Feather falling at the last moment


Rules Questions

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Jiggy wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
Jiggy wrote:
I like that analogy for a readied attack, but I'm not sure it works so well for a readied spell. Probably some other stuff too.
You get your spell components out, you wave your arms, fingers, legs, and toes, you chant your incantation, and you hold, waiting to utter the last syllable and make the final motions until the precise moment you wish to execute the spell.
So then it's not until the final utterance that the spell slot (or material components, for that matter) gets expended? Then how come damaging the enemy caster partway through casting (interrupting him before the same final utterance) still costs him his spell slot?

I'm gonna go with failing the concentration check causes you to f up. Ie, you make a mistake. Vs, you choose to conserve the effort and material.

Non-spell casting example: you have a hot dog with chili, cheese, mustard, and onions. The toppings are stacked high above the protective walls of the bun. You pick up the hot dog and lift it toward your mouth but at that moment a squirrel makes a meal of your bare toe. You scream in pain and flail your arms. As your arms go up you realize the implications for your hot dog. You try to resist the urge to throw your arms in the air but you simply cannot. Your hot dog flys through the air and lands in the dirt.

Even though you didn't eat the hot dog, the hot dog was consumed in this process.

Had you simply ::decided:: to place your hot dog on the counter you could have done so. And then you could have consumed it later.


Jiggy wrote:
Thus, "standard action" can't imply very much about how much time is used

This is completely true.

Pathfinder surely has no rules for the duration of time a standard action requires. Or any other action. The closest it comes is that bit about swift actions taking a little more effort than free actions which still doesn't put an AMOUNT of time on any actions.

We can draw some conclusions mathematically, such as a Standard action must be more than 3 seconds long or you could have two of them in a 6 second round. A move action must be no longer than 3 seconds or you could NOT have two of them in the same round, but longer than 2 seconds or you could have 3 of them. Free actions are minuscule since you can have multiple free actions AND still take a full-round action, so they're just a fraction of a second. Swift actions are a little longer but at least half a second (or you could take a standard, move, and 2 swift actions in a round). Etc.

But why bother? Then you get weird things that it takes exactly as long to pick up a dagger from a table as it takes to walk 30', which is silly.

So it's safer for all our sanity, such as we have left after these forums are through with us, to just keep it abstract.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
David knott 242 wrote:

What skill or ability would be checked and the margin of possible error on a failure are unknowns.

I'd use the same skill check required of a 5th level wizard casting fireball to place it with pin point accuracy at a distance of 465' away from him.


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
bbangerter wrote:
David knott 242 wrote:

What skill or ability would be checked and the margin of possible error on a failure are unknowns.

I'd use the same skill check required of a 5th level wizard casting fireball to place it with pin point accuracy at a distance of 465' away from him.

But in that case the wizard is not moving towards the ground at terminal velocity as he does it. The fireball case is a matter of spatial awareness, which for most people is far easier than split second timing.


Spatial awareness misguesses, at those kinds of distances, for the vast majority of people, will far exceed the radius of the fireball.

For a baseball player swinging at a fastball (95 MPH) his timing isn't so bad as to swing 60' before or 60' after the ball crosses over the plate, it would be measured more in distances of 10'-20' at most. (Yes, I'm making a rough guess here, but considering the distance from mound to plate is 60' 6", and some batters swing to soon, reaction time is easily within the 60' distance travelled).

Terminal velocity (in a skydiving position) is only about 30% faster than that - 122 MPH. He could swallow "30'" to late from his 60' mark and still be perfectly fine. 30' to early and at worst he is taking 3d6 (again, if that is the kind of realism you want in your game, though a misjudged attempt is more likely to result in reacting to slowly where he is still perfectly fine.)


