OOC

Just a quick thread here that you can use to ask any questions about the world in general or chat about whatever you like.

Teleportation circles:
They exist in every major city. They are not travelled by the poor. Only the very rich can afford to use them and they are not very large. Perhaps, ten people could teleport at the same time but no more than that. Also, opersting the teleportation circles is very expensive. Each trip costs 3,000 gold, so only those who have very pressing business use them. Everyone else prefers other forms of transportation. The teleportation symbols are set up in very secure areas and surrounded by the guards who check each and every passenger and the mages who operate them. One mage is needed to cast the spell at the point where you depart. No mage is needed at the arrival point.

Thanks. This is good to know. It's hard to play a strategizing spy when you're guessing at the things she's supposed to know! :D

So, with the helm of teleportation, I have three charges. I can use 1 charge to cast the Teleportation spell. It regains 1d3 charges at dawn.

So would there be a cost affiliated, since I'm not having a mage cast it. It's using the circle as a target only.

For reference:
Familiarity: "Permanent Circle" means a permanent teleportation circle whose sigil sequence you know. "Associated Object" means that you possess an object taken from the desired destination within the last six months, such as a book from a wizard's library, bed linen from a royal suite, or a chunk of marble from a Lich's secret tomb.

"Very Familiar" is a place you have been very often, a place you have carefully studied, or a place you can see when you cast the spell. "Seen Casually" is some place you have seen more than once but with which you aren't very familiar. "Viewed Once" is a place you have seen once, possibly using magic. "Description" is a place whose location and appearance you know through someone else's description, perhaps from a map.

"False Description" is a place that doesn't exist. Perhaps you tried to scry an enemy's sanctum but instead viewed an illusion, or you are attempting to teleport to a familiar location that no longer exists.

Please note that the plan Rolana is proposing assumes that the king will pay for the initial teleportation trip. It wouldn't make sense to expect operatives you're sending into danger to pay for their own trip. ;)

I assumed the 3,000 gold was to pay for the services of the mage. But if we do it ourselves?

That's a good point. If members of the party can do it, do we have to pay anyone?

Just to put it out there, Pyrrha has "Transport via Plants" which has no material components. It would assume Pyrrha had been to Southwatch befire and touched a tree there, but I don't think it's a huge leap of logic to say that she has, given that she's a druid.

@Arina Is teleportation in this world possible outside of teleportation circles? For instance, can we teleport to a place known well by members of the party, such as the store they are talking about, without using a circle?

@Moonbeam, by default the Teleportation spell works that way unless we're limiting it's scope. With 5e, teleportation carries a risk of failure if you teleport to anything other than a) a teleportation circle you know the arcane sigil pattern for or b) the location a piece of material from the space (like stealing a sheet from the king's bedchamber or a ledger book from the bank) that you took in the last 6 months.

If you were to, say, teleport to a location someone described to you or a place that you just know about, you could fail. If you fail, you show up a random number of miles away and potentially taking damage. The less you know about the place, the worse the potential outcome. Failure has grades, you could just appear in a similar area (like someone describes a throne room, instead of king a's throne room, you end up in king b's throne room) or like hundreds of miles away over the middle of the ocean.

@Dramasailor I see. Thanks for the explanation - teleportation has rarely been used in the campaigns I've played in.

The Transort vía Plants spell seems like a more secure way, doesn't it?

Well @Araklusta, that depends. If we transport to a known sigil, there is zero chance for anything except arriving where you intended, it's the reason I asked about the circles to start. When the players teleport, they pick a target for the teleportation and their familiarity helps figure out if they succeed:

Familiarity Level:
"Permanent Circle" means a permanent Teleportation Circle whose sigil sequence you know.
"Associated Object" means that you possess an object taken from the desired destination within the last six months, such as a book from a wizard's Library, bed linen from a royal suite, or a chunk of marble from a Lich's secret tomb.
"Very Familiar" is a place you have been very often, a place you have carefully studied, or a place you can see when you cast the spell.
"Seen Casually" is some place you have seen more than once but with which you aren't very familiar.
"Viewed Once" is a place you have seen once, possibly using magic.
"Description" is a place whose location and appearance you know through someone else's description, perhaps from a map.
"False Description" is a place that doesn't exist. Perhaps you tried to scry an enemy's Sanctum but instead viewed an Illusion, or you are attempting to teleport to a familiar location that no longer exists.

