Relocate? Translocate?
D&D 5E If you use thunderstep but teleport less than 10 feet do you take damage?
Relocate? Translocate?
plisnithus8
Adventurer
5e does not have legacy rules; the 5e rules are what they say they are. They do not require players/DMs to search back into prior editions to determine what happens when a spell is cast. The spell does what it says it does.
If anyone has found something in official 5e that talks about inter-planar travel during teleportation, please share that.
plisnithus8
Adventurer
Neither of those are plain language or language that the rules use.
Commonly, "transport" and "move" are used to mean an action that changes the location of that being teleported.
As Tom mentioned above, not using "travel" creates more confusion.
"Relocate" is totally a plain language word. "Our office has relocated to 555 Main Street," is a perfectly plain English sentence.
Anyhow, in the real world, discontinuous motion - going from A to B without crossing the intervening space only happens to quantum mechanical objects. You can't expect an exact "plain language" word for a thing that never happens in common experience. You're going to have to adapt a word.
Except "teleport". In plain language, that's how the word is used. Its plain language use does not have the "shift into another plane of existence and use continuous movement and then shift back" connotation - that's largely a D&D-ism. So, your game lore has skewed plain language in this context.
plisnithus8
Adventurer
“Relocate,” yes, of course, stand corrected.
It’s only a D&Dism as far as previous editions.
That's an exaggeration. They de-emphasized jargon partly to make it more accessible to new players, but they didn't eliminate it. That's not possible. Jargon is a natural result of specialized interests. Even without any authority creating concrete definitions, various industries and special interests organically develop jargon as a necessary way of communicating specialized concepts that common vernacular doesn't do succinctly.
If I told you I made an attack roll, you'd know that I rolled a 20 sided die, adjusted with any relevant modifiers, and compared it to the target's AC to see if I hit. People with no exposure to roll playing would not know what I meant by attack roll. That's jargon. We still constantly use it especially for the very core rules. Whenever abilities use phrases like "when you make a weapon attack" they're using technical jargon. They didn't abolish it. Things are just more accessible.
I agree that the description part of spells and other types of information is intended to be understood in plain English as the words generally mean. The other parts are not written out like that. A casting time of an action or bonus action is jargon. Target and range aren't supposed to be up to common English interpretation either. They're specific. In accord with this, I contend that a spell duration of "instantaneous" is still jargon meaning the magic exists until its resolved and no longer, but if the body of the written description used the same word, there it would be common English, however we would interpret it in that context.
Even if I were wrong, and that we are supposed to interpret it as the common meaning of the word even as a standalone word to give the duration, most words have multiple meanings, and the first one in a dictionary isn't always the most appropriate one. I pointed out acid splash, because the casting time of instantaneous only makes sense for the written description if the word is used in a broader sense than the most common definition. It wouldn't mean for an infinitesimal period but rather for the time of the current action. That is a common English usage. It would be the best one for that spell, so how could someone contend that it is a completely inappropriate usage for a different spell rather than being up for interpretation?
Fluff. Consistency with other magical abilities casters have to move things/themself between dimensions. The [as far as I know] universal treatment of teleportation and inter-planar travel the same way. Is there anything that restricts one but not the other? Lack of any other explanation of how direct movement between locations without crossing the space between might work without manipulating dimensions. It's circumstantial, but that's a kind of evidence.
I wouldn't claim that you fully make it to another dimension during your travel. That seems like it would allow one way travel which it does not. They don't have to actually make it to another plane. They just have to not be in their original one in order to get to point B without crossing physical space. I think that the implied evidence is strong that a teleporting magic user leaves their plane getting as far as some sort of unstable, inter-dimensional region, and bouncing back at a different physical location in their original plane.
Honestly, when I hear fantasy + teleportation, that is my plain English interpretation of the word.
When I hear sci-fi + teleportation, I think wormhole or ST style transporter or combination of the two like Stargate.
I don't think I'm adding anything to the spell that way and not violating Crawford's quote.
plisnithus8
Adventurer
I appreciate your time attempting to answer my question. While I do have an opinion that Thunderstep could hurt the caster, I am open to a discussion to change my mind.
You explanation mentions things being implied and casters half-teleporting or non-dimension-hopping. I’m having a difficult time finding 5e official fluff evidence of that.
You mention a consistency of universal treatment of teleportation and inter-dimensional travel and a lack of evidence to the contrary. If a spell says it takes someone to another plane, I understand it does that. If it says teleport, it teleports. I’m not seeing the connection.
I think there is a difference between plain English wording and a person’s personal interpretation though. If someone first learned that casting a spell was exhausting from a novel they read, that doesn’t make 5e casting be exhausting by default; it default not cause exhaustion unless the rules or spell said so.
In my super long first post I said I think either conclusion is reasonable, so I don't feel the need to convince anyone that the caster shouldn't be hurt even though that's the way I interpret the language. I was mainly arguing that people were insisting that the definition they used for all words was the only plain English interpretation and therefore there's only one conclusion and the other side is wrong.
By identical treatment of the two types of spells I was talking about things like Dimensional Shackles that includes prevention of teleportation in its hindrance of inter-dimensional travel. It makes me feel like they're mechanically connected even if it's not necessarily the case. I can't think of anything that stops you from teleporting but lets you move to another dimension or only restricts dimensional travel but not teleporting. There might be, but I can't think of one, so I see them as connected.
You're right that I can be misled from the most straightforward reading of a passage by my past experience, but the same is true of other people. The spell doesn't say that disappearance and reappearance are simultaneous, and the word teleport doesn't inherently mean that. Regardless of if someone's personal history makes them think that way, it's a plain interpretation not THE plain interpretation.
Followup from a previous discussion: I don't think you can ready Misty Step. The casting time is a bonus action, and I believe the rules for readying a spell is that it has a casting time of one action, so technically it doesn't work. Thunder step takes an action, so you could ask about readying that for when a dragon attacks with a breath weapon instead. I see no reason why you couldn't.
plisnithus8
Adventurer
While teleportation instances in 5e (that I have found) don’t use the word “simultaneous,” they do use words like “instantly” (one of the common definitions of “instantly” is “immediately,” which is the same word used to describe when the thunder occurs in the spell). Since 5e doesn’t rank these minuscule measurements of time (instantly, simultaneous, immediately, etc.), I can’t see it plain English for them to have to be arbiltrarilly ranked by players/DMs or differentiated.
I used Misty Step as an example above of why Thunderstep shouldn’t prevent damage; I’m not saying MS could be used that way and was careless in the action economy (because that wasn’t the point).
Hmm, the wording of Dimensional Shackles confuses me even more. That description says the shackles prevent “extradimensional movement, including teleportation or travel to a different plane of existence.” That makes it sound like teleportation is extra dimensional travel but not travel to a different plane. In that case, what does extradimensional mean? One definition is “outside of space-time reality.” That could mean in a dimension other than the standard, but if that were the case here, it doesn’t make sense to add “or travel to a different plane if existence.” Or it could mean, outside of space and time; that could support the idea of no time passing during a teleport.
Or it could be “teleportation or travel” could be 2 different modes to get to another dimension (“or” joining the word on either side of it rather than separating “teleportation” from the phrase “travel to a different plane of existence”). In this case, Teleportation is just a mode that could be used to get to another dimension or to move within 1 dimension: Teleportation itself does not rely on inter-dimensional travel but could be used to do so.
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