The typical depiction of teleportation is the "pen through folded paper" representation. By folding space, the traveler begins in one location, then coexists in both locations, and then ceases to exist in the original location. In this Higher Dimensional environment, this is equivalent to choosing two arbitrary points on a circle and either following the left path or the right path. One degree to the left is the same as 359 degrees to the right. In that same sense, what appears to be travelling 20ft within the 3D material plane would be 0ft (Or a negligibly small distance) along a 4th dimension. (Like taking a step backward at the start of a race to instantaneously arrive at the finish line.)
However, D&D doesn't get into the nitty gritty of higher order spatial dimensions, so it's not the frame of reference we should be using.
Edit: It would be fun to make a spell called something like "Ethereal Jaunt", where the player actually moves from one point to another quasi-instantaneously by "phasing" through the intermediate spaces.
The typical depiction of teleportation is the "pen through folded paper" representation. By folding space, the traveler begins in one location, then coexists in both locations, and then ceases to exist in the original location. In this Higher Dimensional environment, this is equivalent to choosing two arbitrary points on a circle and either following the left path or the right path. One degree to the left is the same as 359 degrees to the right. In that same sense, what appears to be travelling 20ft within the 3D material plane would be 0ft (Or a negligibly small distance) along a 4th dimension. (Like taking a step backward at the start of a race to instantaneously arrive at the finish line.)
However, D&D doesn't get into the nitty gritty of higher order spatial dimensions, so it's not the frame of reference we should be using.
Edit: It would be fun to make a spell called something like "Ethereal Jaunt", where the player actually moves from one point to another quasi-instantaneously by "phasing" through the intermediate spaces.
There is an effect that is kind of like that; the "fold space" ability granted by the dimensional loop which allows you to interact with a space up to 60 feet away as if it were 5 feet away. you can move into , attack into it, grab things in it, and the "distance" to you is 5 feet.
Now to clear that up for Rav; using that to move would use 5 feet of movement, but would move you 60 feet (if set at max range). if the space folded to was in an Area of Effect, you would enter it as you enter the space. It would also trigger Booming Blade, because you moved 5 feet to use the ability, willingly, despite the quasi-teleport that is occurring. This is the only example of a teleport that actually uses your speed to do so that I can think of.
The typical depiction of teleportation is the "pen through folded paper" representation. By folding space, the traveler begins in one location, then coexists in both locations, and then ceases to exist in the original location. In this Higher Dimensional environment, this is equivalent to choosing two arbitrary points on a circle and either following the left path or the right path. One degree to the left is the same as 359 degrees to the right. In that same sense, what appears to be travelling 20ft within the 3D material plane would be 0ft (Or a negligibly small distance) along a 4th dimension. (Like taking a step backward at the start of a race to instantaneously arrive at the finish line.)
However, D&D doesn't get into the nitty gritty of higher order spatial dimensions, so it's not the frame of reference we should be using.
Edit: It would be fun to make a spell called something like "Ethereal Jaunt", where the player actually moves from one point to another quasi-instantaneously by "phasing" through the intermediate spaces.
There is an effect that is kind of like that; the "fold space" ability granted by the dimensional loop which allows you to interact with a space up to 60 feet away as if it were 5 feet away. you can move into , attack into it, grab things in it, and the "distance" to you is 5 feet.
Now to clear that up for Rav; using that to move would use 5 feet of movement, but would move you 60 feet (if set at max range). if the space folded to was in an Area of Effect, you would enter it as you enter the space. It would also trigger Booming Blade, because you moved 5 feet to use the ability, willingly, despite the quasi-teleport that is occurring. This is the only example of a teleport that actually uses your speed to do so that I can think of.
To me, this is a very interesting item in the discussion at hand for 1 particular reason: 1. It is an example of willing teleportation without the use of an action/bonus action/reaction and without the mention of either "movement" or "speed".
And just to make it clear, speed and movement are not the same thing. Speed is a potential, movement is an actuality. Assuming you mean "movement" and not "speed", regular portals as well as the spell Transport via Plants (can) use that as well.
Keep in mind that Acquisitions Incorporated is kind of strange in the bigger picture of WOTC content. There are a lot of mechanics that are inconsistent in both description and functionality.
It's good to have examples of spells that take different approaches, but they shouldn't necessarily be used to help interpret the intention of content produced by other designers.
Tacking on "without teleporting" makes it super clear to the person using the ability that teleportation doesn't count as moving for triggering this effect. Even if they would have been primed to think otherwise, now it is clear. Teleporting isn't moving (for sure not for this effect).
The only thing that is clear from that spell's specific rules is that the spell's effect isn't triggered by moving using teleportation. That does not at all translate to "Teleporting isn't moving". It translate to the opposite. If a specific rule says something isn't the case in that specific context, then it is implied that the opposite is true outside that specific context.
If your entire viewpoint rests on inference and interpretation... you're a fortune teller rolling the bones, not someone discussing the rules. If teleportation was movement, the rules would say as much.
Of course I am interpreting. So are you. As soon as you go away from direct quotation, you are entering the realm of interpretation. That is what rule adjudication is all about. You can't explain something without interpretation first.
This is precisely why I try to stick to the actual text of the book when discussing RAW. I might explain it with examples and analogies, but that is always supported with direct quotes from the text. There are objective answers to rules questions and they can be found in the text itself... as it is written. Some stuff isn't spelled out, absolutely, and that stuff needs a DM to "make a ruling". But there are things that are clearly spelled out, and, if you "make a ruling" in a way contrary to that, you're now leaving the realm of RAW.
And it seems we do agree on that if you stand by your own statements:
Ravnodaus "Move, moving, moved, generally means to change locations. This might be done with movement. This might be done with other means. The act of changing locations is moving."
(other thread on same topic) "You started at A and ended at B. You have moved between those positions. The distance is measurable. Therefore you moved X feet."
Eh. I don't think so. You're ignoring a few things from my statements (blue). I used "generally" there to show this was how it works, generally. I'm fairly sure everyone agrees teleportation is not a general form of moving around. In that second statement I said to measure the distanced moved between the points. If you teleport 30ft, you moved 0 distance between the points. I formatted these sentences in this way specifically for these reasons.
It really is a matter of frame of reference, I think. I measure movement from the frame of reference of the guy moving or being moved when trying to determine how far "he moved". Everyone seems to insist, and oddly only with teleportation, that you measure movement by some other frame of reference. The guy who teleported didn't move himself 30 ft, he just stopped being at point A right as he started being at point B. From his perspective he hasn't moved a muscle. From the perspective of an outsider watching him, sure, he's moved 30ft. But why is everyone adamant about measuring his distance moved based on a 3rd party's perspective?
You are taking things out of context as I was listing different forms of movement that "movement" could also refer to. As you yourself agree, "movement" is also used to describe spells such as Dissonant Whispers. However, it seems we disagree as to whether or not "forced movement" is "movement". I put "forced movement" and "unwilling movement" in two separate categories.
If you put the forced moves into a "forced movement" category that doesn't interact in any meaningful ways with things that interact with "movement" then you're essentially agreeing they're not movement but you just wanna call them that because: because. Which, is, fine I guess. It leads to potential misunderstanding but whatever. You are at least parsing the game functions correctly.
Sure. But you still had to make some effort to get to that point (succeed on a saving throw). It is much easier to narratively explain how your effort enables you to have your picnic, than how simply ignoring the whirlwind enables you to do the same. That is how I feel at least. If you believe the two things make equal sense then good for you.
I see no difference between someone being in the area for a full minute unaffected because they saved on round one when entering it vs someone else also being in it safely for some other reasons for the same duration. Being in itisn't dangerous. Getting into it is.
Narratively? I picture swirling high velocity winds in a thin sheet, forming a faintly tapered cylinder, and inside it being the eye of the storm.
Your other comment made me realize the difference between why I don't think they moved and other people do. I'm measuring the distance based on the path they actually took. Yall measuring the distance by arbitrary lines between their starting point and finishing point.
If I moved 10ft north, then 10ft east, then 10ft south, then 10ft west.
My method: I moved 40ft.
Your method: I moved 0 ft.
If someone moves you have to measure that based on the path they actually took.
The difference between "My method: I moved 40ft." and "Your method: I moved 0 ft." is that the former is how far the character has actually moved, and the latter is the Range covered. They are two different terms, and Range is defined by RAW as seen below:
Ranges. To determine the range on a grid between two things—whether creatures or objects—start counting squares from a square adjacent to one of them and stop counting in the space of the other one. Count by the shortest route.
As you yourself argue seem to understand intuitively, the Range and the distance you actually move are two separate things.
For sure. 100%.
The reason this gets topic gets muddled even more is because "range" and "a distance moved" often gets mixed up in colloquial speech.