For what it's worth, terminal velocity while face down is about 55m/s. A CL1 potion will keep you from falling fast for 60ft worth of distance. You could comfortably take another 40ft or so of fall easily after the effect runs out(probably more than that, but lets say 40ft, or 4d6 damage). That is a 100ft window, or around 30 meters. You have over half a second to chug the potion and land without too much damage (if any). This isn't actually too extreme a task on that basis.


TriOmegaZero wrote:
Melkiador wrote:

Adjudicate: Make a formal judgment or decision about a problem or disputed matter.

So, all that means is that the GM can veto your declaration of beginning initiative.

So GMs do decide when initiative begins then.

DMs being this uptight makes me do stupid things to enforce them to follow make a ruling my character should be able to start on their own.

A Dm not allowing me to go into initiative i would respond by. Do you want me to use a dirty trick and piss off someone so on my next round i can use my move action to run off the airship and ready an action? Or do you wanna take the game serious and play together and let me skip the rule lawyering silliness?

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Finlanderboy wrote:
Do you want me to use a dirty trick and piss off someone so on my next round i can use my move action to run off the airship and ready an action? Or do you wanna take the game serious and play together and let me skip the rule lawyering silliness?

No, I want you to just use the damn potion and move on.


TriOmegaZero wrote:
Finlanderboy wrote:
Do you want me to use a dirty trick and piss off someone so on my next round i can use my move action to run off the airship and ready an action? Or do you wanna take the game serious and play together and let me skip the rule lawyering silliness?
No, I want you to just use the damn potion and move on.

My post was not directed at you, but DMs that need to micromanage the game.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

*fistbump*


DM_Blake wrote:
If said airship is 400' high, you hit the ground in the same round you fall off of it.

I'm not accusing you of lying, but where is this rule from?


I think it's from 3.5 rules, actually, but it's partially supported by Pathfinder RAW. Mathematically, falling on Earth amounts to something like 565' in the first 6 seconds and about 1,200' in the next 6 seconds and in every 6-second round after that too (terminal velocity). Or something like that.

But I think 3.5 simplified it to 500' in round one and 1,000' in each round after the first.

Pathfinder has this:

Pathfinder SRD, Environment, Falling wrote:
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.

I think that is a copy/paste from 3.5 to Pathfinder but in a quick search I didn't find the rest of the old rules so maybe those didn't get copied over. Or maybe I missed it somewhere.

In any case, since most spells are just a Standard Action, this seems to imply you need 500' to pull off a Standard Action, not a full round, so I guess it's not very good support after all.


In terms of physics, a 400 foot fall would take about five seconds.

Lantern Lodge

3 people marked this as FAQ candidate.

FAQ Request: What is the mass of Golarion?


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

And falling damage maxes out at 20d6 at 200 feet -- further distance only matters for how long it takes you to fall.

And there is rules support for timing a fall being more difficult than aiming a spell -- casting a spell (other than an immediate action spell) while falling requires a concentration check, while simply aiming a spell does not.


Avoron wrote:
In terms of physics, a 400 foot fall would take about five seconds.
DM_Blake wrote:
Mathematically, falling on Earth amounts to something like 565' in the first 6 seconds and about 1,200' in the next 6 seconds

Both of these statements are incorrect as you are ignoring air resistance. In Pathfinder all creatures reach their terminal velocity after 200 feet, so you cannot ignore it. If you want to apply real-world physics, even assuming an earth-sized planet and earth-like atmosphere, you'd need a lot more information about the falling humanoid than the rules give you (specifically the coefficient of drag and projected area of the falling humanoid).

DM_Blake wrote:
I think it's from 3.5 rules, actually,

I don't think so...

but I recently bought the 3.5 core rules in PDF form, so let's check!

The string "500'" (without the quotes) does not appear in either the DMG or the Rules Compendium. I ctrl+f'd my way through both looking for the string "500 f". The only marginally relevant result is the speed avalanches travel at, which has the same wording in both the DMG and the RC:

Rules Compendium, pg 102 and DMG, pg 90 wrote:

Avalanches of snow and ice advance at a speed of 500 feet

per round. Earth and rock avalanches travel at a speed of 250
feet per round.

