Dysfunctional Rules IV- It's like a sandwich made of RAW failure!

[Ksheep]

Falling, when it's not the downward part of a Jump, is not movement. It happens without you taking any actions, and thus is independent of any movement mode your character has.

I believe we covered this before:

• Falling while flying is 150' for the first round, 300' for all subsequent rounds, and you take damage when you land
• Jumping off a ledge and falling is limited by your max speed, and you take damage when you hit bottom
• Simply falling off a ledge has no duration, and is arguably instantaneous, dealing damage
• Falling prone instantaneously makes it so you are on the ground, and it does NOT state that you take damage

[The Viscount]

Knight of the Sacred Seal changes your type to outsider, then refers you to the monk class feature at level 20. This would be fine, if the monk class feature actually changed your type to outsider.

[nedz]

I believe we covered this before:

• Falling while flying is 150' for the first round, 300' for all subsequent rounds, and you take damage when you land
• Jumping off a ledge and falling is limited by your max speed, and you take damage when you hit bottom
• Simply falling off a ledge has no duration, and is arguably instantaneous, dealing damage
• Falling prone instantaneously makes it so you are on the ground, and it does NOT state that you take damage

But are these halved when you're eyes are closed, or benefiting from concealment ?
That's the actual question I think.

[NeoPhoenix0]

It kinda makes sense to me that you would take more damage if you couldn't see as well. It's harder to orient yourself in a way that prepares you for impact.

course, then what about being blind?

[Ksheep]

But are these halved when you're eyes are closed, or benefiting from concealment ?
That's the actual question I think.

From a RAW standpoint, I think that for falling via jumping or flying, each square would count as two, so you'd fall half as fast, but be treated as falling twice as far. However, if you fall prone or fall via some other means that doesn't take movement into effect, you don't technically pass through those squares and instead instantly find yourself on the floor, so you wouldn't take extra damage from falling (and still wouldn't take any damage at all from falling prone).

Therefore, deliberately jumping and closing your eyes would be your best bet if you want to prolong the fall as long as possible and you believe someone can save you mid-fall. Otherwise, it would be advisable to fall prone to avoid damage, if that's a choice, or just fall without any movement action taken so you take the damage right away and get up (hopefully) to continue on your way without worrying about spending several rounds falling. At least, that's how I see a strict reading of the rules.

EDIT:

It kinda makes sense to me that you would take more damage if you couldn't see as well. It's harder to orient yourself in a way that prepares you for impact.

What if you fall for X rounds, but only have your eyes closed for the first round of the fall? What about the last round of the fall? Would you still take the same amount of fall damage?

[Curmudgeon]

I believe we covered this before:

• Falling while flying is 150' for the first round, 300' for all subsequent rounds, and you take damage when you land

This is true if you have a fly speed. Otherwise, the normal rules of physics apply, and it's about 500' the first round and 1200' each subsequent round.

• Jumping off a ledge and falling is limited by your max speed, and you take damage when you hit bottom
• Simply falling off a ledge has no duration, and is arguably instantaneous, dealing damage

Neither of these are true. Falling and jumping down are not altered by your speed in any way. Flickerdart's argument was that where no duration is listed, it must either be instantaneous or a function of your speed. That argument doesn't hold water. Falling for creatures without a fly speed works in D&D like it does for creatures on Earth, as spelled out in Dungeon Master's Guide on page 147:

The Material Plane tends to be the most Earthlike of all planes and operates under the same set of natural laws that our own real world does.

[Ksheep]

This is true if you have a fly speed. Otherwise, the normal rules of physics apply, and it's about 500' the first round and 1200' each subsequent round.

Neither of these are true. Falling and jumping down are not altered by your speed in any way. Flickerdart's argument was that where no duration is listed, it must either be instantaneous or a function of your speed. That argument doesn't hold water. Falling for creatures without a fly speed works in D&D like it does for creatures on Earth, as spelled out in Dungeon Master's Guide on page 147:

Wait, are you trying to bring physics into a discussion about RAW? Where are you getting the 500'/1200' numbers?

