Dimension door vs Teleport


Rules Questions


My party is coming down a hallway in a strange building. They come to a locked door which they cannot open. They judge the door to be of high, but not abnormal thickness, say one foot thick.

Because they have not seen the other side of the door and do not know what lies there, they cannot use teleport or greater teleport to bypass it, which require a 'reliable description'. They can however, use dimension door to do so, by specifying a direction and range.

Is this correct?

Sovereign Court

Yeah but that's where it is important for them to specify how far they are traveling with dimension door because they can teleport into walls and take damage and in worst case scenario even exit the dungeon/strange building if they teleported on the wrong side.


That is how I read it. Worse case for teleport accuracy is "seen once." They have never seen the destination in this case.


There are ways around doors... Create Pit centered on the door. Drop in, walk across, and ride it back up on the other side. Especially if invisible...


You can also disintegrate the door or break it down, Leesus. The door as an obstacle isn't the important part of the scenario. I'm specifically trying to figure out whether or not greater teleport can specify 'other side of door' as a valid location.


Greater Teleport states that attempting to teleport with insufficient information simply makes you disappear and reappear in your original location. Eg if a description isn't good enough. That's what I'd rule here, Dimension Door is the spell to use if you really wanted to use a spell instead of opening it.

For Greater Teleport to work on a 'described location' I'd want at least a basic description of the target area, not just 'behind this door'.


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LessusFreak, you cannot use Create Pit that way.

1) line of effect is being blocked by the door.

CRB p215 wrote:
You must have a clear line of effect to any target that you cast a spell on or to any space in which you wish to create an effect. You must have a clear line of effect to the point of origin of any spell you cast.

You do not have line of effect past the door so you cannot create the pit straddling the door.

2) The pit must be created in an area of sufficient size.

APG p213 wrote:
You create a 10-foot-by-10-foot extradimensional hole with a depth of 10 feet per two caster levels (maximum 30 feet). You must create the pit on a horizontal surface of sufficient size.

It is not of sufficient size since the door blocks the way.

Lantern Lodge

LeesusFreak wrote:
There are ways around doors... Create Pit centered on the door. Drop in, walk across, and ride it back up on the other side. Especially if invisible...

You mean creating a pit centered on the floor where the door is?

Hummm... that's quite a nifty use of create pit. :)
(For a moment there, I thought you meant creat a pit on the door itself... which won't have worked... :P)


Dimensiondoor would work, as it can go to unseen places.

With Teleport, the spell description says: "You must have some clear idea of the location and layout of the destination. The clearer your mental image, the more likely the teleportation works."

The DM can insist that the caster needs a visual for the spell to work, or he can rule that standing before a door is giving a "clear enough idea" to jump just behind it.
I have allowed such an action before, on grounds that the caster has a pretty clear idea where he wants to go, the spell is higher level than Dimensiondoor (so he does nothing someone of his level could not do), and he finally takes the risk of a bad jump. Same would go for Greater Teleport without the bad jump, but my players never did that later on.

On a sidenote: how much does the door weigh? The caster might be able to port just the door away, if it falls within his weight limit (which he can increase by several ways).

(Doors were broken down, lockpicked, unhinged, polymorphed, knocked, disintegrated, warped, shattered, animated, sent elsewhere, shrunk, blasted away, passwalled (next to it), and wished away in my campaigns...bypassing one by teleportation was not earth-shattering.)


Vatras wrote:

Dimensiondoor would work, as it can go to unseen places.

With Teleport, the spell description says: "You must have some clear idea of the location and layout of the destination. The clearer your mental image, the more likely the teleportation works."

The DM can insist that the caster needs a visual for the spell to work, or he can rule that standing before a door is giving a "clear enough idea" to jump just behind it.
I have allowed such an action before, on grounds that the caster has a pretty clear idea where he wants to go, the spell is higher level than Dimensiondoor (so he does nothing someone of his level could not do), and he finally takes the risk of a bad jump. Same would go for Greater Teleport without the bad jump, but my players never did that later on.

On a sidenote: how much does the door weigh? The caster might be able to port just the door away, if it falls within his weight limit (which he can increase by several ways).

(Doors were broken down, lockpicked, unhinged, polymorphed, knocked, disintegrated, warped, shattered, animated, sent elsewhere, shrunk, blasted away, passwalled (next to it), and wished away in my campaigns...bypassing one by teleportation was not earth-shattering.)

I've seen all those options of dealing with a door in my groups too... I've also seen "sent into the future" as an option (via the psionic power time hop). :D

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