The sections on falling damage in both the DMG and the RC also don't say anything about how far you fall in a round. The rules in the falling section are essentially the same as they are in pathfinder (except using the Jump and Tumble skills and not Acrobatics, of course).

So, no, "you fall 500 feet per round" it isn't from 3.5 rules as far as I can tell.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Google-fu attributes it to a 3.5 FAQ.

Here is the relevant FAQ document.

Here's something from the deleted flying rules.

Minimum Forward Speed wrote:
If a flying creature fails to maintain its minimum forward speed, it must land at the end of its movement. If it is too high above the ground to land, it falls straight down, descending 150 feet in the first round of falling. If this distance brings it to the ground, it takes falling damage. If the fall doesn’t bring the creature to the ground, it must spend its next turn recovering from the stall. It must succeed on a DC 20 Reflex save to recover. Otherwise it falls another 300 feet. If it hits the ground, it takes falling damage. Otherwise, it has another chance to recover on its next turn.


Yea, that's what had me questioning DM_Blake. I remembered the flying rules being much less than 500 feet in the first round, but I didn't remember where it was from or exactly what it was.


ShieldLawrence wrote:
I wasn't aware you could drink potions mid-fall.

Alright, put on this chainmail! Now swing this greatsword for ten minutes!

"Thud"
I think he's dead. :(


Don't Drink and Dive..

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=drinking+while+skydiving&qpvt=Drink ing+while+skydiving&FORM=VDRE#view=detail&mid=2D2476820203DEF4CC902 D2476820203DEF4CC90


Wow.... I forget about this thread for one weekend and there are a LOT more reactions than I expected. I'll get back to you guys after I read every comment. :)


Casting Feather Fall is an immediate action, as is activating a Snapleaf. Drinking a Potion, however, is a standard action - so I'm not sure I'd even allow a potion of Feather Fall to be usable at all mid-fall. A higher level one what would last a few rounds, might be useful to be consumed then jump off the cliff, but that's as far as I'd let it go.


For starters I agree with Orfamay Quest that its more fun for the player if I accept it like that. I just wanted to know what others thought regarding this.

Bbangerter I love how you worded that. Definitely suggesting that one for fun and giggles

CraziFuzzy, if you can't use a feather falling potion midfall then what is the point of getting it?

Personally I'd go with the fun route but only to a certain degree.
I'd ask the player to portrait how this goes and I'd add some variables like wind speeds and such. A reflex save against a gust of wind to prevent him from dropping the bottle but that's it.

Though he never said anything about where he was landing ^^ but that's a different story alltogether


TrollingJoker wrote:
CraziFuzzy, if you can't use a feather falling potion midfall then what is the point of getting it?

Feather Fall is not ONLY used in the 'oops, I failed that climb check' moment. It can be used as a standard action as well, prior to the fall. Say you're infiltrating a castle. To escape from atop a tower or wall, you use a standard action to drink your potion of Feather Fall, then use your move action to jump to the ground.


CraziFuzzy wrote:
TrollingJoker wrote:
CraziFuzzy, if you can't use a feather falling potion midfall then what is the point of getting it?
Feather Fall is not ONLY used in the 'oops, I failed that climb check' moment. It can be used as a standard action as well, prior to the fall. Say you're infiltrating a castle. To escape from atop a tower or wall, you use a standard action to drink your potion of Feather Fall, then use your move action to jump to the ground.

This doesn't work. You need to be in freefall to be a valid target, so the potion only does anything when you drink it while already falling.


What Snowblind said and also the person I am discussing wanted to do this knowing fully well that he'd jump off while being a several hundreds of feet in the air.


Readied actions trigger instantly and then resolve prior to the trigger, thus they effectively take zero time and have zero reaction time, and can trigger on any simply stated perceivable condition, so they work here.

