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If I cast the banishment spell on myself while in a demiplane, where exactly do I exit?

Do I exit on my last position on my native plane, a random spot in my native plane, or do I choose where I exit in my native plane?

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4 Answers 4

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It's up to your DM

Jeremy Crawford has elaborated on this exact scenario:

If you cast banishment on yourself on a plane you're not native to & you fail the save, you return to your home plane. Who knows where! #DnD

When a spell effect is vague or unclear it falls to the DM to adjudicate the results. That is part of the 5e design ethos.

In this case banishment provides no guidance for the placement of a creature ejected from the plane that they are currently occupying, so it is entirely up to your DM.

In this case, you better hope your DM is in a good mood and at least puts you on dry land!

Note: RAW says nothing about allowing you to fail a save on purpose

It is worth noting that nothing in the rules allows one to purposely fail a saving throw. So, your DM would not be breaking any rules in ruling you'd have to roll and fail the save for this to take effect. However it is very reasonable for DM to not rule that way.

See this Q&A for more discussion on the matter.

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If the target is native to a different plane of existence that the one you're on, the target is banished with a faint popping noise, returning to its home plane. If the spell ends before 1 minute has passed, the target reappears in the space it left or in the nearest unoccupied space if that space is occupied. Otherwise, the target doesn't return.

Since the spell does not say that the caster chooses the destination, it is extremely unlikely that the caster gets to do so. Such a ruling would infringe heavily on higher level spells meant for inter-planar travel.

The spell does not explain how to determine the target's destination, so the DM has free reign to place the target anywhere in it's home plane.

However, the caster (which is also the target in this scenario) has a minute to decide whether they want to stay at the destination or end concentration to return to the previous location.

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Per the rule, the creature is incapacitated if they are banished from a plane they are not native to. It doesn’t apply the incapacitaion to banishment from the home plane to a demiplane, but I would rule that the self-banished player in the demiplane can choose to break concentration and return or stay there for the full minute and return

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    \$\begingroup\$ The target becoming incapacitated is contingent to the target being native to that plane. The paragraph that details what happens if the target is native to a different plane does not include the incapacitated condition. \$\endgroup\$
    – RallozarX
    Feb 4, 2021 at 0:06
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Purely my opinion, but this would be one of the many occasions I rely on a random 1d20 roll as a DM. High is good (known part of world/on or near ground level,) low is bad (Unknown location/Miles out to sea and underwater.)

Upon further review, the spell makes the target INCAPACITATED, which is a condition that immediately ends spell concentration, so by the rules, self banishment is impossible. Though you could have an ally cast it on you.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Have you used this house-rule in your own games, or seen it used? How has it worked, in your experience? \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast
    Jul 17, 2019 at 22:55

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