D&D 5E Can you use misty step to arrest a fall?

[Nefermandias]

Ok, let me address this, broadly.

EVERYTHING that is not magical or described by the lore as different should be assumed to work like the real world. Why? Because the players don't live in the D&D world. They haven't grown up in it and learned all its quirks.

If nothing can be assumed to work the way it does in the real world, the players can become lost in a morass of uncertainty. Does wood float? Do pigs lay eggs? Are metal tipped arrows better than rubber ones? Do more coins weight more than less coins? Is ale toxic? Does the sun or the moon shed heat? Do people need food? Is time 2 dimensional? (yes, btw)

etc etc etc etc etc.

There are so many things that the players have to keep track of already (longswords do more damage than short swords. Fireball has a 20 foot radius. Acid and fire work well vs trolls. Dwarven exiles are not to be trusted. Hundreds of other things). We need a stable footing from which we can explore the wonders of the imaginary world, and to help us understand it.

If everything is bizarro world, then the wonders of the world aren't special anymore, and the PCs can't navigate the challenges of the world because they can't make any assumption.

5e characters falls 500 ft instantly. The rules say so. Why I'm getting so much push back on this simple fact?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

5e characters falls 500 ft instantly. The rules say so. Why I'm getting so much push back on this simple fact?

Because RAW isn’t especially important in 5e, and it’s cartoonishly weird to imagine the fiction follow that mechanic, I imagine.

 

[Nefermandias]

Because RAW isn’t especially important in 5e

It is damn well important when you are adjucating spell effects, tactical movement and environmental hazards (falling damage). And that's precisely what this thread is about.

Now, I have already agreed with @Lyxen that you could cast Mist Step in mid fall, but that's just because the rules explicitly says that you can Ready a spell and then release it as a reaction.

 

[ECMO3]

This is similar. Misty Step says you appear in an unoccupied space 30 feet away. It doesn't say you can angle yourself, so you can't. It doesn't say that it arrests movement, so it doesn't. It doesn't say it ends falls, so it doesn't.

If we take this at face value, if a high-level wizard teleports from one side of the word to another he appears standing on his head, since his "angle" did not change.

The rules don't say that impacting the ground ends a fall either, but common sense would indicate that is when it ends.

 

[ECMO3]

Now, I have already agreed with @Lyxen that you could cast Mist Step in mid fall, but that's just because the rules explicitly says that you can Ready a spell and then release it as a reaction.

You can't ready a bonus action spell and release as a reaction. I think this has to be done as a bonus action on your turn. If an enemy pushes you off a cliff, or even if a friend throws you off a cliff you can't ready misty step. This would have to be on your turn and you would have to still have your bonus action available.

You could probably ready dimension door and do it though.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It is damn well important when you are adjucating spell effects, tactical movement and environmental hazards (falling damage). And that's precisely what this thread is about.

Now, I have already agreed with @Lyxen that you could cast Mist Step in mid fall, but that's just because the rules explicitly says that you can Ready a spell and then release it as a reaction.

It’s not, though. Not necessarily. It’s a guide for when you don’t want to think about the situation too much.

If the DM thinks it feels more right or makes more sense or will be more fun to allow a bonus action during a fall, there isn’t any objective reason they shouldn’t.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You can't ready a bonus action spell and release as a reaction. I think this has to be done as a bonus action on your turn. If an enemy pushes you off a cliff, or even if a friend throws you off a cliff you can't ready misty step. This would have to be on your turn and you would have to still have your bonus action available.

You could probably ready dimension door and do it though.

Yeah the rules around action economy in 5e are fiddly like that. You can only use the ready action for actions, IIRC, not bonus actions.

This is why I think that in a “would you allow it” discussion, RAW is only useful to inform why some folks would rule one way or another

 

[Ancalagon]

5e characters falls 500 ft instantly. The rules say so. Why I'm getting so much push back on this simple fact?

the rules are an abstraction of reality, and these abstractions are necessary because we want a fun game, not an exacting simulation.

As someone with some sword-fighting experience, et me tell you, the combat rules are almost as ridiculous as falling 500 feet instantly. But I accept that, because very realistic sword-fighting rules would be complex and probably not fun.

We shouldn't put too much weight in those abstractions. 5e has decided that diagonals are 5 feet same as the side of the square. If we decided "this is how things are" - then the moon is a cube, not a sphere. So we shouldn't extrapolate too much from these abstractions.

When the rules don't help us much on how something should work (like this instance, no ruleset is complete!), then we should try to find a solution that follows the rules (that mention of a ready action vs a reaction is important) but also respect what we know about physics, and maintain balance. So it's not easy! but we should try. Discounting physics entirely is unwise.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

the rules are an abstraction of reality, and these abstractions are necessary because we want a fun game, not an exacting simulation.

As someone with some sword-fighting experience, et me tell you, the combat rules are almost as ridiculous as falling 500 feet instantly. But I accept that, because very realistic sword-fighting rules would be complex and probably not fun.

We shouldn't put too much weight in those abstractions. 5e has decided that diagonals are 5 feet same as the side of the square. If we decided "this is how things are" - then the moon is a cube, not a sphere. So we shouldn't extrapolate too much from these abstractions.

When the rules don't help us much on how something should work (like this instance, no ruleset is complete!), then we should try to find a solution that follows the rules (that mention of a ready action vs a reaction is important) but also respect what we know about physics, and maintain balance. So it's not easy! but we should try. Discounting physics entirely is unwise.

I'll discount the rules before I completely disregard physics. Absolutely.

But yeah, what "instantly" means in 5e is weird and inconsistent, anyway. Again, a thing cannot both be instantaneous and open to interruption. Because multiple game elements allow interruption of falling, regardless of distance, we know that "instantly" doesn't mean normal-usage instantaneous. You aren't at the top in one "frame" and at the bottom in the next. From there, as DMs, we have to decide how much we care about technicalities of rules, and whether allowing a bonus action, which is so quick it is faster than a single attack action, is more fun or not.

For me, my advice to the OP is simply to allow it, regardless of whatever technicalities of RAW people want to insist on.

I've also never seen someone try to rule that misty step forces your momentum to continue in the same direction in any case other than falling. A sprinting character isn't forced to, even just narratively, stop, turn around, and start running again, they'd just allowed to come out of the teleport going the direction they are now facing.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Prefect, I did not need more than this. After I cast misty step, I am on a floor. Am I falling ? No. End of story, RAW. Misty Step has interrupted the fall.

And since you get damage when the fall end, its interruption with Misty Step caused damage. It's not written apparently that you take damage when you hit the ground, but "at the end of the fall", not specifying the reason causing the end of the fall.

I'd go with rule of cool obviously on this particular point and lament the rules wording before discarding it, but I think the language of the rule implies that you take damage when the fall ends, whether it is by hitting the ground, by being suddenly grappled by a flying angel summoned by a friend to save you from death or halted mid-air by a strange telekinetic power... or misty stepping yourself out of falling by teleporting to a ground if Misty Step does actually end the fall.