Dimension Door 500 feet of an accident waiting to happen?

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Latest in a series of posts on spells I might take. Yes, rainy winter weather has me in watching a Law & Order marathon and posting.

How useful is Dimension Door? The way the description mentions exact feet and angles has me nervous. At my home I could say 150' west, 10 degrees down and be pretty confident I'd end up transported from my living room to an easy fall distance above the grass yet short of the street and not in the middle of a tree (cheap property values here). MAYBE I could do that at some of my work locations.

PLUS if the stuff hits the fan I can only take one WILLING party member. Presumably not one who is down making death saves. After several levels I'd trade this out in favor of Teleport which might save the whole party and seems less accident prone.

How often have you all used Dimension Door and do your DM's frequently roll a percentage die or something to guess how accurate your coordinates are or how does it play out?



http://www.orcpub.com/dungeons-and-dragons/5th-edition/spells/dimension-door

4th-level conjuration
Casting Time:1 action
Range:500 feet
Components:V
Duration:Instantaneous
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.” You can bring along objects as long as their weight doesn't exceed what you can carry. You can also bring one willing creature of your size or smaller who is carrying gear up to its carrying capacity. The creature must be within 5 feet of you when you cast this spell.
If you would arrive in a place already occupied by an object or a creature, you and any creature traveling with you each take 4d6 force damage, and the spell fails to teleport you.

[MikeRoxTheBoat]

It's incredibly useful. Particularly with places you've been before or can visualize. The main use of the descriptive directions is for places you can't see, but know the location. Like if you know there's a basement right under you, but can't find a way in, you can dimension door 5-10 feet straight down. Or teleport right past an impassable door by teleporting straight forward.

I guess in theory if you were just shooting out in random directions, you could wind up in trouble. Technically "I dimension door 500ft straight up" is a good way to get your character killed if you don't have a plan. Then again, you could use the same directions to, say, get you and one of your friends onto the back of an angry flying monster. As long as it's within 500 feet, you can be pretty vague.

There's an episode of the show Critical Role where their bard used dimension door in order to teleport directly into the stomach of a dragon. It didn't go very well, but the option is there.

[ImproperJustice]

I like to imagine that precise mental imagry for the purposes of teleportation, was covered in my Freshman year at Wizard School, along with How to Talk to Dragons 101, and Cone Spells and Combat: a simple course on how not to blast your friends.

I think this just falls into the category of skills we may not have, but our characters have figured out.

[MaxWilson]

I guess in theory if you were just shooting out in random directions, you could wind up in trouble. Technically "I dimension door 500ft straight up" is a good way to get your character killed if you don't have a plan. Then again, you could use the same directions to, say, get you and one of your friends onto the back of an angry flying monster. As long as it's within 500 feet, you can be pretty vague.

Dimension Door + Feather Fall is actually a pretty good panic button.

Can combine with Contingency to keep concentration in risky situations. Surprised by vampires in close quarters? Cast Wall of Force on half of them, then scratch your nose and say "Tangleberry" to trigger your Contingency: Dimension Door straight up 500', then cast Feather Fall to keep you out of the vampires' reach for almost a minute while your buddies kill the vampires... All in one round.

Then everyone can prep actions to kill the other vampires as soon as you drop Wall of Force, or even before if you have a source of sunlight.

[Mad Nomad]

Dimension Door + Feather Fall is actually a pretty good panic button.

Can combine with Contingency to keep concentration in risky situations. Surprised by vampires in close quarters? Cast Wall of Force on half of them, then scratch your nose and say "Tangleberry" to trigger your Contingency: Dimension Door straight up 500', then cast Feather Fall to keep you out of the vampires' reach for almost a minute while your buddies kill the vampires... All in one round.

Then everyone can prep actions to kill the other vampires as soon as you drop Wall of Force, or even before if you have a source of sunlight.

A solid plan, but not one well suited for dungeon delving... :wink:

[Lvl 2 Expert]

The way the description mentions exact feet and angles has me nervous. At my home I could say 150' west, 10 degrees down and be pretty confident I'd end up transported from my living room to an easy fall distance above the grass yet short of the street and not in the middle of a tree (cheap property values here). MAYBE I could do that at some of my work locations.

