Initiative and falling

[Trainz]

Greetings,

In last night's game, my player fell 100 feet, but wears a celestial armor (fly as the spell once per day). To determine if he had the time to activate it, I told him to roll init versus an unmodified d20 roll from me. He won and saved himself 10d6 dmg.

NOW...

I think there's an official ruling regarding this situation, but we spent 15 minutes looking up the books and couldn't find it.

Anyone ?

 

[Magic Slim]

How much distance does one fall in the first round of falling?

Slim

 

[dcollins]

Analysis per 3.0 rules:

- No official rule on this (it's rather a common question). DMG p. 62 has a section on "Simultaneity" where it says "You're within your rights to rule that Tardek won't trigger the [falling pit] trap until the end of the round." So it's largely a DM's call.

- No official falling speed in the core rulebooks. I use 500 ft first round, 1,000 feet each added round, from a book on skydiving and an old Dragon article. Last year's Dungeon #93, p. 79 specified a figure of 670 ft first round, 1,150 ft each added round.

 

[Trainz]

I use 500 ft first round, 1,000 feet each added round, from a book on skydiving and an old Dragon article.

Ok... so based on that, if 500 feet in a round, thus to react to a 100 feet fall is one-fifth of a round, so based on an init. count of 1d20, a modified roll of 17+ on init would do it...

That would work.

Someone with 22 dex and Improved Init. would succeed on a roll of 7+... makes sense that he would succeed faster than someone with 10 dex and no Imp. Init.