Can one creature be teleported on top of another with Dimensional Scramble?

Question

The Psion power, dimensional scramble, offers a curious group teleport:

Hit: 1d6 + Intelligence modifier damage, and you teleport the target to a square adjacent to the burst.

While teleportation requires that the destination square be empty (as moves cannot be into occupied squares), there are no prohibitions against teleporting someone above someone else.

Are there any rules in place to handle people falling on other people? Is dimensional scramble a 3x3x1 zone, a 3x3x2 zone, or a 3x3x3 zone by the rules? Is it possible to iteratively drop people in the same air-based square, so that they all fall in a heap? If not, are there any rules besides common sense that prohibit it?

Answer 1

1. Regarding resolving the attacks sequentially to pile up the targets: I believe it falls into a gray area where it depends on whether or not the target falls as part of resolving the attack.

   To quote an answer from @PatLudwig:

   The attack sequence if multiple targets are involved is on pg214 of the Rules Compendium. Simplified it is:

   1. chose targets
   2. roll and resolve an attack on one target
   3. repeat step 2 on a different target until finished.

   Based on that, you can resolve them sequentially; teleporting one and then the next. If the target falls as part of resolving the attack, the space is then empty for you to teleport the next into it. Personally, I would rule no, they do not fall as part of the attack and therefore the space is not vacant when you move on to resolve the next attack. The falling is a consequence of where they were teleported that occurs after the attack. (But I could see arguments going both ways.)

2. Additionally, if you are teleporting opponents into the air, remember they get a save to negate the teleportation (from PHB3 pg 218):

   Destination Space: ... If arriving in the destination space would cause the target to fall or if that space is hindering terrain, the target can make a saving throw. On a save, the teleportation is negated.

3. Falling on top of someone else: We've always played that the interloper(the one who is falling) scatters using a random d8 roll and falls prone with no negative effect on the person being fallen upon. At the moment, though, I can't back that up with a rules citation.

4. Finally, I agree with @Jeremiah that bursts are a volume using the radius in three dimensions (i.e. a burst 1 is 3x3x3 cube.

Answer 2

3x3x3

For bursts vertical distances are measured the same as horizontal distances and they take on a cube shape. Its easy to think in 2D terms with 4e (thanks to the Battlemap) but there is documentation on bursts being 3D.