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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest 6801328" data-source="post: 7314160">Yeah I think I made it pretty clear that this is an opinion...a "ruling"...and is just one way to play.You mean other than a chance to kill off the characters of power-gaming rules lawyers?  Is it possible to have more fun than that while fully clothed?I kid. (By the way, I don't see it as "a new mechanic added to feather fall".  I see it as "giving the player a chance to use the spell in new, unintended manner, rather than just saying 'no'.") Some serious answers:1) The maneuver described is both more difficult than, and has a mechanical benefit over, the default application.  Therefore it should be harder to pull off.  Long range archery is more challenging than short range.  Jumping over big chasms is more challenging than jumping over narrow ones.  Sure, "RAW" is on your side here, but RAW can't cover ever conceivable scenario, and personally I'm glad they didn't add another sentence or two being more specific in this case.  (I like the example above, about holding an Action until the guard "looks the other way".)  2) Purely as a matter of aesthetics, the HALO thing is more 'cinematic' than I typically appreciate in my games.  Sure, superheroes can do it, but I prefer games where the heroes are normal people achieving great things, not superheroes.  (Again, just personal preference there.)3) Excitement.  Think about action/adventure movies you like: how much less fun would they be if the challenges were not challenges?  Instead of "Grab...my....hand....!!!!" it became, "Hey, grab my hand I'll pull you up."  Timing your HALO landing is an opportunity for some risk/reward, and I think it's more fun to add some dramatic tension, as well as give players a decision with consequences.Is that enough reasons?As for the difficulty of what you are describing, I'm not a HALO jumper but I <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_military_parachuting" target="_blank">looked it up</a>: they typically open at around 600 meters.  Bear in mind that HALO jumpers are trained.  Again, one of my issues is that Wizards are supposed to be the bookish types, not paratroopers.But I'll tell you what: if you're ever at my table and want to trigger your Feather Fall at 600 meters, I won't make you roll, even if your Wizard isn't trained.  Fair?I can't help but also think about the original Archimonde fight in World of Warcraft, circa 2007/2008.  For the uninitiated, Archimonde has an ability which pops everybody high in the air, and you have to use an item to essentially Feather Fall back down.  The tricky part is that if you use it too high you spend too long floating down, when what you want to do is get back into the fight as quickly as possible.  So ideally you want to use it just before you hit the ground.  Sound familiar?Ok, I was in a competitive guild back then so we were mostly pretty strong players (except me, really...fortunately I was a rogue and could survive larger falls) and we did this over and over and over again, every week.  And the falling speeds were not actually very fast; nowhere near realistic velocities. In the first few weeks it was mass carnage; we were like lemmings.  But even after we had the fight dialed, STILL people would sometimes crater because they would try to cut it too close.It's hard.</blockquote>

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