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This is a "just for fun" rule question -
A character is the 'missile' for a catapult.
What would the effects of this spell: feather fall be on that person as he's launched from that catapult?
Well, based on the spell's wording, I'd say you should apply the following FF sentence:
This spell has no special effect on ranged weapons unless they are falling quite a distance. If the spell is cast on a falling item, the object does half normal damage based on its weight, with no bonus for the height of the drop.
I'd totally consider the character a "ranged weapon" for this purpose, so I'd apply the "falling quite a distance" sentence. I'd say feather fall would only activate once the character is falling AND a good amount of the horizontal momentum gained from the launch is lost. If horizontal momentum is still high enough... well, bring something to peel off the remnants off the wall.
Throw the character as a volley, and be aware that feather fall starts ticking on cast, not when the character starts falling. A very large throw might end with the spell ending mid flight.
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Are you sure you wouldn't rather use a trebuchet?
You do know they can throw a 90 kg projectile over 300m right?
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Grey area on whether it would work.
As a GM I'd probably allow it.
Not too dissimilar from having a raging barbarian throw the halfling across the room.
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My players used this tactic to leave a besieged city and target the attacking army's command center.
A couple small creatures in one sling and the overly large, heavily burdened barbarian and a bard in the other.
This site made the math really easy.
The small PCs flew over the walls, and featherfall slowed their descent to 60 ft/round, but did nothing for their forward momentum. Release velocity was just over a thousand feet per round, and they were in the air for just one round. I knocked off a bit for wind resistance, but they took damage (10d6, DC 20 Reflex for half) when they crashed into the jungle.
The other PCs didn't adjust the counterweight and barely cleared the walls.
Everyone had to make Fortitude saves to stay conscious against the 6 G's they pulled on take off.
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I designed an encounter for my players very similar to this.
I ruled that Feather Fall when launched from a catapult would only activate the moment you began to descend. Thus a creature would fly upwards in an arc, but when they reached their peak they would begin to fall downwards at 60 ft. per the spell. For simplicity's sake I didn't include any calculations for deceleration, and ruled that Feather Falling halts all horizontal movement when it activates to avoid players abusing it for jumping long distance.
The encounter itself was designed to be a group of orcs that were pushing a huge catapult towards a town with the intent of besieging it. Their leader, described as a 'fat tub of lard, barking orders at his soldiers' from his seat in the basket of the catapult was a tempting target for the group to launch into the air, as it was clear to see the catapult was readied to fire.
Of course, the leader was an orcish Sorcerer wearing a ring of feather falling. Shooting him into the air would give him enough time to lob a few fireballs at long range back at the group as he floated to the ground.
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I designed an encounter for my players very similar to this.
I ruled that Feather Fall when launched from a catapult would only activate the moment you began to descend. Thus a creature would fly upwards in an arc, but when they reached their peak they would begin to fall downwards at 60 ft. per the spell. For simplicity's sake I didn't include any calculations for deceleration, and ruled that Feather Falling halts all horizontal movement when it activates to avoid players abusing it for jumping long distance.
The encounter itself was designed to be a group of orcs that were pushing a huge catapult towards a town with the intent of besieging it. Their leader, described as a 'fat tub of lard, barking orders at his soldiers' from his seat in the basket of the catapult was a tempting target for the group to launch into the air, as it was clear to see the catapult was readied to fire.
Of course, the leader was an orcish Sorcerer wearing a ring of feather falling. Shooting him into the air would give him enough time to lob a few fireballs at long range back at the group as he floated to the ground.
Well, what you said is actually found in the feather fall spell description:
This spell has no special effect on ranged weapons unless they are falling quite a distance. If the spell is cast on a falling item, the object does half normal damage based on its weight, with no bonus for the height of the drop.
Something thrown off a catapult can perfectly be considered as a "ranged weapon", be either a rock or anything else, so either you activate feather fall once the weapon reaches maximum height and starts falling (it doesn't exactly follow the description), or after the weapon has fallen enough distance...
Main point is... how much distance is required for the "weapon" to fall for FF to activate since the description says it must fall "quite a distance"?.
