Using Feather Fall in combat

[FdL]

One future player of mine is going to buy a Ring of Feather Fall arguing it could be useful for combat scenarios where he would get to fall into the enemies and wreck havoc, etc.

I began thinking how could this be ruled, because of the lack of physics of D&D. Anything you try to do off-ground (and many things with two feet on the floor) puts one of those so cute catgirls in grave danger.

So, I wanted to know how you would rule things regarding for example a horizontal jump by a FF user from a ledge, aiming to fall into combat with a group of enemies.

I'm not so interested in the range as in the inertial factor that could come into play. Otherwise it would be just the range given by the DC of an horizontal jump, then the character would FF straight down.

[Seffbasilisk]

I'd rule it lets him make one attack (or two if he has TWF and such) from an elevated postion (+1 on attack).

It also makes the feat Battle Jump not work, and possibly also negates Leap Attack.

[TheOOB]

Feather Fall doesn't affect jumping at all, it simply slows falling speed from 100ft a round to 60ft a round, enough to negate any damage you would take from the fall, and half any damage from falling objects. Unless your falling down long distances or having stuff droped on you alot feather fall doesn't have a whole lot of combat potential.

See heres the trick, D&D magic doesn't follow physics. A spell does exactally what it says it does, and nothing else. In the real world you could reduce falling speed by somehow lessing the effect of gravity upon you, which would also in turn allow you to jump really well. Featherfall doesn't do anything with gravity though, it simple changes falling speed. Thats all, no more, no less.

As for attacking in mid air, I'd only allow them to do it if they had the spring attack feat, otherwise you can't attack while moving.

[mikeejimbo]

But doesn't any jump require a fall at the end?

[Shhalahr Windrider]

Unless that "fall" is more than 60 ft., feather fall really won't do anything

[Raum]

Feather Fall doesn't affect jumping at all, it simply slows falling speed from 100ft a round...

Where do you get 100' as the normal rate of falling? Just curious.

[FdL]

My question concerns particularly a jump made from a high enough place to make use, and asumes that the target where the character intends to land is some distance away from said cliff.

Now, I'm not talking about gliding towards it. I just want to know which would be a safe measure to allow a character keeping moving forward once he activates the free fall. I'm assuming a character would take a long run before the jump, and that this could be ruled as generating a proportionate forward movement once he's in the air.

The best option for the sake of catgirls is taking it RAW and saying that once you reach the desired length of the jump according to the DC, you fall straight downwards in that square like the cartoon Coyote.

[Gralamin]

hmm 60+ feet of jump height, is it even possible...

Thri-kreen.
Assuming you drop everything into Strength for jump
+66 to jump (30 from racial, 36 from speed bonus (including haste, and 50 from monk), 4 of this is arguable)
+21 from ranks (16 class levels with jump, 2 racial HD. ECL 20.)
+10 STR Bonus (20 Base + 4 level + 6 item)
+2 from Tumble
+4 from Run
+3 from Skill Focus
+84 Item of Jump
+2 from Acrobatic
-----
+192 to jump

Money (760 000)
-36 000 Belt of giant strength +6
-722 500 Item of jump +84 (So cheesy)
-2 200 Ring of Feather Fall
-------------
16200 left over.

192+20 = 212

On a roll of 20 you can jump 53 feet, Still not enough for feather fall.

Though thats a 210 foot long jump

[FdL]

It's probably my mistake for not making myself clear :D

I'm talking about jumping down from a higher ground, for example, a cliff.

[Gralamin]

I know, I'm just doing that since it seems fun.

edit: does run effect your movement speed for the purposes of the speed bonus to jump?

[mikeejimbo]

Unless that "fall" is more than 60 ft., feather fall really won't do anything

Well, if it's 100ft/6 seconds, that's, oh 16.67ft/second. 60ft/6 seconds is of course, 10ft/second. I would think it should have an effect anyway.

But never mind the math, hand me a knife, I'll kill the catgirl myself.

[Athenodorus]

I'd love to see some kind of Dragoon-esque attack class for the more high magic, high fantasy settings. Jump attacks with lances!

[Brigham]

Do opponents threaten five feet of three dimensional space? If so, then would the character incur an AoO by passing from five feet above and infront of (vertical diagonal) into the square directly in front of the opponent?

a silly diagram:
1, 2, and 3 are vertical space above the bad guy (B); 4, 5 represent the same vertical level as the opponent ; and 6, 7, and 8 represent vertical space below the (B).

1 2 3
.\ | /
4-B-5
./ | \
6 7 8

Is there an AoO for passing from 3 into 5?

[Fizban]

So, just to clarify what the OP is asking:
He wants to know how fast you keep moving horizontally while falling, specifically while under a feather fall effect.

Assuming no air resistance (yay for the vaccum of science and DnD!), blah blah blah, you probably keep moving the same speed you did when you left the ground.

Ex: a character wearing a ring of feather falling runs straight off the edge of a cliff at a speed of 120', leaving the ground just before his next turn. Next turn he falls 5', activating the ring automatically, followed by another 60' as per feather fall. He also moves 120' in the same direction he was running, in a nice completely unrealistic arc.

[FdL]

Do opponents threaten five feet of three dimensional space?

*snip*

Is there an AoO for passing from 3 into 5?

No, and no.

It's best to leave three dimensions out of D&D. But in situations like the one I 'm trying to describe, you'd have to rule something if it happens in your game.

