Can you move someone who's Feather Falling?

[Mars Ultor]

The PCs are descending a large, vertical shaft. A few places along that shaft have flush openings that lead to horizontal tunnels. One PC has a scroll with a Fly spell, one can cast Spider Climb, the rest intend to climb down on a rope. The group's Fighter is wearing heavy armor, his Dex is not great, and he has no points in the Climb skill, however, he does have a Ring of Feather Fall.

The players were considering lowering the Fighter down on a rope and having another PC fly down and pull him into the tunnel, when someone had the idea of letting him Feather Fall down and the flying PC would either push him into the tunnel opening, or pull him in as he fell past.

Does either idea sound possible? And how much movement is possible for Feather Falling characters? They can only fall down, but can others direct them in some manner?

[Inevitability]

Feather Fall does one thing, which is reducing the effect that gravity has on the character. It doesn't prevent horizontal forces from having their normal effect, and in fact without the ground to brace against they'll have more of an effect.

A falling fighter does so at a speed of 10 feet/second, or 3 m/s. That's the speed of a jogger or a casually lobbed ball: definitely something you could react to. The issue is inertia: the fighter will probably move through your entire reach within a second, and during that time you need to apply enough force to get him out of the shaft and into the tunnel.

How much force is needed?

If you have a second to pull him (which assumes the tunnel entrance is about 10 feet tall), and want to pull him at least one foot towards you, that requires an acceleration of 2 feet/second/second (D = 0.5 * a * t^2). Applying that to a 200 pound fighter, that's 55.3 newtons of force you must exert for that period, which should be well within human abilities. These assumptions might be incorrect: maybe your fighter is heavier than that (though note he can take off his armor and have the spiderclimbing party member bring it down), maybe you have less time to pull him, or maybe the shaft slants and requires a longer pulling distance, but human pulling strength seems to be in the hundreds of newtons, so I'm inclined to say a single person can do it. Anyone with a positive strength modifier should definitely be able to, except if the shaft is slanted in a way that makes it actually impossible to reach forward and grab the fighter. In that case, tie a rope around him and have multiple people pull it from the shaft as he floats by.


(Apologies if it turns out I messed up any of this math)

[JNAProductions]

Question: Why not cast Fly on the Fighter, if no one can carry them because they're too heavy?

But, to address the question you asked, I'd be fine allowing it. Might call for a relatively easy check of some kind to succeed at it, but the plan seems reasonable to me.

[ericgrau]

This is what readied actions are for. The rest is using the above to convince the DM that it's reasonable.

[Fizban]

The first thing to remember is that a knotted rope with a wall to brace against is DC 0, you need to fail the check by 5 or more to actually fall (so a result of -4 or higher means you're fine) and the Climb skill uses Str, not Dex. Unless your fighter has some of the worst armor possible and is trying to use a shield at the same time or has +0 Str, they should be able to climb a rope in simple non-combat conditions.

Even at a reduced fall speed, grabbing a couple hundred pounds and pulling it aboard is a heavy task. If you have the rest of the party already in the tunnel and a rope, you can just have the load feather fall down, grab the rope, and get pulled up. Otherwise, there's two easy ways you could resolve pushing someone while falling: a bull rush where the target simply chooses to fail their Str check, or calculate push/drag weight of the faller as dead weight but at 1/4 or 1/5 (or even less) because there's not even wheel friction.

In both cases, in round-by-round this would require a readied action (out of combat you don't ready actions, you just do them if they're possible, and this clearly is), and in both cases success is nearly guaranteed: the "bull rush" option requires a touch attack that ought to also auto-succeed if the target is not dodging (AC 5 if acting as an "object") or is actively helping, while the effective weight of the character for pushing will be so low that only a Small and/or very low Str character could fail.

In short, there's no good mechanical or logical reason why you couldn't push them in with the flying character, but mechanically they also ought to be able to climb a (knotted for climbing) rope themselves.

I think there's some obscure mentions for trying to catch falling people, but it's not any core rule that I'm aware of, and there's probably conflicting accounts of Reflex save (more likely if it's being allowed outside of turn order, usually because not allowing it suddenly feels like unfairly condeming the victim to death), or touch attack (which could simply be readied grapple action). Edit: or it's right there in the main skill description.


Now if the bottom is too far down or dangerous, that gets interesting, since there are rules for trying to catch yourself via Climb while falling which are pretty dang harsh- but in that situation a Feather Fall ought to give a massive advantage that the DM now has to invent.

