Teleportation - spacing/positioning

[SolitonMan]

Hi, I've been playing a warlock with Flee the Scene which I use frequently to help our melee guys close with the enemy. One thing I have not been able to find a ruling for is the requirement (or lack thereof) for the group teleported to end up in exactly the same relative positioning as when they started.

Is there a rule about this somewhere? In case I'm not clear in my first paragraph, I'm thinking about the situation this way: I am in between two of my comrades (in a line in 3 5-foot squares) and I use Flee the Scene to dimension door us 30 feet away. Must we end up in a line? Could we end up in, for example, an "L"-shaped configuration, as long as at least one person is adjacent to me and everyone is adjacent to someone?

Thanks in advance for any insight.

 

[frankthedm]

Never mind, bad memory

 

[SolitonMan]

So I contacted WotC Customer Service and they were useless. "No longer support third edition" or something like that.

Blah.

So if no one has any rules, does anyone have an opinion on my original question?

 

[Elethiomel]

So if no one has any rules, does anyone have an opinion on my original question?

Well, there are several ways to look at it,
1. It's one teleport, not three. This means the group is teleported "as a whole" and needs to maintain formation. However, this would seem rather strict when it comes to teleporting into narrow quarters, especially if you are unfamiliar with what is present at the teleport destination. Shunting will occur more easily with this model than with the next one.
2. It *is* one teleport, but the spell picks the destination for each creature automatically based on free squares around the target square. Essentially a free, nondamaging "shunt" to the first available square around the target square that isn't already occupied by a teleported creature.
3. It is effectively three (or more) teleports, and you are free to pick target squares for each creature individually, provided the target squares are contiguous.

I would go with 1.

 

[irdeggman]

I can't check my book at the moment - but isn't flee the scene a self only ability and not a true dimension door?

Most warlock invocations only affect the warlock himself - which is one of the knocks on the class that it is a selfish type of class and its cool abilities only work on the character alone.

 

[Shin Okada]

Flee the Scene is not "self only" version of Dimension Door. The range is "short". And there is a major image sub-effect. Other than those differences, Flee the Scene is an invocation version of Dimension Door (a Spell-Like ability with somatic component).

And sorry but I can't find any clarification for the main issue.

 

[SolitonMan]

Thanks for the input everyone, I guess I'll just have to trudge along and deal with the current explicit positioning we've been using. Naturally I'd prefer to be able to rearrange my traveling companions in "mid-flight" in order to best leverage tactical advantage. I appreciate the responses.