Buy me a coffeeConjuration · Teleportation spell reference
Dimension Door Spell
Instant Translation, Not Travel
Dimension Door is placement. The spell creates no corridor, visible journey or lasting doorway. One moment the travellers occupy one place; the next they occupy another.
You do not travel there. You are simply there instead.
Quick Rules Reference
These headline values are for D&D 5.5e / 2024. The complete, edition-separated mechanics follow immediately below.
- Level
- 4th
- School
- Conjuration
- Casting Time
- 1 Action
- Range
- 500 feet
- Components
- V
- Duration
- Instantaneous
- Travellers
- You + 1 willing creature
- Blocked Arrival
- 4d6 Force each; teleportation fails
Dimension Door Mechanics
Each panel is self-contained. Use only the statistics, terminology and failure procedure in the edition currently being played.
D&D 5.5e / 2024 rules
Dimension Door
- Level
- 4th
- School
- Conjuration
- Casting Time
- 1 Action
- Range
- 500 feet
- Components
- V
- Duration
- Instantaneous
- Attack / Save
- None
- Classes
- Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard
Choose a location within 500 feet. You teleport to the exact spot selected. The destination may be a place you can see, a place you can visualise or a place described by distance and direction.
You may also teleport one willing creature. That creature must be within 5 feet of you when the teleportation occurs and appears in a space within 5 feet of your destination.
If you, the companion or both would arrive in a space occupied by a creature or completely filled by one or more objects, every traveller takes 4d6 Force damage and the teleportation fails.
2024 Rules Clarifications
- Sight is optional. The destination may instead be visualised or stated by distance and direction.
- Intervening space is not crossed. Ordinary walls, floors, locked doors and similar barriers do not by themselves prevent the spell.
- The companion must be willing. The spell cannot transport an unwilling creature.
- No size limit is stated. Do not import the older same-size or size-equivalent passenger rules.
- No legacy load clause appears. The general teleportation rules move equipment worn and carried, but the spell does not use the Pathfinder or 3.5e maximum-load paragraph.
- Teleportation expends no movement and provokes no Opportunity Attack.
- No doorway remains. The spell is instantaneous, so nobody can follow through it afterward.
- Higher-level slots add no benefit. The spell has no higher-level scaling entry.
Pathfinder First Edition rules
Dimension Door
- School
- Conjuration (teleportation)
- Casting Time
- 1 standard action
- Components
- V
- Range
- Long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level)
- Target
- You and touched objects or willing creatures
- Duration
- Instantaneous
- Saving Throw
- None; Will negates (object)
- Spell Resistance
- No; yes (object)
Spell levels: arcanist 4, bard 4, magus 4, medium 3, mesmerist 4, occultist 4, psychic 4, skald 4, sorcerer 4, spiritualist 4, summoner 3, unchained summoner 4, witch 4 and wizard 4. The Travel domain grants Dimension Door as a 4th-level domain spell.
You transfer instantly to a chosen spot within range, selecting it by visualisation or direction. After using the spell, you cannot take any further actions until your next turn.
You may carry objects up to your maximum load. You may also transport one additional willing Medium or smaller creature, or its equivalent, for every three caster levels. A Large creature counts as two Medium creatures, a Huge creature counts as two Large creatures, and the progression continues in the same way for larger creatures.
Every traveller must be in physical contact with at least one other traveller, and at least one traveller must be touching you.
Occupied Destination Procedure
- If the intended destination is occupied by a solid body, every traveller takes 1d6 damage and is shunted to a random suitable open space within 100 feet.
- If no suitable space exists within 100 feet, every traveller takes an additional 2d6 damage and is shunted to a suitable open space within 1,000 feet.
- If no suitable space exists within 1,000 feet, every traveller takes an additional 4d6 damage and the spell fails.
D&D 3.5e rules
Dimension Door
- School
- Conjuration (Teleportation)
- Level
- Bard 4, Sorcerer/Wizard 4, Travel 4
- Casting Time
- 1 standard action
- Components
- V
- Range
- Long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level)
- Target
- You and touched objects or willing creatures
- Duration
- Instantaneous
- Defences
- Will negates and SR yes for objects only
You transfer instantly to a selected point within range, choosing the destination by visualising it or stating its direction. After using the spell, you cannot take any further actions until your next turn.