[Venger]

Everything you said sounds right, but with regards to this specifically:


I think there's some obscure mentions for trying to catch falling people, but it's not any core rule that I'm aware of, and there's probably conflicting accounts of Reflex save (more likely if it's being allowed outside of turn order, usually because not allowing it suddenly feels like unfairly condeming the victim to death), or touch attack (which could simply be readied grapple action).
This is covered in the core rules under climb (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/climb.htm):


Catching a Falling Character While Climbing
If someone climbing above you or adjacent to you falls, you can attempt to catch the falling character if he or she is within your reach. Doing so requires a successful melee touch attack against the falling character (though he or she can voluntarily forego any Dexterity bonus to AC if desired). If you hit, you must immediately attempt a Climb check (DC = wall’s DC + 10). Success indicates that you catch the falling character, but his or her total weight, including equipment, cannot exceed your heavy load limit or you automatically fall. If you fail your Climb check by 4 or less, you fail to stop the character’s fall but don’t lose your grip on the wall. If you fail by 5 or more, you fail to stop the character’s fall and begin falling as well.

[Fizban]

Everything you said sounds right, but-
Huh. I guess I've seen so many instances of people making up rules in other games, I forgot that 3.x had it in the skill. That, or I've been glossing over it because it is, as I said, a rather blatantly free out of turn thing that you could normally never do unless it in involves Climbing.

Still, there it is- for a skilled climber on a controlled (as in low DC) surface with good melee touch attack, catching someone is no problem, as long as they can take the weight. Which for the common 200lb human with 50+lbs of gear, would require a high Str character with little or no gear of their own. And if you can carry someone, you might as well just carry them instead of having them roll their own checks.

And one should note that if you catch a Feather Falling character, you'll still have to bear all that weight. Feather Fall reduces the speed at which they fall and halves base damage dealt if an object lands on someone (never noticed that before!), but that's it, unless the DM adds an ad hoc ruling.

[ericgrau]

I think the goal is to yank the guy onto a safe floor not catch him.

If I were DMing I'd check the yanker's strength score to at least be able to drag the fellow PC, make it a readied action touch attack, let the faller forgo his dex bonus, and move on with no other checks. Without feather fall I'd make the other PC catch him and wouldn't allow yanking as the guy is moving too fast to get all the way to safety.

[Drelua]

If you have some sort of polearm, or a 10 foot pole, you could have multiple people holding that out into the tunnel, and all the fighter has to do is grab the thing as they fall right towards it. Or just 2 people holding out their hands would work, possibly while they're tied to something just in case. If the fighter can grab their hands and get their feet on the ledge, they wouldn't even really have to support his weight.

I'd make this a pretty easy thing to do if I was GMing.

[Darg]

The first thing to remember is that a knotted rope with a wall to brace against is DC 0, you need to fail the check by 5 or more to actually fall (so a result of -3 or higher means you're fine) and the Climb skill uses Str, not Dex. Unless your fighter has some of the worst armor possible and is trying to use a shield at the same time or has +0 Str, they should be able to climb a rope in simple non-combat conditions.

You can also take 10 when not rushed or threatened. So you need a penalty of -10 to fail that.

[Fizban]

Hmmm. Is Climb actually used as an example for taking 10 anywhere?

I've always taken the stance that a fall is sufficiently threatening so you wouldn't be taking 10, though stating it outright in those terms allows all sorts of mitigation (including raw hit points) that could ensure the fall wouldn't be able to kill you, and thus clear up the nervousness which stopped you from taking 10.

The broad/often completely undocumented concept of taking 10 is and remains a serious hole in calibrating expectations for the skill rules.

[Inevitability]

Hmmm. Is Climb actually used as an example for taking 10 anywhere?

Creatures with climb speeds?

[Darg]

Hmmm. Is Climb actually used as an example for taking 10 anywhere?

I've always taken the stance that a fall is sufficiently threatening so you wouldn't be taking 10, though stating it outright in those terms allows all sorts of mitigation (including raw hit points) that could ensure the fall wouldn't be able to kill you, and thus clear up the nervousness which stopped you from taking 10.

The broad/often completely undocumented concept of taking 10 is and remains a serious hole in calibrating expectations for the skill rules.

Using a knotted rope is the example in the PHB.


Taking 10: When your character is not being threatened or distracted, you may choose to take 10. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, calculate your result as if you had rolled a 10. For many routine tasks, taking 10 makes them automatically successful. Distractions or threats (such as combat) make it impossible for a character to take 10. In most cases, taking 10 is purely a safety measure —you know (or expect) that an average roll will succeed but fear that a poor roll might fail, so you elect to settle for the average roll (a 10). Taking 10 is especially useful in situations where a particularly high roll wouldn’t help (such as using Climb to ascend a knotted rope, or using Heal to give a wounded PC long-term care).

