Question about Dimensional Dervish

[Hogsy]

Hello, Giants.

Me and my party had an argument yesterday about the use of the Dimensional Dervish feat. I am not usually a rules lawyer but due to my build dishing out a lot of damage my DM wanted to target my character at all costs which kind of irritated me in the way he went about focusing me. A couple of medium creatures with the ability to use dimension door and the dimensional dervish feats jumped out of a 50 feet deep Hungry Pit and full-attacked me(we weren't using a grid during that time and even though I had said that i moved away so I could target 2 creatures that were further away they still somehow managed to reach me) so my question is the following. Do you need to make 5 feet increments between each attack when using the Dimensional Dervish or can you just move any increment and full-attack without teleporting ever again during that round? The feat reads as follows:

Benefit: You can take a full-attack action, activating abundant step or casting dimension door as a swift action. If you do, you can teleport up to twice your speed (up to the maximum distance allowed by the spell or ability), dividing this teleportation into increments you use before your first attack, between each attack, and after your last attack. You must teleport at least 5 feet each time you teleport.

Two of my teammates insisted that it's not necessary and that you can just teleport say 20 feet and then make a full-attack. Am I reading the feat wrong? It just makes sense that you need to teleport between each attack for the Dimensional Savant to make sense.


Side Question: Can you use the Dimensional Dervish feat in conjunction with the Greater Cleave feat? I am asking because I have a rogue/horizon walker build in mind using the Improved Surprise Follow-Through feat.

[Genth]

In this instance, does it matter? Because even if you do have to teleport between attacks, you are still getting full-attacked, all they do is teleport 10/5 feet to another side of you, then teleport back.

Having said that, I would argue that the teleport up to component of the feat implicitly applies to the rest - you are not forced to take every teleport between every attack, you just can if you want to.

For the side question: no. Cleave and Greater Cleave are standard actions, Dimensional Dervish is a full round action.

[Hogsy]

In this instance, does it matter? Because even if you do have to teleport between attacks, you are still getting full-attacked, all they do is teleport 10/5 feet to another side of you, then teleport back.

Having said that, I would argue that the teleport up to component of the feat implicitly applies to the rest - you are not forced to take every teleport between every attack, you just can if you want to.

For the side question: no. Cleave and Greater Cleave are standard actions, Dimensional Dervish is a full round action.


Well, it would matter since they wouldn't have any more feet to teleport so they couldn't use more of their attacks. It's the first time my DM is dming and this specific party considers optimising your character for survivability and damage output as broken so I didn't really try to argue as much. Wasting game time to see whether the enemies dealt extra damage or not is quite useless since I can just cast greater invisibility on the next turn. I was simply curious as to the mechanics of the feat. It's a shame though, the skulking slayer combo would have been quite interesting.

By the way, it's this part that got me confused.
"dividing this teleportation into increments you use before your first attack, between each attack, and after your last attack."

[Gallowglass]

The part that has you confused is made clearer by reading the part that Genth highlighted.

The feat lets you teleport as a swift action and divide that teleport into chunks IF you need to/want to between attacks. If you have three attacks in a full attack action then 100%/0%/0% is as valid a split as 33%/33%/33%. Its just that at that point you pretty much get the same level of utility out of abundant step without needing the feat.

If your character dishes out a ton more damage than the other characters and the enemies can see/have seen that, its not DM fiat to have the enemy focus on your character, its a sound tactic of the enemy forces. Take out the dangerous one first.

[Khedrac]

I think I disagree with the others and that you are right.

You don't need to use all of your teleport distance, but the section you bolded, "dividing this teleportation into increments you use before your first attack, between each attack, and after your last attack" has no "or" in it - which means none of it is optional.

[Hogsy]

The part that has you confused is made clearer by reading the part that Genth highlighted.

The feat lets you teleport as a swift action and divide that teleport into chunks IF you need to/want to between attacks. If you have three attacks in a full attack action then 100%/0%/0% is as valid a split as 33%/33%/33%. Its just that at that point you pretty much get the same level of utility out of abundant step without needing the feat.

If your character dishes out a ton more damage than the other characters and the enemies can see/have seen that, its not DM fiat to have the enemy focus on your character, its a sound tactic of the enemy forces. Take out the dangerous one first.


My problem with that was irritation because I was out of range and due to the lack of grid he kind of forced my character to take damage.

[Hogsy]

I think I disagree with the others and that you are right.

You don't need to use all of your teleport distance, but the section you bolded, "dividing this teleportation into increments you use before your first attack, between each attack, and after your last attack" has no "or" in it - which means none of it is optional.

That's exactly what I'm thinking, I don't know why others don't see it that way though. You can teleport up to your speed but you don't have to although you HAVE to make 5 feet increments between your attacks which means you won't be able to make all your attacks if you run out of feet. It's just that the Dimensional Dervish reminds me an awful lot of this ability from the Dervish Dancer bard archetype which reads as follows:

"Dance of Fury (Su)

At 12th level, a dervish dancer can attack more than once as he moves while performing a battle dance. He can combine a full-attack action with a single move, taking the attacks at any point during his movement, but must move at least 5 feet between each attack. This movement provokes attacks of opportunity as normal. "

It's supposed to be the same theme and although it doesn't use the same wording such as "must" it still implies it.

