Question about a use of Shadow Jaunt?

[SilverSavio]

Can it be used to land safely by just teleporting to the ground after having fallen about 450ft?

[Crake]

Can it be used to land safely by just teleporting to the ground after having fallen about 450ft?

Since falling is, in DnD at least, considered instant, you wouldnt be able to use a standard action while falling. If it were an immediate action, or the falling occurred on your turn and it was a swift action (there is a jaunt that is a swift action, but i believe its 7th level), then it would be plausible, but otherwise it's like asking if you can use a levitate spell to mimic featherfall, there's just not enough time to use the action.

[SilverSavio]

What if I was the one doing the jumping could I prep the shadow jaunt to use as I'm falling?

[Story]

I think that's up to the DM. By RAW, probably not.

[SilverSavio]

Awesome, I already got the DM to let me use Shadow Jaunt in the air when I jumped down myself, now I just need to convince him that it does not conserve momentum.

[MesiDoomstalker]

I saw somewhere ob the SRD that falling is so many feet the first round and wso many more the second. I think the first round is 150 and the second is 300 feet in the round, so youd have to use Shadow Jaunt at the start of the second round and I dont think you can quite reach the ground. Youll restart your fall distance though and take less damage. Double check first though I cant recall where on the SRD it is.

[Darrin]

Since falling is, in DnD at least, considered instant, you wouldnt be able to use a standard action while falling.

It's not entirely immediate if you're falling a long distance: 150' the first round, 300' on subsequent rounds. If you're falling for the entire round, there's nothing in the rules that say you don't get your normal set of actions.

The real problem here is that D&D isn't very good with stuff like momentum and inertia. Hence the Commoner Railgun (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=181772).

However, there's a blurb somewhere in the DMG that says something like unless you're using magic or the rules say otherwise, assume that the normal rules of physics still work the way you expect them to. (You might want to think of this is the "Dead Catgirls" axiom.)

It's not entirely clear whether teleport effects reset your velocity with respect to your new frame of reference, so this really boils down to a DM's Call.

On one hand, if you're falling at terminal velocity when you activate your teleport, you should still be moving at that same velocity when you arrive at your destination square. If that's the case, you just shorten the time it takes to become a groundpizza. On the other hand, if teleport has no effect on your angular velocity either, then wizards would have to be extremely careful about the differences between their elevation and latitude when teleporting long distances, as they would get violently thrown east/west once they arrived, or the difference in energy would instantly superheat their body into a cinder or superfreeze it into an icecube (which then explodes due to rapid expansion/contraction).

In fact, I once doodled around with an entire campaign based on a worldwide network of teleportation circles operated by a superpowerful guild of wizards that were trying to hide the fact that they had made a deal with some shady business partners in the Abyss to syphon off the excess heat. PCs start at 1st level investigating why a little podunk teleportation substation exploded, and then all of a sudden every single creature they meet is hellbent on killing them to death as superpowerful wizards try to make sure the Big Damn Secret doesn't get out. Build up to a big climax in the proto-volcano magma chamber full of demons directly underneath the king's palace in the capitol city.

[Crake]

Where about's in the SRD does it actually say you fall 150ft the first round and then 300ft in subsequent rounds? I could never find it.

[Karnith]

Where about's in the SRD does it actually say you fall 150ft the first round and then 300ft in subsequent rounds? I could never find it.
It's what happens when you fail to maintain your minimum forward speed while flying. You can read about it here on the SRD. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/movement.htm#tacticalAerialMovement) There are similar rules for falling in the section on subjective directional gravity. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/planes.htm#subjectiveDirectionalGravity)

Alternately, you could choose to apply real-world physics to D&D, with (roughly accurate) results that can be found in the FAQ, p. 112.

[lsfreak]

Of course, teleports not adjusting to local conditions causes all sorts of problems. For the more mundane, teleporting off a speed carriage is a death sentence, as is teleporting on to one. For the stuff no one thinks about, people at the equator are spinning around an earth-like planet's axis hundreds of km/hour faster than someone in middle latitudes, and at the same latitude you've got differences between sea-level and mountaintop speeds. If teleport doesn't automatically adjust those things, it's going to be a nightmare of calculations on the game table trying to figure out how to teleport around.

[SilverSavio]

Of course, teleports not adjusting to local conditions causes all sorts of problems. For the more mundane, teleporting off a speed carriage is a death sentence, as is teleporting on to one. For the stuff no one thinks about, people at the equator are spinning around an earth-like planet's axis hundreds of km/hour faster than someone in middle latitudes, and at the same latitude you've got differences between sea-level and mountaintop speeds. If teleport doesn't automatically adjust those things, it's going to be a nightmare of calculations on the game table trying to figure out how to teleport around.

All great points to bring up when I wish to try my idea again.