Teleportation Circle: One Small Step for Man

Usable By: Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard

Spell Level: 5

School: Conjuration

Casting Time: 1 minute

Range: 10 feet

Duration: 1 round

Components: V, M (Rare chalks and inks infused with precious gems with 50 gp, which the spell consumes)

As you cast the spell, you draw a 10-foot-diameter circle on the ground inscribed with sigils that link your location to a permanent teleportation circle of your choice whose sigil sequence you know and that is on the same plane of existence as you. A shimmering portal opens within the circle you drew and remains open until the end of your next turn. Any creature that enters the portal instantly appears within 5 feet of the destination circle or in the nearest unoccupied space if that space is occupied.

Many major temples, guilds, and other important places have permanent teleportation circles inscribed somewhere within their confines. Each such circle includes a unique sigil sequence—a string of magical runes arranged in a particular pattern. When you first gain the ability to cast this spell, you learn the sigil sequences for two destinations on the Material Plane, determined by the GM. You can learn additional sigil sequences during your adventures. You can commit a new sigil sequence to memory after studying it for 1 minute.

You can create a permanent teleportation circle by casting this spell in the same location every day for one year. You need not use the circle to teleport when you cast the spell in this way.

Review by Samuel West, Twitter: @CrierKobold

There are infinite worlds in the D&D cosmology; each table’s own setting fits into an unending pool of imagination, curiosity, and dreams. Weird how giant 10 ft. diameter rings that teleport people around keep popping up in them, huh?

Teleportation Circle is neat, albeit a bit of a headache to manage from a DM perspective. It comes into play at 9th level, meaning if you’re new DM or just never had somebody bring it up, you may stumble into a player learning it while you have put exactly zero thought into implementing these in the world. The spell tells us “Many major temples, guilds, and other important places have permanent teleportation circles”, yet if you are just now finding out this exists, you best be prepared to retcon them in, or just have it be a weird coincidence they didn’t before!

Of the spells in 5e, this feels most like it's built for a video game. Magical interconnected teleportation circles is a novel arcanist idea, and can fit beautifully into worlds with ancient magical lands lost to time or high fantasy “everything is magical all the time” settings. In grittier settings, or other settings where magic may not be a baseline for everything, Teleportation Circle can feel wrong in the world. It can start to feel just like an out of place fast travel point on the map you can warp between, which can pull you out of the fantasy.

Teleportation Circle also is a bit funky in its execution; it takes a minute to cast, but only lasts a single round. You spend more time making it than people get to move through it. For other spells that offer this kind of short duration, normally that’s to interact in a fight or flight scenario like combat. If you took an action to make the circle, a single round to use it feels more sensible; you make it and hurriedly, and the magic is temporary. Spending a minute crafting a circle only for it to vanish six seconds after starting it just feels odd to me, like the spell is a remnant of an older system that didn’t quite update correctly in 5e.

For all my gripes with Teleportation Circle, it does offer a useful tool to get players around. Having the ability to learn new sigil sequences to go to fun new places means the DM can offer you round trip journeys to all sorts of amazing locations. One day you can be adventuring in the arctic, the next on the seafloor, and the following deep in a jungle, all thousands of miles away from each other. While I wish it wasn’t expressed to be so universal, and instead wish it could have been a magical item system or other form of option within the DMG instead of as a spell presented as a player option, I’m glad it exists. If you're looking for some fast travel convenience, have a lot of downtime and want to make your own, or are looking for a way to expand out from your current setting, try out Teleportation Circle.

5e Spells

Teleportation Circle: One Small Step for Man