Apply this knowledge to a spell such as Misty Step and you get a character that moves 0 feet but covers a Range of roughly 500 feet. Does this make sense to you?
I'm assuming you meant Dimension Door? But yes, totally. That is a clear way to explain the difference.
I've occasionally used "travelled" for that but we could for sure use Range as a term, for measuring distances between start and stop, from the reference point of the static unmoving environment. I just don't know if that is especially wise since the term Range is already used for ranged weapons and spells. But in concept I'm following right there with you here anyway.
So, generally, yes. In an unmoving static environment, from the perspective of that environment, a character who teleports 30ft has moved 30ft. From that character's own perspective, they have not moved 30ft, they're just in a new location suddenly and instantly after having moved 0 ft.
So far I'm 100% with you on that.
I only then take it one step further and say: We should use the person's perspective for determining how far they have moved, not the environment. <--This seems to be the crux of the disagreement on if teleporting is or is not moving. They may have travelled 30 ft, but they only moved 0 ft, in my estimation, because I'm looking at it from their perspective. DMs are free, entirely, to determine their desired frame of references. I tend to view things from the perspective of the Active party, the one doing the moving.
Even if you two had entirely different frames of reference, like in a massive sea battle while both parties are on ships moving in opposite directions passing by one another. Distances moved would all be based on the perspective of the person that moving was either directed by or feature/ability caused.
Booming Blade is a spell we're now all quite familiar with, lets look at an example of what I mean using it. Say there is a sea battle and some flying sorcerers are attacking a pirate crew on their ship. The winds are howling and the ship is moving 20ft a round dragging along everyone on board with it. We now have 2 different frames of reference on this battlefield. The ship and those on it, and the flying forces attacking it. Now lets say one of our sorcerers dart down from the sky and Booming Blade someone. The ship is moving that person 20ft a round... from the perspective of the flyer. But from the pirate who just got boom'd, they're not moving at all. They're standing totally still on the deck of their ship. So even if they want to get away from the sorcerer, and thus are "willing" for all intents and purposes... are they moving away?
The answer depends entirely on whose frame of reference you pick. I pick the frame of the person doing the moving. So, in this case, we want to know if the boom'd pirate is doing the moving. So we'd use his frame of reference. From his frame of reference, he's stationary. He hasn't moved. So the boom never booms.
It is, for me, the exact same thing when dealing with teleportation. If the guy teleports to a spot 30ft away what is happening here is we're actually moving not him, from his perspective, but we're moving his frame of reference itself. Everything else shifted 30ft from his vantage point. He moved 0 ft.
I believe this is the most consistent means of adjudicating frames of references, but DMs don't all agree so ymmv.
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I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
The issue about where the lines are drawn between moving scenes (like the deck of a ship, or even a floating continent) where character movement takes place within that set piece rather than in relation to the outside world versus moving vehicles (like a wagon) where the vehicle is not a scene unto itself but rather one more object moving within it... it's not a satisfying line of analysis to go down, there's no RAW on it, and it isn't relevant to what you're all discussing. 'Aren't we all moving, through the cosmos, and as the world turns, maaaan?' you might ask, but its not a serious line of inquiry worth talking about. Not for the planet, nor really for the deck of a large ship that is the battlemap. Now, if you have a battlemap that contains two ships, which the DM is actually tracking how those ships and their passengers are "moving" in relation to each other, fine, you can start to talk about whether the movement of a ship around the battlefield is also the movement of its passengers in relation to the scene (obviously yes, much like riding a horse is). But if you're trying to draw a parallel between the movement of a solitary ship with passengers not being the rule-significant movement of those passengers, and the movement of a body using teleportation not being the rule-signifigant movement of that body... it's a stretch, and not worth attention.
I only then take it one step further and say: We should use the person's perspective for determining how far they have moved, not the environment. <--This seems to be the crux of the disagreement on if teleporting is or is not moving. They may have travelled 30 ft, but they only moved 0 ft, in my estimation, because I'm looking at it from their perspective. DMs are free, entirely, to determine their desired frame of references. I tend to view things from the perspective of the Active party, the one doing the moving.
All frames of reference are relative. There's no such thing as absolute movement. The entire world is moving through space. If I throw a ball in the air it doesn't fly out into space, because it retains relative momentum. If I'm on a ship and throw a ball into the air, it'll drop into my hand just as easily as if I were standing on the ground, even if the ship is moving at 5 knots. So in essence, all D&D movement assumes some kind of shared reference frame (because it's a game), and the rules tend to break down when the reference frames suddenly change (such as battles on board a ship, when some participants leave a ship).
That said, there's no reason to assume that someone who teleports loses their reference frame entirely, or that the frame "moved" but they somehow didn't. (Movement is always relative) Especially when changing between locations in the same reference frame: two points on the earth.
Imagine the following example. Say you go to sleep in your bed. The next morning you wake up in a completely different house in a different country. Did you move?
Even if you two had entirely different frames of reference, like in a massive sea battle while both parties are on ships moving in opposite directions passing by one another. Distances moved would all be based on the perspective of the person that moving was either directed by or feature/ability caused.
Booming Blade is a spell we're now all quite familiar with, lets look at an example of what I mean using it. Say there is a sea battle and some flying sorcerers are attacking a pirate crew on their ship. The winds are howling and the ship is moving 20ft a round dragging along everyone on board with it. We now have 2 different frames of reference on this battlefield. The ship and those on it, and the flying forces attacking it. Now lets say one of our sorcerers dart down from the sky and Booming Blade someone. The ship is moving that person 20ft a round... from the perspective of the flyer. But from the pirate who just got boom'd, they're not moving at all. They're standing totally still on the deck of their ship. So even if they want to get away from the sorcerer, and thus are "willing" for all intents and purposes... are they moving away?
The answer depends entirely on whose frame of reference you pick. I pick the frame of the person doing the moving. So, in this case, we want to know if the boom'd pirate is doing the moving. So we'd use his frame of reference. From his frame of reference, he's stationary. He hasn't moved. So the boom never booms.
It is, for me, the exact same thing when dealing with teleportation. If the guy teleports to a spot 30ft away what is happening here is we're actually moving not him, from his perspective, but we're moving his frame of reference itself. Everything else shifted 30ft from his vantage point. He moved 0 ft.
I believe this is the most consistent means of adjudicating frames of references, but DMs don't all agree so ymmv.
I agree that multiple frames of reference are not easy to adjudicate in the rules. But I disagree that the teleportation is an example of a secondary frame of reference. All movement is relative. The teleporter's frame of reference is the same as everyone else's in the example. Let's consider Flying again. Say you "hover in place" over a patch of ground. You're not moving in the standard shared frame of reference ("the earth"). Now you're fighting on a ship. You take to the air and "hover" there. Once you're free of the ship, inertia will keep you over the ship for a while, until wind resistance probably takes over and you'll fall behind. In game terms, are you moving at the same speed as the ship? Or not moving at all? Hard to say. But in both cases you're measuring your displacement against a frame of reference (the ship? displacement is 0. The earth? displacement is 20 feet, or whatever). In no case is the frame of reference "myself". It's always something else.
In the teleport example, the person moves relative to a shared frame of reference. It doesn't matter if the world moves relative to them, or if they move relative to the world. All movement is relative. In both cases, the displacement from the frame of reference is the distance they teleported. Ergo, they moved.
Question, which might have already been addressed:
When transporting via Plane Shift, how far has the player moved?
When accounting for spell ranges, planar boundaries are treated as fundamentally "out of range", but infinite distance isn't really a distance at all. Walking through a planar portal doesn't cost infinite movement.
Feels like you're fighting the example not the idea behind it. But ok. On your turn you run in a giant circle and spend your whole movement but end in the same spot you started in. Now your only fixed point is the starting point and end point, both being the same point.
Go ahead and change your calcualtion method a third time to fight this example too if you like.
Or, maybe, actually address the idea behind it. You measure arbitrary lines based on distanced between points that aren't representative of the path the character actually took.
The running in circles reference is a figure of speech that apparently you don't seem to get it. No I did not fight the example you gave I simply explained how even you used points of reference to define what direction and distance you were traveling in, and by doing so defined your "path of travel"
k
Or, maybe, actually address the idea behind it. You measure arbitrary lines based on distanced between points that aren't representative of the path the character actually took.
What "arbitrary lines" are you referring to, because you seem to think if an entity does not physically traverse the space between two points they have not traveled that distance or defined a "path".
Yeah, if someone hasn't "physically traversed the space between two points" then calling the line between those two point their "path" is just inaccurate. That's exactly my position.
In this context, I'm saying measuring the "arbitrary line" between your start/stop coordinates doesn't actually mean you're measuring the path the person took nor are you measuring how far they moved. (That's why I'm calling it "arbitrary")
On your turn you run in a giant circle and spend your whole movement but end in the same spot you started in. Now your only fixed point is the starting point and end point, both being the same point.
