A brief thought exercise here...
Suppose a Dwarf is wearing a Ring of Feather Fall, and suppose he is picked up by a very large creature (gargantuan - Black Magga, for example).
What happens,to said dwarf when he is subsequently thrown against a building?
Would the ring provide any kind of protection?
The drop after impacting the structure, yeah... but what about the trip towards impact?
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Assuming he is thrown with sufficient force to go strait into the wall, it wont even activate until he falls after impact. The ring doesn't activate until you fall at least 5 feet and even then, it only slows FALLING. Also note, if said Giant "spikes" him on the ground it also won't help because that is not falling, falling is the act gravity is exerting and the force the Giant is exerting on the Dwarf is not gravity.
Websters Dictionary Definition of fall: "to descend freely by the force of gravity"
Horizontal motion, the ring has no effect. Vertical motion (downward) the ring activates after 5'. Being thrown so the trajectory is an arc, the ring won't activate until after he passes the apex and has traveled far enough to be 5' below the height at the apex - but now it's any GM's best guess as to whether he now feather-falls straight down (losing all horizontal velocity and falling 60' per round) due to the spell or not - I would say yes, other GMs may disagree (another fair but, to me, weird solution is to reduce vertical movement to 60' per round but still have the same horizontal velocity which would result in a very long throw indeed), but there are no rules so it's entirely up to the GM.
Unlike Drake, I would say that being thrown at the ground would still activate Feather Fall which wouldn't care if it's free-fall or a downward throw. The text in the spell that says it only works on "free-falling objects" is pretty specifically applied to objects and then clarified for projectile weapons. To me, this part of the text doesn't apply to people (who are not objects), but I can see how this is potentially debatable too.
I would say that the ring reduces the vertical movement but not the horizontal movement.
A ring of feather fall reduces vertical movement if the creature wearing it falls more than 5 feet. It doesn't affect horizontal movement so I wouldn't let it do so. Yes it would be a very long throw, so good luck to the player getting back by the end of the fight.
I would also let it be activated on being thrown downwards because once the giant lets go the player is in freefall and gravity is acting on them.
Horizontal motion, the ring has no effect. Vertical motion (downward) the ring activates after 5'. Being thrown so the trajectory is an arc, the ring won't activate until after he passes the apex and has traveled far enough to be 5' below the height at the apex - but now it's any GM's best guess as to whether he now feather-falls straight down (losing all horizontal velocity and falling 60' per round) due to the spell or not - I would say yes, other GMs may disagree (another fair but, to me, weird solution is to reduce vertical movement to 60' per round but still have the same horizontal velocity which would result in a very long throw indeed), but there are no rules so it's entirely up to the GM.
Unlike Drake, I would say that being thrown at the ground would still activate Feather Fall which wouldn't care if it's free-fall or a downward throw. The text in the spell that says it only works on "free-falling objects" is pretty specifically applied to objects and then clarified for projectile weapons. To me, this part of the text doesn't apply to people (who are not objects), but I can see how this is potentially debatable too.
I would have to disagree with the apex. An object starts falling as soon as it is released from the creature. So therefore you need to determine the amount of time it takes to fall 5 feet.
The amount of time before an object falls 5 feet is .56 seconds
Calculation for fall time: this