D&D 5E Feather Fall hanger on

[Satyrn]

Actually i read it and see "which you take when you or a creature within 60 feet of you falls" and see no reference to only when they start to fall at all...

That is exactly how [MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION] said you read it: You see no reference to when they starg to fall, but he does.

I see it, too.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Oh, and I'd probably let a player do the HALO thing without an ability check by letting them upcast featherfall. They thought here is they cast the spell when the fall starts, but the magic only kicks in at the end, as soft landing.

I thought about that, actually. Earlier I referred to the power of a 1st level spell and was thinking at the time, "But maybe with a higher level slot you could target a point in space..."

Or maybe I'd just tell the players to research a new spell called Soft Landing for those wanting to be paratroopers. Still first level, but uses an action instead of reaction.

That's also good.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I personally don't think either interpretation is unreasonable or disrupts the game to any significant degree.

Same, honestly.

What mystifies me is why these two guys think my (our) interpretation is so unreasonable, punitive, and contrary to the rules. The most I get is (to paraphrase), "Sure, if you want to be a douche DM I guess it's your table." WTF?

The irony is that the importance they put on it suggests that the benefit really is quite powerful. Sort of like how the surest sign that leasing a car is a bad idea is the eagerness with which car dealers push it on you.

 

[iserith]

Same, honestly.

What mystifies me is why these two guys think my (our) interpretation is so unreasonable, punitive, and contrary to the rules. The most I get is (to paraphrase), "Sure, if you want to be a douche DM I guess it's your table." WTF?

One of the posters you're talking about appears to have me blocked. I honestly don't know why this is such a sticking point with some folks. I can't remember the last time someone even cast this spell in my game.

I haven't actually taken a position on this whole tangent though, only to say I think either interpretation is reasonable.

The irony is that the importance they put on it suggests that the benefit really is quite powerful. Sort of like how the surest sign that leasing a car is a bad idea is the eagerness with which car dealers push it on you.

Ha, I only ever lease cars!

 

[Satyrn]

I haven't actually taken a position on this whole tangent though

I figured he was including me in that "our" instead of you.


I also think both interpretations are reasonable, though.

 

[Arial Black]

At least this is progress in our debate: the question boils down to the word 'fall/falls' (depending on the subject: I fall, you fall, he falls, etc.), and whether it means 'the precise moment you begin to fall, and not any part of the journey from that moment to the ground' OR 'any point in the journey from the beginning of the fall to the splat moment'.

'It rains'. 'It is raining'. These mean the same thing. 'He falls'. 'He is falling'. These mean the same thing.

But maybe English grammar is not the point; we should be checking if the rules treat 'fall' as only referring to the initial moment or to the whole journey.

On page 183, under the heading 'Falling', the PHB says, "At the end of a fall, a creature takes 1d6 bludgeoning damage for every 10 feet it fell, to a maximum of 20d6". Great! Since the 'fall' is only the beginning under that interpretation then the 'fall' was of zero distance. The journey down is definitely not part of the 'fall' in that case, so you 'fall' off the top of the 600 foot tower, the 'fall' is only the moment you started, so you 'fall' no distance and take no damage. When you hit the ground 600 feet later then the rules don't tell you anything about any damage you take so you don't take any.

Unless, of course, the 'fall' really does refer to the entire journey.

What about the poor monk: "Slow Fall: Beginning at 4th level, you can use your reaction when you fall to reduce any falling damage you take by an amount equal to five times your monk level". What a useless ability! Since your 'fall' doesn't do any damage, then there is no damage to reduce!

The fly spell says, "When the spell ends, the target falls if it is still aloft, unless it can stop the fall". It is logically impossible to 'stop a fall' if 'fall' is an instantaneous event!

What about the spell in question? Is 'fall' the same thing in the rules as 'falling'? Feather fall says, "Choose up to five falling creatures within range. A falling creature's rate of descent slows to 60 feet per round until the spell ends". But if 'fall' is only the beginning moment then your 'falling speed' at that point is zero, so the text about your rate of descent slowing to 60 feet per round should instead say that the spell accelerates you to 60 feet per round!

In fact, the spell description never mentions 'fall'; it only refers to 'falling'.

I submit that according to the rules of English AND the rules of the game, 'fall' and 'falling' are synonymous. The rules simply do not make sense otherwise.

As for Reaction triggers having to be instantaneous, not so! Counterspell's trigger is, "when you see a creature within 60 feet of you casting a spell". Some spells take 'minutes or even hours' to cast (PHB p202), and they are 'casting a spell' for that entire period and you may counterspell them at any point where they are still casting, i.e. the trigger remains ongoing. Just like you are still 'falling' all the way down.

The section on Reactions (p190) mentions that it is taken in response to 'a trigger of some kind', but no indication that the trigger must be an instantaneous event. In the section on Ready (p193) it defines 'trigger' as a 'perceivable circumstance'. Pretty sure that 'falling' is a perceivable circumstance, and falling is not instantaneous.

Lastly, if you believe that the trigger for FF can be read either way, then both ways are valid triggers! Although "when you or a creature within 60 feet of you falls" could refer to the beginning of the fall or the whole thing, this does not mean that you can deny that either way is not true. You can't say that 'fall' could refer to either and simultaneously claim that it doesn't refer to one! All that is required is that the player can honestly answer the question of 'are you falling' with 'yes'.