Then by that logic and the idea of your example your own method would result in moving 0 ft, as your only fixed point of reference is the start/end point that you defined as being both.
Yeah, that method of determining how far someone moved is bad. I agree. Stop using it.
Also, don't call it "my method". That is the method I'm arguing against using. MY method follows the perspective of the person doing the moving, and they moved their full movement speed in ft.
Envision the path the teleporting guy takes. Picture it.
OK, I envision like others the path the teleporting guy takes is a straight line.
He doesn't travel the line. That isn't what teleporting is. Teleporting is instantly going from A to B without traversing the intervening space.
How far does he move from his perspective. If you traced HIS path. If someone teleports into a space 20ft away. How far did he move, from his perspective. Not to an observer's perspective. To his perspective.
His perspective is the point he picks to define the straight path to the point he will travel to, if that point is 20ft away then he will move 20ft to that point from his own perspective that the space he moved into is different from the space he was in.
Huh, you are serious. You think teleporting moves through the space between the 2 points? Wild.
The place he started and the place he ended had no distance between them that he needed to cross. From his perspective the distance between A and B is 0. Why? How? That's impossible!? Yeah, you're right... teleportation is impossible.
But from his perspective he didn't move at all. When you trace his path he didn't move at all. From his perspective everything else shifted, and shifted immediately.
And this is where you misunderstand, as the place he ended is different from the place he started, and from his own perspective he has moved 20ft using teleportation. His "path" is the line he "envisioned" from his starting place to the place he will end in, and the distance is the measure of space between the starting place and the ending place.
What is this "line he envisioned" you keep going off about my man? Where are you coming up with this stuff? Is from some scifi book or other fantasy stories you've read somewhere or something?
Teleportation doesn't travel through the intervening spaces.
It'd be super disorienting to be honest. But in the path he took, from A to B... A and B were stacked atop one another and were the same point. The distance he moved was 0.
A to B is 20ft apart given your idea of an example, and therefore could not be "stacked" atop one another to be considered the same point even from his own perspective and envisioned "path of travel".
Thanks for playing, insert coin to continue , 5.. 4.. 3...
If someone teleported 30ft. You say he moved 30ft, yeah? Could you show me on a map which exact feet he travelled through?
If a guy walked 30ft I could draw this line fore you and show you his exact path. Even if it was meandering and erratic. We could draw it out and mark on the map every single last foot he travelled.
Can you do that for the guy who teleported 30ft? No? Hmm. Odd. All you have on that map is 2 points with no path between them. That is a line that is 0 ft long.
You familiar with imaginary numbers? They're pretty fun. Did you know you can actually write the equations for the point that two lines that don't ever actually intersect one another... do intersect? Like I said, these equations are fun, and they use imaginary numbers. Equations for all sorts of weird impossible stuff, like where new York city and Los Angeles connect to one another. There is an imaginary equation for that coordinate. A place that doesn't exist. Fun stuff, fun concept. Anyway, for those not following along an imaginary number is basically just anything including a square root of -1. They're symbolized with just a lowercase i. Anyway. The path between A and B that the teleporting character took is similar to these imaginary number equations, because the path he took between point A and B doesn't actually exist either. It is an imaginary path. The actual direct path between them isn't how he got there. He took the much...much shorter imaginary path where point A and point B had no distance between them at all. That's how he got there. So, he moved 0 ft.
Whatever line you wanna draw on a map isn't the path he took, because in real life you can't draw an imaginary line of 0 length that connects two points directly any more than you can actually teleport. The closest we can get to a visualization of this is to fold the map and put a pin though the two spots that are now overlapping.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
But I disagree that the teleportation is an example of a secondary frame of reference. All movement is relative. The teleporter's frame of reference is the same as everyone else's in the example.
If you misty step towards the stern of a ship, do you have to factor in the speed of the boat to avoid overshooting and landing in the drink?
Or do you just move 30 feet along the deck?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I only then take it one step further and say: We should use the person's perspective for determining how far they have moved, not the environment. <--This seems to be the crux of the disagreement on if teleporting is or is not moving. They may have travelled 30 ft, but they only moved 0 ft, in my estimation, because I'm looking at it from their perspective. DMs are free, entirely, to determine their desired frame of references. I tend to view things from the perspective of the Active party, the one doing the moving.
All frames of reference are relative. There's no such thing as absolute movement. The entire world is moving through space. If I throw a ball in the air it doesn't fly out into space, because it retains relative momentum. If I'm on a ship and throw a ball into the air, it'll drop into my hand just as easily as if I were standing on the ground, even if the ship is moving at 5 knots. So in essence, all D&D movement assumes some kind of shared reference frame (because it's a game), and the rules tend to break down when the reference frames suddenly change (such as battles on board a ship, when some participants leave a ship
Explaining my point back to me, yes yes good I follow.
That said, there's no reason to assume that someone who teleports loses their reference frame entirely, or that the frame "moved" but they somehow didn't. (Movement is always relative) Especially when changing between locations in the same reference frame: two points on the earth.
There is reason to believe they shift that reference frame by the exact amount they teleported though, from their perspective. Just. Imagine you teleport from one side of a room to another. instantaneously and without moving a single muscle or changing your body position in any way shape or form, just *poof* 30ft away. What would that look like to you. Imagine the experience for just a moment. From your perspective, everything just shifted 30ft.
Imagine the following example. Say you go to sleep in your bed. The next morning you wake up in a completely different house in a different country. Did you move?
You probably shouldn't casually suggest people you talk to online imagine themselves being kidnapped for no reason.
Even if you two had entirely different frames of reference, like in a massive sea battle while both parties are on ships moving in opposite directions passing by one another. Distances moved would all be based on the perspective of the person that moving was either directed by or feature/ability caused.
Booming Blade is a spell we're now all quite familiar with, lets look at an example of what I mean using it. Say there is a sea battle and some flying sorcerers are attacking a pirate crew on their ship. The winds are howling and the ship is moving 20ft a round dragging along everyone on board with it. We now have 2 different frames of reference on this battlefield. The ship and those on it, and the flying forces attacking it. Now lets say one of our sorcerers dart down from the sky and Booming Blade someone. The ship is moving that person 20ft a round... from the perspective of the flyer. But from the pirate who just got boom'd, they're not moving at all. They're standing totally still on the deck of their ship. So even if they want to get away from the sorcerer, and thus are "willing" for all intents and purposes... are they moving away?
The answer depends entirely on whose frame of reference you pick. I pick the frame of the person doing the moving. So, in this case, we want to know if the boom'd pirate is doing the moving. So we'd use his frame of reference. From his frame of reference, he's stationary. He hasn't moved. So the boom never booms.
It is, for me, the exact same thing when dealing with teleportation. If the guy teleports to a spot 30ft away what is happening here is we're actually moving not him, from his perspective, but we're moving his frame of reference itself. Everything else shifted 30ft from his vantage point. He moved 0 ft.
I believe this is the most consistent means of adjudicating frames of references, but DMs don't all agree so ymmv.
I agree that multiple frames of reference are not easy to adjudicate in the rules.
I think it is super easy, barely an inconvenience.
But I disagree that the teleportation is an example of a secondary frame of reference.
k
All movement is relative.
Teleportation isn't movement, doesn't use a speed nor have a type.
The teleporter's frame of reference is the same as everyone else's in the example.
Naw everyone has their own.
Let's consider Flying again. Say you "hover in place" over a patch of ground. You're not moving in the standard shared frame of reference ("the earth").
Why not?
Now you're fighting on a ship. You take to the air and "hover" there. Once you're free of the ship, inertia will keep you over the ship for a while, until wind resistance probably takes over and you'll fall behind.
Sure, you'd not really change frames of reference, in this example, in dnd terms, until it was the ship's initiative order and it moved 20ft or whatever speed it was going.
In game terms, are you moving at the same speed as the ship? Or not moving at all? Hard to say.
Not really see above.
But in both cases you're measuring your displacement against a frame of reference (the ship? displacement is 0. The earth? displacement is 20 feet, or whatever).
You, you have your own frame of reference. Which is whatever you're personally referencing.
In no case is the frame of reference "myself". It's always something else.
Sigh. I'm not say you're referencing yourself. I'm saying you have your own reference.
In the teleport example, the person moves relative to a shared frame of reference.
They have their own reference...
It doesn't matter if the world moves relative to them, or if they move relative to the world. All movement is relative. In both cases, the displacement from the frame of reference is the distance they teleported. Ergo, they moved.
If the spell effect said:
"As a bonus action, adjust your physical location relative to your frame of reference by up to 30 ft."
Would that change how you see this, that teleporting isn't you moving, or would you just argue it from a different angle?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Yeah, if someone hasn't "physically traversed the space between two points" then calling the line between those two point their "path" is just inaccurate. That's exactly my position.
