D&D 5E If you use thunderstep but teleport less than 10 feet do you take damage?

[Maxperson]

The lightning bolt is 5' wide. If we assume it passes through the center of the space, then to duck under it, you need to be less than 2' 6" tall. A 6' man doesn't duck under it, they would have to fall prone.

A Halfling, on the other hand, could duck rather easily.

Lightning weaves back and forth, so while the line covers a 5 foot wide area, the bolt itself is smaller and zigzags within that area. A dex save would indicate getting out of the way within that space. If it didn't do that, there could be no save. It would be impossible to avoid. Successful dex saves don't make you fall prone, so you don't have to get under that 2.5 foot space to be successful.

 

[James Gasik]

But now we have a different problem. Your Dex save just so happens to let you move out of an arc that you weren't able to perceive nor have any way to know where it would be in the very brief window of time the lightning bolt strikes. That's not a Dex save, that's precognition!

 

[Redwizard007]

And you're seriously arguing that those hands crossed no space?

Well in this example, they reached across, but had they teleported, then yes, I would be.

 

[Maxperson]

Well in this example, they reached across, but had they teleported, then yes, I would be.

In all examples they cross.

You can reach across the table
You can walk across the table
You can teleport across the table
You can jump across the table
You can crawl across the table
You can fly across the table

Every time you are crossing the intervening space somehow. That's what across means. The verb is only HOW you get across the space, not if you cross the space.

 

[James Gasik]

Ok so we have now proved that teleport crosses a space without entering the space it crosses. But we can't prove that teleport crosses dimensional boundaries. So...I guess you turn into a stream of particles, phase through the intervening space and reform at the destination?

 

[Irlo]

In all examples they cross.

You can reach across the table
You can walk across the table
You can teleport across the table
You can jump across the table
You can crawl across the table
You can fly across the table

Every time you are crossing the intervening space somehow. That's what across means. The verb is only HOW you get across the space, not if you cross the space.

I can yell across the room.

I can wave across the street.

I can glare across the table.

 

[Irlo]

"As your mastery grows, you learn spells of transportation and can teleport yourself across vast distances."

We should all keep in mind that this snippet from the flavor text, which is associated with the conjurer school of wizardry and only the conjurer school of wizardry, is being presented as the unassailable evidence that teleportation is dimensional travel and that space is physically crossed. I encourage everyone to give this evidence all the weight it deserves when deciding how teleportion works. Since across can be used to describe relative position rather than movement, and because DnD rules are not (as I say a lot lately) logically rigorous or internally consistent, you all can probably guess where I stand on this one.

 

[Maxperson]

Ok so we have now proved that teleport crosses a space without entering the space it crosses. But we can't prove that teleport crosses dimensional boundaries. So...I guess you turn into a stream of particles, phase through the intervening space and reform at the destination?

Like instantaneous transporters from Star Trek. You cross the intervening space in Star Trek, just as a beam of energy. Or in D&D the implication is very, very strongly that you do it via another dimension. One of the teleport spells is even called Dimension Door.

 

[Maxperson]

By the way, I just found this in the DMG.

"DIMENSIONAL SHACKLES
Wondrous item, rare You can use an action to place these shackles on an incapacitated creature. The shackles adjust to fit a creature of Small to Large size. In addition to serving as mundane manacles, the shackles prevent a creature bound by them from using any method of extradimensional movement, including teleportation or travel to a different plane of existence."

Does this finally put it to rest? That ain't fluff.

Edit: And...

"BOON OF DIMENSIONAL TRAVEL
As an action, you can cast the misty step spell, without using a spell slot or any components. Once you do so, you can't use this boon again until you finish a short rest."

 

[James Gasik]

That would seem to! When I looked at spells that block extradimensional movement, they bothered to say, in separate sentences that "this spell blocks extradimensional movement" and then "this spell blocks teleportation" making it seem like they were two different things. But the Dimensional Shackles do make it clearer. Good find!

EDIT: though have I said I'm tired of having to go digging in strange places to find rules that they could just come out and say are rules?

Yeah, a lot. LOL