I recently came upon a conundrum when I was running a scenario for PFS.
One of the characters in the party fell into a spiked pit trap. As soon as the pit opened, the wizard in the party cast Feather Fall on said character.
What should happen next? I can't imagine Feather Fall NOT adding any kind of benefit to the character as they fall into a pit, regardless of what is at the bottom of it.
Here is what I ruled: At the time I was using the slightly controversial rule that characters are flat-footed against traps they are unaware of. I told the player that he would not be flat footed against the trap because he would fall in the pit much more slowly. The pit in question was only 10 ft. deep, but I also made a mental note about ruling that the spikes of the pit would get -1 to hit the player for each 10ft. beyond 20ft(to a maximum of -2), if that would apply to the situation. This is because the character should have some time to maneuver in mid air in an effort to avoid the spikes as much as possible.
It is also reasonable to think that the spikes would not do as much damage to the player, as the Feather Fall spell would cause him/her to have less momentum, but I waved this idea because:
1. I feel like I was already being too charitable with the AC bonuses as it is, and 2. I also thought that falling onto spikes very slowly would be extremely painful, and hence the damage would be perceived by the character as about the same as it would have without the spell.
In case anyone was wondering, this is a standard spiked pit trap from page 420 of the Core Rulebook.
If you were GMing this, what ruling would you make? If you are a player, what benefit would you reasonably expect to receive from the spell, if any? Should the depth of the pit make any difference at all?
One more thing: Let's please, please, PLEASE not make this into a Feather-Fall-immediate-action-etc thread.
No falling damage. Probably reduced spike damage to 1d6.
Edit, I was looking at Spiked Pit spell not Feather Fall.
Still, no falling damage. Maybe 1d2 damage instead of 1d4.
Well, there would be no falling damage regardless as long as the spell was up. I was wondering about the level of awareness the character should be allowed and the resulting damage. I also understand that Feather Fall doesn't make a huge difference in speed, but it is still meaningfully slower, and as such would still be up to the GM to decide the result.
This thread is based purely on opinion, so there is no way to reach a concrete consensus, but multiple view points and trains of thought could help with deciphering what the best decision could conceivably be.
My ruling would be no falling damage, but still take spike damage unmodified. Despite the name, you are not falling like a feather, the character is still coming down fairly quickly (60' in 10s). Also, in PFS, you can't make up rules regardless of how reasonable they may be, so the spikes attack per RAW.
It's actually 60' per round (or 6s, not 10s), or 10'/second - or about 7 mph. This is jogging speed for most humans. Personally I'd do no (or very minimal) spike damage.
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Falling speed is normally 500 ft per round for the first round, then 1200 feet per round. Since fall speed is reduced to 60' per round, I would say no damage at all from the trap. It was designed for something 20x faster (1200) and the spikes probably weren't designed to pierce something going so slowly. You could argue that they're nails or whatever, but if they're still doing more damage, then the player deserves a lower DC on the reflex check since they're going 20x slower than intended for the trap.
Probably not something you'd think about, but how densely arranged were the spikes? Most of the time, when I see a spiked pit in fiction, the spikes are far enough apart that one can easily stand without impaling one's feet.
Probably not something you'd think about, but how densely arranged were the spikes? Most of the time, when I see a spiked pit in fiction, the spikes are far enough apart that one can easily stand without impaling one's feet.
Ha Ha that immediately reminded me of this. I personally like to think of spikes in such a pit to be tightly condensed, like this.
At the time I was using the slightly controversial rule that characters are flat-footed against traps they are unaware of.Feather Fall should give them time to get their bearings and get their dex bonus against the spikes, the spikes themselves should do full damage, the fall should do no damage.
I like to keep things simple.
Yes, I did that as well. My next sentence after the one you quoted:
I told the player that he would not be flat footed against the trap because he would fall in the pit much more slowly.
Basically, my final ruling was that I would suspend the lack of dex to the player's AC due to the player's increased awareness of the trap. I didn't think I should have to change the damage for the aforementioned reasons. Upon reading other's posts, I think it is reasonable to reduce or wave the damage, but that just happened not to be the decision I made at the time.
I think I should remind people that the spell was cast on the character after they had already failed the reflex save and started falling into the pit.