D&D 5E Feather Fall hanger on

[Arial Black]

Let's see if I understand the situation correctly: it's the bard's turn, he uses his action to cast thunderwave which pushes the baddy off the top of the tower into a long fall. The baddy uses his reaction to cast feather fall, but it's still the bard's turn.

Having used his action, the bard still has a free object interaction, a possible bonus action and a possible reaction, as well as his movement, assuming that he hasn't already used some or all of these. Let's say he has all of these things available.

He can move and jump off the tower, aiming for the gently falling baddy, just by using his movement. But in 5E creatures only have a bonus action if another rule gives them one to use, and the same applies to reactions.

As far as I can tell, the bard has no bonus action or reaction that would allow him to attempt a grapple (which takes an Attack action). Although an enemy moving past you (out of your reach) grants you a possible Opportunity Attack as a reaction, the reverse is not true; falling past an enemy does not grant you a reaction to attack/grapple it.

On a related note, when I cast feather fall I'm not foolish enough to cast it as soon as I fall when it's a known, long fall. I the drop is more than 600 feet then the spell will end and I'll resume falling, and my slow fall exposes me to missile fire from my enemies for longer. Instead, I HALO to near the ground (between 10 and 60 feet) and only then do I cast feather fall, which instantaneously and safely changes my rate of descent from terminal velocity to 60 feet per round. I land sooner and safer.

This can be used as a way to initiate an attack on an enemy base, if you can arrange the fall.

When I played that spire scene, the whole party held hands and jumped simultaneously, only casting feather fall 30 feet from the ground. We avoided a mid-air encounter where we would have been relatively helpless. The DM ruled that the monsters followed us to the ground and attacked us there, but we were now standing on solid ground and our melee fighters were in a much better position to make mincemeat out of our attackers.

 

[5ekyu]

For me the rule says the targets rate of descent is changed to 60 for the duration until they hit ground or duration.

It does not give them immunity from grapple.

So assuming the floater is still floating and the bard has sufficient movement, i would allow the attempt but require an athlethic check grapple to grab and kerp hold as they reached the target.

Normally you can choose where you jump to without an athletics check so i would not rrquire a to-hit or anything to get close enough .

However if it was consistent with my campaign tone and past use of disadvantage, i *could* rule plummeting past as a disadvantageous circumstance compared to a normal grapple so his side of the athletics check would be at a disadvantage but the enemy not.

But the disadvantage or not depends a completely on how you have shown disad or adv to work in your game.

If this was a chaacter leaping off to grab rope or to grab falling innocent would you apply disadvantage or have you shown in your game that to be considered an heroic or dash of cool risk?

What tone of heroic swashbuckle vs gritty realism have you already set? Keep consistent.

Net result, a clever attempt but chance to succeed varies with campaign tone )and moderate confidence it matches RAW if that matters.)

This of course is ignoring the various inter-personal stuff, just covering the how would i rule regardless of the other stuff.

Not sure of any sage advice on this.

Frankly, unless i had a compelling reason, i would give it a straight up grapple, no disad, since if you ignore the personal drama it seems clwver and cool even if it is leaving others in the lurch.

Could lead to interesting negotiations after.

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[Nailen]

Instead, I HALO to near the ground (between 10 and 60 feet) and only then do I cast feather fall, which instantaneously and safely changes my rate of descent from terminal velocity to 60 feet per round. I land sooner and safer.

Casting time for Feather Fall is 'reaction', what does that mean in this instance?
If you've fallen 550 feet you are going to be traveling pretty fast. Do you really have time to cast the spell?
What are you actually reacting to?

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[Arial Black]

Casting time for Feather Fall is 'reaction', what does that mean in this instance?

The same as it means in the rest of the game.

If you've fallen 550 feet you are going to be traveling pretty fast. Do you really have time to cast the spell?

Yes. The rate of descent is not a factor.

What are you actually reacting to?

Falling.

In case this is unclear, here is the relevant part of the spell description:-

"Casting Time: 1 reaction, which you take when you or a creature within 60 feet of you falls".

So, as long as you meet the criteria (you are still falling) you can cast this spell as a reaction.

