D&D 5E Why did they design Demiplane to suck?

It's certainly very powerful, but for an 8th level spell I'd expect it to be a tad larger than a 30 foot cube. Simply put, there's not much practical difference between a 30 foot cube and a 500 foot cube except for the fun you can have with it, and given the fact that you can have an unlimited number of demiplanes, making the players handle the logistics of that is kind of... well... uninteresting. You're still limited to what you can fit through a door in an hour per day, after all.

There are some very interesting things you can do with it, although in a lot of ways it's just a slightly different version of magnificent mansion + teleport + plane shift.
 

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It needs house ruling to be anything like the 2e-3e versions, which were cool.

This is the 3e version.

While that's a 9th level spell with a different name, it is pretty closely based on the 8th level...wait for it...demiplane from the 2e Guide to the Ethereal Plane. 5e probably made it 8th level to get back to its origins, and then nerfed it to make it feel appropriate.

My suggestion would be to allow additional castings to increase the size of the plane (honestly, I had house ruled it when I first saw it and forgotten that wasn't officially part of the spell) and allow environmental changes like the spell I linked.

This is assuming you play with a world exploration style where consistency and presentation of a multiverse matters and high level wizards should be able to create their own demiplanes (which need to be in the Ethereal Plane, by the way, not this "extradimensional space" nonsense. If you just look at it as a class feature to be used in adventuring, then it's probably fine as an 8th level spell.
 

Phazonfish

B-Rank Agent
My favorite flaw in Demiplane is that it can only make doors to demiplanes. If you linger in your demiplane too long, the door disappears. You can cast Demiplane again to make another door, but that door leads to another demiplane. If you don't also have Plane Shift, you're trapped forever. Of course you probably do have Plane Shift, but still.

I do like the spell though, it does everything I need it to do. It would be nice to be able to make a home out of it though, even a small one.
 
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Okay, putting aside the fact that the game sorely needs stronghold / PC dungeon building guidelines beyond three spells that only druid, wizards and clerics get*, what exactly do you want a demiplane to do? Even at high levels, the game revolves around exploring and fighting monsters. You can't do that from your own tiny world. So, what does Demiplane offer as a spell that allows you to keep playing the game?

* the existence of these spells kind of annoy me.

I've seen some pretty good homebrew ones, though I'm pretty sure that's not what you're asking for.

OT: Yeah, it does sound kinda lame, but I'm pretty sure a creative player will come up with something crazy that makes it good.
 

Kurotowa

Legend
Most importantly is it can be the SAME walk in closet. Meaning you can stock it with any number of goodies or traps, and summon the one you need.

I've been thinking ahead to when my Warlock will get the spell, and this is totally what I'm picturing. Since the spell lets you either establish a new one or connect to an existing one the first thing you do is create a handful of them during downtime and furnish each as needed.

So one demiplane is the Armory; a full compliment of mundane gear and specialized items. Need to outfit a dozen hirelings with arms and armor? Need two battering rams? Need 600' of rope? Open a door to the Armory and grab what you need. A 30x30x30 room puts any Bag of Holding to shame.

Another demiplane is the Guest Room; bed, chairs, rations, chamber pot, and some light reading material. Need to smuggle a squishy target past dangerous territory? Want to multiply the number of people a single-use gate or teleport will carry? Put them in the Guest Room, shut the door, and open it again once you've reached your destination.

A third would be the Workshop; sure, of course you've got an Arcane Laboratory at your home base, but sometimes you need access to one in the field too. Outfit the room with the sort of tools and ritual gear that don't fold up and transport well, and now you've got a mobile field lab.

The list goes on. Someone with the Sage background might want a reference library they can keep easy access to. A more socially focused caster might furnish a parlor room so they can always sit down for a cup of tea and a game of chess on a moment's notice. Be creative. You have an infinite supply of 30x30x30 rooms you can access from anywhere, stocked with whatever you can afford to put in them, as often as you can cast the spell.

Oh, and regarding ways to leave if you let the spell expire without exiting. The elegant way is Plane Shift back to your plane of choice, which should land you in relatively close proximity to where you want to be. The quick and dirty way is to use Banishment to banish yourself back to your home plane, since you're by definition not on it. That does leave the arrival a bit at the DM's whim, but come on, you're at least a 17th level caster. Fast travel is not that big an obstacle at that point.
 

As an addenda to my previous comments:

Since you aren't limited in the number of demiplanes you can create, does anyone have any reason that they as a DM would not allow a character to just cause the spell to expand the size of a demiplane if desired?

I'm sure there are corner cases where it could make it more useful, but I have a hard time seeing a strong reason not to allow that unless the goal is extreme RAW adherence (so Adventurer's League, assuming anyone is playing a 15+ level character in it).
 

Kurotowa

Legend
Since you aren't limited in the number of demiplanes you can create, does anyone have any reason that they as a DM would not allow a character to just cause the spell to expand the size of a demiplane if desired?

Because you can only cast Demiplane once per day. There's a massive difference between having twenty small rooms of which you can access only one per day and having one giant room the size of twenty small rooms you can access once per day.
 



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