Hello! So I was having a chat with my GM when he brought up he discovered something new about Feather Fall to him. Curious, I asked what it was. He says that Feather Fall requires a concentration check to cast, which i'm pretty sure is wrong, and that you can't cast it on stationary creatures only free-falling creatures.
Targets one Medium or smaller free-falling object or creature/level, no two of which may be more than 20 ft. apart
Clearly this is meaning Objects that are already falling, not objects and creatures already falling. The OR is a clear separation yes?
So nothing should stop me from casting Feather Fall and then jumping down a hole yes?I saw a thread on Feather Fall from 2012 but it didn't hold answers to my questions.
The duration is "until landed". If you are standing on the ground, you are already landed and therefore the spell ends instantly. It must be cast on you while you are falling.
The spell effects already falling creatures or objects, so jump into the hole and then cast Feather Fall. But it is an immediate action to cast it - you can cast it outside your normal turn order at the cost of a swift action i your turn, or as a swift action in your turn. So you would not risk hitting the bottom before the spell goes off.
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The duration is "until landed". If you are standing on the ground, you are already landed and therefore the spell ends instantly. It must be cast on you while you are falling.Hello! So I was having a chat with my GM when he brought up he discovered something new about Feather Fall to him. Curious, I asked what it was. He says that Feather Fall requires a concentration check to cast, which i'm pretty sure is wrong, and that you can't cast it on stationary creatures only free-falling creatures.
Targets one Medium or smaller free-falling object or creature/level, no two of which may be more than 20 ft. apart
Clearly this is meaning Objects that are already falling, not objects and creatures already falling. The OR is a clear separation yes?
So nothing should stop me from casting Feather Fall and then jumping down a hole yes?I saw a thread on Feather Fall from 2012 but it didn't hold answers to my questions.
until landing or 1 round/level
You are wrong sir. try again.
Whichever would come first. Which would be "until landed" as you are already in contact with the ground.
And would thus require a concentration check for vigorous motion during casting.
No, it isn't vigorous motion. It is worse than that.
A character cannot cast a spell while falling, unless the fall is greater than 500 feet or the spell is an immediate action, such as feather fall. Casting a spell while falling requires a concentration check with a DC equal to 20 + the spell's level. Casting teleport or a similar spell while falling does not end your momentum, it just changes your location, meaning that you still take falling damage, even if you arrive atop a solid surface.
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The target for Feather Fall, broken down, is:
One
Medium or smaller
free-falling object or creature
per level
no two of which may be more than 20 ft. apart
That means that you cannot cast it on anything or anyone that is not free-falling.
Also:
A character cannot cast a spell while falling, unless the fall is greater than 500 feet or the spell is an immediate action, such as feather fall. Casting a spell while falling requires a concentration check with a DC equal to 20 + the spell’s level. Casting teleport or a similar spell while falling does not end your momentum, it just changes your location, meaning that you still take falling damage, even if you arrive atop a solid surface.
Your GM is unfortunately right.
No, it isn't vigorous motion. It is worse than that.
A character cannot cast a spell while falling, unless the fall is greater than 500 feet or the spell is an immediate action, such as feather fall. Casting a spell while falling requires a concentration check with a DC equal to 20 + the spell's level. Casting teleport or a similar spell while falling does not end your momentum, it just changes your location, meaning that you still take falling damage, even if you arrive atop a solid surface.
Correct, but Feather Fall IS an Immediate Action spell.
Evidence you can't cast it on just any creature is found in the spell itself.
Feather fall works only upon free-falling objects. It does not affect a sword blow or a charging or flying creature.
The spell has no effect on a creature that is not in free-fall.
Correct, but Feather Fall IS an Immediate Action spell.
Yes it is. And that is what allows you to attempt to cast it at all. Read that first sentence again. You can not cast a spell unless you fall far enough, or it is an immediate action. Not even attempt it - it fails. The concentration check is for spells that you can potentially cast - ones that are an immediate action casting or ones you cast if you fall far enough.
Correct, but Feather Fall IS an Immediate Action spell.No, it isn't vigorous motion. It is worse than that.
A character cannot cast a spell while falling, unless the fall is greater than 500 feet or the spell is an immediate action, such as feather fall. Casting a spell while falling requires a concentration check with a DC equal to 20 + the spell's level. Casting teleport or a similar spell while falling does not end your momentum, it just changes your location, meaning that you still take falling damage, even if you arrive atop a solid surface.
