How far do freefalling objects travel per round of combat?


Rules Questions


Title says it all pretty much. I would like to know how many feet you can fall in 1 round.
I know horizontal jumping can take more than 1 round to land, if you spend your last 5 feet of movement for the turn taking a 20ft long jump, but I want to know if there is a standard rate of descent for freefalling objects/creatures.


Quote:
A character cannot cast a spell while falling, unless the fall is greater than 500 feet or the spell is an immediate action, such as feather fall. Casting a spell while falling requires a concentration check with a DC equal to 20 + the spell's level. Casting teleport or a similar spell while falling does not end your momentum, it just changes your location, meaning that you still take falling damage, even if you arrive atop a solid surface.

I thought there was a place that explicitly said what terminal velocity is. This implies it is 500'/round.

Also, you can't make a jump which exceeds your maximum movement for a round. It can't take more than 1 round to land, its not a valid movement.

Quote:
No jump can allow you to exceed your maximum movement for the round.


In an earlier discussion 500 ft./round was generally agreed upon.

However, to add realism you could fall 500 ft. for the first round and 1000 ft. for all subsequent rounds.

Oops! Did I say 'realism'?


Huh. I might be thinking of 3.5 then. In that ruleset, if your jump would exceed your movement for the round, you end your turn mid-air and finish your jump on your next turn.

I had a feeling it was 500ft/round but I don't know where it says that. Any idea where that rule would be?


"A character cannot cast a spell while falling, unless the fall is greater than 500 feet or the spell is an immediate action, such as feather fall. Casting a spell while falling requires a concentration check with a DC equal to 20 + the spell's level. Casting teleport or a similar spell while falling does not end your momentum, it just changes your location, meaning that you still take falling damage, even if you arrive atop a solid surface."

In the Environment section of the Core Rule Book.


Yeah, I know of that entry, it kind of implies terminal velocity but the wording is super vague. I just searched the pfsrd and there were no results for '500 feet' that were in the context of falling speed.

Grand Lodge

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Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

d = 0.5gt^2, assuming you start with an inital velocity of 0.

If you use 32 ft/s/s for g(ravity), you fall 576' in the first round. Using 575 as the approximation, that is 115 5' squares.

If you use 30 ft/s/s as gravity (because that's a standard distance a Medium creature can move in a round, so why not?), you get 540', which is 108 squares.

500' is probably good enough though.

-Skeld


So I take it feather fall still requires a Concentration check?

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Kobold Cleaver wrote:
So I take it feather fall still requires a Concentration check?

No, it is an immediate action. If you fall more than 500 ft, then any spell that isn't an immediate action take the concentration check.


I'm imagining a scenario where someone dimension doors straight up, waits a round (since you can't cast until your next turn) and then casts feather fall.

No idea why they don't just door horizontally, but that's why I'm not a wizard.


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber

can you cast teleport to teleport yourself upside down and then have the momentum head up? and then when you try to cast teleport again, by the time your spell casts your momentum would be gone and you can teleport anywhere.


So, no you can't do that Kobold Cleaver

Quote:
A creature or object brought into being or transported to your location by a conjuration spell cannot appear inside another creature or object, nor can it appear floating in an empty space. It must arrive in an open location on a surface capable of supporting it.
Quote:

Dimension Door

School conjuration (teleportation); Level bard 4, sorcerer/wizard 4


Terminal velocity is pretty close to 1000 ft per round (for a human falling belly down).

So yeah, 500 ft the first round, 1000 ft every round after.

The Exchange

Tarantula wrote:
Quote:
A character cannot cast a spell while falling, unless the fall is greater than 500 feet or the spell is an immediate action, such as feather fall. Casting a spell while falling requires a concentration check with a DC equal to 20 + the spell's level. Casting teleport or a similar spell while falling does not end your momentum, it just changes your location, meaning that you still take falling damage, even if you arrive atop a solid surface.
I thought there was a place that explicitly said what terminal velocity is. This implies it is 500'/round.

I don't read that as terminal velocity. If you look at Skeld's math, the distance you fall in the first round (from a starting velocity of zero) is a bit over 500'. With that in mind I read the quote from above as saying "unless you fall more than 500' you don't have a round in which to cast." Velocity would continue to increase with additional rounds until you reached terminal velocity.

Of course it's really academic since by rule the maximum falling damage is 20d6 (200') and the damage of a falling object is set by size and distance (max 151') and is not affected by velocity (probably to prevent shenanigans.) Even a colossal chunk of adamantine dropped from 3 miles up only does 20d6 damage to someone under it. Survivors will be very rich.

edit For bonus fun: assuming a terminal velocity of 1050'/rd (see Ozy and Wikipedia) you would fall approximately 10000 feet in ten rounds. So if you want to cast a spell with a 1 minute cast time you need to start two miles up.

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