| WatersLethe |
According to this spell it fails if "you aren't on your home plane when you cast it."
So if you're on the Plane of Wood and fighting a demon, you can't, RAW, cast Banishment on the demon.
Do you think this is a mistake? Why would this be the case?
| Unicore |
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I think the justification would be that as an outsider to this plane yourself, you are not connected enough to it to banish someone who's presence on that plane is no more legitimate than your own. Practically and narratively, it also prevents things like powerful gating fiends or other outsiders from just traveling the planes banishing everyone not native to that plane.
| Trip.H |
I agree that it was definitely done by the devs for a specific reason.
My two main guesses are firstly, to stop NPCs / non-natives from using banishment on other non-natives. If it was functional, then most outsider v outsider fights would have little reason to not be a insta-win "rocket tag banishing" affair. It also puts a huge home-field advantage on defenders, letting the status quo be more stable.
It also sort of signifies that the spellcaster themself isn't really doing the entire effect. Due to that mechanic, it seems the spell is more invoking/using the caster's home plane itself to eject the outsider. Note that the spell is does not put a lingering (dispellable) magic w/ a duration that prevents re-entry, it's just an absolute effect.
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The more PC focused answer is much the same. If the PCs are plane-hopping, the 100% have access to the spell. Depending on the scenario / campaign, it could be extremely disruptive / campaign warping. Basically, it's an extra requirement that will be more likely to prevent use in campaigns that it is more likely to be game-breaking in.
There's "incap" spells that can seriously cripple a foe if failed, and then there's the "delete the unit from the fight outright" effect of Banishment.
It's in a league of its own.
Taja the Barbarian
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Just as a bit of context, the general 'have to be on your own plane to banish someone' restriction seems to date back to the AD&D2.0 Player's Handbook from 1989: The version of Holy Word in my AD&D1.0 Player's Handbook (from 1978) has no such restriction, but all versions since have had this limitation...