Stunning a flyer

[Evilhalfling]

the dire bat (druid) flies by scouting *bong*
a sound burst hits it, sending it plummeting into a chasm! 80' down in he falls into shallow water, barely surviving the fall. Does he drown?
what if it was a mindblast and he was stunned for several rounds?
how bout a hold monster?

it looks like stunned or dazed fliers fall- as they cant maintain minimum speed.
how does drownding work on those unable to move?

 

[LordSloth]

Yes, as far as i know flyers drop down

i suppose he drowns too.

 

[Kemrain]

This is how we rule it at my table. I think it's mostly correct, but I never can tell...

If you use powered flight, you'd lose crontrol of your wings and plummet 150 feet in the first round. the next round, and each round thereafter you fall 300 feet. If you can regain mobility, you can make a Reflex save DC 20 to regain control. Otherwise you land and take falling damage.

If you landed in water, and were paralized, I'd say you'd have a good chance of drowning. If the character is especially bouyant, and the GM is feeling nice, you might want to give the character some sort of check, otherwise, you're probably dead. Flying with wings is dangerous.

- Kemrain the Flier.

 

[Caeleddin]

Kemrain - Someone did a calculation and it was about 570ft a round.


EvilHalfling - A direbat as a scout.... Your player wasn't thinking, was he?

Anyway, you follow the standard rules for drowning, I guess. There is a chance that he might be breathing in when he got hit, so he might get the standard Con x2 rounds or a part of it before he goes glug glug glug. It is up to you to decide that.

 

[ken-ichi]

Seeing as a sound burst only stuns for what 1 round?
The creature does not fall until his turn when he cannot move enough to maintain flight and drops instead. I don't think being stunned would stop you from holding your breath.
So the drowning rules would not even come into play.

Hold Person or Monster does not stop you from breathing, so it would not stop you from not breathing.
As per the SRD: A paralyzed swimmer can’t swim and may drown.
Note the may, it would have to last more than 2 * Con score to force checks for drowning.

 

[Izerath]

Physics aside, he's close enough

Generally speaking, terminal velocity is not that important. A close "simulation" of physics for falling is 150 ft in Rd 1 and 300 ft each round thereafter.

Lets get real, unless someone else is flying and can catch the poor fool mid-fall, or they have featherfall spell prepped, they're hitting the ground pretty hard.

I will note however, that I do not conclude the fall until the initiative count prior to the one when they started falling in the previous "round."

Example: If a PC went on 22, and started falling on 10, then the PC would not finish falling until 11 in the next round count, and she would have an action during which to cast featherfall, or be caught by an ally before she went splat.

Also, as a side note, a creature is STUNNED until the round count prior to the one in which it was stunned the previous round. See example above.

 

[Caeleddin]

Izerath - Acceleration due to gravity is about 32ft/sec. First second (each round is 6 seconds), he falls 32ft. Second round, it is 64, 3rd is 96, 4th is 128, 5th is 160, 6th is 192. Add them all together and you get 672ft in the first round alone. Take away 100ft or so to simulate that you are in the "middle" of the 6th second, and.... you get the idea.

This has nothing to do with terminal velocity.


Ken-Ichi - Good point. So, he'll get 2x Con rounds before he starts drowning, assuming he reacted fast enough to hold his breath before he hit the water.