All that means is that you can cast it even if you're falling less than 500 feet. It doesn't eliminate the Concentration check.
Creatures are not considered objects by the rules of the game unless unconscious or dead. Otherwise I could cast Shatter on you and treat you as an object. or anything else that effects objects.
I never said they were. Or even implied it. Let me bold the relevant part so it is easier for you to find.
Feather fall works only upon free-falling objects. It does not affect a sword blow or a charging or flying creature.
You can't cast it on a creature that isn't falling. Theoretically you could cast it on a flying creature (as they aren't in contact with the ground already) and they could stop flying and start falling gently, but the spell explicitly forbids it.
Whatever you cast the spell on must be falling. If it is not falling, it is not a valid target. In short, you are entirely wrong about the spells effects and your GM is correct.
It's quite silly that a mage can't cast feather fall on himself and THEN step off the cliff. We will continue to handle it the way we always have. You can cast it on any creature or object, but it will have no effect unless/until the creature or object falls (provided the duration has not expired).
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I am the GM in question, this issue was actually recently brought to light by a facebook post I found earlier today. Danzibe brought this to the community in hopes that we could find some small resolution or rule that someone else may have already figured out that we didn’t. We are on good terms; this is not an argument, simply a crusade for knowledge.
I completely changed the way I thought about using the Feather Fall spell due to the arguments I heard from other GMs. Originally I had been thinking that feather fall was something you could cast before you actually started falling; to keep yourself from doing so, my original belief for this was attacks of opportunity. An attack of opportunity is provoked when someone moves through a threatened square, the retaliation to this is typically resolved as an immediate action prior to the creature finishing their movement. Thus I believed that Feather Fall worked the same way, you fall, you cast, casting resolves before you fall. However, there were two problems with this concerning the RAW. The first of which is this little doozie found in the environmental rules:
“A character cannot cast a spell while falling, unless the fall is greater than 500 feet or the spell is an immediate action, such as feather fall. Casting a spell while falling requires a concentration check with a DC equal to 20 + the spell’s level.”
So this is the first problem with the way I was looking at things, because if I cast feather fall before I am actually falling, then why did I cast feather fall; surely, my character does not possess the ability of precognition (granted that would be cool). So then how does my character know that he is going to fall? The simple answer is that in most cases he doesn’t; he fails a save and then he is in freefall. Then I thought, well if that was the case then shouldn’t he be able to cast the spell between the time after he fails the save but before he enters freefall? That might be possible if not for what I found out next. I went to look up Feather Fall and low and behold what do I find, but this little gem:
“Targets one Medium or smaller free-falling object or creature/level, no two of which may be more than 20 ft. apart”
Instantly I thought; nope, that’s it you definitely have to be free-falling, until Danzibe pointed out that this line could have two potential meanings. The first being that the spell targets a creature or a freefalling object and that the creature is not required to be free-falling. This has a couple problems wrong with it from my point of view. The first of these being that the wording of this is similar to spell such as the target for spells like shatter:
“5-ft.-radius spread; or one solid object or one crystalline creature”
More explicitly the section after the word ‘spread’ caught my eye. The problem that seems to exist with the wording of feather fall does not exist with this spell. This is because the author of this spell specified something that makes a HUGE difference in the world of semantics and the English language: the use of the word ‘one’. Let’s look at a similar example:
“I have a new note and a pen”
The repeated article "a" indicates that these are separate items and, because new is located between note and its article, it would be assumed that new applies only to that item. (By eliminating the second article before pen, then the first a, as well as the adjective that follows it, applies to both items in the list. – english.stackexchange.com
This would seem to indicate that the absence of the ‘a’ (or use of the word one) in the targeting of feather fall means that the word “free-falling” applies to both the object and the creature mentioned, and not just the object.
At this point in time, this is where I have landed: because an object must be falling before the feather fall spell can be cast. Because of this fact, you must perform the appropriate concentration check or fall without the benefits of the spell. You similarly cannot cast feather fall on yourself before jumping into a pit or off a cliff for the same reason as has just been stated; you must be in the action of falling for the spell to work.
