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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Egres" data-source="post: 2370524" data-attributes="member: 23200">If you don't like the RotG article, use the FAQ.How far does a character fall in a single round? If mygriffon-riding character falls off his mount 300 feet up, howlong do other characters have to catch him?This ends up being both a rules and a physics question. Theshort answer is, “In a single round, you fall far enough to hitthe ground in the vast majority circumstances that come up inthe game.”Here’s the long answer: A falling character accelerates at arate of 32 feet per second per second. What that means is thatevery second, a character’s “falling speed” increases by 32 feet.The distance he falls in that second is equal to the average ofhis falling speeds at the beginning of that second and at the endof that second. Thus, during the first second he falls 16 feet (theaverage of 0 feet and 32 feet, which are his speeds at the startand end of that second). During the next second he falls 48 feet(the average of 32 feet and 64 feet). He falls 80 feet during thethird second, 112 feet the fourth second, 144 feet the fifthsecond, and 176 feet the sixth second. That’s a grand total of576 feet fallen in the first round alone, hence the short answergiven above—the number of falls occurring in any campaignlonger than this is probably pretty small. For ease of play, youcould simply use 500 feet as a nice round number—it’s easierto remember.Of course, the character falls even farther the next round,although acceleration soon ends due to the resistance of air onthe falling body (this is what’s called terminal velocity). If theSage remembers his high-school physics, terminal velocity fora human body is roughly 120 mph (equivalent to a speed of1,200 feet per round, or 200 feet per second); thus, thecharacter’s falling speed hits its maximum in the first second ofthe second round. It’s safe to say that after 2 rounds thecharacter will have fallen nearly 2,000 feet, and will fallanother 1,200 feet per round thereafter.In the example you give, other characters would clearlyhave no more than a round to react, and it’s possible they’dhave even less time. Remember that despite the sequentialnature of D&D combat actions, things are happening veryquickly—virtually simultaneously, in many cases. As a DM,I’d probably allow every character a chance to react to a longfall (such as the one you describe), as long as their actionoccurs before 1 full round has passed from the start of the fall.(As a side note, that’s why feather fall allows its caster to castit even when it isn’t her turn—otherwise, adjudicating itstiming would be a nightmare.) The difference between “youwatch the character fall all the way to the ground before youcan react” and “the character starts to fall, what do you do?” isreally just up to the DM’s sense of fun and fair play. Off the topof my head, I’d say that anything up to 50 or 60 feet is clearlytoo fast to react to (barring a readied action, of course), andanything that approaches 250 feet or more should probablyallow characters some chance to react, but that’s purely apersonal opinion.Whatever decision you make, try to make the samedecision every time, so that players know what to expect. If thissituation comes up a lot in your game, it’s probably worthcreating a house rule so you don’t have to try to rememberwhat you did last time. (If your campaign routinely features300-foot falls, your characters might want to invest in somerings of feather falling!)Now, if you start altering certain assumptions—such as theforce of gravity, or the density of air that’s resisting the fallingcharacter, or even the mass of the falling character—thesecalculations become less useful. Yet, unless your numbers aremuch different than the standard values, you can still use theseas benchmarks.</blockquote>

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