 

[iserith]

I submit that according to the rules of English AND the rules of the game, 'fall' and 'falling' are synonymous. The rules simply do not make sense otherwise.

I applaud you on your thorough citation of what I assume is every instance, or nearly so, of the word "fall" or "falling" in the book, but it seems unreasonable to me to assume that the designers were so meticulous as to make your interpretation the only correct one. It's just not that cut and dry. The DM is expected to make a ruling as appropriate to his or her game.

Lastly, if you believe that the trigger for FF can be read either way, then both ways are valid triggers! Although "when you or a creature within 60 feet of you falls" could refer to the beginning of the fall or the whole thing, this does not mean that you can deny that either way is not true. You can't say that 'fall' could refer to either and simultaneously claim that it doesn't refer to one! All that is required is that the player can honestly answer the question of 'are you falling' with 'yes'.

The only valid trigger is the one the DM says it is. If your DM doesn't make the ruling you want, that's between you and him or her.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Yes, I agree that you cannot definitively impose one interpretation or the other on the word "falls". The only evidence I can offer for the stricter interpretation is that if the editors had chosen the word "falling" I think it would clearly suggest the looser interpretation, and therefore I conclude (although agree that it's not proof) that they chose "falls" either because they intended the stricter interpretation or, as with stealth and hiding, they intentionally left it up to the DMs. I don't see how you could possibly conclude, though, that the strict interpretation is "wrong" or "cheating" by the DM.

However, that doesn't address my other main point: that every single other reaction in the game (that I have found so far) is a reaction to a discrete event...a moment in time...not an ongoing process. I realize you can split semantic hairs and say that an ongoing fall is an infinite sequence of discrete events, but I truly hope you're not really going to make that cheesy argument. Instead, I'm wondering if you:
a) Have any other examples where the rules unambiguously allow you to vary the timing of a reaction, in a way that has mechanical impact. I.e., something along the lines of "As a reaction, at any point between when the event occurs and your next turn, you can...." or something like that.
b) Don't have any other examples but don't care: you're simply fine with this one reaction being different than all the others. (And there's nothing wrong with that.)

Is there a "c"?

 

[5ekyu]

Elfdrusher asks
"Can you name for me another reaction in the game where the player gets to fine-tune when the reaction takes place, with differing results?"

Character sees someone casting healing prsyer which has 10m casting time.
Chooses to let casting continue before using reaction to counterspell so that that enemy wastes more time.

See its not "reacting" then finessing for advantage, its just choosing what to react to when the trigger is an ongoing event.

In the case above, the counterspell, maybe the countering character has allies on the way or able to buff up. So not choosing to counterdpell the ongoing casting gains them a lot over an immediate counter.

That seems very much akin to waiting to FF to the point where you will land immediately as opposed to being an airborn target for several rounds.



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[Arial Black]

A digital stopwatch is entirely different because it doesn't speed up as the square of time elapsed. Please tell me you understand that part.

I would actually be ok with a wizard stopping in the last 5 feet of a 20 or 30 foot fall, except that I wouldn't want to worry about exceptions. (Which makes me realize, maybe, what the trap is 5ekme or whatever his handle is was trying to set.) At that height you're not going that fast at the bottom. But of course at that height you don't need to get fancy anyway.

It's the big falls, where you're going really fast at the end, where I'm skeptical.

Although the player at the table says something like, "I cast the spell when I am 30 feet from the ground", what the character in the game world is doing is using his visuo-spatial awareness while watching the ground come closer and closer and making sure he utters the Verbal component (now!) before he splats. The ground is not unexpected!

Again, falls not falling. But that aside, I agree there is no roll required to time it perfectly: you get to cast it when you fall without having to roll to see if you're so startled you forget to do it, or become tongue-tied from terror, etc. You automatically succeed. However there is nothing in there that says you get to decide where in the fall it happens.

Apart from the entire game system which lets you do what you are able to do when you want to do it.

Player: I move 30 feet and attack the orc.
DM: Wait, I'm going to roll to see if you attack the orc before you move.
Player: WTF?

No. Completely false. There is nowhere in the rules that say they occur "when you say they do". It says they occur in response to something else happening. And every single other example in the game is a very discrete something. No other case that I know of (as I pointed out above to 5ekme) occurs over a time continuum in which the "reactor" gets to makes a decision, with mechanical consequences, about exactly when it occurs.

Counterspell. Imagine a caster in the process of casting a spell with a casting time of 1 minute. You are able to cast counterspell when its trigger occurs, which is, "when you see a creature within 60 feet of you casting a spell". Tactically, if the caster wasn't casting that ritual then he would be casting nasty spells against you and your mates. If you counterspell his ritual as soon as you can then he will subject you to 9 rounds of nasty spells. If you spend 8 rounds casting your own spells against his allies and wait until round 9 to counterspell his ritual then you have saved yourself a load of hurt. This is because you timed your response to the trigger intelligently.

And it is just an intelligent use of feather fall to cast it within the last 60 feet if you can see the ground. It's not cheating or twisting the rules or deliberately mis-interpreting the trigger. I am falling, I am still falling, okay, I cast it....now!

I really will reconsider all of this if you can point me to one.

Well, that's commendable, especially on the Internet.

I look forward to your reconsideration in light of counterspell's trigger very definitely not being a discrete, instantaneous event.

Again, if you think your version is "playing by the rules", find another example where a player gets to choose when a reaction takes place in a way that has mechanical impact (no double-entendre intended).

Again, counterspell. Done and done.