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It's quite silly that a mage can't cast feather fall on himself and THEN step off the cliff. We will continue to handle it the way we always have. You can cast it on any creature or object, but it will have no effect unless/until the creature or object falls (provided the duration has not expired).
It's as silly as not being able to cast shield on anyone but yourself (aside from the share spells ability); it's just simply the wrong target.
An attack of opportunity isn't an immediate action; it's an attack of opportunity.
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minor clarification to your last statement - "...you must be in the action of falling for the spell to work.". The target (or targets) actually has to be in the action of falling... the caster can be stationary (and not falling). In fact, it would then NOT require a Concentration check.
It's quite silly that a mage can't cast feather fall on himself and THEN step off the cliff. We will continue to handle it the way we always have. You can cast it on any creature or object, but it will have no effect unless/until the creature or object falls (provided the duration has not expired).
Exactly. Why make this harder than it needs to be...
You should be able to cast it and then jump (if it was preplanned) or you should be able to cast it while falling.|
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An attack of opportunity isn't an immediate action; it's an attack of opportunity.
Thanks for that, yes you are absolutely right; which if anything only serves to prove my point further.
minor clarification to your last statement - "...you must be in the action of falling for the spell to work.". The target (or targets) actually has to be in the action of falling... the caster can be stationary (and not falling). In fact, it would then NOT require a Concentration check.
You are absolutely right as well, thank you for correcting. The caster doesn't have to be falling; his targets do.
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It's quite silly that a mage can't cast feather fall on himself and THEN step off the cliff. We will continue to handle it the way we always have. You can cast it on any creature or object, but it will have no effect unless/until the creature or object falls (provided the duration has not expired).Exactly. Why make this harder than it needs to be...
You should be able to cast it and then jump (if it was preplanned) or you should be able to cast it while falling.
And that is perfectly fine, noone should be up in arms over a GM house ruling something that makes more sense to him and his group. I personally think that it makes sense to force the check for one reason and one reason alone: it makes a player think before he has his character jump off a cliff, or into a pit, etc... It also means that pit traps and other environmental falling dangers are a little more dangerous than previously expected.
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Gerrik is right. Part of my job is to make sure grammar is correct before other people see it. I'm not perfect at my job, but it's pretty clear from my standpoint. The spell only affects something (person or object) that is falling. If the caster casts it on himself while on the ground, it's wasted. Casting it on a buddy that just fell off the edge is fine. No concentration check. If the caster falls and casts it, he has to make the check.
You switched me on this. The more I thought about it the more I realized in recent years the only use of Feather Fall has been from a caster who was either grounded or flying, or it came from a device - no spell casting. But you guys are right, a check is required if you are the falling caster (and its less than a 500 foot fall).
So, if the spellcaster has an item that automatically does a feather fall when falling, and the spellcaster casts the spell feather fall on his falling friends while he is subject to a feather fall, concentration check or no?
But you guys are right, a check is required if you are the falling caster (and its less than a 500 foot fall).
Uh, no. The check is required if you're the falling caster period. There's no qualifier for the distance of the fall with respect to the concentration check.
School transmutation; Level bard 1, sorcerer/wizard 1
Casting Time 1 immediate action
Components V
Range close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels)
Targets one Medium or smaller freefalling object or creature/level, no two of which may be more than 20 ft. apart
Duration until landing or 1 round/level
Saving Throw Will negates (harmless) or Will negates (object); Spell Resistance yes (object)
The affected creatures or objects fall slowly. Feather fall instantly changes the rate at which the targets fall to a mere 60 feet per round (equivalent to the end of a fall from a few feet), and the subjects take no damage upon landing while the spell is in effect. When the spell duration expires, a normal rate of falling resumes.
The spell affects one or more Medium or smaller creatures (including gear and carried objects up to each creature's maximum load) or objects, or the equivalent in larger creatures: a Large creature or object counts as two Medium creatures or objects, a Huge creature or object counts as four Medium creatures or objects, and so forth.
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.
Feather fall works only upon free-falling objects. It does not affect a sword blow or a charging or flying creature.
A character cannot cast a spell while falling, unless the fall is greater than 500 feet or the spell is an immediate action, such as feather fall. Casting a spell while falling requires a concentration check with a DC equal to 20 + the spell's level. Casting teleport or a similar spell while falling does not end your momentum, it just changes your location, meaning that you still take falling damage, even if you arrive atop a solid surface.
