When do you fall?

When does a creature fall? Say a cleric hits a flying (via wings) creature with hold person. Does the creature fall on the cleric's turn? Or does it fall when its turn comes around? Or does it fall at the "end of the round"?

I understand that when a character steps on a pit trap, the fall is immediate. But there is no initiative in that situation.

Quasqueton

Falls when its turn comes around.

Oh, and how about if the fall comes about because of the flyer's action: flyer moves and the changes form (like was under effect of shapechange). Does the fall occur immediately on his turn, or at the beginning of his next turn? Or at the end of the round?

Quasqueton

This is what I have used and I have found that it works well within the rules, allows for cinematic combat, allows PCs to save themselves when falling, and are simple. I don't know of any official rules on this. These rules are derived from the general rule that your moving occurs on your turn.

1) You only fall on your turn.
2) Falling is an involuntary move action.
Therefore one can only take standard actions while falling.

Thus if flyer moves and changes form it will not fall until next turn (because it has already used its move action). If however, it changes form before taking a move action, it will fall on this turn.

Some more examples:
1) Redshirt is bull rushed off a cliff. The redshirt is pushed back and 'hovers' over the cliff edge until his turn. He then can make an attack before he falls.
2) Your buddy Dimension Doors you up in the air. You don't fall until its your turn.

It's up to the DM. See DMG, "Keeping Things Moving: Simultaneity". There's an example of Tordek triggering a pit, and the ruling is (paraphrased below) "You have three options:"

(1) Start of next action as normal.
(2) Require next call of actions from players, then as normal.
(3) End of round.

For your two examples, IMC I'd rule that the fall occurs on the faller's turn (assuming in the second case they took a full move action). I would definitely prevent the faller from arranging extra beneficial movement, or something like an ally picking them up and getting extra movement out of the maneuver.

Generally if someone is land-bound I'd adjudicate the fall immediately, to keep things simple and intuitive. No actions at the precipice unless they have flying or some kind of maneuverability immediately before that. (Off the top of my head.)

Setting: A party is facing off against a rival group that has trailed them up to a mountainside temple. A battle breaks out and Tordek is battleing the evil Bugbear barbarian. Tordek has not been taking any damage while dishiing out severe pain. Tordek in a blaze of axe swinging nearly splits the bugbear in two. In a desperate last ditch effort the bugbear smashes its shoulder into Tordek and barrels toward the cliff. Tordek gets bullrushed off the side of the cliff by the bugbear. The bugbear passes out from being at 0 hit points and collapses to the ground. When does Tordek get to make a climb check to stop his fall.
Obviously he must get to make it before he falls, but does he do it immediately or on his turn.
The answer can drastically change the outcome of this scene.

Immediately: Tordek makes his Climb check and grabs the lip of the cliff. The bugbears ally a Hobgoblin rogue rushes up to finish of the stubborn dwarf. Knowing if the hobgoblin allows Tordek to pull himself up the hobgoblin will fall next to his axe. Tordek is denied his dex and in serious trouble due to the sneak attacks he will be recieving.

On his turn: The bugbear collapses to the ground and the party sees a dwarf tipping in slow motion over the cliff. Can anyone reach him in time to pull him back from the brink of death or will there be some help wanted posters popping up at the local pub? The party and monsters don't know of Tordek's fate. Should the hobgoblin stab the dwarf as he is being hurled from the cliff or turn and deal with the pesky elf flinging magic missiles around? The party cleric could cast a cure spell on himslef to ensure he can take another hit or dash to the cliff and try to haul Tordek back from potential doom.

I think that having the fallee actually fall on his turn makes the most sense and allows more dynamic scenes to play out. There is nothing like throwing caution to the wind in order to save the life of one of your trusted friends rather than wincing because there is nothing you can do about it.

If you wanted to be realistic, a creature falls a distance of 30ft*.5t^2, with t being the number of seconds. So, depending on the initiatives, you could say the creature spends a certain amount of time falling before it's turn comes. For instance, if it goes on 20 and gets held on 10, you could say it falls 3 seconds for a total of 30*.5*3^2 = 135 ft. At the beginning of it's initiative, it has fallen 135 feet. Of course, that's complicated, and the other methods are good too, but if you want ultimate verisimulitude...

ken-ichi said:

When does Tordek get to make a climb check to stop his fall. Obviously he must get to make it before he falls, but does he do it immediately or on his turn.

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Frankly, it wouldn't occur to me give a Climb check to someone pushed off a cliff. They just fall, and that's that.

dcollins said:

Frankly, it wouldn't occur to me give a Climb check to someone pushed off a cliff. They just fall, and that's that.

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Should be a reflex save anyway, not a climb check.

Bigwilly

By the rules Tordek doesn't get a climb check or a reflex save. Thats assuming a sheer cliff. He does, however, get to make a tumble check to decrease the effective distance of his fall.