I'd say it isn't questionable. The only scenarios where you can't take 10 are when you are distracted, threatened, or if the skill entry says you can't (like UMD).

[ericgrau]

Unfortunately "threatened or distracted" tends to be taken far to broadly. Otherwise it makes the taking a 10 rules useless at any time they actually matter. I'd take it as meaning apart from the skill use itself. Or most of the time that means whenever you are not in combat, plus not in a tiny handful of similar situations. Probably anything requiring initiative.



A skill check represents an attempt to accomplish some goal, usually while under some sort of time pressure or distraction. Sometimes, though, a character can use a skill under more favorable conditions and eliminate the luck factor.

Taking 10

When your character is not being threatened or distracted, you may choose to take 10. Instead of rolling 1d20 for the skill check, calculate your result as if you had rolled a 10. For many routine tasks, taking 10 makes them automatically successful. Distractions or threats (such as combat) make it impossible for a character to take 10. In most cases, taking 10 is purely a safety measure —you know (or expect) that an average roll will succeed but fear that a poor roll might fail, so you elect to settle for the average roll (a 10). Taking 10 is especially useful in situations where a particularly high roll wouldn’t help.


For one, nearly all the examples of taking a 10 are counter-examples to the broad interpretation.

Between this and DMs using excessive DCs since they want there to always be a chance of failure even for a skilled PC, skills often get nerfed to the point of nigh-uselessness outside of crazy TO numbers. What that does to an entire category of classes isn't right. And probably why skills don't have natural 1s (except where stated). They're supposed to be reliable if you invest in them. And basic uses are supposed to be easy if not reliable even if you don't invest.

[Darg]

Distracted would be something like tumbling, damaging rocks due to a loose rock face or your annoying friend keeps tugging on your shoulder to get your attention, threatened would obviously be combat. Skills aren't meant to be tough for basic stuff unless they have combat purpose or influence another character.

[Fizban]

Amusing that the example is climbing a knotted rope, but that has nothing to do with threats or distraction: it's an example of a low DC where a high roll doesn't help, but if anything the knotted rope example works against taking 10, since for most characters they can't fail even on a 1 so the example is moot. Meanwhile the "time pressure" line can arguably be extended to basically any situation: random encounters are supposed to be a thing, so there is technically always time pressure. If the bad climber goes last, they're left alone for some time, a massive increase in risk- and if they go first, the later climbers know that if they don't move quickly their comrade could be caught alone.

In short, the question of "time pressure or distraction" is inherently in the minds of the characters- and as it's a mechanical decision, this is not the sort of detail the PCs get to just decide "lol my character never feels time pressure so I can always take 10!" The DM must decide how it actually works.

As long as the DM is consistent any particular placement of "the line" is fine (even rulings on a case by case basis can be self-consistent based on factors not mentioned by the game, such as knowing you have the hp to survive a fall or barricading the door so you can't be suddenly attacked), but I don't think the game gives enough examples (for enough skills or situations, especially not collected in one place) to properly flesh out the system in a more RAW fashion. Some skills ought to involve regular taking 10 and use appropriate DCs, and other skills do not. If you set for example your Climb DCs assuming take 10, then people can never climb under pressure because they're got a 25% chance per roll of falling off. Open Lock is a concrete example of something where the expectation is actually taking 20, but stuff like the multiple degrees of failure for Climb and the documented in-combat penalties, suggest to me that 10+DCs is not nearly as important as accounting for nat 1s, distance, and falling damage.

As mentioned, some DMs set their DCs not based on the world, but simply pinned to maximum skill bonus, and thus if they don't allow taking 10 then they're just forcing a 50% fail on everything, but that's the DM's problem for setting their DCs that way in the first place. Climb is one of the most detailed and visible skills in that basically everything that sets the DC ought to be known by the PC/player, so they can calculate the DC and figure out whether it's even possible for them to fail. Climbing is supposed to get easier as you level, in the sense that the same things have the same DCs and you get better at climbing them, if the DM actually follows the rules. The problem is other skills where the DC is vague.

It's pretty clear that something like cooking dinner ought to take 10, but stuff that takes time and has consequences for failure, particularly if it's being placed as a "challenge" rather than a simple environment description the player has chosen to interact with, less so. But if you can give a reason why your character should not be nervous at all, then you've answered the question as to whether they ought to be able to take 10.