In this context, I'm saying measuring the "arbitrary line" between your start/stop coordinates doesn't actually mean you're measuring the path the person took nor are you measuring how far they moved. (That's why I'm calling it "arbitrary")
So I agree with the first half of your last sentence (that the start and stop positions don't define the path), but not that they don't define a distance. I think that's the key distinction in between our points of view. It seems to me that you do not think there ought to be a difference between "defining the path" and "determining the distance moved." And to me, it seems like you're going to a lot of effort to try to make one thing a subset of the other.
OK, I envision like others the path the teleporting guy takes is a straight line.
He doesn't travel the line. That isn't what teleporting is. Teleporting is instantly going from A to B without traversing the intervening space.
Absolutely agree. 100% Teleporting does not use movement speed. You change your position in space relative to your last position instantly. --- And yet, you have moved. You are now X feet away from where you started. But let me be clear: You don't need to pass through the intervening space in order to move. The simple act of being in a different place means you have moved.
How far does he move from his perspective. If you traced HIS path. If someone teleports into a space 20ft away. How far did he move, from his perspective. Not to an observer's perspective. To his perspective.
His perspective is the point he picks to define the straight path to the point he will travel to, if that point is 20ft away then he will move 20ft to that point from his own perspective that the space he moved into is different from the space he was in.
Huh, you are serious. You think teleporting moves through the space between the 2 points? Wild.
That's not what he's saying. He's saying that he has moved 20 feet. Not that he has physically passed through 20 feet. He is displaced from his previous position by 20 feet. It took 0 feet of his movement speed to make that displacement.
The place he started and the place he ended had no distance between them that he needed to cross. From his perspective the distance between A and B is 0. Why? How? That's impossible!? Yeah, you're right... teleportation is impossible.
But from his perspective he didn't move at all. When you trace his path he didn't move at all. From his perspective everything else shifted, and shifted immediately.
And this is where you misunderstand, as the place he ended is different from the place he started, and from his own perspective he has moved 20ft using teleportation. His "path" is the line he "envisioned" from his starting place to the place he will end in, and the distance is the measure of space between the starting place and the ending place.
What is this "line he envisioned" you keep going off about my man? Where are you coming up with this stuff? Is from some scifi book or other fantasy stories you've read somewhere or something?
Teleportation doesn't travel through the intervening spaces.
Correct. Teleportation doesn't pass through intervening spaces. And yet the displacement is still X feet. From the teleporters perspective he is now X feet away from where he was a second ago. From his perspective he traveled X feet. He was over there, and now he's over here. He moved. It doesn't matter that he didn't move through any of the other places in between there and here. He moved from there.. to here. Even if he used 0 feet of his movement speed to do it.
If someone teleported 30ft. You say he moved 30ft, yeah? Could you show me on a map which exact feet he travelled through?
If a guy walked 30ft I could draw this line fore you and show you his exact path. Even if it was meandering and erratic.
We could draw it out and mark on the map every single last foot he travelled.
Can you do that for the guy who teleported 30ft? No? Hmm. Odd. All you have on that map is 2 points with no path between them. That is a line that is 0 ft long.
The path he took through physical space by expending his movement speed is 0, but he moved 30 feet. Just as if the meandering path might be 30 feet long even though he ended up a mere 15 feet away from where he started.
I don't see why you need to traverse the intervening space to count as having moved. If I show you a picture of a guy standing in a field, and then the same guy standing in a forest, you'd say the guy had moved. It doesn't matter how he got from one place to the other. Maybe he drove a car, or flew a plane, or teleported. He's still in a different place, and so he's moved.
Question, which might have already been addressed:
When transporting via Plane Shift, how far has the player moved?
When accounting for spell ranges, planar boundaries are treated as fundamentally "out of range", but infinite distance isn't really a distance at all. Walking through a planar portal doesn't cost infinite movement.
Teleportation never costs movement speed. Walking through a portal isn't going to cost infinite movement speed, any more than casting Misty Step costs 30 movement speed to go 30 feet. As for "how far"? I'd say "unknown/immeasurable/probably more than 5 feet :)" This does seem like one of the things I might make an exception for, because changing planes is weird. Etherealness is potentially even more confusing with respect to Booming Blade and movement. Does stepping into the Border Ethereal but not moving while there mean you didn't move? The Ethereal is weird in that it's mirror of the "real" world. And you move relative to the real world. So if I'm hit with Booming Blade, go Ethereal, and stand still, did I move more than 5 feet? Or am I still right there, just "ethereal"?
noun: A route, course, or track along which something moves.
this is not the same as "physically traversed the space between two points".
How far does he move from his perspective. If you traced HIS path. If someone teleports into a space 20ft away. How far did he move, from his perspective. Not to an observer's perspective. To his perspective.
His perspective is the point he picks to define the straight path to the point he will travel to, if that point is 20ft away then he will move 20ft to that point from his own perspective that the space he moved into is different from the space he was in.
Huh, you are serious. You think teleporting moves through the space between the 2 points? Wild.
I never said he moved "Through" the space between the 2 points while teleporting I said his perspective is that the space he moved into (the point he picked to travel to) is different from the space he was in ( the point he started from ) thus defining the "path" that was traveled and defining the distance traveled.
The place he started and the place he ended had no distance between them that he needed to cross. From his perspective the distance between A and B is 0. Why? How? That's impossible!? Yeah, you're right... teleportation is impossible.
But from his perspective he didn't move at all. When you trace his path he didn't move at all. From his perspective everything else shifted, and shifted immediately.
And this is where you misunderstand, as the place he ended is different from the place he started, and from his own perspective he has moved 20ft using teleportation. His "path" is the line he "envisioned" from his starting place to the place he will end in, and the distance is the measure of space between the starting place and the ending place.
What is this "line he envisioned" you keep going off about my man? Where are you coming up with this stuff? Is from some scifi book or other fantasy stories you've read somewhere or something?
Envision the path the teleporting guy takes. Picture it.
OK, I envision like others the path the teleporting guy takes is a straight line.
It's ok if you are confused, running in circles within your own logic can do that, take a deep breath and know myself and others can help you break the logic paradox your in.
If a guy walked 30ft I could draw this line fore you and show you his exact path. Even if it was meandering and erratic. We could draw it out and mark on the map every single last foot he travelled.
Can you do that for the guy who teleported 30ft? No? Hmm. Odd. All you have on that map is 2 points with no path between them. That is a line that is 0 ft long.
If you or I draw a line from the point where one starts their teleportation to where one ends after teleporting, and the distance between those two points is greater than 0, that is the distance one has traveled, and the "path" that was taken even if the intervening space between is never traversed.
You familiar with imaginary numbers? They're pretty fun. Did you know you can actually write the equations for the point that two lines that don't ever actually intersect one another... do intersect? Like I said, these equations are fun, and they use imaginary numbers. Equations for all sorts of weird impossible stuff, like where new York city and Los Angeles connect to one another. There is an imaginary equation for that coordinate. A place that doesn't exist. Fun stuff, fun concept. Anyway, for those not following along an imaginary number is basically just anything including a square root of -1. They're symbolized with just a lowercase i. Anyway. The path between A and B that the teleporting character took is similar to these imaginary number equations, because the path he took between point A and B doesn't actually exist either. It is an imaginary path. The actual direct path between them isn't how he got there. He took the much...much shorter imaginary path where point A and point B had no distance between them at all. That's how he got there. So, he moved 0 ft.
I do believe you need to go back and study your algebra, for i^2 = -1 ( that's i squared equals negative one, because you can't take the square root of a negative number, because i alone is undefined )
Rav, your stuck in the notion that Teleportation is not movement because it uses no speed to do so. You also can not admit to yourself that teleporting is leaving one space to enter another different space, to do so would undermine your belief the RAW is absolute and inflexible. We all play D&D within the big-picture framework of the game-rules, and some of us have different ways at looking at that foundation. I urge you to step back from the fine print and look at the big picture, and enjoy the view.
We have shown you our view, ether take it for what it's worth or don't, I personally don't care because I know you can never see the game as others do.
Best of luck in your games, and may the dice be ever in your favor.
Question, which might have already been addressed:
When transporting via Plane Shift, how far has the player moved?
When accounting for spell ranges, planar boundaries are treated as fundamentally "out of range", but infinite distance isn't really a distance at all. Walking through a planar portal doesn't cost infinite movement.
Teleportation never costs movement speed. Walking through a portal isn't going to cost infinite movement speed, any more than casting Misty Step costs 30 movement speed to go 30 feet. As for "how far"? I'd say "unknown/immeasurable/probably more than 5 feet :)" This does seem like one of the things I might make an exception for, because changing planes is weird. Etherealness is potentially even more confusing with respect to Booming Blade and movement. Does stepping into the Border Ethereal but not moving while there mean you didn't move? The Ethereal is weird in that it's mirror of the "real" world. And you move relative to the real world. So if I'm hit with Booming Blade, go Ethereal, and stand still, did I move more than 5 feet? Or am I still right there, just "ethereal"?