Trying to explain how won't probably be successful. It's not really possible to ever explain reasonably how a readied action works in any situation IMO. But it still works as written. Even if you fall for like 1 second, you can complete a full readied standard action both after beginning to fall and prior to impact as written. "drink it 5 feet above the ground" works too.

If you don't like reaction time being zero as totally unrealistic, then you're absolutely right. But it's no more of an issue here than any other time a readied action is used. Ban them all, or let this work, I'd have to say.


I'd let it work if they put the potion in their mouth, jumped, then swallowed. As far as pulling it out and trying to drink it mid air, I'd most likely allow it as long as the fall is really far (falling a few dozen feet won't give you the time, but a few hundred or more might).

All in all, I would say that feather fall is better used as an actual prepared spell rather than a potion. Usually when you need it it's an immediate emergency, so being able to cast it without pulling out a potion or wand or whatever else is probably going to be the most efficient.


If you're worried about lack of gravity, there's also always the potion sponge, designed for underwater, but also great for zero G:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment---final/goods-and-services/containers-bag s-boxes-more#TOC-Potion-Sponge

edit didn't read closely enough that it's full round, however it also seems to be implying it has to do with the waxy waterproof nature of it. Zero G potion could just be a literal sponge and would be reasonable I think at normal speed, although homebrew-ish.


Crimeo I didn't know tbat item. Noted for other reasons ^^


Some effects simply don't make sense as potions. There are a few Feather Fall based magical items, all of them either have a continuous effect, a contingent effect, or are worn in quick reach and activated with an immediate action. I see no reason to try to shoehorn a Potion of Feather Fall around what makes sense. If you must, make a 'Lesser Snapleaf', that removes the invisibility effect, and price it lower accordingly.


In theory you could simply ready an action and drink it.

As a GM I would probably ask for both a dexterity and a wisdom check, since I imagine drinking a potion while free falling and trying to time something just in time to prevent being splattered would be tricky. Not even sure the potion will come out if you are trying to pour it out really.

Both DC 10 checks seem right to me, without armor check penalties since I feel nice today.


I'd use acrobatics, as that's already involved in jumping and falling. At 500' I'd use DC 20 to avoid any damage. The damage they take is based on what they target they hit. DC 15 for 1d6, DC 10 2d6 and DC 5 3d6.


Philo Pharynx wrote:
I'd use acrobatics, as that's already involved in jumping and falling. At 500' I'd use DC 20 to avoid any damage. The damage they take is based on what they target they hit. DC 15 for 1d6, DC 10 2d6 and DC 5 3d6.

Acrobatics to drink the potion.. nah, but sleight of hand would work for me.


I'd definitely make it something dex based.


I'd transfer the potion from the bottle to my mouth before jumping, and try to swallow just before landing.


Matthew Downie wrote:
I'd transfer the potion from the bottle to my mouth before jumping, and try to swallow just before landing.

That might work, GM willing. Though it would cheat the standard action economy a little, it wouldn't be too far fetched for a GM to rule it will only keep it's magic for a few rounds out off the container.


I don't believe a potion's magic is contingent on it being in a vial. Nothing about the vial is special or magical, it's just a container.

Although this delayed swallowing reminds me of the alchemical accoltion (spelling?) spell that is just repeated backwash. One of my GMs who is a germaphobe houseruled it as an evil spell.


CampinCarl9127 wrote:

I don't believe a potion's magic is contingent on it being in a vial. Nothing about the vial is special or magical, it's just a container.

Although this delayed swallowing reminds me of the alchemical accoltion (spelling?) spell that is just repeated backwash. One of my GMs who is a germaphobe houseruled it as an evil spell.

lol, no nothing really. it is just something I might rule on to prevent abuse. I'd give it a few rounds but not more to prevent too much silliness.