You may carry objects up to your maximum load. You may also transport one additional willing Medium or smaller creature, or its equivalent, per three caster levels. A Large creature counts as two Medium creatures, a Huge creature counts as two Large creatures, and so on.
All travellers must form a continuous chain of physical contact, with at least one traveller touching you.
Occupied Destination Procedure
- If the intended destination is occupied by a solid body, every traveller takes 1d6 damage and is shunted to a random suitable open space within 100 feet.
- If no suitable space exists within 100 feet, every traveller takes an additional 2d6 damage and is shunted to a suitable open space within 1,000 feet.
- If no suitable space exists within 1,000 feet, every traveller takes an additional 4d6 damage and the spell fails.
Edition Differences at a Glance
| Rule | D&D 5.5e / 2024 | Pathfinder 1e | D&D 3.5e |
|---|---|---|---|
| Range | Fixed 500 feet | 400 ft. + 40 ft./level | 400 ft. + 40 ft./level |
| Additional travellers | One willing creature within 5 feet | One Medium-equivalent per 3 caster levels; contact chain | One Medium-equivalent per 3 caster levels; contact chain |
| Size rule | No size restriction stated | Capacity calculated through size equivalents | Capacity calculated through size equivalents |
| Load rule | No legacy maximum-load clause | Objects limited by maximum load | Objects limited by maximum load |
| Actions after casting | No special restriction | No further actions until the next turn | No further actions until the next turn |
| Blocked arrival | 4d6 Force to every traveller; teleportation fails | Escalating damage and 100-foot / 1,000-foot shunts | Escalating damage and 100-foot / 1,000-foot shunts |
Rules Interactions and Counters
Dimension Door bypasses intervening space, but counterspelling, verbal-component restrictions and specialised dimensional wards can still stop it.
Intervening Barriers
A normal wall does not automatically block Dimension Door because the travellers do not move along a path through it. In D&D 3.5e, Wall of Force expressly allows Dimension Door and similar effects to bypass the barrier. The destination must still be legal under the active edition.
Verbal Component
The spell requires only a Verbal component. A caster unable to produce the required magical words cannot cast it. No Somatic or Material component is needed.
Counterspell Window
Counterspell must interrupt the casting before the transfer resolves. Once the travellers disappear and arrive, the movement is complete.
Dimensional Wards
Dimensional Anchor fixes one target in place against extradimensional movement. Dimensional Lock protects an area instead.
Dispel Magic After Arrival
Dispel Magic cannot reverse an instantaneous teleportation. In Pathfinder 1e and D&D 3.5e it may be readied and used to counter the spell while it is being cast; after resolution, no continuing Dimension Door effect remains.
Tactical Uses and Adjudication
Do not mix failure procedures. The 2024 spell deals 4d6 Force damage to every traveller and fails. Pathfinder 1e and D&D 3.5e use escalating damage and shunting.
Emergency Extraction
Remove yourself and one critical ally from a surrounded position, collapsing chamber or enemy’s reach. In 2024 play, the single-companion limit makes the choice deliberate.
Bypass the Obvious Entrance
Cross a locked door, wall, moat, ravine or change in elevation without travelling through the intervening space.
Seize Position
Reach a balcony, rooftop, command platform or protected objective in one action. A visible destination is safest, but sight is not mandatory.
Ask for an Exact Point
Have the player identify a precise visible place, remembered location or distance-and-direction description before resolving the spell.
Resolve Every Traveller Together
In 2024, an invalid arrival for either traveller damages every traveller and causes the whole teleportation to fail.
Remember Legacy Action Loss
Pathfinder 1e and D&D 3.5e casters cannot take further actions until their next turn. The 2024 spell has no equivalent restriction.
Why Dimension Door Changes the World
Walls Stop Being Enough
A single wall, barred gate or moat cannot secure an important chamber against a caster who knows what lies beyond it. Serious defences rely on depth, controlled arrival spaces and magical wards.
Prisons Need Magical Security
Captors must prevent verbal spellcasting, conceal the prison’s position or use dimensional restraints. Ordinary locks matter only while the prisoner cannot cast or cannot define a viable destination.