The natural progression of this would be casting Blink. Casting it is obviously intentional, but subsequent blinking is wildly unpredictable, and ocassionally inconvenient.
"As a bonus action, adjust your physical location relative to your frame of reference by up to 30 ft."
The English language has a word for "adjust physical location relative to a frame of reference". It's "move".
Likewise, if you stand still in a personal frame of reference locked onto yourself, but that frame of reference has moved relative to everyone and everything else and the frame of reference that they are all using, then from all perspectives (including your own) you have moved.
If you aren't where you used to be, you have moved. If where you used to be is somewhere else, you have moved. It's all moving.
If you aren't where you used to be, you have moved. If where you used to be is somewhere else, you have moved. It's all moving.
Waitaminutekid.jpeg
“…in my games - no you will not take secondary damage from BB if your first change of location on your turn is via teleportation.… Is teleporting "moving 5ft or more"? No, not really. 5ft from what? To move 5ft you need to have a frame of reference and teleportation somewhat breaks those. Teleporting 30ft away from an object could be described as "moving 30ft away from that object" but not easily described as "moving 30ft”
Your response to the poll frustrated me then, and continues to. Teleportation is movement. Frames of reference are too abstract to be concerned with. BB only checks “moves” and “willingly.” But somehow, you put all that together and conclude “no”?
Folks have accused Rav of arguing this cause without a justifiable end goal application of it, but from where I sit, it’s even worse to disagree with them but then come down ruling in a contradictory way when faced with a play scenario. What gives Regent?
I only then take it one step further and say: We should use the person's perspective for determining how far they have moved, not the environment. <--This seems to be the crux of the disagreement on if teleporting is or is not moving. They may have travelled 30 ft, but they only moved 0 ft, in my estimation, because I'm looking at it from their perspective. DMs are free, entirely, to determine their desired frame of references. I tend to view things from the perspective of the Active party, the one doing the moving.
All frames of reference are relative. There's no such thing as absolute movement. The entire world is moving through space. If I throw a ball in the air it doesn't fly out into space, because it retains relative momentum. If I'm on a ship and throw a ball into the air, it'll drop into my hand just as easily as if I were standing on the ground, even if the ship is moving at 5 knots. So in essence, all D&D movement assumes some kind of shared reference frame (because it's a game), and the rules tend to break down when the reference frames suddenly change (such as battles on board a ship, when some participants leave a ship
Explaining my point back to me, yes yes good I follow.
That said, there's no reason to assume that someone who teleports loses their reference frame entirely, or that the frame "moved" but they somehow didn't. (Movement is always relative) Especially when changing between locations in the same reference frame: two points on the earth.
There is reason to believe they shift that reference frame by the exact amount they teleported though, from their perspective. Just. Imagine you teleport from one side of a room to another. instantaneously and without moving a single muscle or changing your body position in any way shape or form, just *poof* 30ft away. What would that look like to you. Imagine the experience for just a moment. From your perspective, everything just shifted 30ft.
Sure, from the perspective of myself, the world shifted... and from the perspective of the person sitting next to me, I moved. Your argument appears to be that reference frames are purely subjective. But they're not. Shared inertia reference frames are objective things (even if everything is relative, it's relative to other things not to ones self)
Imagine the following example. Say you go to sleep in your bed. The next morning you wake up in a completely different house in a different country. Did you move?
You probably shouldn't casually suggest people you talk to online imagine themselves being kidnapped for no reason.
Heh. Good work. Introducing levity to avoid answering the question! I approve. Free internet points to you, sir.
Even if you two had entirely different frames of reference, like in a massive sea battle while both parties are on ships moving in opposite directions passing by one another. Distances moved would all be based on the perspective of the person that moving was either directed by or feature/ability caused.
Booming Blade is a spell we're now all quite familiar with, lets look at an example of what I mean using it. Say there is a sea battle and some flying sorcerers are attacking a pirate crew on their ship. The winds are howling and the ship is moving 20ft a round dragging along everyone on board with it. We now have 2 different frames of reference on this battlefield. The ship and those on it, and the flying forces attacking it. Now lets say one of our sorcerers dart down from the sky and Booming Blade someone. The ship is moving that person 20ft a round... from the perspective of the flyer. But from the pirate who just got boom'd, they're not moving at all. They're standing totally still on the deck of their ship. So even if they want to get away from the sorcerer, and thus are "willing" for all intents and purposes... are they moving away?
The answer depends entirely on whose frame of reference you pick. I pick the frame of the person doing the moving. So, in this case, we want to know if the boom'd pirate is doing the moving. So we'd use his frame of reference. From his frame of reference, he's stationary. He hasn't moved. So the boom never booms.
It is, for me, the exact same thing when dealing with teleportation. If the guy teleports to a spot 30ft away what is happening here is we're actually moving not him, from his perspective, but we're moving his frame of reference itself. Everything else shifted 30ft from his vantage point. He moved 0 ft.
I believe this is the most consistent means of adjudicating frames of references, but DMs don't all agree so ymmv.
I agree that multiple frames of reference are not easy to adjudicate in the rules.
I think it is super easy, barely an inconvenience.
Wowowow. Wow.
But I disagree that the teleportation is an example of a secondary frame of reference.
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All movement is relative.
Teleportation isn't movement, doesn't use a speed nor have a type
Ahh - the bald assertion. I thought that's what was at issue: That Teleportation is "moving" even though it is not a "Movement type". I'm perfectly on-board with Teleport not being a "movement type", and there's no such thing as "teleport speed" etc. However, I contend that Teleport still counts as "moving" by the normal usage of the word in the game. I contend that this is so because being in one place and then in another is that same as having moved there, no matter what means one uses to convey oneself between the two points (or whether or not you traverse the intervening spaces).
The teleporter's frame of reference is the same as everyone else's in the example.
Naw everyone has their own.
Why do you believe this?
Let's consider Flying again. Say you "hover in place" over a patch of ground. You're not moving in the standard shared frame of reference ("the earth").
Why not?
Because you share the inertia imparted to you by the earth as it is flying through space. Your inertial reference point is the earth. That's why you don't fly into space.
Now you're fighting on a ship. You take to the air and "hover" there. Once you're free of the ship, inertia will keep you over the ship for a while, until wind resistance probably takes over and you'll fall behind.
Sure, you'd not really change frames of reference, in this example, in dnd terms, until it was the ship's initiative order and it moved 20ft or whatever speed it was going.
ahh -- yeah, I'm mixing in some pseudo-real-physics here, so apologies if that wasn't clear.
In game terms, are you moving at the same speed as the ship? Or not moving at all? Hard to say.
Not really see above.
Let me try again : In real terms, if you get into a helicopter and take off from a moving carrier, your initial hover still has the inertial reference frame of the ship. You're hovering over a ship doing 20 knots, and from the perspective of the crewman on board, you're stationary. The helicopter pilot doesn't need to exert any forward vector (to start with) because of that inertial reference. From the perspective of someone on the shore, the helicopter is moving at 20knots along with the ship.
Is the helicopter moving? relative to the ship, no, relative to the shore, yes. Which reference frame is important? In D&D terms, maybe relative to the origin of the effect is the best solution.
But in both cases you're measuring your displacement against a frame of reference (the ship? displacement is 0. The earth? displacement is 20 feet, or whatever).
You, you have your own frame of reference. Which is whatever you're personally referencing.
But that makes no sense. Relative to yourself you never move. And if you are measuring your displacement relative to something else, then that still doesn't work -- because relative to the world you did move (because movement is relative in both directions, if the World moves 30 feet relative to you, then you've moved 30 feet relative to the World).
In no case is the frame of reference "myself". It's always something else.
Sigh. I'm not say you're referencing yourself. I'm saying you have your own reference.
Which is what? What is this other reference?
In the teleport example, the person moves relative to a shared frame of reference.
They have their own reference...
Which is ?
It doesn't matter if the world moves relative to them, or if they move relative to the world. All movement is relative. In both cases, the displacement from the frame of reference is the distance they teleported. Ergo, they moved.
If the spell effect said:
"As a bonus action, adjust your physical location relative to your frame of reference by up to 30 ft."
Would that change how you see this, that teleporting isn't you moving, or would you just argue it from a different angle?
Heh. Not at all. Since movement in real terms is a change in physical location within a given inertial frame, it would only support my position more strongly.
If your entire viewpoint rests on inference and interpretation... you're a fortune teller rolling the bones, not someone discussing the rules. If teleportation was movement, the rules would say as much.
