Stunned While Flying

[DMFTodd]

If you're flying (per the spell) and are stunned, what happens? The Fly spell gives a fly rating of Good which allows hovering. Being stunned means "you can take no actions".

Flying takes "as much concentration as walking". If I'm stunned while walking, I don't fall down.

So I'm thinking a stunned flier simply hovers.

 

[kreynolds]

Makes sense.

 

[RigaMortus]

Well wait a sec, if you are stunned while walking, you don't fall down true, but you DO stop walking, don't you?

Hmmmm...

 

[der_kluge]

Well, the spell is transmutation, which effectively means that it's altered your body in some way to provide flight. If your stunned, it just means that you can't move, but the alteration is still there, so it does seem reasonable to assume that you would just hover in place.

I would probably take it one step further to have him slowly drop out of the sky as if the spell had ceased to work.

 

[Maitre Du Donjon]

I'd say you hover.

 

[Arksorn]

I would also say hover.

But look out below because you will drop items in hand. (Wonder if that has changed in 3.5?)

 

[Hypersmurf]

If you're flying (per the spell) and are stunned, what happens? The Fly spell gives a fly rating of Good which allows hovering. Being stunned means "you can take no actions".

So what if you're held?

(Ow, ow, what'd I say?)

-Hyp.

 

[DMFTodd]

So what if you're held?

Troublemaker.

Held "freezes you in place" and the target "cannot take any physical actions, even speech". Stunned only says "you cannot take any actions".

So Held is more extreme than being stunned. I'm picturing stunned as being a little wobbly, you're moving a bit, you're not helpless, you just don't get enough move to qualify as an action. Held is complete - you freeze in place. So on that, I'd say you fall.

Further: a winged creature who is held "cannot flap it's wings and falls".

I don't let special effects of a spell/power (I'm an old Champions player) affect how something works. Am I going to penalize the cleric with travel domain who flies by "sprouting wings" but let some PC munchkin off the hook because his flight "is like Magneto". No, have to rule consistently. They both fall.

And lastly, fly says it "takes as much concentration as walking". I'll stretch that to mean that it also takes some movement akin to walking.
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All of that reasoning is mostly crap. We had a consensus, why'd you go and mess it up? ;(

 

[Hypersmurf]

Actually, I agree with you, for the most part.

But there are a lot of people out there who will tell you that controlling a Fly spell is a "purely mental action", which the held condition allows.

The debate went to four pages here and five on Monte Cook's boards, from memory, and nobody convinced anybody of anything

-Hyp.

 

[hong]

I don't let special effects of a spell/power (I'm an old Champions player) affect how something works. Am I going to penalize the cleric with travel domain who flies by "sprouting wings" but let some PC munchkin off the hook because his flight "is like Magneto". No, have to rule consistently. They both fall.

You got it wrong. The munchkin is the cleric who chose travel as a domain, and no doubt has luck as the other one.