D&D 5E Feather Fall hanger on

[5ekyu]

Hmmm... Have not looked it up but, does a creature become an object when its dead? May matter as far as how fast the red pancake falls.

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[5ekyu]

Wouldn't the now pulped mass of once creature tissue no long count as a valid target for the spell, thereby both ending the feather fall AND killing the character? Harsh.

Like i said, did not look up the creature dead object thing but as for "harsh"?

Not in my view. I would make sure the player knew this before taking the action so... Its their choice. Its not like they master mystic art of feather fall with no knowledge of how it deals with adding weight after the fact.

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[Blue]

Feather Fall doesn't have anything that care about weight or size of the target creature. It will work for a giant, it will work for a pixie. It just flat changes their speed of descent to 60' and says that they take no falling damage as long as they land before the end.

Let's look at this simplest case up.

You fall. Featherfall. You're safe.

You fall. You are carrying objects you can carry based on your strength. You're still safe.

You fall. You are carrying objects you can carry which happens to include an unconscious ally. You are still safe. You friend hits at 60' per round - does that cause damage, or is the "no damage" assumed to be from the low speed? (This is because it's a separate sentence "If the creature lands before the spell ends, it takes no falling damage and can land on it's feet". Say nothing about other creatures. But I'd assume 60'/rd isn't a huge amount of falling damage even if the DM says it's some.

You fall. Your friend is holding onto you and is strong enough to do it. Same as above.

You fall. Someone else is holding onto you and is strong enough to do it and you can't get them off. Same as above.

So ... following this. We get a bard that needs to catch up (since from the action) it's a separate round. If they miss, they fall the whole way. If they hit the DM needs to figure out what happens - I'm probably roll 60' of falling damage and split it between them. Then the bard needs to successfully grapple, and keep it going until they get to the ground. Depending on the DM ruling, they may still take some damage from the hitting at 60' per round and if they take any damage they are prone as per normal rules for falling damage.

So the best case the bard took damage from leaping down 60' onto the baddie, and may have taken more damage for the end plus be prone, while the baddie is not prone near them. Doable, but leaves the already low-on-HP bard with more damage, an active hostile, possibly prone, and far out of rescue range. This could be bad.

 

[5ekyu]

So, you fall down (heh) on the side that feather fall always works, but may kill you if there's too much weight involved, but are against the camp that says too much weight won't outright kill you, but it causes the spell to fail? When I posted, I honestly didn't expect to be argued that my way was too nice to the players.

ETA: out of curiosity, how much weight does there need to be before you start applying damage?

Well, i dont think its as bad as you think. Like i said, nobody is normalky going to try and hold up an airship without some pretty clear understanding of why it will work.

So its really not a case of death by feather fall being harsh as much as the extreme you threw in to support changing feather fall mechanics would not be tried.

And, yeah, i suspect in many games getting an airship dropped on you would burt.

As for specific weights, would vary by circumstance and campaign. Have not needed to look into it myself. If there isnt an established mechanic in the RAW (and even if there were) it would be clear before a player decided to get under the press.

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[Ovinomancer]

Well, i dont think its as bad as you think. Like i said, nobody is normalky going to try and hold up an airship without some pretty clear understanding of why it will work.

So its really not a case of death by feather fall being harsh as much as the extreme you threw in to support changing feather fall mechanics would not be tried.

And, yeah, i suspect in many games getting an airship dropped on you would burt.

As for specific weights, would vary by circumstance and campaign. Have not needed to look into it myself. If there isnt an established mechanic in the RAW (and even if there were) it would be clear before a player decided to get under the press.

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Right, so, we both agree that there's a "too much carried" line, and no were just haggling over the [-]price[/-] weight. I set it at carrying capacity, and you set it at... somewhat less than 130 tons.

 

[5ekyu]

Right, so, we both agree that there's a "too much carried" line, and no were just haggling over the [-]price[/-] weight. I set it at carrying capacity, and you set it at... somewhat less than 130 tons.

Well, not really.

You keep coming back to a focus on weight and weight's impact on the spell working. You *directly* link weight and spell function... Too much weight based on char strength and spell ceases. So a 20int caster at 20 level casts feather fall on an 8 int gnome and a str 19 half-orc and each gets an abc lb sticky sack dropped on them and the gnomes feather falk can fail but the orcs can remain if the weight gain beats the gnome str based carry but within the orcs. (That seems what you are saying if it is not sorry)

I say feather fall itself is not affected by weight at all. It sets a drop rate for the creatures it targets. Period.

So the sticky sack and the strength of the gnome vs the orc has no effect.

However we both i believe agree there are other non-weight ways feather fall can be cancelled. One is becoming an illegal target (which, again have not looked up object v creature v dead interaction... It really seems a dangerously broad scope decidion that i would not make without a lot of research.)

So *if* becoming dead makes one not a valid feather fall target, then yes being crushed to death under a ship would trigger that. But so would becoming 1lb heavier if that 1lb was in the form of arrows that killed you or no weight if it was magic misdles that did so.

**So conflating that to try and make it serm like we are both applying a weight limit abd yours is stats based is more than a little misleading.**

I dont see the need of it either.

For your games you can add weight limits, add not if the weight is yellow colored stuff or not if the added weight is wood stuff or base it on the casters int score or whatever.

Me i just dont see a need for that and choose to not add in any weight based limits to the spell as written. I also don't see a need to add any protecion or adfitional spell effects for how the subject interacts with falling bodies... It hapoens just as it would if there was no feather fall except for te speed. Whatever happens to someone under weight abc remains constant regardless of feather fall except for their descent rate.

But maybe you have seen needs to restrict feather fall crop up in your games that i have not. Maybe you have seen it become OP without a weight limit. Maybe you have other reasons.

but it is not accurate to state that we both agree on the concept of their being a weight limit for the spell.



