with trade routes. Trade ships at that approx. level of tech would sail down the coast stopping and trading at each location.