Once they cast, the DM rolls a 1d100 and depending on the familiarity, they see what the result is per this chart:
Teleportation Result Chart:
Permanent Circle: 1-100 = On Target
Associated Object: 1-100 = On Target
Very Familiar: 1-5 = Mishap, 6-13 = Similar Area, 14-24 = Off Target, 25-100 = On Target
Seen Casually: 1-33 = Mishap, 34-43 = Similar Area, 44-53= Off Target, 54-100 = On Target
Viewed Once: 1-43 = Mishap, 44-53= Similar Area, 54-73= Off Target, 74-100 = On Target
Description : 1-43 = Mishap, 44-53= Similar Area, 54-73= Off Target, 74-100 = On Target
False Description: 1-50 = Mishap, 51-100 = Similar Area

Teleportation Result Descriptions:
On Target: You and your group (or the target object) appear where you want to go.

Off Target: You and your group (or the target object) appear a random distance away from the destination in a random direction. Distance off target is 1d10 x 1d10 percent of the distance that was to be travelled. For example, if you tried to travel 120 miles, landed off target, and rolled a 5 and 3 on the two d10s, then you would be off target by 15 percent, or 18 miles. The DM determines the direction off target randomly by rolling a d8 and designating 1 as north, 2 as north-east, 3 as east, and so on around the points of the compass. If you were teleporting to a coastal city and wound up 18 miles out at sea, you could be in trouble.

Similar Area: You and your group (or the target object) wind up in a different area that's visually or thematically similar to the target area. If you are heading for your home laboratory, for example, you might wind up in another wizard's laboratory or in an alchemical supply shop that has many of the same tools and implements as your laboratory. Generally, you appear in the closest similar place, but since the spell has no range limit, you could conceivably wind up anywhere on the plane.

Mishap: The spell's unpredictable magic results in a difficult journey. Each teleporting creature (or the target object) takes 3d10 force damage and the DM rerolls on the table to see where you wind up (multiple mishaps can occur, dealing damage each time).

Right, but the Transport via Plants spell doesn't teleport at all. There's none of that risky business. You just use your movement to get there, through a tree.

I mean, assuming the GM allows the use of the spell, then yeah...transport via plant is the best option. If this isn't an anti-magic field then we could move in guerrilla style.

At this point in the game, I'm not sure it makes sense for our characters to continue trying to formulate a strategy until we have been given a more complete vision of the homebrew world. (This is not intended as a complaint, merely an observation.)

Right now, we are playing characters at Level 15 who are operating with a Level 1 knowledge of the city, kingdom (Dia Monde?), and overall universe in which they live. Since we have no source material to look at for flavor and mechanical information, we have to rely on getting this information some other way.

It would be great if we could have a map (crude is fine) and some sort of info-dump to refer to. Our characters have been arguing about strategy and tactics with almost nothing to back up our views. And that is leading naturally to characters - all of whom are, after all, very accomplished and powerful - demeaning one another's insights (all of which insights are pure flavor and no substance, at the moment). It's rather like playing one of those "escape the room" games while everyone is blindfolded.

Again, I'm not trying to foment unrest or complain about the game, and no disrespect to Arina is intended. I think the concept is very intriguing and I'm loving the RP the players are doing. I just feel we need a lot more source material if we're to play Level 15 badasses convincingly doing battle in a world they've spent their lives working in and protecting.

I don't really feel the need for a map (though it wouldn't hurt), but Aetoris' last post to the king should yield some good hints as to how we should be approaching this.

Yes, but we're all still just guessing until we have actual hard knowledge about this setting.

So...do we roll initiative now or just act? My only plan is to stay a good distance above it and use Eldritch Blast to kill it. Open to other ideas though.

Well if it's just confused and chased out of its home deep under the ground perhaps we could scare it back into the ground by making a fuckton of noise above it? Perhaps even shooting eldritch blasts and such at rocks Kuz throws high above the creature in the air, like clay pigeon shooting. Maybe give it a little kick under its butt to make it move?
Yes, I get it's not a completely innocent creature, there's blood on the ground. But I do think that seeing it calmly munching on an orchard like this Oma wouldn't feel comfortable just trying to kill it, and perhaps other will not like it either? When it's not above the ground it's not hurting anyone and if we can try to send it back without hurting it, why not? If it runs after the people on the ground I can always reverse gravity on the thing and we can kill it anyway...