Dimension Door

[Pinotage]

The 'can't take any actions' clause after using Dimension Door - does that apply only to the caster or to all that tag along for the ride?

Thanks

Pinotage

 

[Felix]

Just the caster.

 

[Pinotage]

If that's the case it seems kinda stupid to have the constraint there in the first place. Why limit the caster?

Pinotage

 

[Felix]

There are items and effects that mimic Dimension Door, such as the Monk's Abundant Step abilitly and the Cloak of the Mountbanc (sp?). Because the caster is limited when castng the actual spell, all effects based on it are so limited too. So a monk can't just Step past all the mooks and Stunning Fist the BBEG. He has to wait a round.

I imagine that's why.

 

[Pinotage]

There are items and effects that mimic Dimension Door, such as the Monk's Abundant Step abilitly and the Cloak of the Mountbanc (sp?). Because the caster is limited when castng the actual spell, all effects based on it are so limited too. So a monk can't just Step past all the mooks and Stunning Fist the BBEG. He has to wait a round.

I imagine that's why.

But if a caster cast Dimension Door or a monk activated a cloak, they'd only have a move or move equivalent action left for the turn so no attacking in any case. I think that's where I don't get it. If it was an attempt to avoid scry and dimension door combination, then all going along should be affected. Otherwise I'm not sure I understand the limitation.

Pinotage

 

[Nail]

It's simply a power issue, IMO.

A 4th level spell that allows you to move after you Dimension Door is too good. It allows too many options, especially when used as a (Su) ability.

 

[Felix]

Right, of course. No attacking with a move-eq. Duh.

And I don't think it's an attempt to aviod Scry-DD. I've not heard that combo used because the range on DD is so short.

It may be that it's a holdover from another edition; it gives DD its own flavor though, eh?

 

[Pinotage]

It's simply a power issue, IMO.

A 4th level spell that allows you to move after you Dimension Door is too good. It allows too many options, especially when used as a (Su) ability.

So it penalizes the spellcaster to not move, but all his buddies that tag along can take full attack actions? How bizarre...

Pinotage

 

[KarinsDad]

So it penalizes the spellcaster to not move, but all his buddies that tag along can take full attack actions? How bizarre...

This is not as bad as it sounds.

The caster loses at most a move action.

The other "buddies" do not gain anything. They still are limited to acting on their initiatives.

Plus, in order to take buddies along, they had to move to him (or he had to move to them) which would have taken up minimally a move action (and maybe more than one move action) along the way. Not too hard to take one buddy with you, but a bit of coordination and effort to take more than one.

Granted, a buddy could have Delayed his action, gotten picked up by the spell caster, and then can full round attack once he gets to where he needs to be, but in this case, he Delayed, pushing all of his future inits back.


All in all, the only weird thing about this is that the caster cannot move once he gets there. This is a remnant of the old "you are disoriented from translocating" from earlier editions. A DM could put this remnant in for all creatures carried in the Teleport, the only problem there is that it screws up their initiatives if you do so (either they lose one, or their inits go after the spell caster, or something depending on how you rule it).

 

[Nail]

I admit, *all* the times I've seen DD used has been like this:

#1) Caster moves up to buddy and touches him,
#2) Caster and buddy DD away.

So, to be perfectly honest and frank, losing the move action hasn't come up in our games.