[Darg]

Amusing that the example is climbing a knotted rope, but that has nothing to do with threats or distraction: it's an example of a low DC where a high roll doesn't help, but if anything the knotted rope example works against taking 10, since for most characters they can't fail even on a 1 so the example is moot. Meanwhile the "time pressure" line can arguably be extended to basically any situation: random encounters are supposed to be a thing, so there is technically always time pressure. If the bad climber goes last, they're left alone for some time, a massive increase in risk- and if they go first, the later climbers know that if they don't move quickly their comrade could be caught alone.

In short, the question of "time pressure or distraction" is inherently in the minds of the characters- and as it's a mechanical decision, this is not the sort of detail the PCs get to just decide "lol my character never feels time pressure so I can always take 10!" The DM must decide how it actually works.

As long as the DM is consistent any particular placement of "the line" is fine (even rulings on a case by case basis can be self-consistent based on factors not mentioned by the game, such as knowing you have the hp to survive a fall or barricading the door so you can't be suddenly attacked), but I don't think the game gives enough examples (for enough skills or situations, especially not collected in one place) to properly flesh out the system in a more RAW fashion. Some skills ought to involve regular taking 10 and use appropriate DCs, and other skills do not. If you set for example your Climb DCs assuming take 10, then people can never climb under pressure because they're got a 25% chance per roll of falling off. Open Lock is a concrete example of something where the expectation is actually taking 20, but stuff like the multiple degrees of failure for Climb and the documented in-combat penalties, suggest to me that 10+DCs is not nearly as important as accounting for nat 1s, distance, and falling damage.

As mentioned, some DMs set their DCs not based on the world, but simply pinned to maximum skill bonus, and thus if they don't allow taking 10 then they're just forcing a 50% fail on everything, but that's the DM's problem for setting their DCs that way in the first place. Climb is one of the most detailed and visible skills in that basically everything that sets the DC ought to be known by the PC/player, so they can calculate the DC and figure out whether it's even possible for them to fail. Climbing is supposed to get easier as you level, in the sense that the same things have the same DCs and you get better at climbing them, if the DM actually follows the rules. The problem is other skills where the DC is vague.

It's pretty clear that something like cooking dinner ought to take 10, but stuff that takes time and has consequences for failure, particularly if it's being placed as a "challenge" rather than a simple environment description the player has chosen to interact with, less so. But if you can give a reason why your character should not be nervous at all, then you've answered the question as to whether they ought to be able to take 10.

You can take 10 under a time pressure. It's taking 20 that you can't do under such pressure because it takes the time of doing 20 such actions. The only disqualification for taking 10 is distraction and threat. We know that time pressure is separate from distraction because they separated them. We know that distraction and threat must rise to the level of combat because that is the example the book gave.


For example, Krusk the barbarian has a Climb skill modifier of +6 (4 ranks, +3 Strength modifier, –1 penalty for wearing studded leather armor). The steep, rocky slope he’s climbing has a Climb DC of 10. With a little care, he can take 10 and succeed automatically. But partway up the slope, a goblin scout begins pelting him with sling stones. Krusk needs to make a Climb check to get up to the goblin, and this time he can’t simply take 10. If his player rolls 4 or higher on 1d20, he succeeds

[ericgrau]

You can take 10 under a time pressure.
I mostly agree but the issue came up because of this:


A skill check represents an attempt to accomplish some goal, usually while under some sort of time pressure or distraction. Sometimes, though, a character can use a skill under more favorable conditions and eliminate the luck factor.
(and it continues on to the taking a 10 rules)

I don't think it's saying that time pressure keeps you from taking a 10, I think whatever is distracting or threatening you usually causes time pressure too. So time pressure often but not always comes along with being threatened or distracted. Being threatened or distracted often comes with the DM saying "roll initiative". True there might sometimes also be time pressure without being threatened or distracted and you can still take a 10. But if you're not in initiative order (and therefore not in combat) I think it's very unlikely that you can't take a 10, and I think we both agree on that.

[Darg]

There are 3 scenarios:

1) You can take 20 anytime you can take 10 as long as you have the time for 20 skill uses and there is no risk of a negative outcome on a failure.

2) You can take 10 anytime there is no distraction (like a readied action to bump into you, attempting a diplomacy check but someone tries to butt in, or combat) or threat (rocks falling on your head or combat)

3) You can roll normally at any time even while distracted or threatened.

The text says that skills are usually used under a time pressure, but mechanically the only time it henders a choice on how to act is when taking 20.

[ericgrau]

Ah it could be referring to that, but either way you can usually take a 10 outside of combat, and usually can't during combat.

[Darg]

Ah it could be referring to that, but either way you can usually take a 10 outside of combat, and usually can't during combat.

Which is where a rogue's skill mastery comes into play.