I'd say the air-walking character falls as far as they want to, usually 0-5 feet (no damage).
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The spell has not expired. The subject treads on air, so lands on his feet in midair as if it was solid ground. He takes falling damage as normal for the distance that he fell, probably none.
Can he choose to fall some distance before resuming walking? It might be argued either way.
Why he should "lands on his feet"? It isn't an intentional fall, nor a controlled one. It falls in the position in which he was when the snatching creature released the grapple. As most creatures that snatch you generally transport you in a horizontal position, almost certainly he would end in a horizontal position. Transporting a human in a vertical position in a paw, mouth or talon will require some strange positioning of the art for most creatures.
I don't think the grappled creature « lands » on its feet but it stays in mid-air as it was released. It must stand upwards before being able to resume walking on air. This can be by standing up or by rotating its feet downwards a bit as if on the side of a bed putting its feet on the floor.
The floor made of air is considered just below where the air walker is. If the air walker lies down on air, it must resume a vertical stance before moving again.
Yeah I think there's a rage power that let's you auto-prone your target, but the default for being grappled - and even moved - is that you're still upright.
You two are correct, I often forget that Grappling in Pathfinder is at arms length, not bodies entwined like Greco-Roman wrestling.
This snatch can hence be narrated as the flier grabbing the air walking character at the wrist then ascending in which case it leaves the air walker upright. There is then no reason for this character to fall once released.
If the character takes no lethal falling damage, they do not gain the prone condition. If they did not have the prone condition, they would not gain it just because they were grabbed.
This is one of my favorite rules because DR or other methods of negating fall damage can result in a character falling at normal speed by landing gracefully on their feet after an accidental slip only by dent of ignoring the damage. So natural werewolves, on average, can fall another 20ft further than normal humans and not land prone. And an alchemist with ragdoll mutagen (converts fall damage to non lethal damage) and mummification (immune to nonlethal damage) discoveries can not only survive reentry from orbit, but lands on his feet like nothing happened.
Im pretty sure DR doesn’t negate falling damage. That’s not an attack.
Yep, DR only applies with certain attacks. A fall isn't an attack, DR doesn't apply.
- To reach the ground after a re-entry from orbit, one would also need thermal shielding. Without it, the question of damage from the fall is immaterial^^ -
Im pretty sure DR doesn’t negate falling damage. That’s not an attack.
Elemental Resistances use the same "attack" language as DR and James Jacobs has stated that they should protect from environment damage even though they aren't attacks. Using the same logic, DR also works on environmental damage, which includes falling.
Yep, DR only applies with certain attacks. A fall isn't an attack, DR doesn't apply.
- To reach the ground after a re-entry from orbit, one would also need thermal shielding. Without it, the question of damage from the fall is immaterial^^ -
If you make the logical addendum to the falling damage rules for the friction of reentry, that is true.
I think the difference may be that fire resistance lowers fire damage. But the damage from falling isn’t a weapon type of damage. It’s untyped and surprisingly not bludgeoning damage.
The weirder thing is that damage from falling objects is also untyped. So damage reduction seemingly doesn’t work on that either.