Attack Bonuses with Dimentional Combat

[Mythrandyr]

I have been having a debate with a fellow player about what seems to me to be a missing rule.

I have a wizard/fighter that specializes in Conjuration with a subschool of teleportation. As such he gets Shift as a class feature - use a swift action to cast dimension door 10ft per shift. He also has the dimensional assault feat.

Pathfinder is all about simulating reality and if he is in combat with an opponent, uses shift as a swift action to shift behind or to the side of this opponent, and then attacks with the use of dimensional assault, shouldn't there be some sort of attack bonus?

If a person is in combat and doesn't know where an attack is coming from, for instance from an invisible player, they are denied dexterity bonus to armor class. Shouldn't this situation be similar?

[Honorable Goblin]

There is no "facing" in Pathfinder; characters are considered to be looking in all directions pretty much simultaneously.

[VRMH]

Mythrandyr wrote:

Pathfinder is all about simulating reality

A reality where dragons roam the sky, people shoot fireballs from their fingertips and where you do not get an advantage for hitting someone from behind.

[cnetarian]

1) Pathfinder is not all about simulating reality, there are darn few dragons in reality. Pathfinder is rules to model unreality (a fantasy realm) and realism often take second place to balance. In reality if someone were teleport behind a combatant they probably would be unable to respond, in a fantasy world with magic ninjas, teleporting mages and mystic monks able to land unharmed from falls of skyscrapers a combatant would know that such an attack was a realistic possibility and not be caught so unaware.

2)It is questionable that shift can be used with dimensional assault. Shift is not actually the Dimension Door (DD) spell, instead it is a Supernatural Ability which functions "as if using dimension door" Some Spell Like abilities let you cast spells (ie gnome magic) but the description of Shift is such that it only functions like the spell not is the spell itself.

3)You can use dimensional assault to get into a flanking position if someone else is in a position to be your flank partner. Dimensional savant allows you to do something like that, by using yourself as a flanking partner so all your attacks after the first are counted as flanking.

4)The operative concept with dexterity bonus is knowing the person is there. There is no reason stealth could not be combined with the shift supernatural ability to make an attack against an opponent who is then denied their dexterity bonus, provided your stealth attempt is successful. This may not be a viable option for you character as you need an ability like hide in plain sight to use stealth when under observation, but even invisible creatures need to use stealth to make attacks which deny the dexterity bonus, although they get a +40 bonus to their stealth attempts.