Since making math calculations would take too much time, I'd say that you could just define the landing point, consider the "weapon" reaches maximum height at half the distance, then randomly chose a point between the "maximum height point" and the landing point where FF will activate (45% +1d10 x5% distance for example; per the description, Feather Fall WILL activate before the weapon reaches the ground).
Also, because of the description, seems the "weapon" doesn't lose horizontal momentum, only vertical one (anything thrown with speed still deals half damage based on weigth, with no height bonus - because of the feather fall), so seems you can still "squash" the character against a wall. Also, if thrown with enough horizontal speed, a character most probably will stumble a decent distance upon landing, probably falling prone in the preccess...
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If it is done as a one-off I would allow it - rule of cool. I would then work out a mechanism after the session. Looking through a previous posting about using feather fall at the last moment on a long fall. I would use the Fly skill as the basis for determining whether they can use feather fall to land safely, or whether they end up being a squishy rock due to horizontal movement.
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Creatures aren't weapons. A weapon is an object, creatures aren't objects unless they're dead and not undead.
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Anything is a weapon, if a giant grap one creature and use him like a club, is definitely a weapon.
One guy thrown by a catapult is considered ammunation, no?
Care to show rules for a giant using a creature as a club?
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Care to show rules for a giant using a creature as a club?
I agree with Victoria here. If a big enough creature (let's say at least a two size difference) can grapple another and be allowed at least a Standard Action the same round (maintaining grapple is by default a standard action), I'd totally allow her to attack with the unfortunate as an Improvised Weapon, no matter the grappled creature is conscious or not. And not only that: first, the unfortunate would also receive damage from any hit "dealt"; and second, if the creature wears metal or heavy enough armor, instead of a club she'd behave as a heavy mace.
For me, something like THIS is totally doable in Pathfinder.
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One guy thrown by a catapult is considered ammunation, no?
Which of course means that there is a 50% chance that the guy is utterly destroyed on a miss, and a 100% chance that the guy is utterly destroyed on a hit. :P
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Care to show rules for a giant using a creature as a club?
=/
Dream breaker! xD
Well, I dont know any rules about this, but not need to be a living creature, if you can catch a rosted chicken to hit, why he cannot use a corpse? Its a improvised weapon or something like this.
I understang we're talkin about rules, in my case house rules, but is a fantasy world, we're talking about people being thrown into catapult! Why giants can not throw people? Some times rules look like silly...
I understand that I'm not talking about the subject of the post....
Im just a beginner... Im sorry if I'm talking nonsense.
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Care to show rules for a giant using a creature as a club?
Well.... the spell Enemy Hammer has some. So I might just go with those.
and using the FF spell would extend the range of the shot (IMHO). Throw the PCs a lot farther... After all, the "falling" part of the vector is slowed/reduced...
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One guy thrown by a catapult is considered ammunation, no?Which of course means that there is a 50% chance that the guy is utterly destroyed on a miss, and a 100% chance that the guy is utterly destroyed on a hit. :P
Well, first of all, the "ammunition" can't do anything about targeting so the catapult engineers chose a square and make an indirect attack to that square. In case of a "hit", the "ammunition" will land in the expected square, and in case of a "miss" GM must check the deviation from the target square using the indirect shot rules to see where the "ammunition" actually ends.
In case there's a wall or vertical surface somewhere near a "MISS" landing zone (on a HIT the creature WILL land in the chosen square, automatically bypassing any obstacles), the GM must chose that happens depending on the angle the "ammunition" was thrown. The creature may end up as a stain if height is not enough, or may actually land on top of the vertical surface if it is.
Now, once the creature "correctly" lands somewhere (feather fall activates and the creature actually touches ground), what happens next would depend on horizontal momentum because if it's too high, any creature landing at such speed will probably lose control. I'd say that if horizontal momentum is greater than double the creature's default land speed, then she can't control the landing, immediately falls prone and starts tumbling for some distance (maybe a 5-10% of the total distance thrown, receiving some damage during the proccess). In case the creature's base speed is enough, then has the choice to somewhat control the landing (for example, by immediately using a full-round action to "brake" or something similar)
...
and using the FF spell would extend the range of the shot (IMHO). Throw the PCs a lot farther... After all, the "falling" part of the vector is slowed/reduced...
