Greetings, ladies and gentlemen:
Say a character (or a monster) is flying 10' or 60' over the ground. Would dropping to the ground (voluntarily ceasing flight and falling, as opposed to landing) be a no action or a move action?
What I'm looking at is if the falling character would have his move+ standard+5'step regular full round.
Also: can he use a spell-like ability once he is on the ground?
Related: to avoid all "falling damage" could he make a DC 10 Fly check? (The Fly skill says "If you are falling and have the ability to fly you can make a DC 10 Fly check to negate the damage. You cannot make this check if you are falling due to a failed Fly check or a collision", which wouldn't be the case). Or would he be limited to the regular Acrobatics?
Good questions, too...
Falling on purpose would count as a move action, in my opinion. This would be the same for jumping off a cliff, dropping from a tree or deciding to stop flying.
Anything that covers any distance at the behest of the character should take some form of action. Falling is FAR faster than any form of movement, so anything less than say 100' should be a move action. An acrobatics check is usually required to avoid damage. If damage occurs, the character falls prone. I see no reason to disallow the fly check in place of the acrobatics check, but then you are flying, not falling, so why fall just to fly again?
No matter what the ruling on action economy, as the character chose it and was not forced to move, say from a bull rush, then this movement stops him from being able to make a 5' step in the same round.
Yes, he should be able to make a standard action, such as use a spell-like ability once on the ground.
In my opinion, dropping down would provoke an AoO, but there is a lot of discussion on that throughout the boards and many disagree.
Usually you only provoke when you leave squares at your own option. As such, I would not provoke if you stalled or we petrified.
A lot of this is just how I would rule and not anything hard and fast. Your mileage may vary.
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Well, to help determine whether Falling is a Free Action or No Action;
Let's say I'm Flying and someone Immobilizes or Paralyzes me. Do I immediately plummet, or does it wait until it's my turn before I plummet?
I know in the games I've played, after falling into water whilst paralyzed, I would only sink on my turn. I'm not sure how that compares to flying.
If it is still turn-based at that point, then perhaps it's a Free Action(by choice or not). If not, then perhaps it's a No Action.
Whichever answer it is, should bring us to the next question/point...
I'm with Komoda that for balance purposes choosing to "free fall" only to resume flying to avoid taking damage should be a move action, that allows you to fall up to 500 ft per round (which is I believe how fast you fall, though I may be wrong as it doesn't come up often).
The move action part also represents spending time moving not just effort. It's the reason that despite being mounted, melee mounted characters still only get one attack (standard action) when their mount moves. They have to wait to get there to make the attack.