OK, according to the spell, you can create a permanent Teleportation Circle with it's own, unique sigil sequence by casting the Teleportation Circle spell in the same location every day for a year.
What if that Location is Mobile, like a wagon or Barge? Could a wizard create a circle on such a mobile platform?
Via twitter:
Q: Can a permenant Teleportation Circle be built on a non-stationary item such as a ship or wagon? A fancy durable rug?
Jeremy Crawford: I allow teleportation circles on most types of ground/floor. E.g., airships in my home campaign often bear them.
You can end up with all sorts of weird cases, though, like casting it on the ground, then separating that bit of ground and putting it on the back of a wagon.
It might work with a rug if you don't care about the circle remaining solid, but it'd have to be a pretty darn nice rug. You wouldn't want to work on it for a whole year only to decide you were sick of the pattern.
I have allowed moving teleport circles in other campaigns with no great ill effect. So i wouldn't shy from doing it again in 5e. Most of the ones we had in past campaigns were placed in ships. Handy way to get back aboard. A plot device so to speak like the transporters of the Enterprise. Plkus you can T Port to shore if you can see it. avoid those pesky, time consuming small boat rides.
I'd allow it, but not likely on a rug unless its a very large rug. The space has to be large enough for the circle and stable enough not to damage, mar, or alter the circle. That'd be something to keep in mind as a plot device: a circle on a ship that gets destroyed by removing a plank that part of the circle is drawn upon. There's a reason to use a large single piece of durable material for putting the circle on.
For a rug though I'd say the rug had to be specially crafted to have the circle pattern be part of the rug itself rather than drawn on it. The ritual then gets performed on the rug each day for a year. I'd also likely limit the creation process to only work when the object isn't moved. Once it's been made permanent though it could be moved.
I am all for having teleportation circles made permanent on any surface that is "the ground" or "the floor", especially because that enables the party to have a teleportation circle on their airship, boat, or other large enough vehicle.
As for a teleportation circle that is able to be picked up and moved on it's own, such as a rug, I would tell my players that I would rather them not do that but I wouldn't actually stop them if they wanted to go ahead knowing my preference - it's not a significant enough issue for me to care enough about getting my way to put my own preference above my players' collective preference.
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
Hmmm...seems to me the runes on a circle might be something like coordinate markers. If you move it, do you negate the circle? Kind of like having to recalculate the stargates in Stargate if they're moved. But then again...magic, so all bets might be off.
Kahless wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
How I'd run it:
The keyword it keeps using with regard to teleportation circles is "location", that implies to me that it's more important where the circle is rather than what it's cast on. And if you moved the circle, it'd probably no longer function. About the only time I'd call an exception is if it's large enough to be a truly mobile location, as opposed to a vehicle or item. A flying castle for instance could support a mobile circle. A wagon or a rug shouldn't be able to.
I think this could be done as a really cool high level magic item. Or done by a high level spell caster as a source of immediate transportation. They could use Teleport (7th level spell) to move themselves and the rug to a point, and then just unfurl the rug right then and there, and then all of their team just appears, or vice versa. Not exactly cost effective, but definitely cool when done properly.
transcendantviewer wrote:
Technically, it could be the same caster, just having the Teleportation Circle established on the rug before leaving. And the other idea that I had would be for it to function as a pitstop. The healer can sit on the other side of the teleportation circle and someone in need of healing can hop in, get healed, and then pop back out to rejoin the frey. The rest of the party just runs interference. Or better yet, have all of them huddle around the caster when he drops a Leomond's Tiny Hut and unfurls the rug. From there, they can cross into and out of the hut with no risk of anyone entering the teleportation circle. Same set up. Cleric/healer on the other side of the circle, people in need of healing dash into the sphere, drop through the teleport, get patched up, pop back out. And the only thing it took was a years' worth of castings of Teleportation Circle, a rug, and a Leomind's Tiny Hut spell. Once the spell is made permanent, I'd allow it. But that's an entire year of the wizard just casting it over and over again on the same rug.
Be interesting to put such a rug in a Leomunds Secret Chest
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Slagger_the_Chuul wrote:
transcendantviewer wrote:
I would allow it on a single piece of stone or metal. So no cracks and no significant folding of the circle.
So, the radius is 10ft, so lets take 11ft radius of the stone so one little chip doesnt brake the circle, and atleast 1ft of depth. If the stone is granite it has density of 2,7t/m3.
so that teleportation circle would weight 2,31t or 5140lb. Not very practical to move around.