Portals

A portal is simply a permanent teleportation effect that safely whisks its user to a predetermined place. Most portals lead from one place on a plane to another place on the same plane, but a few lead to other planes.

Qualities of Portals

Portal magic is unusually durable, and often survives for centuries—or millennia—after its creators have vanished into history or lost any use for their handiwork. Accordingly, the workings of portals are mysterious and unpredictable. Each one is built for a reason, but all too often, these reasons are lost when the creator passes into history or obscurity.

Portals share some common qualities. All portals are two-dimensional areas, usually a circle with a radius of up to 10 feet, but sometimes square, rectangular, or another shape. (Larger portals are more expensive, but necessary for creatures of greater than Huge size.) The portal itself is intangible and invisible.

Portals often come in pairs or networks. A single portal is a one-way trip. There must be a matching portal at the destination to return. Some portals are attuned to several potential destinations, each equipped with a matching portal, but most are simply two-way doors between one point and another far distant. Once created, a portal cannot be moved.

Detecting Portals

An archway or frame of some kind usually marks a portal’s location so it can be found when needed and so that creatures don’t blunder into it accidentally. Detect magic can reveal a portal’s magical aura. If the portal is currently functioning (ready to transport creatures), it has a strong aura. If the portal is not currently able to transport creatures (usually because it has a limited number of uses, and they are currently exhausted), it has a weak aura. Strong or weak, a portal radiates transmutation magic.

Even a character capable of locating traps can’t find a portal with the Search skill.

Portal Operation

Creatures who touch or pass through the area of the portal are instantly teleported to the locale the portal’s builder specified. (The teleportation effect is similar to teleport without error cast by a 17th-level caster, except that interplanar travel is possible.) It is not possible to poke one’s head through a portal to see what’s on the other side. A portal can only transport creatures that can fit through the portal’s physical dimensions.

If a solid object blocks the destination, the portal does not function. Creatures, however, do not block portals. If a creature already occupies the area where a portal leads, the user is instead transported to a suitable location as close as possible to the original destination. A suitable location has a surface strong enough to support the user and enough space to hold the user.

Unattended objects cannot pass though a portal. For example, a character can carry any number or arrows through a portal, but he cannot fire an arrow through a portal. An unattended object that hits a portal simply bounces off.

Unless the builder has preset some limit, any number of creatures can pass through a portal each round. A creature using a portal can take along up to 850 pounds of gear. In this case, gear is anything a creature carries or touches. If two or more creatures touch the same piece of equipment, it counts against both creatures’ weight limits.

Keyed Portals

Portal builders often restrict access to their creations by setting conditions for their use. Special conditions for triggering a portal can be based on the possession of a portal key, the creature’s name, identity, or alignment, but otherwise must be based on observable actions or qualities. Intangibles such as level, class, Hit Dice, or hit points don’t qualify.

Keyed portals may be created at no extra cost. The key must be designated during the creation of the device and cannot be changed after that.

A keyed portal remains active for 1 full round. Any creature that touches the activated portal in the same round also can use the portal, even if such creatures don’t have a key themselves.

Many portal keys are rare and unusual objects that the creature using the portal must carry. Some portals are keyed to work only at a particular time, such as sunrise, sunset, the full moon, or midnight. Spells can serve as portal keys, as can the channeling of positive or negative energy. When the portal is the target of the specified spell or within the spell’s area or touched by its effect, the spell is absorbed and the portal is activated. Any form of the spell works to activate the portal, including spell-like effects of creatures or magic items and spells from scroll.

Sealing Portals

A portal cannot be destroyed by physical means or by spell effects that destroy objects (such as disintegrate). A successful targeted dispel magic (DC 28) causes a portal to become nonfunctional for 1d4 rounds. Mordenkainen’s disjunction destroys a portal unless it makes a Will save (a portal’s Will save bonus is +10).

Portals can’t be disabled with Disable Device.

Building a Portal

Any character of at least 17th level can build a portal if she knows the Create Portal feat (see sidebar) and either the teleportation circle or gate spell. See below for portal prices.

The portal can lead to any locale the builder has personally visited at least once. The portal fails if the builder chooses a destination that cannot safely hold her (such as inside a solid object or into thin air). The portal also fails if the destination is a locale where astral travel is blocked (see the teleport spell description).

The prices and construction times noted are for portals that operate constantly, transporting anyone who passes through them at any time. If the portal can be used less than five times per day, the base costs are reduced. Multiply the market price by the number of uses per day, then divide by 5. This gives you the new market price of the limited-use portal. Each activation of a limited-use portal lasts 1 round. Once activated, a limited-use portal can transport as many creatures as can touch it that round.

Portal: This continuously active portal allows one-way travel only. It covers an area with radius of anything from 6 inches (about 1 square foot) up to 10 feet (about 300 square feet).

A larger portal adds 100% to the market price for each extra 300 square feet of area or fraction of 300 square feet.

Caster Level: 17th; Prerequisites: Craft Portal, gate or teleport without error, caster level 17; Market Price: 100,000 gp.

Portal, Two-Way: This construction is actually a matching pair of portals, one at each end of the “trip.” It is otherwise identical to a standard portal.

Caster Level: 17th; Prerequisites: Craft Portal, gate, or teleport without error, caster level 17; Market Price: 150,000 gp.