There is no suggestion that the spell can only be cast at the beginning of a fall!

 

[mellored]

IMO: they both take half falling damage.
At least as long as the bard can hold on.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The same as it means in the rest of the game.



Yes. The rate of descent is not a factor.



Falling.

In case this is unclear, here is the relevant part of the spell description:-

"Casting Time: 1 reaction, which you take when you or a creature within 60 feet of you falls".

So, as long as you meet the criteria (you are still falling) you can cast this spell as a reaction.

There is no suggestion that the spell can only be cast at the beginning of a fall!

You're not reacting to 'falling' you're reacting to 'falling AND a certain distance from the ground." That sounds like it might be tricky. Depending on the distance (say 60 ft from the ground), that sounds to me like it might be uncertain. Give me a Init check, DC 10, to see if you time it correctly.

 

[iserith]

You're not reacting to 'falling' you're reacting to 'falling AND a certain distance from the ground." That sounds like it might be tricky. Depending on the distance (say 60 ft from the ground), that sounds to me like it might be uncertain. Give me a Init check, DC 10, to see if you time it correctly.

That sounds fair. I would not object if I was the player in that situation.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I agree with your call that this would require a check to pull it off, with a pretty severe consequence of failure. And also with those saying that one PC doing this all on a single turn would likely break action economy.

But, presuming that somehow the PC managed to grapple the Feather Falling villain as they were both falling, I would probably say that short-circuits the spell and causes it to fail. Unless the villain specifies the PC as one of the “up to five creatures” with the spell (whether the villain does so or not would probably depend on whether they were ready to die or not). A kamikaze kill like that would certainly be pretty memorable.

In any case, it sounds like the player is gone and with good reason.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I agree with your call that this would require a check to pull it off, with a pretty severe consequence of failure. And also with those saying that one PC doing this all on a single turn would likely break action economy.

But, presuming that somehow the PC managed to grapple the Feather Falling villain as they were both falling, I would probably say that short-circuits the spell and causes it to fail. Unless the villain specifies the PC as one of the “up to five creatures” with the spell (whether the villain does so or not would probably depend on whether they were ready to die or not). A kamikaze kill like that would certainly be pretty memorable.

In any case, it sounds like the player is gone and with good reason.

I'd check carrying capacity. If you're not overly encumbered by the addition of a bard's worth of new weight, hunky-dory. If you are, spell is suppressed and you both fall unless you can kick off the bard. That way, it's better to jump on the feather falling stone giant than the 6 strength halfling. Interestingly, this adds a fun tactic for suicidal creatures to use against feather falling enemies. Just pile on until they cause the spell to fail.

But, yeah, I agree entirely with both your requirements of a check to pull it off and the concern about action economy. As presented, I'd not let the Bard attempt it due to lack of actions. Next round, sure. And I'd call for an opposed check if the feather falling villain didn't particularly want a passenger.

 

[5ekyu]

maybe i missed it but did it state that the bard cast the thunder spell? Seems like some folks are assuming this in their action economy lists. i could have missed it. It would change the assumptions of course and the availability of actions - likely no grapple check to hang on..

thanks.

EDIT: As for me, i would not want to go into adding some weight limit into that spell and so on... so would not be checking into encumbrance. it sets the descent speed to 60... no need to start IMO looking at other factors. its not like feather fall is a powerful spell in need of complicated sidebars to disable or weaken it for the game and as long as that spell doesn't start causing bigger game problems then (to me) this is just a case of an unorthodox. clever way to turn opposition actions around and benefit from an enemy choice. one of the basic principles of tactics is to use the opposition strengths to your advantage too. I myself would not be inclined to on the spot invent new rule/mechanics to an otherwise OK spell to thwart such an attempt. If i were going to add in some limit additional limits it would not be based on the strength of the falling target but on the already in game limit of how many creatures the spell can slow - and rule that if more than that number wind up piling on then that last "pile" is cancelled as far as the spell effects run. but even then you create a serious threat to those using the spell against foes with little or no rational control - like say frenzied animals/monsters of somewhat mindless undead and constructs. not a route i would like to go down... IMX that spell is usually a lifeline that sees limited use.

YMMV