[Curmudgeon]

Wait, are you trying to bring physics into a discussion about RAW? Where are you getting the 500'/1200' numbers?

Well, yeah; the RAW says to do so. As for the falling distances, the FAQ author worked those out.

[avr]

If a round is 6 seconds long and gravity is 32'/second squared, then the distance that acceleration will move you in round 1 is 0.5*32'*6*6 or 576'. Round 2 is (.5*32*12*12 - .5*32*6*6) or 1728'. It might be that someone worked out that air resistance would start to have a noticeable effect at this point.

[Curmudgeon]

It might be that someone worked out that air resistance would start to have a noticeable effect at this point.

Since I already stated where this was worked out, it might be worth looking there.

[Chronos]

As pointed out in another thread, there's a prestige class in Champions of Ruin called the "justice of weald and woe" (possible misspelling?) that's missing some critical information about its spellcasting.

[Fax Celestis]

If it says "weald" in the book, it's a misspelling.

weald

noun
wooded or uncultivated country.

Origin: before 1150; Middle English weeld, Old English weald forest; cognate with German Wald; cf. wold

Can be confused: weald, wield.

Considering the following:

weal
noun
1. well-being, prosperity, or happiness: the public weal; weal and woe.
2. Obsolete. wealth or riches.
3. Obsolete. the body politic; the state.
Origin: before 900; Middle English wele, Old English wela; akin to well

...is definitely a counterpoint to "woe".

[Chronos]

I don't have Champions of Ruin; I was just going by what the poster in the other thread said. Any misspelling is probably his, not the book's.

[Andezzar]

I'm not sure it is a misspelling. While "weal and woe" is a common combination, the PrC has much more connection to weald (i.e. a heavily wooded area : forest) than to well-being.
It is an elven enforcer. It grants several nature related class features, but none that directly cause the well-being of anyone.

One could argue that the PrC exists for the well-being of a certain group (the various elf-nations on Toril), but similar things can be said about many PrCs, even some of the obviously evil ones like the Red Wizards or the various PrCs related to evil deities.

@Chronos: It indeed says weald.

[Karnith]

Where are you getting the 500'/1200' numbers?

The 500/1200 numbers come from real-world physics, rounded for ease of use. From the Sage:

Spoiler

Show

How far does a character fall in a single round? If my griffon-riding character falls off his mount 300 feet up, how long do other characters have to catch him?
This ends up being both a rules and a physics question. The short answer is, “In a single round, you fall far enough to hit the ground in the vast majority circumstances that come up in the game.”
Here’s the long answer: A falling character accelerates at a rate of 32 feet per second per second. What that means is that every second, a character’s “falling speed” increases by 32 feet. The distance he falls in that second is equal to the average of his falling speeds at the beginning of that second and at the end of that second. Thus, during the first second he falls 16 feet (the average of 0 feet and 32 feet, which are his speeds at the start and end of that second). During the next second he falls 48 feet (the average of 32 feet and 64 feet). He falls 80 feet during the third second, 112 feet the fourth second, 144 feet the fifth second, and 176 feet the sixth second. That’s a grand total of 576 feet fallen in the first round alone, hence the short answer given above—the number of falls occurring in any campaign longer than this is probably pretty small. For ease of play, you could simply use 500 feet as a nice round number—it’s easier to remember.
Of course, the character falls even farther the next round, although acceleration soon ends due to the resistance of air on the falling body (this is what’s called terminal velocity). If the Sage remembers his high-school physics, terminal velocity for a human body is roughly 120 mph (equivalent to a speed of 1,200 feet per round, or 200 feet per second); thus, the character’s falling speed hits its maximum in the first second of the second round. It’s safe to say that after 2 rounds the character will have fallen nearly 2,000 feet, and will fall another 1,200 feet per round thereafter.
In the example you give, other characters would clearly have no more than a round to react, and it’s possible they’d have even less time. Remember that despite the sequential nature of D&D combat actions, things are happening very quickly—virtually simultaneously, in many cases. As a DM, I’d probably allow every character a chance to react to a long fall (such as the one you describe), as long as their action occurs before 1 full round has passed from the start of the fall.
(As a side note, that’s why feather fall allows its caster to cast it even when it isn’t her turn—otherwise, adjudicating its timing would be a nightmare.) The difference between “you watch the character fall all the way to the ground before you can react” and “the character starts to fall, what do you do?” is really just up to the DM’s sense of fun and fair play. Off the top of my head, I’d say that anything up to 50 or 60 feet is clearly too fast to react to (barring a readied action, of course), and anything that approaches 250 feet or more should probably allow characters some chance to react, but that’s purely a personal opinion.
Whatever decision you make, try to make the same decision every time, so that players know what to expect. If this situation comes up a lot in your game, it’s probably worth creating a house rule so you don’t have to try to remember what you did last time. (If your campaign routinely features 300-foot falls, your characters might want to invest in some rings of feather falling!)
Now, if you start altering certain assumptions—such as the force of gravity, or the density of air that’s resisting the falling character, or even the mass of the falling character—these calculations become less useful. Yet, unless your numbers are much different than the standard values, you can still use these as benchmarks.