Of course I am interpreting. So are you. As soon as you go away from direct quotation, you are entering the realm of interpretation. That is what rule adjudication is all about. You can't explain something without interpretation first.
This is precisely why I try to stick to the actual text of the book when discussing RAW. I might explain it with examples and analogies, but that is always supported with direct quotes from the text. There are objective answers to rules questions and they can be found in the text itself... as it is written. Some stuff isn't spelled out, absolutely, and that stuff needs a DM to "make a ruling". But there are things that are clearly spelled out, and, if you "make a ruling" in a way contrary to that, you're now leaving the realm of RAW.
As soon as you stop using quotation marks, you are interpreting. If you try to explain a rule to someone beyond simply quoting a text, you are interpreting. You finding your own quotes more relevant than others' quotes does not make them more adhering to RAW than others'. Only, as you say, if that interpretation is strictly against a quote presented and not at all supported by another quote.I see no difference between someone being in the area for a full minute unaffected because they saved on round one when entering it vs someone else also being in it safely for some other reasons for the same duration. Being in itisn't dangerous. Getting into it is.
Narratively? I picture swirling high velocity winds in a thin sheet, forming a faintly tapered cylinder, and inside it being the eye of the storm.
I would personally find it easier to narratively explain how the effects of your successful saving throw lasts longer than a split second, than explaining how the filled out cylinder is hollow. It is a good narrative explanation though, if you don't take the other effects of the whirlwind into account.
Your other comment made me realize the difference between why I don't think they moved and other people do. I'm measuring the distance based on the path they actually took. Yall measuring the distance by arbitrary lines between their starting point and finishing point.
If I moved 10ft north, then 10ft east, then 10ft south, then 10ft west.
My method: I moved 40ft.
Your method: I moved 0 ft.
If someone moves you have to measure that based on the path they actually took.
The difference between "My method: I moved 40ft." and "Your method: I moved 0 ft." is that the former is how far the character has actually moved, and the latter is the Range covered. They are two different terms, and Range is defined by RAW as seen below:
Ranges. To determine the range on a grid between two things—whether creatures or objects—start counting squares from a square adjacent to one of them and stop counting in the space of the other one. Count by the shortest route.
As you yourself argue seem to understand intuitively, the Range and the distance you actually move are two separate things.
For sure. 100%.
The reason this gets topic gets muddled even more is because "range" and "a distance moved" often gets mixed up in colloquial speech.
Apply this knowledge to a spell such as Misty Step and you get a character that moves 0 feet but covers a Range of roughly 500 feet. Does this make sense to you?
I'm assuming you meant Dimension Door? But yes, totally. That is a clear way to explain the difference.
I've occasionally used "travelled" for that but we could for sure use Range as a term, for measuring distances between start and stop, from the reference point of the static unmoving environment. I just don't know if that is especially wise since the term Range is already used for ranged weapons and spells. But in concept I'm following right there with you here anyway.
So, generally, yes. In an unmoving static environment, from the perspective of that environment, a character who teleports 30ft has moved 30ft. From that character's own perspective, they have not moved 30ft, they're just in a new location suddenly and instantly after having moved 0 ft.
So far I'm 100% with you on that.
Cool that we agree that much. It seems our disagreement now is only about the all-important question of whether or not teleporting counts as moving. And you seem to believe that changing position is generally considered movement, yes? Even when not using "movement"? Why then would this general definition not apply to teleportation? You might have answered this question a few hundred times by now, but I simply don't recall the answer :s
Question, which might have already been addressed:
When transporting via Plane Shift, how far has the player moved?
When accounting for spell ranges, planar boundaries are treated as fundamentally "out of range", but infinite distance isn't really a distance at all. Walking through a planar portal doesn't cost infinite movement.
Personally I'd say the character has "moved 0 feet", same as with teleportation. The only difference being that the Range covered can be measured with teleportation and not with plane shifting. Range and movement/move is not the same. Movement/move is calculated from the number of squares the character moved through, whereas the Range covered is calculated by the shortest path from A to B, as per the definition of Ranges in RAW:
Ranges. To determine the range on a grid between two things—whether creatures or objects—start counting squares from a square adjacent to one of them and stop counting in the space of the other one. Count by the shortest route.
Teleportation never costs movement speed. Walking through a portal isn't going to cost infinite movement speed, any more than casting Misty Step costs 30 movement speed to go 30 feet. As for "how far"? I'd say "unknown/immeasurable/probably more than 5 feet :)" This does seem like one of the things I might make an exception for, because changing planes is weird. Etherealness is potentially even more confusing with respect to Booming Blade and movement. Does stepping into the Border Ethereal but not moving while there mean you didn't move? The Ethereal is weird in that it's mirror of the "real" world. And you move relative to the real world. So if I'm hit with Booming Blade, go Ethereal, and stand still, did I move more than 5 feet? Or am I still right there, just "ethereal"?
Teleportation can cost movement speed (example: Echo Knight's Manifest Echo), though I totally understand what you mean.
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The typical depiction of teleportation is the "pen through folded paper" representation. By folding space, the traveler begins in one location, then coexists in both locations, and then ceases to exist in the original location. In this Higher Dimensional environment, this is equivalent to choosing two arbitrary points on a circle and either following the left path or the right path. One degree to the left is the same as 359 degrees to the right. In that same sense, what appears to be travelling 20ft within the 3D material plane would be 0ft (Or a negligibly small distance) along a 4th dimension. (Like taking a step backward at the start of a race to instantaneously arrive at the finish line.)
However, D&D doesn't get into the nitty gritty of higher order spatial dimensions, so it's not the frame of reference we should be using.
Edit: It would be fun to make a spell called something like "Ethereal Jaunt", where the player actually moves from one point to another quasi-instantaneously by "phasing" through the intermediate spaces.
There is an effect that is kind of like that; the "fold space" ability granted by the dimensional loop which allows you to interact with a space up to 60 feet away as if it were 5 feet away. you can move into , attack into it, grab things in it, and the "distance" to you is 5 feet.
Now to clear that up for Rav; using that to move would use 5 feet of movement, but would move you 60 feet (if set at max range). if the space folded to was in an Area of Effect, you would enter it as you enter the space. It would also trigger Booming Blade, because you moved 5 feet to use the ability, willingly, despite the quasi-teleport that is occurring. This is the only example of a teleport that actually uses your speed to do so that I can think of.
To me, this is a very interesting item in the discussion at hand for 1 particular reason:
1. It is an example of willing teleportation without the use of an action/bonus action/reaction and without the mention of either "movement" or "speed".
And just to make it clear, speed and movement are not the same thing. Speed is a potential, movement is an actuality.
Assuming you mean "movement" and not "speed", regular portals as well as the spell Transport via Plants (can) use that as well.
Keep in mind that Acquisitions Incorporated is kind of strange in the bigger picture of WOTC content. There are a lot of mechanics that are inconsistent in both description and functionality.
It's good to have examples of spells that take different approaches, but they shouldn't necessarily be used to help interpret the intention of content produced by other designers.
This is precisely why I try to stick to the actual text of the book when discussing RAW. I might explain it with examples and analogies, but that is always supported with direct quotes from the text. There are objective answers to rules questions and they can be found in the text itself... as it is written. Some stuff isn't spelled out, absolutely, and that stuff needs a DM to "make a ruling". But there are things that are clearly spelled out, and, if you "make a ruling" in a way contrary to that, you're now leaving the realm of RAW.
Eh. I don't think so. You're ignoring a few things from my statements (blue). I used "generally" there to show this was how it works, generally. I'm fairly sure everyone agrees teleportation is not a general form of moving around. In that second statement I said to measure the distanced moved between the points. If you teleport 30ft, you moved 0 distance between the points. I formatted these sentences in this way specifically for these reasons.
It really is a matter of frame of reference, I think. I measure movement from the frame of reference of the guy moving or being moved when trying to determine how far "he moved". Everyone seems to insist, and oddly only with teleportation, that you measure movement by some other frame of reference. The guy who teleported didn't move himself 30 ft, he just stopped being at point A right as he started being at point B. From his perspective he hasn't moved a muscle. From the perspective of an outsider watching him, sure, he's moved 30ft. But why is everyone adamant about measuring his distance moved based on a 3rd party's perspective?
If you put the forced moves into a "forced movement" category that doesn't interact in any meaningful ways with things that interact with "movement" then you're essentially agreeing they're not movement but you just wanna call them that because: because. Which, is, fine I guess. It leads to potential misunderstanding but whatever. You are at least parsing the game functions correctly.
I see no difference between someone being in the area for a full minute unaffected because they saved on round one when entering it vs someone else also being in it safely for some other reasons for the same duration. Being in it isn't dangerous. Getting into it is.
Narratively? I picture swirling high velocity winds in a thin sheet, forming a faintly tapered cylinder, and inside it being the eye of the storm.
