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.
It would not help him avoid horizontal damage.
It should, by the preponderance of understandings of the rule, help him avoid vertical damage.
By a technical reading of the rule, it would not allow him to avoid vertical damage.
It has been clarified by the Devs several times that, while they write their language this way at times, PF is not meant to be a strict and inflexible matrix of a strictly codified language; instead it is intended to be casual, as in discussion. If the GM has a question about the rule, and can't figure how to rule it, they should lean toward RAW, unless the RAI is clear.
You (well, the OP, for the sake of you all) came to the Rules forum, which strongly skews to RAW, RAI and RAtT often becoming secondary acknowledgements, at best, as people don't want to accidentally house-rule.
That said, here's how I'd rule it, as a GM, and why: he either,
1) takes the damage as if hit by a weapon, but with a possible modifier for terrain he lands in/against ();
2) or falling damage, based on how high he was tossed; use the calculator listed above, or perhaps use the jumping rules (assuming the range of the catapult was the jumped distance/speed) or something else similar to find the maximum height ();
3) I would then take the higher;
4) I would make this decision because he was launched from a catapult in a dangerous and deadly manner, however I'm not overly aggressive in attempting to kill the character; this gives a reasonable "balance" between the fall damage and the weapon damage, and having the damages "overlap" is similar in how PF handles many similar overlapping thing... and also it would allow higher level characters to do this on a whim and come out mostly fine, later, and that's pretty rule-of-cool.
All of this is presupposing a standard game.
In a sillier game of cartoon nonsense, I'd probably lean toward being more merciful; perhaps halving the damage, or allowing lower-DC checks to do so (maybe with silly random +2 bonuses for the "YAH-HOO-HOO-HOOEY~!" scream or something), or taking the lower of the two.
In a grittier or more brutal game of death and pain, I'd probably lean toward being more brutal - either taking the higher of the two damages, dealing 150% damage (after all, damage from the launch), forcing the fortitude checks v. <whatever>, taking the highest and adding half, or even the whole of the other to it, or (in the most brutal, though I probably wouldn't run a game this way) applying the ammunition rules (50% chance of instant death, too broken for raise dead to fix... though reincarnate and resurrection and similar could).
Hope that helps!
EDIT: code fix
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.
Also, one reason it probably went there, quickly, was this:
This is a "just for fun" rule question -
I imagine people would have taken it more seriously, had it been framed as an in-game event. :)
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My math puts it (as used in my post on the first page) at about 6 G's of acceleration upon firing. While that might sound really high, it's very survivable by completely untrained, unequipped people - though a lot of them might pass out. With pressure suits and training, a human's upper limit is over 9 G's, and the record is actually over 46 G's.
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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.
And about twice that while you are being accelerated by the catapult/trebuchet throwing arm. It is not made to propel the ammo in a safe way.
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!!
Let's see:
acceleration from gravity: 9,8 m/s, round out at 10so a terminal speed of 22 m/s is 2,2 seconds of acceleration
so a fall of 1/2g*T^2 = 5*2.2*2.2 = 24.2 m = 80.67 f
so when you are propelled at that speed you by a giant kick in the ass from the catapult arm you would suffer something like 8d6 of damage.
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.
Well, as already stated, feather fall has the following description if it's being cast on ammunition:
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.
So, essentially, when cast on an eligible falling rock thrown by a catapult, the rock will deal half damage, with no bonus for height mainly because feather fall would negate vertical momentum although the rock still has horizontal momentum and weight.
Normally, you can consider that the ammunition is either completely destroyed on impact (greek fire jar, for example), or it lands in a more or less compact shape (boulder), mainly because to usually don't mind what happens with the ammo once thrown, only where it lands.
If you cast FF on a falling "squishy" ammunition and you actually need to calculat how much damage the ammunition takes, you should consider the same scenario. The "ammunition" will deal "ammunition damage" but, since it's also a "squishy" ammunition, it would also receive damage on impact.
The two best options for damage received would be:
1-. Use falling damage rules, based on horizontal momentum only (since vertical damage is negated by the feather fall). This forces you to rule at how much ft/round the creature travels, but seems the best option
2-. The "ammunition" receives the same damage it deals. you calculate dealt damage, halve it and remove height bonus (featherfall rules) and deal the same damage to both "target" and "ammunition".
Let's see:
acceleration from gravity: 9,8 m/s, round out at 10
so a terminal speed of 22 m/s is 2,2 seconds of acceleration
so a fall of 1/2g*T^2 = 5*2.2*2.2 = 24.2 m = 80.67 f
so when you are propelled at that speed you by a giant kick in the ass from the catapult arm you would suffer something like 8d6 of damage.
Be aware that Pathfinder's default unit time tends to be the round. While having a much sparse ruling about fall damage, in general terms you might clone rules from D20 systems Pf comes from, namely:
"In a single round, you fall far enough to hit the ground in the vast majority circumstances that come up in the game"
To apply "fall damage" to horizontal movement, you should also apply the distance traveled in a full round, not just a single second.
Then there's the expanded ruling for lenghty falls (500ft/round the 1st round, 1200ft/round the next ones), but this one shouldn't be needed.