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,

You're focusing on one of the options here. Being able to visualize a place is enough. So you can dimension door just fine to the top of that little hill, the room underneath that roof clear of any support beams or the candy section of this supermarket. This would make it a little better even than just an exact short range teleportation spell, there's some minor search magic involved as well, as the magic finds a location most fitting of your visualization. Only in case of completely unknown places would you need to resort to things like a direction and distance, and even then it's not a stretch to imagine the added requirement of not getting your feet dimension doored into solid ground because you aimed a little too low.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

You're focusing on one of the options here. Being able to visualize a place is enough. So you can dimension door just fine to the top of that little hill, the room underneath that roof clear of any support beams or the candy section of this supermarket. This would make it a little better even than just an exact short range teleportation spell, there's some minor search magic involved as well, as the magic finds a location most fitting of your visualization. Only in case of completely unknown places would you need to resort to things like a direction and distance, and even then it's not a stretch to imagine the added requirement of not getting your feet dimension doored into solid ground because you aimed a little too low.

"See, visualize or describe" got it. Visualize means a lot in this case. I can visualize the front seat of my car and not need to know if its 27 or 28 feet away!

[MaxWilson]

A solid plan, but not one well suited for dungeon delving... :wink:

Depends on the dungeon. Underdark no; castle dungeon yes.

[Lunali]

It's incredibly useful. Particularly with places you've been before or can visualize. The main use of the descriptive directions is for places you can't see, but know the location. Like if you know there's a basement right under you, but can't find a way in, you can dimension door 5-10 feet straight down. Or teleport right past an impassable door by teleporting straight forward.

Then you get the DM that installs a fake door with no room behind it.

[solidork]

We once did a high level one shot where enough people knew dimension door that we could take the whole party. We skipped so much stuff, it was hilarious.

[Dalebert]

Dimension Door + Feather Fall is actually a pretty good panic button.

Just make sure you don't quicken that DD or you won't be able to cast FF in time!

[Laserlight]

I've seen two uses of DimDoor recently. The AT rogue failed to unlock a magic lock and it summoned a dragon right in front of him. The rogue was at the entrance facing out, so he just stepped 300ft outside. Which dropped him into a lake, but he considered that preferable to soloing a dragon.

The other time, the caster was in Darkness, and gave direction and distance. Even though the player was looking at the map when she did it, she got flustered, did it slightly wrong, and ended up one space away from where she meant to. At least, I'm assuming she meant to land on the walkway instead of in the adjacent lava.

[Rusvul]

The downside is, if you're giving directional teleports, it's fairly easy to screw yourself over and teleport into the floor or something stupid like that. In 3.5, I once teleported myself into a lead wall, and the Cleric had to give me emergency surgery to remove all the lead from my body. (Not RAW, even in 3.5, but it made sense and it was a cool way for my DM to run it.)

The upside is, if you're a wizard, your DM might be kind enough to give you an Int check to see if you can do some quick mental math to avoid teleporting yourself 30 feet underground.

[Foxhound438]

Cone Spells and Combat: a simple course on how not to blast your friends.


I know at least 2 warlocks that skipped this class all semester and still graduated... probably sucking up to some kind of outer beings, but that's not really my place to speculate

In general though, DD is a good spell if you have a slot to spend on it, but it's not my first choice of 4th level spells on a sorcerer or bard... It's got potential for big impact, but not to the same degree that a Fireball has in your 3rd level slot, which is something that you can choose to proactively do to solve a wide variety of situations- DD can sometimes solve an issue, but things like "detect secret doors" or "knock" can just as quickly solve some and a misty step can do as much good in a lot of other situations. I would definitely pick it up after level 9 or so on a full caster though, because some situations just require a GTFO button, and losing one or two comrades for it might not be the worst, depending on if your characters get along... I know more than one warlock that I'd leave hanging in that sense.

[JakOfAllTirades]

Dimension Door is a tough choice for most Warlocks, but if you're playing a "trickster" type Warlock, it's an excellent choice. Prior to this, all the teleport spells require line of sight, so this opens up lots of new possibilities for getting into places you shouldn't. And/or getting back out again. Taking a friend along just makes it twice as much fun!