The way I see it, Feather Fall is a 'reactive spell' that can be cast no matter the falling distance, but the caster still must succeed the concentration check if he's falling, note that the DC is equivalent to Extremely violent motion while casting. Also note that the valid targets are falling ones.
You cast it the very moment you (or your companions at range) start falling no matter the falling distance, if the spell ends before the targets of the spell touch the ground, they start falling again and take the damage for the remaining feet.
Is the caster allowed to cast again Feather Fall before the duration of the 1st one expires? Yes he is, and the DC should be lesser than the previous one because the falling distance have been drastically reduced.
Should the caster be allowed to cast Feather Fall "like a parachute"? IMO, never.
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The 500 feet is approx. the distance a body will travel in normal gravity in 6 seconds starting from an initial velocity of 0. Thus if you want to cast a spell that is a standard action, you need 500 feet of falling distance to get it off at all. Now why you can do only an immediate action, and not a swift one is a bit odd. Why not quickened spells
Rules allow you to cast an immediate action spell as a swift. But I'm not looking up the ruling on this.
Feather fall was nerfed from 3.0 to pathfinder, due to people abusing it, casting it on boulders etc.
(Any idea what the range of a boulder is, if you cast feather fall on it... you can damn near put a stone into orbit with a trebuchet...).
Anyway. Feather fall is damn near useless if you play by the rules as written. Which is why the ring of feather falling is so much better.
Rules allow you to cast an immediate action spell as a swift. But I'm not looking up the ruling on this.
Feather fall was nerfed from 3.0 to pathfinder, due to people abusing it, casting it on boulders etc.
(Any idea what the range of a boulder is, if you cast feather fall on it... you can damn near put a stone into orbit with a trebuchet...).
Anyway. Feather fall is damn near useless if you play by the rules as written. Which is why the ring of feather falling is so much better.
Looking at both versions, nothing changed. The wording is that same in 3.5 and Pathfinder (with the exception that the D&D version was originally a free action, but that was changed to an immediate action once those entered the rules). If something changed, it wasn't the spell.
I don't remember there being a concentration check in 3.5. You just cast the spell. Making it harder to actually use a spell for it's intended purpose seems a bit counter-intuitive.
I don't remember there being a concentration check in 3.5. You just cast the spell. Making it harder to actually use a spell for it's intended purpose seems a bit counter-intuitive.
Which isn't a change to the spell. It is a change to the falling rules. The spell is still the same.
I think in 3.5 it would have been entirely fair to apply one of the motion-based concentration checks (which most DMs seem to forget). Pathfinder takes the step of defining which motion-based level of difficulty that is (the hardest one), something I can't find 3.5 doing.
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The idea of having to make a concentration check to cast feather fall while falling strikes me as absurd.
I mean, I guess that is technically in the rules but it means that a falling wizard is very unlikely to ever make the check. Which doesn't seem like the intent. I think on feather fall specifically, it doesn't require the concentration check to cast while falling.
Else the spell would be wasted most of the time the caster needed to cast it on themselves.
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It certainly hits low level casters the hardest. DC21 is not a big deal at the higher levels, but it definitely makes tactical feather falling trickier. I'll be counting a readied feather fall as not requiring a concentration check when a party is attempting to make a controlled jump together.
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It certainly hits low level casters the hardest. DC21 is not a big deal at the higher levels, but it definitely makes tactical feather falling trickier. I'll be counting a readied feather fall as not requiring a concentration check when a party is attempting to make a controlled jump together.
but a "ready" action goes before the action that triggers it... so the "Ready" would trigger before the caster was falling - and thus would be wasted as the target is not actually falling (yet) - and wont be falling until AFTER the spell is cast (and thus after it has ended...).
Yeah, this entire problem is left over from transferring spells from one edition to the next with very little in the way of re-writing/editing.
It certainly hits low level casters the hardest. DC21 is not a big deal at the higher levels, but it definitely makes tactical feather falling trickier. I'll be counting a readied feather fall as not requiring a concentration check when a party is attempting to make a controlled jump together.but a "ready" action goes before the action that triggers it... so the "Ready" would trigger before the caster was falling - and thus would be wasted as the target is not actually falling (yet) - and wont be falling until AFTER the spell is cast (and thus after it has ended...).
Yeah, this entire problem is left over from transferring spells from one edition to the next with very little in the way of re-writing/editing.