Now THIS is a good point. Absolutely right since FF only controls vertical landing speed.
Once FF "activates" the landing zone would completely change since the vertical speed becomes just 60ft/round. The more horizontal momentum the lauch has, the farther away the creature will end.
"Spatting" just became way more probable... XD
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A quick google search is showing about 50 miles per hour as the speed of a trebuchet rock. A human would probably be going slower, but either way thats still 22 meters per second, or roughly a 15 foot drop so.. 1d6 or 2d6 damage as you splat into the wall.
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Players should be able to do cool/heroic/cinematic things even if the rules don't address it. That is one of the best things about playing this type of game - you are not constrained by the rules.
At the same time, we don't always need to break things down to detailed math and physics mid-game.
If you needed a ruling, I would probably rule that it wouldn't take affect until after "apogee" for simplification of "falling", and that their distance traveled doesn't change (again for simplification).
In reality, this type of thing should be more or a "cinematic" moment, played out in story-form, maybe with some skill checks involved instead (acrobatics to be on target, K-engineering for a "good shot", etc.). Making this a "game-mechanic" moment rather ruins it in my opinion. Just determine that it would be possible, maybe make some checks, and describe in story what happens.
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Care to show rules for a giant using a creature as a club?
While raging, if the barbarian pins an opponent that is smaller than her, she can then use that opponent as a two-handed improvised weapon that deals 1d8 points of bludgeoning damage, assuming the opponent is sized Small. Larger or smaller creatures used as a bludgeon deal damage based on their size using this base damage. A size Tiny creature deals 1d6 points of damage, a size Medium creature deals 1d10 points of damage, and so on. The barbarian can make a single attack using the pinned opponent as part of the action she uses to maintain the grapple, using her highest attack bonus. Whenever the barbarian hits using the pinned opponent as a weapon, she deals damage to her target normally, and the grappled opponent used as a bludgeon also takes the same damage she dealt to the target. If the pinned opponent is unable to resist being pinned for any reason, the barbarian can use that opponent as an improvised weapon without grappling or pinning the opponent, until the creature is reduced to 0 or fewer hit points, at which point the creature becomes useless as an improvised weapon. A barbarian must be at least 10th level before selecting this rage power.
I remember reading something once about "Gnome-chucks"...
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A quick google search is showing about 50 miles per hour as the speed of a trebuchet rock. A human would probably be going slower, but either way thats still 22 meters per second, or roughly a 15 foot drop so.. 1d6 or 2d6 damage as you splat into the wall.
Actually... 22m/s are about 72 ft/s, not 15.
Also, a PF round has 6s, not 1, so a character would travel horizontally 430ft per round. That's some serious speed and some serious damage, not just a couple d6's.
True, there's no acceleration like in a vertical fall, so maybe halve or even divide by 3 the "falling distance", but I really think that 1s damage is too low.
SPLAT!!
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I just ran the calcs. 22 m/s is equivalent to falling for 2.24s, meaning it is reached after falling 24.7m, or 81 feet. 8d6.
Not a bad value... but there's still the issue that Pathfinder measures "fall damage" in rounds, not in seconds.
If you fall 400ft in a single round you take the max of 20d6 damage (there's no max fall distance in PF, but in DnD3, chara falls upt o 500ft the first round then up to 1200ft/rnd the next ones). If you splat! against a wall at 432ft/round, I really feel taking "just" 8d6 is too little.
Vertical falling and horizontal "crashing" damages should be equal.
Acceleration isn't what causes the damage when you impact a surface. It's the velocity you're going when you experience the sudden deceleration. Going 50 mph horizontally into a huge stone wall will do exactly the same amount of damage as going 50 mph vertically into a huge stone floor.
My point was that on a vertical fall, part of it (and the 20d6 damage cap) is due to reaching terminal velocity. Since on an horizontal impact there will be zero acceleration, unless the launcher is powerful enough to throw the character at terminal velocity (let's ignore slowdown due to friction), maybe part of those 20d6 could be no longer valid (crashing at 430ft/round is way past the 200ft fall required for receiving capped damage. Namely pointed that in case the "launcher" used threw the character at a smaller speed, like 150ft/round).
in that case part of the crash damage could be negated, or maybe converted to nonlethal.
