Dismissal vs. Dimensional Anchor: which wins?

[Infiniti2000]

So do you allow dimensional anchor to prevent summoned creatures from returning (despite the RAW)?

No.

If an anchored summoned creature can travel back to its home plane, why shouldn't a dismissed creature suffer the same fate?

The two concepts, summoning and calling, are very different. Comparisons are wholly inappropriate.

 

[Jack Simth]

So do you allow dimensional anchor to prevent summoned creatures from returning (despite the RAW)? If an anchored summoned creature can travel back to its home plane, why shouldn't a dismissed creature suffer the same fate?

A Summoned critter going home at the end of the spell duration is an explicit exception.

 

[azhrei_fje]

I say once the anchor is dropped, the recipent is not going anywhere. Maybe i am just a mean DM who likes to cut crafty players off at the pass, but it is hardly fair for a demon to be deprived of its teleportation and still be vulnerable to banishment if the fight turns ugly.

This aspect hadn't occurred to me: that depriving the demon of its teleportation ability should be balanced by dismissal being ineffective.

The confusion, on my part, was that one spell said one thing and another spell said something else. Normally, I can make determinations based on the wording of the spell, or at a minimum, by looking at the spell level (the way that daylight trumps darkness and deeper darkness).

The dimensional anchor says it prevents planar travel, but I considered that the travel it was referring to did not include involuntary travel. For example, if a deity's avatar enters the Prime Material plane and is destroyed while under the effect of a permanent dimensional anchor (no argument about how this is accomplished, please!), when the avatar is destroyed, does it reform on its home plane? (Note that this is rhetorical. I don't really care! )

Anyway, the answers here -- as well as a couple of answers on the RttToEE forum -- have convinced me to rule that the dismissal is a wasted spell in this situation. (But a dispel magic first might drop the dimensional anchor, allowing the dismissal to work. I didn't describe the bebilith as being covered in a green aura, so I will probably make that description change and then let the PC decide whether to cast dismissal. Maybe they'll take the hint and use dispel magic first. )

 

[Terath Ninir]

Especially since they're the same spell level, and given the arguments presented here, I'd say dimensional anchor "wins". The bebilith isn't going anywhere for 8 minutes.

 

[Quartz]

What about Holy Word vs Dimensional Anchor?

 

[azhrei_fje]

Especially since they're the same spell level, and given the arguments presented here, I'd say dimensional anchor "wins". The bebilith isn't going anywhere for 8 minutes.

Thanks.

However, Monte writes elsewhere in the module that if the bebilith is released and begins to roam the mines killing stuff, the higher level BBEGs will take care of it. Now, does that mean that DM fiat is being applied and the dimensional anchor is not just 8 minutes in duration, but as long as the DM wishes? Or does it mean that the bebilith may simply decide that it doesn't want to return to its own plane even after the dimensional anchor wears off, and hence the BBEGs may need to take care of it themselves?

 

[frankthedm]

What about Holy Word vs Dimensional Anchor?

"I say once the anchor is dropped, the recipent is not going anywhere."

 

[seans23]

Or does it mean that the bebilith may simply decide that it doesn't want to return to its own plane even after the dimensional anchor wears off, and hence the BBEGs may need to take care of it themselves?

That's what I took it to meant. Didn't matter. The party killed it.

 

[Bagpuss]

Dissmissal is much more fun when used by evil demons on the party tank when the PCs are exploring the Abyss.

 

[bestone]

Was mulling this one over for about 2 years. I had planned to use a bone devil and was thinking abou the ins and outs of thier SLAs.

I say once the anchor is dropped, the recipent is not going anywhere. Maybe i am just a mean DM who likes to cut crafty players off at the pass, but it is hardly fair for a demon to be deprived of its teleportation and still be vulnerable to banishment if the fight turns ugly.

lol, i laughed my butt off here, not that i dont agree completely with you, i do think your right


But the line "hardly fair for a demon" just cracks me up