Right. Which is why I always carry wall piercing arrows, so I can still shoot the first goblin that comes around a corner before it has actually taken the action to come around the corner... - don't take the ready action language of occurring before the triggering action as meaning a game defined action - think of it more as a generic event. Which then means phrase your action "I cast FF, immediately AFTER we jump into the air, but before we start falling back to earth."
As to the OP's separation on that OR. If that is the case then the spell can be cast on one Medium (an individual held to be a channel of communication between the earthly world and a world of spirits), OR a smaller free-falling object (not sure what defines a smaller object) or one creature/level. Note that it isn't a medium/level, or a smaller free-falling object/level, only creature/level if you want more than one target.
well the fact the concentration while falling specifically talk about father-fall as an immediate action that need to be concentrated on probably mean this is as it should be. ("unless the fall is greater than 500 feet or the spell is an immediate action, such as feather fall.")
but in all fairness i can see 3 ways of using feather fall.
1 caster is surprised by falling - in this case i think making him take the high concentration dc check is prudent, otherwise dropping casters from high places wont work at all if they have this spell.
2 caster friend is dropped from high place - caster is on ground and can immediately save friend if he has father fall.
3 caster want to jump a high place (not higher then 60 ft per level or he risk crashing in the end). - my solution? he jump up and a bit forward into the drop and cast feather fall between the start of the jump and being at the pick of his jump. he is actuly at the moment not falling (as he is jumping) BUT he is nether landed so the spell wont end yet. (and if you demand he be falling not jumping as per not charging or flying id say ok then right at the pick of the jump technically then he is falling but at the speed of 0 ft per round so id don't think any concentration is needed.)
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I realize that developer commentary doesn't necessarily hold weight in this forum but I figured I'd throw this in here...
Feather fall does not require a concentration check to cast if cast while falling.If that's not good enough to serve, then take the concern elsewhere, I guess, since this thread in that case obviously lacks the power to solve the problem.
Link<-----
RAW suggests that you can not, but this clearly shows the intention and perhaps that FF was meant to be an exception to the rules.
Feather fall was nerfed from 3.0 to pathfinder, due to people abusing it, casting it on boulders etc.
(Any idea what the range of a boulder is, if you cast feather fall on it... you can damn near put a stone into orbit with a trebuchet...).
I'm not aware that it changed the weight. The boulder would fly up to the normal distance, but fall much slower and do a lot less damage.
I'm not aware that it changed the weight. The boulder would fly up to the normal distance, but fall much slower and do a lot less damage.Feather fall was nerfed from 3.0 to pathfinder, due to people abusing it, casting it on boulders etc.
(Any idea what the range of a boulder is, if you cast feather fall on it... you can damn near put a stone into orbit with a trebuchet...).
On this I totally agree. A feather fall cast on an incoming molten boulder spewed from a volcano would reduce its momentum to a max of 60' per round AND "the object does half normal damage based on its weight, with no bonus for the height of the drop". When applied to a catapult launched boulder, however, the spell would have "no special effect on ranged weapons unless they are falling quite a distance", clearly discerning a fired or launched object is not the same as a falling one unless the range is so far it becomes falling damage - an unlikely scenario unless you are launching boulders off a cliff.
I'm not aware that it changed the weight. The boulder would fly up to the normal distance, but fall much slower and do a lot less damage.Feather fall was nerfed from 3.0 to pathfinder, due to people abusing it, casting it on boulders etc.
(Any idea what the range of a boulder is, if you cast feather fall on it... you can damn near put a stone into orbit with a trebuchet...).
Nicht Var.
You cast it on a boulder being fired. It goes up, and it goes forward.
When it reaches the apex, it keeps going forward, and starts falling slowly.
After 5-6 rounds the feather fall runs out, and the boulder reaches terminal velocity again.
No loss of momentum. Just an increase in range.
I can see an increase in range, but not getting anywhere near orbit and definitely not high enough to reach terminal velocity either. When it reaches the apex, it keeps it's forward momentum, but falls slower. It becomes more like a cannon ball than a boulder launched from a trebuchet. Better for smashing holes in castle walls than crushing buildings. It becomes and different kind of weapon.
Now... casting antigravity on a boulder and guiding it over a target. That can gain terminal velocity and flatten some stuff, real good.