I'm not sure it is a misspelling. While "weal and woe" is a common combination, the PrC has much more connection to weald (i.e. a heavily wooded area : forest) than to well-being.

In other words, it's not a misspelling, it's a play on words. Oh WotC, you and your humor.

[nedz]

I'm not sure it is a misspelling. While "weal and woe" is a common combination, the PrC has much more connection to weald (i.e. a heavily wooded area : forest) than to well-being.
It is an elven enforcer. It grants several nature related class features, but none that directly cause the well-being of anyone.

One could argue that the PrC exists for the well-being of a certain group (the various elf-nations on Toril), but similar things can be said about many PrCs, even some of the obviously evil ones like the Red Wizards or the various PrCs related to evil deities.

@Chronos: It indeed says weald.

The dysfunction is slightly more serious than the spelling.

It grants spell casting, but doesn't say if it's Divine or Arcane or even whether it's Prepared or Spontaneous. If the latter then it would have to be from the whole list since there is no table for spells known.

[Andezzar]

If the latter then it would have to be from the whole list since there is no table for spells known.

Huh? The table is right there under the table spells per day on p. 49. The other things are missing though.

Interestingly (or erroneously) the DC of those spells is WIS based but the spells per day are (most likely) based on INT.

1 Provided the character has sufficient Intelligence to have a bonus spell of this level.

[Karnith]

Interestingly (or erroneously) the DC of those spells is WIS based but the spells per day are (most likely) based on INT.

Erroneously, I'd say, since that's part of a table and is contradicted by the text of the ability. Per their Spellcasting class feature, Justices use their Wisdom modifier to determine their bonus spells and their spell DCs.

[nedz]

Huh? The table is right there under the table spells per day on p. 49. The other things are missing though.

Ah, so it is. So they must be spontaneous.

We still have no idea as to whether they are Arcane or Divine though.
Now the fact that they use Wisdom strongly suggests Divine, but there is no RAW.

[Curmudgeon]

The dysfunction is slightly more serious than the spelling.

It grants spell casting, but doesn't say if it's Divine or Arcane or even whether it's Prepared or Spontaneous. If the latter then it would have to be from the whole list since there is no table for spells known.

It's all spelled out; the organization is confusing, is all. It's divine, spontaneous, WIS-based casting. I provided relevant quotes here. There's no dysfunction (unless you consider a weak bit of wordplay in the name sufficient for this list).

[Ksheep]

The 500/1200 numbers come from real-world physics, rounded for ease of use. From the Sage

FAQ is not RAW. Ask Wizards and the Sage are not RAW. sometimes those provide RAI, sometimes they only provide glorified house rules, and quite often they give advice that actually goes against RAW, sometimes humorously so.

[Venger]

Undead wild shape does not actually do anything.

