If you cast this spell ahead of time, can you say...draw all of it out except for 1 tiny piece and then walk away...come back when you want it, finish the last part of the circle and then it activate?  Say you take 55 secs of the spell time to write it all out and then come back (like if you're being chased) and finish the last 5 seconds, should it activate then or do you need to spend all 60 seconds casting and it will pop into existence the second you finish?

Also, this question is referencing this being cast from a scroll but that shouldn't really change anything about responses I don't think.

Cool spell but for my campaign I'm going to change it slightly. It says in the spell's description that upon gaining the ability to cast the spell, you learn the sigil sequences of two permanent teleportation circles. So I decided that on the final casting of the spell (after one year of casting in the same spot every day) that you can choose to make the teleportation circle Private or Public.

A private circle has glowing purple sigils, and its sigil sequence can't be learned simply by gaining the ability to cast the spell, only by studying the sigils up close. A public circle has glowing blue sigils, and has a chance to have its sigil sequence memorized by someone who gains the ability to cast the spell, and it can be memorized by studying the sigils. So the only difference between the two is that one can have its sigils memorized when you learn the spell, and one can't.

This is because if the BBEG wants to have a teleportation circle in his lair, he shouldn't have to constantly worry about random adventurers learning the sigil sequence of it at random.

Edit: grammar fix

You're forgetting the part where the DM determines which two sigil sequences you get on learning the spell. Most DM's will probably make those two convenience destinations to places you're already on good terms with, like the wizard academy you studied at or a temple you've aided in your adventures. The spell itself doesn't mystically grant you the knowledge of two destinations of your choice, it's just making sure you can actually use the spell by letting the DM assign two locations you "already knew" as soon as you learn it rather than have to hunt down your first destination.

Would I be able to cover a permanent circle on the ground with a carpet or the like so users can´t study the sigils? Ofcourse one of the teleporters would know the sigil but maybe this is someone under employ of the owner of the circle who is teleporting in guests.

Ah, fair point. I think I saw a post on here about a DM's party learning the sigil sequence of the BBEG's teleportation circle. My mind might have been skewed a bit when I read it and interpreted it as them having learned the sequence upon learning the spell, but it's possible they just studied the runes, I can't find the post again.

Right near the start someone posed the hypothetical of using the big bad's circle as a backdoor into their fortress after having learned the sequence, but they were just using a hypothetical scenario to make the point that the spell shouldn't be a ritual since doing this would cost you a 5th-level slot, you have to weigh if it's worth it rather than just having a free pass. By the by, I'd say "yes", particularly if the party had another full caster or you'll still have another 5th slot. Unless the DM is sending up big "you aren't ready for this content yet" flags, you should save more than one 5th level slot's worth of resources by bypassing several lines of defense.

The spell mentions that the caster leans 2 sigils when they first learn the spell. If the character has never seen any teleportation sigils before, how would they suddenly know them? Do they just have random sigils appear in their mind? Do they know where the teleportation circles are? Would they know "the sigil leads to the basement of a wizard's tower in the outskirts of town So-and-So", or just "it leads 4,000 miles south by southwest and 2,500 feet above your current elevation"?

can anyone please draw one of these for me please i need to know what one looks like

In a world with 365 days, it would cost 18,250 gp to get a permanent one.

This is one of those spells where requiring a casting a day for one year makes no sense for the requirement to be permanent.  That's basic game parlance for saying it can only be done by NPC's off camera.  The requirement(s) should instead be: increasing the casting time (should be Ritual regardless), upcasting it to X level (7th IMO, *maybe* 8th) and/or using up a higher amount of gold.

the chalk is a spell component that is consumed by the spell.

damn

Quote from bhavesh >>

can you tell me how to do that this????

Quote from bhavesh >>

can you tell me how to do that this????

Quote from Sylvanborn >>

(rare chalks and inks infused with precious gems *worth* 50 gp, which the spell consumes)

Quote from Khiset >>

sigils are already established permanent teleportation circles. you are given two sigils when you learn this spell. think of sigils as longitude latitude coordinates to a permanent circles. later, when you 1 minute cast teleportation circle you pick a sigil that you know that you wish to teleport to. after casting the spell, at the end of you next turn, the spell ends. if you cast the spell in the same spot every day for a whole year that spot becomes a new sigil, a new permanent teleportation circle. if you come across a permanent teleportation circle you can study its sigils and it has now become a discovered circle, or sigil, that you can teleport to when you 1 minute cast the teleportation circle spell.

I just thought of a way to represent the teleportation circle and its sigils.

Every location has 15 sigils to designate it.