[Necroticplague]

I'm not seeing anything that says you have to teleport between every attack.


Benefit: You can take a full-attack action, activating abundant step or casting dimension door as a swift action. If you do, you can teleport up to twice your speed (up to the maximum distance allowed by the spell or ability), dividing this teleportation into increments you use before your first attack, between each attack, and after your last attack. You must teleport at least 5 feet each time you teleport.
The "can" means it's optional, you don't have to. Even without that, I'm not seeing any reason you can't, say, divide up your increments at 20 before first attack, 0 between each attack, and 20 after last attack. Sure, the rules state your increments have to me at least 5 feet when you teleport, but that seems to imply you simply don't teleport for increments of zero.

[Hogsy]

I'm not seeing anything that says you have to teleport between every attack.


The "can" means it's optional, you don't have to. Even without that, I'm not seeing any reason you can't, say, divide up your increments at 20 before first attack, 0 between each attack, and 20 after last attack. Sure, the rules state your increments have to me at least 5 feet when you teleport, but that seems to imply you simply don't teleport for increments of zero.


I think that "can" refers to the ability to divide the increments between your first attack, between each attack and after the last attack in 5 or more feet and not whether it's optional to not divide them. So without the "can" or without interpreting the "can" in your way you can't actually divide your increments in 0 feet between "each attack" because they need to be divided in at least 5 feet increments.

[Gallowglass]

I think the disconnect is that I don't see how the text "implies it". If it said "you must teleport at least 5' each time you ATTACK" rather than you must teleport at least 5' each time you teleport" I would see it your way.

*minutes later*

You know, I've read the text you posted like 20 times and went back and read the text on d20pfsrd and... you know... I'm starting to think you might be right. I think you've changed my mind. Okay. I'm on team "gotta port" now.

However, you said that the creatures attacking you were coming out of 50' deep hungry pit and were using dimensional door. So they had at least 800+80' per CL of space to teleport with. So it doesn't seem that would run out of teleport space very easy. And as someone else pointed out, then can just "pop" on one side of you then "pop" to the other side of you until they were out of attacks. Never mind, I'm a dork

Hey I wonder if you can flank with yourself with this feat. (<- does not actually think that would be rules legal)

[Larsen]

No, Dimensional Dervish says "up to twice your speed". The max distance is not determined by the spell.

[Gallowglass]

No, Dimensional Dervish says "up to twice your speed". The max distance is not determined by the spell.

Yeah. I edited my post. I'm a dummy.

[Hogsy]

I think the disconnect is that I don't see how the text "implies it". If it said "you must teleport at least 5' each time you ATTACK" rather than you must teleport at least 5' each time you teleport" I would see it your way.

*minutes later*

You know, I've read the text you posted like 20 times and went back and read the text on d20pfsrd and... you know... I'm starting to think you might be right. I think you've changed my mind. Okay. I'm on team "gotta port" now.

However, you said that the creatures attacking you were coming out of 50' deep hungry pit and were using dimensional door. So they had at least 800+80' per CL of space to teleport with. So it doesn't seem that would run out of teleport space very easy. And as someone else pointed out, then can just "pop" on one side of you then "pop" to the other side of you until they were out of attacks.

Hey I wonder if you can flank with yourself with this feat. (<- does not actually think that would be rules legal)


There is the dimensional savant feat which is the last feat of this chain that allows you to flank with yourself, which is kinda awesome considering you can also take Outflank and gain a +4 juicy bonus for yourself. The Dimensional Dervish feat allows you to teleport up to your speed with a maximum of the Dimension Door's range limit. Not up to the range allowed by Dimension Door. That range is simply the maximum you can get if you somehow have 5000 feet per move action otherwise there would be no need to mention the "up to your speed" phrase or they would have at least put "or" in between them, not put the next phrase in a parenthesis. These creatures have 30 feet to move per round, which means they can teleport up to 60 feet. Coming out of the hungry pit takes 50 feet and then they'd have to teleport 10 feet to get next to me(Even though I was actually 20 feet away but that doesn't really matter anymore.), they could then make one attack since they were next to me and would have to teleport again in order to make the rest of their attacks. Besides, after looking at other forums or posts it seems most people who addressed this feat implied that you had to teleport in between attacks and I haven't actually seen a post regarding this part of the DD feat.

EDIT: Haha, I just read the edited part. It's all cool, friend. I am glad that I changed your opinion because I thought I was starting to go crazy for being the only one seeing this besides that one other guy. It's just impossible sometimes to argue in the middle of the session about a detail which isn't REALLY important because I knew I would live, I'm a Wizard. Even though, I was annoyed by my DM so I wanted to stand up for my character getting an unjust beating. Also, considering that I was the only one who had more than like 25% of their HP left so it could have easily gone sour with the way we used the feat.