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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arial Black" data-source="post: 7315699" data-attributes="member: 6799649">At least this is progress in our debate: the question boils down to the word 'fall/falls' (depending on the subject: I fall, you fall, he falls, etc.), and whether it means 'the precise moment you begin to fall, and not any part of the journey from that moment to the ground' OR 'any point in the journey from the beginning of the fall to the splat moment'.'It rains'. 'It is raining'. These mean the same thing. 'He falls'. 'He is falling'. These mean the same thing.But maybe English grammar is not the point; we should be checking if the rules treat 'fall' as only referring to the initial moment or to the whole journey.On page 183, under the heading 'Falling', the PHB says, "At the end of a fall, a creature takes 1d6 bludgeoning damage for every 10 feet it fell, to a maximum of 20d6". Great! Since the 'fall' is only the beginning under that interpretation then the 'fall' was of zero distance. The journey down is definitely not part of the 'fall' in that case, so you 'fall' off the top of the 600 foot tower, the 'fall' is only the moment you started, so you 'fall' no distance and take no damage. When you hit the ground 600 feet later then the rules don't tell you anything about any damage you take so you don't take any.Unless, of course, the 'fall' really does refer to the entire journey.What about the poor monk: "Slow Fall: Beginning at 4th level, you can use your reaction when you fall to reduce any falling damage you take by an amount equal to five times your monk level". What a useless ability! Since your 'fall' doesn't do any damage, then there is no damage to reduce!The fly spell says, "When the spell ends, the target falls if it is still aloft, unless it can stop the fall". It is logically impossible to 'stop a fall' if 'fall' is an instantaneous event!What about the spell in question? Is 'fall' the same thing in the rules as 'falling'? Feather fall says, "Choose up to five falling creatures within range. A falling creature's rate of descent slows to 60 feet per round until the spell ends". But if 'fall' is only the beginning moment then your 'falling speed' at that point is zero, so the text about your rate of descent slowing to 60 feet per round should instead say that the spell accelerates you to 60 feet per round!In fact, the spell description never mentions 'fall'; it only refers to 'falling'.I submit that according to the rules of English AND the rules of the game, 'fall' and 'falling' are synonymous. The rules simply do not make sense otherwise.As for Reaction triggers having to be instantaneous, not so! Counterspell's trigger is, "when you see a creature within 60 feet of you casting a spell". Some spells take 'minutes or even hours' to cast (PHB p202), and they are 'casting a spell' for that entire period and you may counterspell them at any point where they are still casting, i.e. the trigger remains ongoing. Just like you are still 'falling' all the way down.The section on Reactions (p190) mentions that it is taken in response to 'a trigger of some kind', but no indication that the trigger must be an instantaneous event. In the section on Ready (p193) it defines 'trigger' as a 'perceivable circumstance'. Pretty sure that 'falling' is a perceivable circumstance, and falling is not instantaneous.Lastly, if you believe that the trigger for FF can be read either way, then both ways are valid triggers! Although "when you or a creature within 60 feet of you falls" could refer to the beginning of the fall or the whole thing, this does not mean that you can deny that either way is not true. You can't say that 'fall' could refer to either and simultaneously claim that it doesn't refer to one! All that is required is that the player can honestly answer the question of 'are you falling' with 'yes'.</blockquote>

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