For sure. 100%.
I'm assuming you meant Dimension Door? But yes, totally. That is a clear way to explain the difference.
I've occasionally used "travelled" for that but we could for sure use Range as a term, for measuring distances between start and stop, from the reference point of the static unmoving environment. I just don't know if that is especially wise since the term Range is already used for ranged weapons and spells. But in concept I'm following right there with you here anyway.
So, generally, yes. In an unmoving static environment, from the perspective of that environment, a character who teleports 30ft has moved 30ft. From that character's own perspective, they have not moved 30ft, they're just in a new location suddenly and instantly after having moved 0 ft.
So far I'm 100% with you on that.
I only then take it one step further and say: We should use the person's perspective for determining how far they have moved, not the environment. <--This seems to be the crux of the disagreement on if teleporting is or is not moving. They may have travelled 30 ft, but they only moved 0 ft, in my estimation, because I'm looking at it from their perspective. DMs are free, entirely, to determine their desired frame of references. I tend to view things from the perspective of the Active party, the one doing the moving.
Even if you two had entirely different frames of reference, like in a massive sea battle while both parties are on ships moving in opposite directions passing by one another. Distances moved would all be based on the perspective of the person that moving was either directed by or feature/ability caused.
Booming Blade is a spell we're now all quite familiar with, lets look at an example of what I mean using it. Say there is a sea battle and some flying sorcerers are attacking a pirate crew on their ship. The winds are howling and the ship is moving 20ft a round dragging along everyone on board with it. We now have 2 different frames of reference on this battlefield. The ship and those on it, and the flying forces attacking it. Now lets say one of our sorcerers dart down from the sky and Booming Blade someone. The ship is moving that person 20ft a round... from the perspective of the flyer. But from the pirate who just got boom'd, they're not moving at all. They're standing totally still on the deck of their ship. So even if they want to get away from the sorcerer, and thus are "willing" for all intents and purposes... are they moving away?
The answer depends entirely on whose frame of reference you pick. I pick the frame of the person doing the moving. So, in this case, we want to know if the boom'd pirate is doing the moving. So we'd use his frame of reference. From his frame of reference, he's stationary. He hasn't moved. So the boom never booms.
It is, for me, the exact same thing when dealing with teleportation. If the guy teleports to a spot 30ft away what is happening here is we're actually moving not him, from his perspective, but we're moving his frame of reference itself. Everything else shifted 30ft from his vantage point. He moved 0 ft.
I believe this is the most consistent means of adjudicating frames of references, but DMs don't all agree so ymmv.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
The issue about where the lines are drawn between moving scenes (like the deck of a ship, or even a floating continent) where character movement takes place within that set piece rather than in relation to the outside world versus moving vehicles (like a wagon) where the vehicle is not a scene unto itself but rather one more object moving within it... it's not a satisfying line of analysis to go down, there's no RAW on it, and it isn't relevant to what you're all discussing. 'Aren't we all moving, through the cosmos, and as the world turns, maaaan?' you might ask, but its not a serious line of inquiry worth talking about. Not for the planet, nor really for the deck of a large ship that is the battlemap. Now, if you have a battlemap that contains two ships, which the DM is actually tracking how those ships and their passengers are "moving" in relation to each other, fine, you can start to talk about whether the movement of a ship around the battlefield is also the movement of its passengers in relation to the scene (obviously yes, much like riding a horse is). But if you're trying to draw a parallel between the movement of a solitary ship with passengers not being the rule-significant movement of those passengers, and the movement of a body using teleportation not being the rule-signifigant movement of that body... it's a stretch, and not worth attention.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
All frames of reference are relative. There's no such thing as absolute movement. The entire world is moving through space. If I throw a ball in the air it doesn't fly out into space, because it retains relative momentum. If I'm on a ship and throw a ball into the air, it'll drop into my hand just as easily as if I were standing on the ground, even if the ship is moving at 5 knots.
So in essence, all D&D movement assumes some kind of shared reference frame (because it's a game), and the rules tend to break down when the reference frames suddenly change (such as battles on board a ship, when some participants leave a ship).
That said, there's no reason to assume that someone who teleports loses their reference frame entirely, or that the frame "moved" but they somehow didn't. (Movement is always relative) Especially when changing between locations in the same reference frame: two points on the earth.
Imagine the following example. Say you go to sleep in your bed. The next morning you wake up in a completely different house in a different country. Did you move?
I agree that multiple frames of reference are not easy to adjudicate in the rules.
But I disagree that the teleportation is an example of a secondary frame of reference. All movement is relative. The teleporter's frame of reference is the same as everyone else's in the example.
Let's consider Flying again. Say you "hover in place" over a patch of ground. You're not moving in the standard shared frame of reference ("the earth").
Now you're fighting on a ship. You take to the air and "hover" there. Once you're free of the ship, inertia will keep you over the ship for a while, until wind resistance probably takes over and you'll fall behind. In game terms, are you moving at the same speed as the ship? Or not moving at all? Hard to say. But in both cases you're measuring your displacement against a frame of reference (the ship? displacement is 0. The earth? displacement is 20 feet, or whatever). In no case is the frame of reference "myself". It's always something else.
In the teleport example, the person moves relative to a shared frame of reference. It doesn't matter if the world moves relative to them, or if they move relative to the world. All movement is relative. In both cases, the displacement from the frame of reference is the distance they teleported. Ergo, they moved.
Question, which might have already been addressed:
When transporting via Plane Shift, how far has the player moved?
When accounting for spell ranges, planar boundaries are treated as fundamentally "out of range", but infinite distance isn't really a distance at all. Walking through a planar portal doesn't cost infinite movement.
k
Yeah, if someone hasn't "physically traversed the space between two points" then calling the line between those two point their "path" is just inaccurate. That's exactly my position.
In this context, I'm saying measuring the "arbitrary line" between your start/stop coordinates doesn't actually mean you're measuring the path the person took nor are you measuring how far they moved. (That's why I'm calling it "arbitrary")
Yeah, that method of determining how far someone moved is bad. I agree. Stop using it.
Also, don't call it "my method". That is the method I'm arguing against using. MY method follows the perspective of the person doing the moving, and they moved their full movement speed in ft.
He doesn't travel the line. That isn't what teleporting is. Teleporting is instantly going from A to B without traversing the intervening space.
Huh, you are serious. You think teleporting moves through the space between the 2 points? Wild.
What is this "line he envisioned" you keep going off about my man? Where are you coming up with this stuff? Is from some scifi book or other fantasy stories you've read somewhere or something?
Teleportation doesn't travel through the intervening spaces.
If someone teleported 30ft. You say he moved 30ft, yeah? Could you show me on a map which exact feet he travelled through?
If a guy walked 30ft I could draw this line fore you and show you his exact path. Even if it was meandering and erratic. We could draw it out and mark on the map every single last foot he travelled.
Can you do that for the guy who teleported 30ft? No? Hmm. Odd. All you have on that map is 2 points with no path between them. That is a line that is 0 ft long.
You familiar with imaginary numbers? They're pretty fun. Did you know you can actually write the equations for the point that two lines that don't ever actually intersect one another... do intersect? Like I said, these equations are fun, and they use imaginary numbers. Equations for all sorts of weird impossible stuff, like where new York city and Los Angeles connect to one another. There is an imaginary equation for that coordinate. A place that doesn't exist. Fun stuff, fun concept. Anyway, for those not following along an imaginary number is basically just anything including a square root of -1. They're symbolized with just a lowercase i. Anyway. The path between A and B that the teleporting character took is similar to these imaginary number equations, because the path he took between point A and B doesn't actually exist either. It is an imaginary path. The actual direct path between them isn't how he got there. He took the much...much shorter imaginary path where point A and point B had no distance between them at all. That's how he got there. So, he moved 0 ft.
Whatever line you wanna draw on a map isn't the path he took, because in real life you can't draw an imaginary line of 0 length that connects two points directly any more than you can actually teleport. The closest we can get to a visualization of this is to fold the map and put a pin though the two spots that are now overlapping.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
If you misty step towards the stern of a ship, do you have to factor in the speed of the boat to avoid overshooting and landing in the drink?
Or do you just move 30 feet along the deck?
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Explaining my point back to me, yes yes good I follow.
There is reason to believe they shift that reference frame by the exact amount they teleported though, from their perspective. Just. Imagine you teleport from one side of a room to another. instantaneously and without moving a single muscle or changing your body position in any way shape or form, just *poof* 30ft away. What would that look like to you. Imagine the experience for just a moment. From your perspective, everything just shifted 30ft.
You probably shouldn't casually suggest people you talk to online imagine themselves being kidnapped for no reason.
I think it is super easy, barely an inconvenience.
k
Teleportation isn't movement, doesn't use a speed nor have a type.