Rescue Becomes a Specialist Role
Courts, guilds and armies value casters who can remove a wounded commander, endangered envoy or irreplaceable witness. Limited passenger capacity makes judgement as important as power.
Assassins Gain New Approaches
Windows, rooftops, private chambers and inner courtyards become potential arrival points. Defenders respond with alarms, decoy rooms and dimensional countermeasures.
Distance Loses Some Authority
Dimension Door does not replace roads or long journeys, but it collapses the final few hundred feet that often decide a siege, escape, burglary or rescue.
Historical and Occult Development
No documented historical practice demonstrates literal instantaneous transport. Dimension Door is a modern fantasy-game spell, but its imagery draws on older ideas about thresholds, liminal states and unseen realms treated as traversable space.
From Passage to Placement
The D&D 3.5e and Pathfinder 1e forms use level-scaled range, load limits, expanding passenger capacity and a shunting procedure. The 2024 form fixes the range at 500 feet, allows one willing companion and replaces shunting with a single Force-damage failure result.
Liminality and the Threshold
The anthropological concept of liminality describes a transitional condition between established states. It is an interpretive parallel rather than a claimed source: Dimension Door reduces the transition between departure and arrival to an instant.
The Occult Astral Plane
Nineteenth-century Theosophical writing presented the astral plane as a structured unseen realm with scenery, inhabitants and modes of movement. C. W. Leadbeater’s The Astral Plane is a primary source for that historical occult model. It does not document real teleportation, but it illustrates the period’s effort to imagine unseen space as organised and traversable.
Mythological Parallels
These traditions do not contain the game spell and are not presented as direct sources. They provide older narrative models in which gates, crossroads and supernatural bridges govern passage between separated places or states.
Janus and the Governed Gate
The Roman god Janus is the two-faced guardian of beginnings, doorways and gateways. His symbolism makes the threshold an active boundary between departure and arrival.
Hekate at the Crossroads
Hekate is associated with magic and crossroads and is often shown in triple form. The parallel lies in directional choice: one position opens onto several possible ways.
Bifröst Between Realms
In the Prose Edda, Bifröst joins earth and the realm of the gods. It is a guarded bridge rather than instantaneous teleportation, but both ideas make normally separated places adjacent through a supernatural means of passage.
Related SpiralWorlds Magic
Teleportation and Movement
- Teleport — long-range transport to a chosen destination.
- Teleportation Circle — fixed-destination portal magic for organised travel.
- Fly — sustained aerial movement and access to elevated arrival points.
- Greater Invisibility — concealment before or after tactical relocation.
Counters and Control
- Counterspell — interrupts the 2024 spell before it resolves.
- Dispel Magic — can counter legacy casting but cannot reverse completed movement.
- Dimensional Anchor — prevents one affected target from using dimensional travel.
- Dimensional Lock — wards an area against extradimensional travel.
Dimension Door Questions
Does Dimension Door create a real door or portal?
No. The standard versions presented here are instantaneous transfers and leave no opening for another creature to use afterward. Pathfinder’s separate mythic version changes this.
Must the caster see the destination?
No. The destination may be visible, visualised or described by distance and direction, provided it lies within range.
Can Dimension Door transport an unwilling creature?
No. Every additional creature transported by the versions on this page must be willing.
Can the spell bypass a Wall of Force?
Yes in D&D 3.5e, whose Wall of Force text expressly permits Dimension Door and similar effects to bypass it. In other editions, apply the active spell and barrier wording without importing legacy language.
Can Dispel Magic bring the travellers back?
No. Dimension Door is instantaneous. Legacy Dispel Magic may counter it while it is being cast, but cannot end a journey that has already resolved.
How many creatures can travel?
D&D 2024 allows one willing companion within 5 feet. Pathfinder 1e and D&D 3.5e use a size-equivalent allowance based on caster level and require a chain of contact.
Rules Sources and Further Reading
Rules References
Historical and Mythological Reading
This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 (“SRD 5.2.1”) by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available at D&D Beyond. The SRD 5.2.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Pathfinder 1e and D&D 3.5e mechanics are independently phrased reference summaries. Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder and associated marks remain the property of their respective owners. SpiralWorlds is not affiliated with or endorsed by Wizards of the Coast or Paizo.