[Raum]

Do opponents threaten five feet of three dimensional space? If so, then would the character incur an AoO by passing from five feet above and infront of (vertical diagonal) into the square directly in front of the opponent?

Is there an AoO for passing from 3 into 5?

By RAW yes, unless it was a 5' movement.

Assuming no air resistance (yay for the vaccum of science and DnD!), blah blah blah, you probably keep moving the same speed you did when you left the ground.

Where does RAW use inertia? As I remember the rules, you can sprint full out for a full round and come to an immediate stop the next.

[Arbitrarity]

On the other hand, feather fall and dimension door have some potential....

11 rounds of falling before reaching the ground = nearly safe casting.

[Fizban]

By RAW yes, unless it was a 5' movement.

Where does RAW use inertia? As I remember the rules, you can sprint full out for a full round and come to an immediate stop the next.

Well yeah, the RAW has no inertia, but the player is thinking that he will be able to keep moving forward using inertia. So I provide my opinion.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

Well, if it's 100ft/6 seconds, that's, oh 16.67ft/second. 60ft/6 seconds is of course, 10ft/second. I would think it should have an effect anyway.

Once again: where do you get this ridiculously slow speed of 100 ft. per round?

In any case, the FAQ does address the issue:

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.

[hr]

As I remember the rules, you can sprint full out for a full round and come to an immediate stop the next.

Where does it say that? It just says you move up to a certain speed in a round. It never says all movement is at a constant velocity.

Just 'cause you have an average velocity of 20 ft./second in a given round doesn't mean that was your velocity the entire time.

[mikeejimbo]

Once again: where do you get this ridiculously slow speed of 100 ft. per round?

I was just using what had been said, and I didn't realize there was acceleration in D&D.

[Turcano]

You know, when I saw the title of this thread, I thought that it was going to be about using feather fall on enemies. You know, like casting it on them, pushing them off a cliff, and using gust of wind to guide them gently onto a patch of black tentacles or something like that. Although that would probably be counter-productive, seeing as a normal fall would probably do more damage. (Although there is a nice psychological factor involved. )

[Raum]

Where does it say that? It just says you move up to a certain speed in a round. It never says all movement is at a constant velocity.

Just 'cause you have an average velocity of 20 ft./second in a given round doesn't mean that was your velocity the entire time.

Where did I use the term "velocity"? :-)

My point was simple, movement is only accomplished through an action in RAW D&D. If you don't use an action (or someone else doesn't use an action) to move you in some method, you don't move. Even falling is intiated by some action.

But the response you quoted was in turn a response to someone stating movement would be continued if you were falling, duplicating the movement you had prior to falling. A ruling which makes no sense in either RAW or IRL mechanics / physics.

[TheOOB]

Hmm, I could have sworn falling was at a rate of 100ft per round, perhaps its an old rule or perhaps I was mistaken.

Reguardless feather fall has no applicating in jumping, unless at the end of the jump you are still in mid-air. Whatever the physics of jumping, falling, and slowing fall speed are is irrelevent, feather fall works for falling and thats it. Magic doesn't have to make sense.

[the_tick_rules]

it only reduces it to 60 fps. that's still above major physcial damage, just ask mythbusters. but i could see it used to get a dive-bomb style attack on your opponet without killing yourself in the process. thought it's main use is defensive in my estimation. jumping off a cliff to avoid dangerous situatuions and not dying.

[Raum]

it only reduces it to 60 fps.

Actually, 10' per second. A round is 6 seconds.

[Thomas]

The only falling speeds given in the rules are for flying creatures that fail to maintain their minimum forward speed. In the first round, they fall 150 feet. In the second, 300 feet. This probably has no relevance whatsoever for any other situation, since I assume the flying creature is struggling to stay aloft ( and has wings or some other means to do), which slows its descent.

Anyway, there's no such thing as inertia, spells have nothing to do with physics, etc., so the character's forward movement would be unaffected, I guess. Just come up with something - I'd say the character can move forward up to his or her speed in feet each round of falling, by starting out with a jump forward off a cliff.

[pestilenceawaits]

*snip*

+192 to jump

Though thats a 210 foot long jump

There is something about this that makes me very happy

[Gamebird]

One future player of mine is going to buy a Ring of Feather Fall arguing it could be useful for combat scenarios where he would get to fall into the enemies and wreck havoc, etc.

...So, I wanted to know how you would rule things regarding for example a horizontal jump by a FF user from a ledge, aiming to fall into combat with a group of enemies.

He'd jump off and after falling 5', the ring of Feather Fall would kick in. If he wanted to get some distance, do a normal Jump check for a long jump and figure out how far that puts him out from the cliff. Then say the ring of Feather Fall activates when he reaches the end of that distance (which is when he begins to go downward quickly). From there on, just say he goes straight down at a rate of 60' a round. This means that in a single round (the SAME round he used his action to jump) he falls 60'. Unless you have a lot of really high cliffs near enemy encampments, this isn't much of an issue because he hits the ground before he gets another action.

If it becomes a problem, then stop putting cliffs near the bad guys.

Also, in the odd circumstance that he falls/lands near a bad guy, he will provoke an AoO on the way down.

[Meat Shield]

Wow. We're looking at a catgirl PER post. Nice going people.

Somewhat tangental question: Would DR vs. bludgeoning reduce falling damage?

[Shhalahr Windrider]

I don't believe falling damage has a specified type. In most cases, I'd be inclined to treat it as bludgeoning damage, but there are probably some surfaces that would deal piercing damage instead. Maybe even a few extremely rare cases where it would be slashing.