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Glide 2nd level spell might be a better spell choice.
Yup, probably a better choice, but I'd say that gliding in a "catapult scenario" should be limited. Glide seems to be planned as a "safe landing" BASE jump of sorts, where you drop vertically with negligible horizontal momentum. When horizontal momentum is high, then Glide should only grant maneuverability.
Taking into account is a low level spell (SL1-2 depending on class), should not be able to completely counter a high sped launch. Still, I'd totally agree that a lauched character under a glide spell would be able to make small turns (10º per round?), some strafing (keeping general launch direction), being allowed to "brake" a little every turn, and maybe be allowed slight altitude control (gaining speed by dropping some altitude).
In game terms, I'd say that a character affected by feather fall would be at the engineers and indirect shot rules mercy. A character affected by Glide might try to adjust course in case the engineers screw up their attack roll to land where he expected (maybe a reflex save or flight check, DC depending on how much the engineers screwed the launch?))
Also, a gliding character could also be allowed a roll to "squeeze" into a thight space of enough size (through the castle portcullis, for example?)
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People are focusing too much on the question of whether or not the creatures thrown would be considered ranged weapons. That seems to be less of an issue as I'd imagine anyone being shot out of a catapult/trebuche would reach a point that they have fallen "quite a distance" At which point Feather falling works.
This spell has no special effect on ranged weapons unless they are falling quite a distance. If the spell is cast on a falling item, the object does half normal damage based on its weight, with no bonus for the height of the drop.
Once you determine that Feather falling works. The question becomes, are the creatures items or objects. Now if they are constructs, then you may have a debate on your hands. But for normal flesh and blood creatures, the answer is a very simple NO! Creatures are NOT items or objects. Therefore feather falling would work on them normally.
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People are focusing too much on the question of whether or not the creatures thrown would be considered ranged weapons. That seems to be less of an issue as I'd imagine anyone being shot out of a catapult/trebuche would reach a point that they have fallen "quite a distance" At which point Feather falling works.
...no and yes on that last statement...(lol...)
if you cast a spell on a target that does not meet the targeting requirements the spell fails.
One also assumes that at any time during the duration of a spell if the targeting requirements are not met the spell will fail and end at that point in time unless the spell contains verbage otherwise. The spell does not "wait" for valid requirements to return.What is being alluded to is that the weapon must have fallen quite a distance and THEN Feather Fall could be applied to that item. I don't know if they are implying that most of the forward momentum (of the ammo) must be lost before Feather Fall works, that's a GM's call.
So if you are stating that Feather Fall can be cast and then later comes into effect, that's a no.
No I stated no such stipulation. Feather fall is an immediate cast, so the "ammo" creature in question can cast featherfall at any time.
Furthermore, I would even argue that at the point that you cast the spell you are making a choice to go from projectile weapon, to simply a falling creature, since you are no longer acting as a ranged weapon, then featherfalling works as you are only a creature.
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It might help to read a definition of free falling. The key words are "where gravity is the only force acting upon it".
This would mean that significant forces such as turbulence and air resistance from moving in a direction other than that of the acceleration due to the local gravitic field would disqualify the free fall state.
Thus catapult ammo once shot in the usual manner is not in free fall.
** spoiler omitted **...
It might help to read the definition of force
This would mean that once the catapult/trebuche completes it's launch the object still has the momentum that was created by the launch but the force is no longer being applied, so from the instant it enters the air it transitions to freefalling.
Furthermore even the page you linked on freefalling stipulates the same
An object in the technical sense of free fall may not necessarily be falling down in the usual sense of the term. An object moving upwards would not normally be considered to be falling, but if it is subject to the force of gravity only, it is said to be in free fall. The moon is thus in free fall.Also, if you apply
The example of a falling skydiver who has not yet deployed a parachute is not considered free fall from a physics perspective, since he experiences a drag force that equals his weight once he has achieved terminal velocity (see below -> after falling about 1500ft). However, the term "free fall skydiving" is commonly used to describe this case in everyday speech, and in the skydiving community. It is not clear, though, whether the more recent sport of wingsuit flying fits under the definition of free fall skydiving.