Scarab Sages

Me as a GM would ask a CMB or an Acrobatic roll, for everything works as expected, to drink in exact time to desacelerate before hit the floor.

Idk, a CD 30 would be fair imho.


I think that's fair Remco. I mean, just try to walk around with a mouthful of water all day. You can't talk, breath through your mouth, swallow, etc. After a while you'll just swallow. Plus it will slowly become diluted with saliva.


boots of the cat cheep make this whole thing non issues. unless you have less then 20 hp.


Quote:
I don't believe a potion's magic is contingent on it being in a vial. Nothing about the vial is special or magical, it's just a container.

As linked just above, there is a sponge item for soaking potions into, specifically designed to allow you to drink potions in unusual gravity and density environments, already printed by Paizo. So yeah the vial doesn't matter. Also they've engineered a pretty workable free fall potion solution.


CraziFuzzy, you may feel like that but I don't think there is anything wrong with something that is already accepted as a thing in Pathfinder.

But since we are mainly repeating previous statements, I'd like to thank everyone for their suggestions :)

I'd go with the environmental including reflex check and maybe some other things depending on how the player words the action.


All things being equal and the player hasn't got a track record of power gaming or cheesy rule manipulation then I would allow it. I would also advise that if it becomes a habit then I would include a check for misjudgements or mishaps and devise a mini ruleset out of the session.

Given that accurate distance judgement is part of the game for many things including ranged attacks and spells it seems only consistent that they can judge their distance above ground. However they can't assume exactly how long it will take for the potion to take effect, this takes skill or luck.

I would suggest that the Fly skill is probably the most relevant skill though I can imagine arguments for other skills such as acrobatics or even knowledge (arcana) but anyway I would allow the player to state their target height and whether they are likely to drink the potion early or late. If they make their skill check then they judged correctly, but if they failed then for every 1 they have failed the roll by they are 10 feet out in their judgement. High if they drank early and low if they drank late.

If the drinker had a target height of 60 feet and drank early then they would have a fall from where the feather fall ended i.e. 10 to 200 feet up in the air. If they chose late then they might be okay if they failed by 6 or less as they would be in the feather fall zone, but would otherwise hit the ground at full speed. The safest choice then would probably to have 1 foot as the target height and go early so they have the greatest chance of their failed roll still being at a height where feather fall would land them safely.


Remco Sommeling wrote:
Matthew Downie wrote:
I'd transfer the potion from the bottle to my mouth before jumping, and try to swallow just before landing.
That might work, GM willing. Though it would cheat the standard action economy a little, it wouldn't be too far fetched for a GM to rule it will only keep it's magic for a few rounds out off the container.

It would still take a Standard Action to swallow, for game balance reasons. It just removes the manual dexterity aspect.


I know it requires preparation but this is a great reason to own one of my favorite items, the sipping jacket!


Josh-o-Lantern wrote:
I know it requires preparation but this is a great reason to own one of my favorite items, the sipping jacket!

Very nice item indeed!!


KainPen wrote:

boots of the cat cheep make this whole thing non issues. unless you have less then 20 hp.

This is a very popular item in my playgroup, and has been since I ran RotRL.

A player wanted a Ring of Feather Fall, but couldn't afford it (2200 gp) with the other things he wanted to buy. He came across the Boots f the Cat, which was something he could afford, and thought they were good enough.

They ended up saving his character's life in book two of the AP when a series of incidents led to him falling from the cliffs outside of The Misgivings. (If you've read the AP, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.)


Hugo Rune wrote:
Given that accurate distance judgement is part of the game for many things including ranged attacks and spells it seems only consistent that they can judge their distance above ground. However they can't assume exactly how long it will take for the potion to take effect, this takes skill or luck.

From the opposite perspective, I would say their experience in judging a 60 foot distance when attempting to target an enemy with ranged attacks is largely irrelevant to judging the distance of the approaching ground while traveling at roughly 150+ mph towards said ground.

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