Will my player die? Physics vs fantasy

[Deca4531]

Well my players have gotten themselves in a sticky situation. one of my players was forced off a 300-foot cliff, he was a fighter in full plate and our only other party members was a monk, a Rogue and a cleric. The cleric, being the only one who had a chance at saving him, lept out off the cliff with him and cast a shield other spell. This spell splits any damage the fighter will take from the fall with the cleric, but the cleric will not have that same benefit. however he has a feather token that will grant him Wings when activated (standard action). The problem is this, he has to stay within 50 feet for his spell to remain in effect, terminal velocity will put him moving at 133 feet a second by the time they reach the bottom. Assuming the cleric will be within about 30 feet of The Fighter by the time the Fighter hits the rocks he will only have 0.2 seconds to activate the feather token.

So now that I have covered the physics portion of it here is the fantasy portion of it. On the fighters turn he was mind-controlled and was forced out of the window and over a cliff. He had one turn before sliding off the roof going over the edge. The cleric moves after the fighter, having heard him go out the window he rushes into the room and cast Shield other before the fighter goes over the edge. His speed isn't enough to get out the window too on his turn. Next round fighter goes off the edge and starts to fall. Cleric jumps out window with him and cast a spell as an immediate action to teleport his armor off of him so that the feather token will work otherwise he would weigh too much. This technically leaves him with a standard action remaining, however he can't use it until he is just about to hit the ground.

So what is the playgrounds opinion? Do they both live? Will the cleric have enough time to use the token? Even if he does have time to activate the token will it be enough to save him, either it stops him instantly, which is the same as hitting the rocks, or it has 0.2 seconds minus activation time to decelerate him.

[Segev]

I'd just use the mechanics here, rather than worrying about whether they "should" work or not. Have the cleric use his Standard action to Ready activating the feather token "when the fighter hits the ground." He'll do so just as the fighter impacts, which will give him time to gain flight. Yes, you could argue that the abrupt halt kills the cleric anyway, but storytelling-wise and magically, as well as by mechanics, it doesn't, since he didn't impact anything. Just let it work.

[Bronk]

I think that DnD rules-wise, they wouldn't be able to do any of this, because falls that short are pretty much instantaneous.

In your game though? I'd think that if it wasn't going to work, you should have told the players as they were doing it. I'd let it go, then remind them later to get a ring of featherfall or something, and remind them that those work as immediate actions...

[Deca4531]

I think that DnD rules-wise, they wouldn't be able to do any of this, because falls that short are pretty much instantaneous.

In your game though? I'd think that if it wasn't going to work, you should have told the players as they were doing it. I'd let it go, then remind them later to get a ring of featherfall or something, and remind them that those work as immediate actions...

Well even if the token wouldn't work the cleric was gonna go after him anyway. He was willing to sacrifice himself but if the token works then all the better.

[Zanos]

Trying to apply real world physics to this situation is not a great idea.

I believe Bronk is correct in that falls are generally instantaneous. I suppose technically the fighter could delay his action until after the cleric goes, to receive the benefit of the spell, and so the cleric would land first. If he has enough actions to accomplish this before the fighters turn, they should both be fine.

[Crake]

According to the DMG2, characters reach terminal velocity within the first round of falling, travelling as much as 670ft in the first round, then 1150 in each subsequent round. Unless the cleric had a readied action beforehand, the fighter would have hit the ground before the cleric even had a chance to act.

This is why my players all insist on carrying around a featherfall token.

[Extra Anchovies]

So what is the playgrounds opinion? Do they both live?

Heck yes they do. That stunt was completely awesome. Always remember the rule of cool - the books are there so there's something to refer to when we don't feel like making something up.

[Kantolin]

Hell yes they do. That stunt was f**king awesome. Always remember the rule of cool - the books are there so there's something to refer to when we don't feel like making something up.

This this this.

The fighter fell off a cliff. The answer could have been 'Oh I use my token of featherfall, eh, we move on'. But instead, you have a character being immensely creative and trying multiple abilities to save the other at tremendous risk to themselves.

Let it work. Play it up as awesome, since it really is awesome. Don't punish people for trying creative solutions. ^_^

[SangoProduction]

I sure hope you are talking about the characters....if someone's getting pushed off a 300 ft cliff while playing in your games, you should probably be calling the police, not chatting about it on a forum.

[Sliver]

Physics kills players, game rules kill characters. Don't mix the two together.

[D.M.Hentchel]

So we have the rules for a situation like this and the result is the fighter hits the ground immediately.

However my fellow playgrounders seem to be forgetting a rule.

DMG 24:
"When you play out a combat scene or some other activity for which time is measured in rounds, it can be important to remember that all the PCs’ and NPCs’ actions are occurring simultaneously."