Then only objects in a vacuum would ever be free-falling as any object outside of a vacuum would have atmospheric pressures applying force, would have drag/air resistance in motion. So Featherfall would never work outside of a vacuum.
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Okay then. Note that this disallows your previous hypothesis,
One also assumes that at any time during the duration of a spell if the targeting requirements are not met the spell will fail and end at that point in time unless the spell contains verbage otherwise.since it would make feather fall completely useless (as it cancels itself).
Then, we would need to remove friction. By changing reference frames, the air drag is the same as if the caster was standing/falling and the air is moving past him. As such, any effect that removes wind forces on the caster would remove this drag. Adding Cloak of Winds to the spells required solves this problem up to 74mph/651 feed per round.
Another valid point, strictly off the definition of freefall the moment you apply featherfall you introduce another force that counters gravity, which instantly ends the freefall status, which then instantly ends the featherfall spell.
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this is why the game is not physics... physics has a stricter definition of what is free fall and game rules are written using common english definitions.
So what the GM has to determine is how much extra forces are allowed and what constitutes a common definition of free fall from a DnD perspective.IMO since the spell slows things to 10ft/sec this would seem to be a good limiting velocity for other directions of movement.
So you're saying that if you're already going 10ft/sec horizontally then you're under the effect of another force and can't apply Featherfall?
Or do you mean if you're going 50ft/sec Horizontally and 50/sec Vertically that Feather fall reduces both to 10ft/sec each.
Or are you saying regardless of speed or direction Featherfall would slow you to 10ft/sec in that same direction?
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this is why the game is not physics... physics has a stricter definition of what is free fall and game rules are written using common english definitions.
So what the GM has to determine is how much extra forces are allowed and what constitutes a common definition of free fall from a DnD perspective.IMO since the spell slows things to 10ft/sec this would seem to be a good limiting velocity for other directions of movement.
So you're saying that if you're already going 10ft/sec horizontally then you're under the effect of another force and can't apply Featherfall?
Or do you mean if you're going 50ft/sec Horizontally and 50/sec Vertically that Feather fall reduces both to 10ft/sec each.
Or are you saying regardless of speed or direction Featherfall would slow you to 10ft/sec in that same direction?
A non-downward velocity of more than 10ft/s (60ft/round or Spd:12) will exceed the targeting limitations of Feather Fall. You can use a horizontal vector normal to the planet's surface for calculation purposes.
I'm a reasonable person. So let's say a normal human runs off a cliff and Feather Fall works. They ran for 4*30ft of move in a round or are going 20ft/sec. It would be reasonable to rule that it works and 20ft/sec would be the limiting velocity for free fall as far as Feather Fall in your game is concerned.
I WOULD have Feather Fall slow your movement to 10ft/sec in any direction so long as the starting velocity was within reason.
So it works for a "normal" person... But a level 9th monk (or any normal person with Haste) with the Run Feat is able to move at 300ft a round, for 50ft/sec and if they jump off the cliff they can't activate feather fall?
Then what about for instances like the catapult, are you really going to have the players/gm start having to research to determine how fast they are moving horizontally to determine if their featherfall worked or if they just wasted the spell, resulting in them falling to their death.
OR, do you just say the person is not flying, behind held up by anything, and for general purposes meets the condition that the only force acting on them at this instant is gravity, so they are free falling and are able to cast featherfall successfully?
Feather fall can then slow them down, but not otherwise change their trajectory. Easy to implement, no complex calculations, and generally makes sense on a practical level!
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So i'm just going to trow some context into this real quick. I'm seeing a lot of "rule of cool" he should get to do it posts. But in reality what happened was the big scary giant grappled and put the pc in the catapult and launched him. We were curious if feather fall would of helped him not die.
I remember reading something once about "Gnome-chucks"...
(There, uh... there is some supplementary reading required, to get some of the joke, I'm afraid. Sorry! (But not that sorry!))