Actions after Dimension Door

[Galbard]

The sorcerer in my campaign has taken Dimension Door as one of his spells. One of the other players (an experienced GM) advised me to house-rule the spell so that other characters the sorcerer takes with him lose their next turn after DD'ing. This prevents abuses such as other characters delaying until just after the sorcerer and then do a full attack at whatever enemy they choose, bypassing every tactical defense the enemy has in place.

Of course, the sorcerer and some of the other players are now complaining that this is too harsh. One of the players suggested to change it so that characters only get a partial action after a DD. This way the characters can do pretty much the same after DD'ing as they could do after walking to the same spot.

I am considering to use this option, but would like to hear what are your opinions and experiences are with DD before houseruling it again. Is it necessary to nerf it? If so, how do you do it?

 

[Vaxalon]

Have an enemy DD into their midst using the tactics they suggest, and then ask them whether they think it's fair.

"Suddenly, a sorceror and five rogues materialize in the room! The rogues each fire off a ray of frost from a wand! You're flatfooted, so you take sneak attack damage... that's 1d3+4d6 each!"

After a round of panicked reaction to their arrival...

"The sorceror casts dimension door! They all vanish!"

 

[Doug McCrae]

Cool tactic, Vaxalon. I'm planning to use it combined with Imbue Familiar With Spell Ability (my familiar will cast the DD) to kill a ragewalker from MM3.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

"Suddenly, a sorceror and five rogues materialize in the room! The rogues each fire off a ray of frost from a wand! You're flatfooted, so you take sneak attack damage... that's 1d3+4d6 each!"

After a round of panicked reaction to their arrival...

"The sorceror casts dimension door! They all vanish!"

This setup requires a bit more work to pull off than simply casting Dimension Door. The ambushers would need to be able to see the target area, or know exactly how far away it was. If they can't see it, they'd have to know the PCs were there to ambush.

And any experienced group, faced with that scenario, spends its one round of actions after the rogues fire off their sneak attacks to geek the one guy who didn't do anything. Puts an end to the "They all vanish!" part of that plan quite nicely.

Dimension Door is effective. But no more so than a Fireball, if in a different way. Leave it be, I say.

 

[Doug McCrae]

And any experienced group, faced with that scenario, spends its one round of actions after the rogues fire off their sneak attacks to geek the one guy who didn't do anything. Puts an end to the "They all vanish!" part of that plan quite nicely.

What if they don't win initiative?

 

[Lord Pendragon]

What if they don't win initiative?

Then they're screwed. But I'd say the chances of enough of them winning initiative to put the sorcerer in serious danger is fairly likely.

Also, you don't need to kill the sorcerer to stop the escape. Dimension Door requires that you touch those you want to take with you. There are a number of actions that a single PC (that wins initiative) can take to stop that escape. Grappling or Bull Rushing the sorcerer can work. Silence works. Baleful Polymorph. Plane Shift. Ray of Enfeeblement, possibly. etc. etc.

The point is that this isn't quite the "massive attack and guaranteed escape" that it's cracked up to be. It's a guaranteed surprise round, if you can set it up. After that, it's just like any other battle.

 

[Malimar]

DD Passengers

Sounds a bit too much of an adjustment to DD to me. The caster is spending his/her spell to deliver another party member to a critical position on the field. Sounds like a legitimate use of a spell.

If the DD were to deliver multiple people to the doorstep of the bad guy, then they might have to spend at least a round positioning themselves around the DD'ing caster. If they were going to go through all that trouble, I'd let the PC's jump to that location.

Keep in mind that DD is not exactly sneaky. Nothing says that it's a perfectly silent spell. It would probably be difficult to deliver a sneak attack after a DD. Plus the only ones able to attack immediately after the DD were those PC's who delayed or readied their actions until the DD was cast. Others would have to wait for their initiative to come, which might give the victim of this strategy an action anyway.

If they start using this too often, there are counter strategies:
- Diminsional Anchor the castor.
- If bad guys see this tactics multiple times, they can ready a fireball/lightning bolt/etc. for when they appear, and the PC's will be nicely clumped.
- A simiple minor image of the bad guy can force the PC's to DD to the wrong place... maybe right on top of a spiked pit trap.
- Et cetera....

Just my $0.02.

 

[Thanee]

I generally don't let any character who got translocated (be it by Dimension Door, Teleport or anything else) act immediately.

I'd also definitely not give them a surprise round, but rather have initiative start normally, as if both sides have spotted each other in that moment... which, in fact, they have. The one side knew beforehand, that they would end up there, but they suffer from the sudden translocation, so they do not gain any specific advantage from that knowledge.

Well, that's what I do, at least...

Bye
Thanee

 

[Liquidsabre]

Well, that's what I do, at least...

This has been our group's consensus as well, by the rules for beginning combat. No initiative is rolled (and hence the beginning of combat) until one or both opponents are aware of the other.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

This has been our group's consensus as well, by the rules for beginning combat. No initiative is rolled (and hence the beginning of combat) until one or both opponents are aware of the other.

But if the PCs are inside a building oblivious, and the NPCs are outside the building preparing to DD inside, I'd say the NPCs are definitely aware of the PCs...