So while the fighter is falling off the roof, the cleric is diving after him and they will both hit the gound at roughly the same time. However as the cleric's actions were described he does not have the actions to "catch" himself with his wings. The cleric would need to teleport the armor, use the token, then jump.

Use the flying rules from Dragonlance Campaign Setting (pg 242.) (Were these published anywhere else?) He will have to make a DC 5 Dexterity check with a -4 for free falling and a +/- 2 for each manuverabilty rating to "catch" himself from the fall.

You might rule that even if he fail he treats the fall as half as far as it actually was, for trying to slow himself down, but nothing in the rules supports this.

That's how I would run it.

[exelsisxax]

a 300' fall would take 4.2 seconds, and a 250' fall would take 3.9 seconds. If the cleric began falling after the fighter within .3 seconds, they would remain within 50' by the time the fighter hit the ground, and the cleric would have .3 seconds to use the token.

A: the cleric was probably too slow to jump
B: the cleric probably can't activate a magic item in a .3 second window on the first(only!) try, either using it too early and the fighter falling out of range, or splattering on the ground mid-command word.
C: a deceleration of 38.6 m/s to 0 m/s in .3 seconds is 129 m/s^2, which is 13 G. The cleric is unconscious and probably will stay that way for hours if he or she doesn't die from an unlucky brain hemorrhage and/or splattering on the ground because the spell failed.

On further thought, the .3 second headstart the fighter has amounts to a mere .45m, or 1.5 feet. This is near enough for an easy rescue catch. If the cleric cannot accomplish that, the cleric cannot save the fighter, as the cleric cannot make up the distance between them before the aforementioned splattering.

[denthor]

I sure hope you are talking about the characters....if someone's getting pushed off a 300 ft cliff while playing in your games, you should probably be calling the police, not chatting about it on a forum.

Statements like this is why so many people get their pantiesin a knot over D&D some one goes this really happened!

As far as your game did the fighter miss both saves? Since it was a move that forces death

[Fizban]

A: the cleric was probably too slow to jump
B: the cleric probably can't activate a magic item in a .3 second window on the first(only!) try, either using it too early and the fighter falling out of range, or splattering on the ground mid-command word.
C: a deceleration of 38.6 m/s to 0 m/s in .3 seconds is 129 m/s^2, which is 13 G. The cleric is unconscious and probably will stay that way for hours if he or she doesn't die from an unlucky brain hemorrhage and/or splattering on the ground because the spell failed.
A: adventurer
B: adventurer
C: adventurer

Falling happens instantaneously if there's no reason to believe anything can stop it, but if someone's trying to do so you can invoke the "everything is happening simultaneously" rule to say that when the Cleric takes his turn the fighter hasn't hit the ground yet (because he hasn't). Double impact plan is totally usable, though catching the Fighter and making a sweet physics defying swoop would be better for all parties involved the Cleric is out of actions and the Fighter might be barred from readying his own action to grab on depending on the compulsion effect and orders given.

More importantly: what the heck is this "feather token" that doesn't do any of it's jobs right? Either it's Feather Fall, in which case it's an emergency item that does not involve wings, should never care about armor, and is explicitly designed to ignore falling physics. Or it's some sort of weird custom item that temporarily gives you wings in which case we'd need the rest of the details to know what if anything happens (pretty sure Dragonlance does have the most detailed flight rules there). A spell that removes armor as a swift action is solid tech, having access to that I would paradoxically expect the rest of your gear to not have critical flaws that would require its use.

[Deca4531]

More importantly: what the heck is this "feather token" that doesn't do any of it's jobs right? Either it's Feather Fall, in which case it's an emergency item that does not involve wings, should never care about armor, and is explicitly designed to ignore falling physics. Or it's some sort of weird custom item that temporarily gives you wings in which case we'd need the rest of the details to know what if anything happens (pretty sure Dragonlance does have the most detailed flight rules there). A spell that removes armor as a swift action is solid tech, having access to that I would paradoxically expect the rest of your gear to not have critical flaws that would require its use.

The token in question is a floating feather token (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/e-g/feather-token/floating-feather-token)

And the spell to get rid of his armor is Guardian Armor (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/g/guardian-armor)

I would like to make a small correction though, I was a little off in the order of turned. Fighter is forced out window, cleric moves up and casts Shield other. Next round the cleric used a Hero Point to allow him to act before the fighter and lept out the window, using an immediate action to cast guardian armor and holding onto his standard to use the token.

[SethoMarkus]

On a side note, if they get really, really lucky they only take 20 damage before Shield Other =P

[Ualaa]

Physics and 'How it works in Reality' are fine to a degree.
The game doesn't care about any of that.
It is a fantasy game -- and we're playing it with abstract rules which don't mirror physics.

