Hello all, in a recent game with my friends and I, my character's sister was grappled by a swamp monster and pulled under the water. My character, in a frantic reaction to try and save his sister, rolled a poor perception check to determine the whereabouts of the monster. My character has the ability to use dimension door, and attempted to use the spell to Dimension Door to his sister. In a previous game with a different DM, we used the spell in this way regularly, so it was a surprise to me when my DM ruled against it. He explained his ruling that the character did not know where the monster had taken her, so the result of the spell was to take the character to the last known location of his sister, which was where he was already standing. I accepted this, however I am curious what other players and DM's think about this. The basic rules of the spell are:
You instantly transfer yourself from your current location to any other spot within range. You always arrive at exactly the spot desired – whether by simply visualizing the area or by stating direction. If you arrive in a place that is already occupied by a solid body, you and each creature traveling with you take 1d6 points of damage and are shunted to a random open space on a suitable surface within 100 feet of the intended location.
To me, the words "exactly the spot desired - whether by simply visualizing the area or by stating direction" would allow my character to either "visualize" his sister, thus dimension dooring directly to an area where she is or even on top of her ("Exactly the spot desired"), resulting in a D6 of damage and getting thrown in a random direction within 100 feet or "State direction" of his sister, thus dimension dooring in her direction, putting him in an area near her or even on her, provided she is still in range of course.
I couldn't find a single post that talked about this issue so I'm excited to see what other players and DM's think about this!