Draw a pentagram with a circle around it on the ground.
I each outer triangle you have 3 destination sigils, making the 15 total.
inside the inner pentagon you have three origin sigils on each side making the 15 for the starting location.

The 15 sigils correspond to 15 stars in the night sky over any area. you need to study the sky for a year and use 15 of the stars that do not "set" at all.
Casting the spell every day for a year is just storing up the needed energy.

Public circles could be listed in books in libraries around the world. More than likely not every destination in the world but some wizard someplace might have collected a few or more and donated his location book to the library.

Secret ones could be written on walls in hidden places leading to other hidden places. That way only those that know the spell could follow.

The Dm could rule that the spell need only be cast 365 times with no more than 24 hour between castings. Thus if you could cast it 3 times a day you could cut the construction time down to around 125 days. A more reasonable amount of time. Plus a few people could then work together and cut the time even more.

The sigils could also be in a code to hide them.

Quote from Drakkonus >>

So is there an official ruling from Jeremy Crawford or someone about how many creatures can enter the Teleportation Circle? 

You'll find a lot of wild calculations online about how many creatures can enter the 10-foot circle based on a 30-foot move, coming up with answers anywhere from over a hundred to tens of thousands. My opinion, they're all pretty ridiculous. They posit every inch surrounding the circle up to 60 feet away being packed with creatures, then an impossible number of creatures per second being able to move into the circle, and heavily leverage the RAW idea that creatures just keep popping into empty squares yards and yards away from the destination circle as the area fills up.

I think it's more RAI that at most 4 to 6 creatures can enter the circle every second of the round, just based on practical consideration. (Ever watch a crowd walk through double doors?) At the destination, there needs to be clear line of sight from the circle to an empty space for a creature to appear in it. Thus, walls, closed doors, and so on will practically limit the number of creatures that can come through unless they can use movement to clear the area. 

Quote from Fragenstien >>

The spell mentions that the caster leans 2 sigils when they first learn the spell. If the character has never seen any teleportation sigils before, how would they suddenly know them? Do they just have random sigils appear in their mind? Do they know where the teleportation circles are? Would they know "the sigil leads to the basement of a wizard's tower in the outskirts of town So-and-So", or just "it leads 4,000 miles south by southwest and 2,500 feet above your current elevation"?

 In my games, we always assume that, in the process of learning the spell, the caster also learns the destination of two well-known or friendly teleportation circles. If the caster doesn't know any friendly organizations or individuals, then there could be published circles connected to well-known public destinations, temples to gods of travel or exploration, that sort of thing.

Quote from TheGnome5786 >>

I just thought of a way to represent the teleportation circle and its sigils.

Every location has 15 sigils to designate it.

Draw a pentagram with a circle around it on the ground.
I each outer triangle you have 3 destination sigils, making the 15 total.
inside the inner pentagon you have three origin sigils on each side making the 15 for the starting location.

The 15 sigils correspond to 15 stars in the night sky over any area. you need to study the sky for a year and use 15 of the stars that do not "set" at all.
Casting the spell every day for a year is just storing up the needed energy.

 The Dm could rule that the spell need only be cast 365 times with no more than 24 hour between castings. Thus if you could cast it 3 times a day you could cut the construction time down to around 125 days. A more reasonable amount of time. Plus a few people could then work together and cut the time even more.

In the section "Inner Circles" of the adventure Storm King's Thunder, there's an image of the 6 teleportation circles that are part of a Harper teleportation network. I figure these are sketches of the actual circles and/or notation for the sigils.

As a DM, I definitely allow multiple casters to work on constructing the same circle to reduce the time. However, in my worlds, finding casters high enough level to cast the spell is difficult at best. In a city the size of Baldur's Gate, you're not likely to find even 10 at any one time, and each of them will have their own goals and agendas. 

re: The two locations you learn when learning the spell. One possibility is you learn circles known to the person you learned the spell from. Which means they may be of no use to you*. Say you were in a dungeon and searched the bottom of a particularly dastardly pit trap you fell into and found a spell book on the skeleton of a long dead wizard of bad place and out of that spell book you learned this spell. The two free destination circles you might now know (the two the dead wizard had recorded) might be the destination address of the main wizard enclave in the two major cities of the bad country. (So two cities in Thay, two drow cities in the underdark, the two primary military bases of an enemy nation, etc.) You might even allow 'look before you leap' and have the portal open into an ancient chamber that is now under water (Atlantis) or in complete darkness (ancient ruined civilization), etc. so just using the portal requires some more work on the party's parts.

* no use to you ... yet.