I've had a specific player try to rationalize something by how it should work in real life.
If we want to play that game, then there is no magic nor magic items.
And if an alchemical explosion (like a magical fireball) fills an entire 20 ft. radius area, and is centered in a room that is 30 ft. by 30 ft. then improved evasion is meaningless for anyone in the area that is entirely engulfed in flame and offers nowhere to be that is not in the flame.

However the game has Evasion and Improved Evasion mechanics.
The game doesn't give a rat's ass about whether this should work based on our laws of reality.
It's just a mechanic of the game, that some can have, and that's how it works.
Same for a wizard can cast arcane spells, even though scientists (or other high INT people) cannot shapechange, teleport, etc in reality.



In my game, the cleric jumping out the window to save the fighter is cool and thematically great.
So in my game, that's going to work.

I'd rather have players who do cool things that would be cinematic and entertaining, than say jumping off of a skyscraper (during lunch) with a parachute to catch a (suicidal coworker) who jumped/slipped 3 second ahead of me isn't going to work so my character wouldn't try something like that in a fantasy game with abstract rules.

[Mr Adventurer]

It works, the cleric readies his standard action but otherwise fine.

However I believe there are rules for falling flying creatures that amount to a DC 15 Ref save to catch oneself. (Never heard of that Dragonlance alternate rule, sounds weird.)

[Elkad]

Physics says the cleric can survive easily.

180fps (free fall position, terminal velocity) to zero in 50 feet is under 10g. Even if he had to tuck for 250fps to catch the Fighter, it's only 22g to stop in time.

Falcons routinely pull 25g coming out of a dive, and humans have survived in excess of 100g in race crashes (granted, with harnesses to distribute forces)

Falling 300' is only about 2/3rds terminal velocity. 120fps or so. It's an easy 4.5g to stop in time.

[Mordaedil]

The rules for falling are there to settle things fast.

When you have one PC falling and another PC diving after them, you make things exciting.

You have them roll dies every milisecond as time seems to slow to a crawl, the weight of their armor making their impending doom come faster, they react faster than they would in any other situation and they have to maintain composure or face fatality and on impact you roll your dice and they both live, even if battered and bruised. They take 10d6 each and the cleric lands next to the fighter, having slowed his own fall down to a minimum, avoiding the damage.

Their bonds close and they have another cool story to share. This is what most people playing D&D live for.

[Yahzi]

Heck yes they do. That stunt was completely awesome. Always remember the rule of cool - the books are there so there's something to refer to when we don't feel like making something up.
Agreed. Actions like this are the point of the game.

[Darrin]

According to the DMG2, characters reach terminal velocity within the first round of falling, travelling as much as 670ft in the first round, then 1150 in each subsequent round.

This contradicts the DMG (p. 20). Under the Aerial Movement rules, all creatures fall 150' on the first round, and then 300' on subsequent rounds. Under these rules, the fighter/cleric would still be falling after 1 round, and they would still have 150' to go, so activating feather fall should still be possible here.

You could get a little fussy about the actions required to get the feather fall token out (usually a move action for the fighter) or give it to another person (the rules don't really cover this, but probably a move action of some sort). Or the cleric might have to grapple the fighter in order to grab an object he is holding, or make a Sleight of Hand check to "pickpocket" the fighter (which oddly enough succeeds automatically because it's opposed by Spot, and all a failed check does is let the fighter observe the object being "stolen"). Requiring a successful check of some sort to transfer the item would certainly make this moment a lot more dramatic, but odds are good that both will survive.

[Mr Adventurer]

Falling flying creatures fall at that speed, which makes makes sense since they're presumably trying to stop falling.

[CaPtMalHammer]

I would run this as a custom scenario and ignore physics, the rule book and everything for the sake or awesome! the cleric dives out the window after the fighter. the armor dissipates around him as he falls the fighter with a glazed look in his eyes continues to fall to the ground. The fighter as he impacts the ground will take some impact damage lessened by the shield other. The cleric would need to take a Fortitude Save after taking have the damage of the falling fighter and if successful would be able to complete the use of his readied action. His wings would sprawl forth pushing him upwards and allowing him to slow his decent to the ground next to the fallen fighter. The cleric would take some form of strain damage maybe Con damage for the sudden deceleration like a whiplash effect. If the cleric fails the Fortitude save he falls unconscious unable to trigger the wings and falls taking not only half the fighters damage but full damage from the fall. if he survives the 29D6/Half and 29D6/Full Damage it will be epic. If not the party Bard will have a story about the heroic Cleric who saved the fighter. Its all about the story:)

[Einselar]

Is it more fun for the cleric to catch him, or for them both to die? That's the answer.