Doc page https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v8/commands/npm-pack has very useful configuration options. Right now I want to use config "pack-destination" per https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v8/commands/npm-pack#pack-destination, but they give no invocation examples and no hint about how to make these settings.
I have tried setting "pack-destination" in my active npmrc file, via command-line switch "--pack-destination=dirpath" (with both absolute and absolute paths), argument "pack-destination=dirpath". The first two have no effect. Last seems to be how you set some tags.
I'm not sure how exactly did you invoked the command-line, but I just used like this in my terminal with success:
npm pack --pack-destination="./dest"
relative path worked just fine