Does Dimension Door allow you to change dimensions?

[polymphus]

It's right there in the title, but I guess I'll elaborate.

The name of dimension door implies it allows you to move between planes, but nothing in the rules suggests this. It seems like a pretty simple long-ish-ranged teleport but I see people talk about using it to access demiplanes or cross planar boundaries etc.

What's the situation here?

[Potato_Priest]

I think it does what it says it does. I've never heard of it being used for planar travel.

[Waterdeep Merch]

I figured it was named that because of hyperspace. The idea being that you get from one place to another by temporarily stepping through a dimension with different, er, dimensions, allowing you to walk a long distance in a single step. The spell lets you access that specific extra dimension for a single moment for movement purposes, not just any dimension.

[Lombra]

I see the spell more like either a GTFO panic button or a blitzkrieg starter. It doesn't allow planar travel unless the plane you are traveling to is within 500 hundred feet of you and is within line of sight.

Which is a very complex (very complex) and unnecessary argument.

[polymphus]

So, would a person using dimension door temporarily be moving through a demiplane, or the astral/ethereal plane?

[Waterdeep Merch]

So, would a person using dimension door temporarily be moving through a demiplane, or the astral/ethereal plane?
It's never really been canonically stated what dimension door is actually doing, much like all magic. But I'd figure it's using the astral plane as its medium in the way I described, as most arcane magic tends to.

It also means it makes you more like Nightcrawler. And that's cool.

[imanidiot]

"You Teleport yourself from your current location to any other spot within range. You arrive at exactly the spot desired. It can be a place you can see, one you can visualize, or one you can describe by stating distance and direction, such as 200 feet straight downward or upward to the northwest at a 45-degree angle, 300 feet."

Nothing in the spells says that you can't use it to travel to another plane. So long as that plane is within 500ft of you.

[hymer]

Nothing in the spells says that you can't use it to travel to another plane. So long as that plane is within 500ft of you.

Likewise, there's nothing saying you can't walk onto another plane using your combat movement, provided the plane is within the amount of feet you have left to move in that turn.

[Millstone85]

Which is a very complex (very complex) and unnecessary argument.Sounds fun, though.

Fluff-wise, I think the only plane that could be considered "within 500 feet" is the Border Ethereal. It overlaps the Material, in such a way that a creature can be considered to be in the same room as you, only invisible, inaudible and intangible, unless truesight or certain force effects are involved.

Crunch-wise, it would put the 4th-level spell dimension door in competition with the 7th-level spells etherealness and plane shift, so it is probably a bad idea.

Something that could be interesting is the idea of a fey crossing or shadow crossing that could be forced open with dimension door. There are signs that the Feywild/Shadowfell is close in this clearing/graveyard, but no stone circle or anything to walk through.

[Aett_Thorn]

Sounds fun, though.

Fluff-wise, I think the only plane that could be considered "within 500 feet" is the Border Ethereal. It overlaps the Material, in such a way that a creature can be considered to be in the same room as you, only invisible, inaudible and intangible, unless truesight or certain force effects are involved.

Crunch-wise, it would put the 4th-level spell dimension door in competition with the 7th-level spells etherealness and plane shift, so it is probably a bad idea.

Something that could be interesting is the idea of a fey crossing or shadow crossing that could be forced open with dimension door. There are signs that the Feywild/Shadowfell is close in this clearing/graveyard, but no stone circle or anything to walk through.

But unless you can SEE into the border ethereal, then this still wouldn't work. And if you can see into it, it's because you're likely already there.

[Millstone85]

But unless you can SEE into the border ethereal, then this still wouldn't work. And if you can see into it, it's because you're likely already there.Or you have truesight.

But actually, dimension door leads you to "a place you can see, one you can visualize, or one you can describe by stating distance and direction".

[Lombra]

Sounds fun, though.

Fluff-wise, I think the only plane that could be considered "within 500 feet" is the Border Ethereal. It overlaps the Material, in such a way that a creature can be considered to be in the same room as you, only invisible, inaudible and intangible, unless truesight or certain force effects are involved.

Crunch-wise, it would put the 4th-level spell dimension door in competition with the 7th-level spells etherealness and plane shift, so it is probably a bad idea.

Something that could be interesting is the idea of a fey crossing or shadow crossing that could be forced open with dimension door. There are signs that the Feywild/Shadowfell is close in this clearing/graveyard, but no stone circle or anything to walk through.

Oh it is fun! But far from the scope of the thread, so I stopped there.

Depending on how one interpretates the concept of "plane", talking about "physical distances" between plane to plane may even have no meaning, if you think about it in amore materialistic way, sure, you can have distances from plane to plane, but if you think about them as "parallel dimensions" then talking about distances is pointless, I love the more material and physical interaction between planes, but since you access to them only through portals, I can't help but thinking that they are just different... planes... of existance, so there isn't an actual distance between two of them, they are just in different places, but not in the three-dimensional concept of space, if that makes any sense.

[tieren]

If you want a portal to another plane you need to cast Gate.

note:
The spell title also has the word "door" in it, but the spell does not create a door, except to the extent you consider the portal like a doorway.

[Potato_Priest]

Likewise, there's nothing saying you can't walk onto another plane using your combat movement, provided the plane is within the amount of feet you have left to move in that turn.

Amen to this. Dimension door is just a movement ability, like any creature's movement speed. Just because a spell is called "dimension door" does not mean that it actually allows you to go to different dimensions when the rules say nothing of the sort.

[ShikomeKidoMi]

It's right there in the title, but I guess I'll elaborate.The name of dimension door implies it allows you to move between planes, but nothing in the rules suggests this. It seems like a pretty simple long-ish-ranged teleport but I see people talk about using it to access demiplanes or cross planar boundaries etc.What's the situation here?

Previous editions used to be very explicit that casting dimension door involved the caster stepping through a magical portal that briefly formed near them. Presumably this portal moved them through another plane before dumping them back on the plane they cast it from. I don't recall the plane in question ever being stated, though I'd bet Astral or Ethereal. I do remember it explicitly couldn't be cast in areas where planar travel was blocked, even though you couldn't use it to (permanently) move to another plane.

[Dr. Cliché]

Or you have truesight.

But actually, dimension door leads you to "a place you can see, one you can visualize, or one you can describe by stating distance and direction".

I'm curious as to how you'd describe movement to other planes using only direction and distance. :smalltongue:

[Naanomi]

D.Door historically used 'extradimensional' and 'non-dimensional' space like portable holes or bags of holding (though bags of holding are sometimes described using ethereal pockets or tiny ethereal demiplanes)

[Millstone85]

bags of holding are sometimes described using ethereal pockets or tiny ethereal demiplanesThe 5e DMG describes the contents being scattered in the Astral Plane if the bag is overloaded, pierced or torn. You can end there yourself if you try to combine the bag with a similar item.