Falling from Flying Mounts

[ptolemy18]

Hello everybody,

Here's the situation:

(1) Two characters are riding on a giant eagle 90 feet up in the air.
(2) The characters take their actions for the round (shooting arrows from eagle-back).
(3) Later in the same round, an enemy fires magic missiles at the giant eagle, killing it.

Here's my question: does the eagle fall instantly to the ground, and the characters instantly take damage for falling 90 feet?

Neither of the characters were "holding an action", anticipating the eagle would die, or anything. Does the fall take place instantly? Or do the characters riding the eagle get a chance to take an action first? I know that under normal D&D gravity, you fall more than 90 feet in a single round, so they wouldn't still be falling at the beginning of their next action, so they wouldn't be able to do anything before they hit the ground.... right?

Alternately, does a killed flying mount "glide" to the ground, thereby giving the character some damage, but not a full 9D6? I dunno the rules for this.

Thanks,

Jason

 

[reanjr]

I don't see any reason they would have a turn before they hit the ground. As for gliding, a bird doesn't glide when it dies, it drops. I might give them a 1 or 2 d6 buffer for landing on top of the eagle, though.

 

[ptolemy18]

I don't see any reason they would have a turn before they hit the ground. As for gliding, a bird doesn't glide when it dies, it drops. I might give them a 1 or 2 d6 buffer for landing on top of the eagle, though.

Sounds good to me. That's what I assumed: that they just fell like a stone when the bird died and instantly got squashed on the ground. But it seemed like such an easy way to kill people with flying mounts, that I was having second thoughts...

Jason

 

[Ottergame]

Well, since Feather Fall is now a reaction instead of a free action, they could always cast that, providing they have the ability. Falling 90 feet takes a few seconds, though, so I would let them take an action before they hit the ground, in case they could cast Fly or some such.

 

[Woocash]

Falling 90 feet takes about 2.3 seconds. If they don't have Feather Fall, I don't think they can do anything else.

Using flying mounts without any kind of "parachute" (Ring of Feather Fall or something simmilar) is just a sign of stupidity, IMO...

 

[cmanos]

I don't see any reason they would have a turn before they hit the ground. As for gliding, a bird doesn't glide when it dies, it drops. I might give them a 1 or 2 d6 buffer for landing on top of the eagle, though.

And what if the giant eagle lands on the character? I'd say a giant eagle probably weighs as much as a horse, so....lets drop a horse on you from 90 feet up and see what happens.

The acceleration of gravity is 9.8m/s^2. It will take much much less than 6 seconds to fall 90 feet. More like 2.5.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Here's my question: does the eagle fall instantly to the ground, and the characters instantly take damage for falling 90 feet?

Creatures only fall on their turn. This includes when they've jumped farther (and higher) than their maximum move (they complete the jump on their next turn) and when they've suddenly been deprived of a means of flight (Fly spell dispelled, flying mount killed...)

Why? Because depending on how high they are, a character will indeed get an action to do something about their situation. A character who is 200ft up and has his Fly spell dispelled will have time (if he has the ability) to cast another Fly spell before he hits the ground. A rogue will have the chance to make a Tumble check to try and reduce the falling damage. A dragon hit with a tanglefoot bag will have the chance to recover from his stall.

Also, other characters get a chance to react before a falling character hits the dirt. If a griffon-mounted paladin suddenly has his special mount disintegrated out from under him, the wizard who goes next in the initiative order can throw out a Fly or Featherfall spell on him before he hits the ground. The sorcerer has a chance to throw out a Levitate. Or the monk with Boots of Flying could Abundant Step himself up to the paladin as well.

There are a lot of ways that a falling PC, or that PC's companions, can keep a falling character from actually hitting the dirt. They get that chance because you fall on your turn, just like you do everything else.

Neither of the characters were "holding an action", anticipating the eagle would die, or anything. Does the fall take place instantly? Or do the characters riding the eagle get a chance to take an action first?

Their action has already been used. They don't get any more actions. But they don't fall until their next turn.

I know that under normal D&D gravity, you fall more than 90 feet in a single round, so they wouldn't still be falling at the beginning of their next action, so they wouldn't be able to do anything before they hit the ground.... right?

They make the fall on their next turn. As you say, they're only 90ft. up, so if nobody else intervenes, they don't have access to Featherfall, and can't make a decent Tumble check, they're going to take falling damage on their next turn.

Alternately, does a killed flying mount "glide" to the ground, thereby giving the character some damage, but not a full 9D6? I dunno the rules for this.

The eagle drops like a rock. 9d6 unless the characters can make a Tumble check to reduce the distance for purposes of falling damage, or something else occurs to change things before they hit the ground.

 

[Liquidsabre]

Creatures only fall on their turn. This includes when they've jumped farther (and higher) than their maximum move (they complete the jump on their next turn) and when they've suddenly been deprived of a means of flight (Fly spell dispelled, flying mount killed...)

Ah, there we go. That's what I wanted to know, looks good there. So characters fall on their turn (continue their movement that is heh) as per the jump rules, I like that. Oh, a fly spell that has been dispelled still causes the character to float down to the ground. It's in the spell description about what happens when the spell is ended (whether prematurely or the spell has reached the end of it's duration).

 

[dcollins]

Creatures only fall on their turn.

Unfortunately, there's really no rules support for that. My DMG has a section in Chapter 3 on "Keeping Things Moving: Simulaneity", with an an example of Tordek running over a pit trip. There are at least 3 different ways given to adjudicate this, 2 out of 3 disallowing any actions to assist the faller.

 

[RandomPrecision]

How far does an object fall in one round in D&D? I figure acceleration=velocity/time, so velocity=acceleration*time, and integrating both sides w/respect to time gives distance=(acceleration/2)time^2, if acceleration is constant. If we assume D&D gravity is 32 feet/second^2 (like in real life), and one round is 6 seconds, that means if we neglect air resistance (like D&D seems to), things fall up to 576 feet in one round. It might be acceptable for a character to take 57-58d6 damage for falling that far (after all, if they fall the max distance for exactly one round, they're hitting the bottom at 130 mph), but it seems like they'd get an action sometime before they fell over a tenth of a mile, doesn't it?