Those two locations they learn when learning the spell may not be for the party's benefit (much less their choice & instantly useful) but they might be plot hooks;  and they may be logical based on the source of the knowledge.

most dms I've met (myself included) have allowed this to be used as a ritual spell with casting times ranging between 1-8h. Just talk with your dm and they'll probably allow it.

Remember, you can only teleport to other circles you've already found in the world or made yourself.

Parties that have access to 5th level spells are probably already above the dangers that travel between cities might entail. (wild animals, bandits, goblins, etc.)

Reducing travel time between the bigger hotspots in your dnd world makes running the game much smoother and gives the players a way to back out of dire situations if they manage to escape the initial danger of an encounter gone wrong.

It can also create great tension: The party narrowly escapes an enemy that was clearly too powerful for them to take on and they've managed to barricade themselves in a cave... for now. As the wizard is in the middle of the ritual to make an escape portal, the party hears the enemy closing in and now they need to survive and keep the wizard alive for long enough to escape.

Worth noting that this spell doesn't specify a willing creature - with some proper planning, you could create some major distance between yourself and some enemies, monsters inc style

Permanent teleportation circles break world building because they become an open border to anyone powerful enough to cast the spell, and any such person is powerful enough to be a threat (if you can't identify them as an ally). There seems to be no codified way to temporarily deactivate it nor does it have visible signs that someone is trying to connect to it. The "nearest unoccupied space" clause also means you can't just fill the room the circle is in with objects as they'll just appear outside of the building. Placing it on a rotating platform above a cliff face does an OK job at deterring non-flying users, but still vulnerable to flying users (eg high level devils and demons, or just high level wizards).

Any city that has such a circle would likely build it outside of the city (2-3 hours' walk from the border), with guards 24/7, and release a flare of some sort whenever it is used so that the city knows someone just teleported (and if they don't get any Sending message from the guards there, they know something has gone wrong). The caster would probably have to cast Sending to let them know (with password) so that they make the circle safe to enter and don't just instantly stab them.

A villain would likely have to do similar, but would also make the circle near inhospitable to outsiders. Such as fire immune monsters placing it in a volcano and surrounding it with lava.

Even then, skipping the dangers of travelling on land and saving the time you'd spend would make this extremely valuable to the economy, and with limited spell slots to cast per day, only the richest merchants/politicians/royalty could pay NPC mages to teleport them.

I think it brings a lot of work to the table and may either be a dream for the DM or a nightmare... or you can just hand wave it and treat it as the "way point fast travel" game mechanic that it really is for players.

Hopefully this short FAQ can clear/help out a lot of you.

Q: Does the drawn circle stay after the Teleportation Circle spell is cast?

A: No. The circle is just a casting component and vanishes after the spell is complete, leaving behind a "shimmering portal." Think of it like summoning a magical portal, not creating a persistent physical circle.

Q: Can I cast Teleportation Circle anywhere, like on a flying ship or while swimming?

A: The spell description specifically mentions drawing the circle on the "ground." A strict RAW interpretation would limit casting to locations connected to the earth, preventing potential exploits. Keep in mind structures and things would be considered ground, assuming they are built atop of it.

Q: How do I learn the sigil sequences needed to choose a destination?

A: You learn two initial sequences when you gain the ability to cast Teleportation Circle (chosen by your GM). Additional sequences are learned through direct, personal study of the specific sigil for 1 minute.

Q: Can someone teach me a sigil sequence, or can I learn it from a book?

A: No. Learning sigil sequences requires direct study of the sigil itself. Secondhand knowledge isn't enough to utilize them for teleportation.

Q: Can I use a Teleportation Circle scroll if I don't know the spell?

A: No. Without knowing the spell, you wouldn't possess any sigil sequence knowledge, rendering the scroll useless for teleportation.

Q: What if the scroll creator knew the sigil sequence when they made it? Can someone else use the scroll to teleport?

A: No. The spell describes the sigils inscribed on the circle you draw as linking your location to a permanent teleportation circle whose sigil sequence you know. This implies a direct link between the caster's mind and the destination through the act of drawing the sigils. It's not simply a matter of replicating a specific pattern. Think of it as sending your coordinates to the destination through the act of drawing, establishing a connection only you can initiate with that specific permanent circle.

Remember: Teleportation Circle is a powerful spell. A RAW interpretation, especially regarding "ground" and sigil sequence acquisition, helps maintain balance and avoids trivializing travel in your game.

Why are you trying to make this spell more accessible and easily done? There are easier ways for players and DMs to get things where they need them in the time they need them to be. It's lazy and shortsighted, in my opinion, to handwave restrictions on such a powerful worldbreaking spell. Suddenly things like floating cities and fortresses start to make more sense and you are able to see why they are often employed by BBEGs and magic-advanced societies.