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[Arial Black]

Wouldn't the now pulped mass of once creature tissue no long count as a valid target for the spell, thereby both ending the feather fall AND killing the character? Harsh.

Target validity is checked when the spell is cast. It isn't re-checked later, even if the target would no longer be a valid target for that spell. It was legal when the spell was cast, so the spell affects the target for the duration.

Incidentally, in earlier editions the spell had a weight limit, above which the spell failed. IIRC, in 3E it was 100 lbs/caster level. If this was 3E we would already know the answer.

But in 5E there is no weight limit; the spell lasts the duration unless the creature lands before the minute is up. It affects the target(s) of the spell, and does not affect those not targeted! The caster cannot add creatures after the spell has already been cast!

So, as written, in 5E even if a creature were to jump onto and successfully hold onto a creature affected by feather fall, this cannot end the spell, nor can it alter the rate of descent. The rules are silent on what happens to the hanger-on.

 

[Quartz]

How would you resolve? Would it even work, if he hung on? OR would they both plummet?

This is actually used in Ben Aaronovitch's book 'Broken Homes'. The villain - known as The Faceless Man - and PC Grant are atop a skyscraper and the villain detonates demolition charges then jumps off, casting Feather Fall on himself, so PC Grant, having no alternative, jumps after him, grabs him on the way down, and they land together.

Game-wise, treat the Feather-falling guy as being prone, so the PC has Advantage on her roll to grab.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Well, not really.

You keep coming back to a focus on weight and weight's impact on the spell working. You *directly* link weight and spell function... Too much weight based on char strength and spell ceases. So a 20int caster at 20 level casts feather fall on an 8 int gnome and a str 19 half-orc and each gets an abc lb sticky sack dropped on them and the gnomes feather falk can fail but the orcs can remain if the weight gain beats the gnome str based carry but within the orcs. (That seems what you are saying if it is not sorry)

I say feather fall itself is not affected by weight at all. It sets a drop rate for the creatures it targets. Period.

So the sticky sack and the strength of the gnome vs the orc has no effect.


However we both i believe agree there are other non-weight ways feather fall can be cancelled. One is becoming an illegal target (which, again have not looked up object v creature v dead interaction... It really seems a dangerously broad scope decidion that i would not make without a lot of research.)

So *if* becoming dead makes one not a valid feather fall target, then yes being crushed to death under a ship would trigger that. But so would becoming 1lb heavier if that 1lb was in the form of arrows that killed you or no weight if it was magic misdles that did so.

**So conflating that to try and make it serm like we are both applying a weight limit abd yours is stats based is more than a little misleading.**

You added the additional topic of being killed by arrows and then linked it in, not I, so... physician, heal thyself.

My point is that you have some weight limit, current set at the vague point of 'something less than 130 tons' (as that's the weight of the example ship) at which point feather fall becomes a death sentence. Sure, there's a semantic difference between the instant death due to crushing vice the moments more of life due to feather fall failing, but that's really beside the point -- how the spell fails isn't interesting to me.

What is interesting is that you quoted me and said that you have the spell work regardless of additional weight because you didn't see any point of adding an arbitrary set of additional rules to the spell that aren't needed, mostly because you didn't see where they'd come into play. I presented an example of exactly where they'd come into play with the airship, and immediately you agreed that, indeed, weight and feather fall would have an adverse interaction, thereby introducing an arbitrary set of additional rules to the spell based on weight. Granted, in your case that interaction is crushing death vice my interaction of the spell merely failing, but I'm mostly interested, at this point, in exploring the space in which your arbitrary interaction rules for feather fall exist. Mine are well defined, easy to explain to players (your max lift limit is the limit for how much you can carry before feather fall fails), and relies on existing rules. Where are your lines?

If it helps, I have some examples that might illuminate your thinking:

Case 1: there's a 1 ton weight chained to the ankles of your 3rd level caster. It's tossed off a 600' foot cliff, dragging you after. You cast feather fall. What happens?

Case 2: there's 1 ton of gold chains wrapped tightly around your 3rd level caster. You and the chains are tossed off a 600' cliff. You cast feather fall. What happens?

Case 3: same as case 1, but the weight is not 10 tons.

Case 4. Same as case 2, but the chains are magically enhanced to weigh 10 tons.

Case 5: same as 1, weight not 100 tons.

Case 6: same as 2, but weight is now 100 tons.

Case 7: same as 1, but weight is now 1 pound more than your maximum lift weight.

Case 8: same as 2, but weight is now 1 pound more than your maximum lift weight.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Target validity is checked when the spell is cast. It isn't re-checked later, even if the target would no longer be a valid target for that spell. It was legal when the spell was cast, so the spell affects the target for the duration.

Incidentally, in earlier editions the spell had a weight limit, above which the spell failed. IIRC, in 3E it was 100 lbs/caster level. If this was 3E we would already know the answer.

But in 5E there is no weight limit; the spell lasts the duration unless the creature lands before the minute is up. It affects the target(s) of the spell, and does not affect those not targeted! The caster cannot add creatures after the spell has already been cast!

So, as written, in 5E even if a creature were to jump onto and successfully hold onto a creature affected by feather fall, this cannot end the spell, nor can it alter the rate of descent. The rules are silent on what happens to the hanger-on.

Abandoned the timing issue, eh? Good call.

But you're absolutely right, there's no limit in 5e. However, I do believe that the ruleset is rulings, not rules, so the absence of a distinct rule in a case not anticipated by the rules, like the sudden addition of a lot of weight to a feather falling creature, is a great place for a ruling to occur. Unless you're actually going to insist that in no case where a rule is absent in 5e there cannot be a ruling made?