Naw everyone has their own.
Why not?
Sure, you'd not really change frames of reference, in this example, in dnd terms, until it was the ship's initiative order and it moved 20ft or whatever speed it was going.
Not really see above.
You, you have your own frame of reference. Which is whatever you're personally referencing.
Sigh. I'm not say you're referencing yourself. I'm saying you have your own reference.
They have their own reference...
If the spell effect said:
"As a bonus action, adjust your physical location relative to your frame of reference by up to 30 ft."
Would that change how you see this, that teleporting isn't you moving, or would you just argue it from a different angle?
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
So I agree with the first half of your last sentence (that the start and stop positions don't define the path), but not that they don't define a distance. I think that's the key distinction in between our points of view. It seems to me that you do not think there ought to be a difference between "defining the path" and "determining the distance moved." And to me, it seems like you're going to a lot of effort to try to make one thing a subset of the other.
Absolutely agree. 100% Teleporting does not use movement speed. You change your position in space relative to your last position instantly.
--- And yet, you have moved. You are now X feet away from where you started.
But let me be clear: You don't need to pass through the intervening space in order to move. The simple act of being in a different place means you have moved.
That's not what he's saying. He's saying that he has moved 20 feet. Not that he has physically passed through 20 feet. He is displaced from his previous position by 20 feet. It took 0 feet of his movement speed to make that displacement.
Correct. Teleportation doesn't pass through intervening spaces. And yet the displacement is still X feet. From the teleporters perspective he is now X feet away from where he was a second ago. From his perspective he traveled X feet. He was over there, and now he's over here. He moved. It doesn't matter that he didn't move through any of the other places in between there and here.
He moved from there..
to here.
Even if he used 0 feet of his movement speed to do it.
I don't see why you need to traverse the intervening space to count as having moved.
If I show you a picture of a guy standing in a field, and then the same guy standing in a forest, you'd say the guy had moved. It doesn't matter how he got from one place to the other. Maybe he drove a car, or flew a plane, or teleported. He's still in a different place, and so he's moved.
Teleportation never costs movement speed. Walking through a portal isn't going to cost infinite movement speed, any more than casting Misty Step costs 30 movement speed to go 30 feet.
As for "how far"? I'd say "unknown/immeasurable/probably more than 5 feet :)" This does seem like one of the things I might make an exception for, because changing planes is weird.
Etherealness is potentially even more confusing with respect to Booming Blade and movement. Does stepping into the Border Ethereal but not moving while there mean you didn't move? The Ethereal is weird in that it's mirror of the "real" world. And you move relative to the real world. So if I'm hit with Booming Blade, go Ethereal, and stand still, did I move more than 5 feet? Or am I still right there, just "ethereal"?
path defined:
noun: A route, course, or track along which something moves.
this is not the same as "physically traversed the space between two points".
I never said he moved "Through" the space between the 2 points while teleporting I said his perspective is that the space he moved into (the point he picked to travel to) is different from the space he was in ( the point he started from ) thus defining the "path" that was traveled and defining the distance traveled.
It's ok if you are confused, running in circles within your own logic can do that, take a deep breath and know myself and others can help you break the logic paradox your in.
If you or I draw a line from the point where one starts their teleportation to where one ends after teleporting, and the distance between those two points is greater than 0, that is the distance one has traveled, and the "path" that was taken even if the intervening space between is never traversed.
I do believe you need to go back and study your algebra, for i^2 = -1 ( that's i squared equals negative one, because you can't take the square root of a negative number, because i alone is undefined )
Rav, your stuck in the notion that Teleportation is not movement because it uses no speed to do so. You also can not admit to yourself that teleporting is leaving one space to enter another different space, to do so would undermine your belief the RAW is absolute and inflexible. We all play D&D within the big-picture framework of the game-rules, and some of us have different ways at looking at that foundation. I urge you to step back from the fine print and look at the big picture, and enjoy the view.
We have shown you our view, ether take it for what it's worth or don't, I personally don't care because I know you can never see the game as others do.
Best of luck in your games, and may the dice be ever in your favor.
The natural progression of this would be casting Blink. Casting it is obviously intentional, but subsequent blinking is wildly unpredictable, and ocassionally inconvenient.
The English language has a word for "adjust physical location relative to a frame of reference". It's "move".
Likewise, if you stand still in a personal frame of reference locked onto yourself, but that frame of reference has moved relative to everyone and everything else and the frame of reference that they are all using, then from all perspectives (including your own) you have moved.
If you aren't where you used to be, you have moved. If where you used to be is somewhere else, you have moved. It's all moving.
Waitaminutekid.jpeg
“…in my games - no you will not take secondary damage from BB if your first change of location on your turn is via teleportation.… Is teleporting "moving 5ft or more"? No, not really. 5ft from what? To move 5ft you need to have a frame of reference and teleportation somewhat breaks those. Teleporting 30ft away from an object could be described as "moving 30ft away from that object" but not easily described as "moving 30ft”
Your response to the poll frustrated me then, and continues to. Teleportation is movement. Frames of reference are too abstract to be concerned with. BB only checks “moves” and “willingly.” But somehow, you put all that together and conclude “no”?
Folks have accused Rav of arguing this cause without a justifiable end goal application of it, but from where I sit, it’s even worse to disagree with them but then come down ruling in a contradictory way when faced with a play scenario. What gives Regent?
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Sure, from the perspective of myself, the world shifted... and from the perspective of the person sitting next to me, I moved.
Your argument appears to be that reference frames are purely subjective. But they're not. Shared inertia reference frames are objective things (even if everything is relative, it's relative to other things not to ones self)
Heh. Good work. Introducing levity to avoid answering the question! I approve. Free internet points to you, sir.
Wowowow.
Wow.
Ahh - the bald assertion. I thought that's what was at issue: That Teleportation is "moving" even though it is not a "Movement type". I'm perfectly on-board with Teleport not being a "movement type", and there's no such thing as "teleport speed" etc. However, I contend that Teleport still counts as "moving" by the normal usage of the word in the game. I contend that this is so because being in one place and then in another is that same as having moved there, no matter what means one uses to convey oneself between the two points (or whether or not you traverse the intervening spaces).
Why do you believe this?
Because you share the inertia imparted to you by the earth as it is flying through space. Your inertial reference point is the earth. That's why you don't fly into space.
ahh -- yeah, I'm mixing in some pseudo-real-physics here, so apologies if that wasn't clear.
Let me try again : In real terms, if you get into a helicopter and take off from a moving carrier, your initial hover still has the inertial reference frame of the ship. You're hovering over a ship doing 20 knots, and from the perspective of the crewman on board, you're stationary. The helicopter pilot doesn't need to exert any forward vector (to start with) because of that inertial reference. From the perspective of someone on the shore, the helicopter is moving at 20knots along with the ship.
Is the helicopter moving? relative to the ship, no, relative to the shore, yes. Which reference frame is important? In D&D terms, maybe relative to the origin of the effect is the best solution.
But that makes no sense. Relative to yourself you never move. And if you are measuring your displacement relative to something else, then that still doesn't work -- because relative to the world you did move (because movement is relative in both directions, if the World moves 30 feet relative to you, then you've moved 30 feet relative to the World).
Which is what? What is this other reference?
Which is ?
Heh. Not at all. Since movement in real terms is a change in physical location within a given inertial frame, it would only support my position more strongly.
As soon as you stop using quotation marks, you are interpreting. If you try to explain a rule to someone beyond simply quoting a text, you are interpreting. You finding your own quotes more relevant than others' quotes does not make them more adhering to RAW than others'. Only, as you say, if that interpretation is strictly against a quote presented and not at all supported by another quote.I see no difference between someone being in the area for a full minute unaffected because they saved on round one when entering it vs someone else also being in it safely for some other reasons for the same duration. Being in it isn't dangerous. Getting into it is.
I would personally find it easier to narratively explain how the effects of your successful saving throw lasts longer than a split second, than explaining how the filled out cylinder is hollow. It is a good narrative explanation though, if you don't take the other effects of the whirlwind into account.
Cool that we agree that much. It seems our disagreement now is only about the all-important question of whether or not teleporting counts as moving. And you seem to believe that changing position is generally considered movement, yes? Even when not using "movement"? Why then would this general definition not apply to teleportation? You might have answered this question a few hundred times by now, but I simply don't recall the answer :s
Personally I'd say the character has "moved 0 feet", same as with teleportation. The only difference being that the Range covered can be measured with teleportation and not with plane shifting. Range and movement/move is not the same. Movement/move is calculated from the number of squares the character moved through, whereas the Range covered is calculated by the shortest path from A to B, as per the definition of Ranges in RAW:
Teleportation can cost movement speed (example: Echo Knight's Manifest Echo), though I totally understand what you mean.