It says it allows you to wild shape "even if you are undead" mentioning wild shape being keyed off polymorph (thus only affecting living creatures)

except that wild shape has always been keyed off of alternate form, not polymorph in 3.5, leaving this feat without any discernable effect.

[Fax Celestis]

FAQ is not RAW. Ask Wizards and the Sage are not RAW. sometimes those provide RAI, sometimes they only provide glorified house rules, and quite often they give advice that actually goes against RAW, sometimes humorously so.

Then why do we bother having it?

[Snowbluff]

Then why do we bother having it?

... I don't know. I've never considered it something worth having in the first place, being a member of a community full of hyper-competent, rules-savvy players.

[Karnith]

FAQ is not RAW.

I did not say that it was. You asked where the numbers came from, and I provided the source.

However, RAW says that we use real-world physics for these situations (on the Material Plane, anyway), as Curmudgeon has already, and repeatedly, pointed out, and the Sage's answers are reasonably close to the actual numbers you get from doing the calculations (I believe that they are 576 feet in the first round and 1076 ft in every round thereafter as you reach terminal velocity), so there's no reason not to point to the FAQ in this instance.

except that wild shape has always been keyed off of alternate form, not polymorph in 3.5, leaving this feat without any discernable effect.

Actually, pre-errata Wild Shape functioned like Polymorph.Also, I'm 90% sure I've pointed this out before

[holywhippet]

…
……
………

And if you have 30 feet of land speed AND 60 feet of flying speed, then your "normal maximum movement in a round" would be 60 feet (or 120 if double moving).

Do you really need D&D to explain that certain modes of movement can't be used for jumping? You can't jump while flying.

[Necroticplague]

Do you really need D&D to explain that certain modes of movement can't be used for jumping? You can't jump while flying.

To respond:yes, and it depends on context.
part of writing rules means defining any even slightly ambiguous words. They made a step in the right direction using the glossary, and wotc clearly understands the concept (just look at M:tG, it's rules define practically every single things that can occur).Just look at any law, and they do something similar, they usually spend about half the document defining all their terms for the purpose of making the law.

What if you decided to just give your wings one burst, then let yourself move like a projectile? That would be a perfectly sensible jumping in the air. Or even if your flying, and you decide to change directions by rebounding off an object, that's still flying and still jumping.Or, even if you simply have an effect similar to air walk that allows you to "walk" on the air (granting you a fly speed, if a slow one), would it not be unreasonable to jump during this flight?

[Ksheep]

Do you really need D&D to explain that certain modes of movement can't be used for jumping? You can't jump while flying.

I am quite aware that you can't jump while flying. However, the wording for Jump says that you can jump up to your maximum movement per turn, and if you jump further than that, you complete the jump the following turn. That discussion was saying "What if your "maximum movement" is from a movement type other than the one you started the jump with? For instance, if you have an aquatic creature that jumps out of the water, but which has a land speed that is greater, do you use the land speed or the swim speed to determine how far you go? What if you had a fly speed, which is almost always higher than land speeds? It wouldn't be implausible to say that a creature running along the ground jumps and then uses their wings to increase their speed while mid-jump, would it?

[holywhippet]

I am quite aware that you can't jump while flying. However, the wording for Jump says that you can jump up to your maximum movement per turn, and if you jump further than that, you complete the jump the following turn. That discussion was saying "What if your "maximum movement" is from a movement type other than the one you started the jump with? For instance, if you have an aquatic creature that jumps out of the water, but which has a land speed that is greater, do you use the land speed or the swim speed to determine how far you go? What if you had a fly speed, which is almost always higher than land speeds? It wouldn't be implausible to say that a creature running along the ground jumps and then uses their wings to increase their speed while mid-jump, would it?

You'd use whichever means of movement you are using prior to jumping obviously. If you are walking along the ground your swim speed is irrelevant. You could use your wings after leaping into the air, but at that point you've stopped jumping and started flying.

[Fax Celestis]

You'd use whichever means of movement you are using prior to jumping obviously.

...according to...?