My air elementalist just hit 5th level, so all of sudden he can levitate at will, and I'm finding this all sorts of fun. For our first encounter, I had my wizard levitating all the time, and the party ranger was pulling him around on a tether like a big wizard balloon. I just want to check and see if other people read the rules as permitting that sort of thing. Related question: Can I use mage hand to move myself laterally or pull myself toward something fixed? (On the assumption that if I can't pull the other thing toward me, I can pull me toward the other thing. And how much wind would it take to push a levitating person around? How far would a strong wind push him? I'd love to get some peoples' takes on this.
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You cannot move the recipient horizontally, but the recipient could clamber along the face of a cliff, for example, or push against a ceiling to move laterally (generally at half its base land speed).
I'd allow the ally to pull you, halving his own speed to do so. Mage hand has a 5 pound limit, so I'd say no to that. I also wouldn't let the wind push him, unless it was enough to move someone standing on the ground too.
Ok, this is all making sense. I also bought a grappling hook and a length of silk rope for this purpose, to hook on to something I want to move towards and then reel myself in. (I may buy a couple grappling arrows for the same reason.) But as far as preserving mass and how hard it is to push or pull the levitating thing, I wish that were spelled out more clearly. If we're making the analogy to pushing something across the ground, I'd at least want to treat myself (or a levitating object) as being on something like a smoothly rolling platform, so that there's no friction to push against. So yeah, if a fly lands on me that shouldn't send me shooting off, but it shouldn't be like dragging me across the floor either.
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Ok, this is all making sense. I also bought a grappling hook and a length of silk rope for this purpose, to hook on to something I want to move towards and then reel myself in. (I may buy a couple grappling arrows for the same reason.) But as far as preserving mass and how hard it is to push or pull the levitating thing, I wish that were spelled out more clearly. If we're making the analogy to pushing something across the ground, I'd at least want to treat myself (or a levitating object) as being on something like a smoothly rolling platform, so that there's no friction to push against. So yeah, if a fly lands on me that shouldn't send me shooting off, but it shouldn't be like dragging me across the floor either.
I have simplified he comment to make a short post.
If you want to look how levitating work you should look how movement in freefall work. Astronauts get specific training on how to move while weightless to avoid injuries.I think you would get some interesting effect when jumping (not always positive) and if you are towed by someone you wouldn't stop immediately after he has stopped moving. I would have you move half of the previous turn movement in a straight line if the guy on the ground isn't steering you. And you would suffer a to hit penalty when attacking after being towed (based on this line of the spell "A levitating creature that attacks with a melee or ranged weapon finds itself increasingly unstable; the first attack has a –1 penalty on attack rolls, the second –2, and so on, to a maximum penalty of –5. A full round spent stabilizing allows the creature to begin again at –1.").
Adjudicating this kind of stuff can be fairly complicated, so the spell leave it to the GM and players to decide how realistic and detailed they want to make their game with this stuff.
