Mighty Impel on targets with Flying Speed

Quote from Plaguescarred >>

The rules tell you with Fly Speed you can stay aloft and how you can fall when Flying in a nutshell.

 
Even that is not true. The rules tell you about 3 circumstances that make you fall when you fly, and that hovering lets you stay aloft in these specific circumstances.
It doesn't say anything else at all. Any other implication, like "any effect in the entire game that would cause you to fall is negated by having a Flying Speed greater than 0" is NOT something that the rules say, no matter how much you'd want the rules to say or imply that, they don't.

You still can choose to rule it that way, but that's a house rule.

You asked a question ''does the creature still fall if they have a Flying Speed and can't Hover?''

Any creature that isn’t on a surface or liquid that can support it usually fall.

Those with Fly Speed can stay aloft in such circumstances.

That's my answer to your question and if you prefer to think it's a houserule then perhaps you already made up your mind.

To be honest I thought the discussion would be mostly around whether hovering changes something...
I did not expect everybody to keep defaulting to the general rules, when this discussion is about a specific one.
Specific beats general is a well-established concept, yet all the replies I've had on this thread is just straight-up pretending it's not a thing, which I find confusing.

This was obviously written in regards to non-flying targets, a simple oversight on their end (Unearthed Arcana material is basically Alpha material still in playtesting and almost always gets reworded IF finalized, which the vast majority of their content is scrapped, not finalized).

A flying creature only falls under specific circumstances, and this spell causes none of those. If you wish to rule otherwise at your table, you are of course free to do so - but you asked, and we answered.

What are you talking about? Path of the Giant is from Bigsby's Glory of Giants, it's not UA, and it IS final.
Also this is a Barbarian feature, not a spell.

And again, you're defaulting back to a general rule even though that general rule is superseded by a specific rule.

The capacity to Hover prevents you from falling when you have the Incapacitated or Prone condition or your Fly Speed is reduced to 0 for example. You can stay aloft otherwise.

There is a Sage Advice on this if it may help.

Can a flying creature without the hover trait stay in one place while airborne, or does it need to move each round?

A flier that lacks the hover trait can stay aloft without moving each round.

Here's for example how i'd handle different case of creature thrown 30 feet in the air:

• Non-flier Fall and take 3d6 Bludgeoning damage at the end of the fall. When the creature lands, it has the Prone condition unless it avoids taking any damage from the fall.
• Fly Speed Stay aloft 30 feet in the air.
• Fly Speed (Hover) Stay aloft 30 feet in the air.
• Fly Speed but Incapacitated Fall and take 3d6 Bludgeoning damage at the end of the fall. When the creature lands, it has the Prone condition unless it avoids taking any damage from the fall.
• Fly Speed (Hover) but Incapacitated Stay aloft 30 feet in the air.

Consider this: if the devs had wanted for a creature to immediately fall after being violently thrown by this feature even if they have a Flying Speed and hovering, how would they have needed to word it for you to properly understand it that way? Because the current wording does an excellent job at carrying this idea, and any added language would simply be superfluous to accomplish this purpose.
If you wouldn't settle for anything less than "the creature falls even if it has a Flying Speed and even if it can hover", then you would never be convinced, because the devs never write their rules like this. Rules, (especially in 2024, but in 2014 as well) were written to avoid redundancy.

D&D 5E is an exception-based game, for example Opportunity Attack doesn't need to say creatures with Flyby don’t provoke.

Likewise, Path of the Giant doesn't need to say creatures with Fly Speed don't fall.

Except that Mighty Impel is a specific rule, and Opportunity Attack is a general one.

However, Flyby is a specific rule like Mighty Impel, and it does need to directly contradict the rule of Opportunity Attack to work effectively, just like Mighty Impel contradicts the general rules of falling.

Going strictly by the rules, I'd say that the target will fall even if it can hover. The rules glossary on hovering says "Hovering while flying prevents you from falling in certain circumstances." and there's nothing stating that this is one of those circumstances. However, I'd probably rule that they do stay in the air because most of the creatures that have hover are not flying in place like a hummingbird, but instead sort of magically floating.

I think it makes perfect sense for flying (but not hovering) creatures to fall. They do not fly to the target location, they are flung there in an uncrtollable manner.

That was also my original thought, which is why I asked my question in the first place. Strictly RAW, the rules of flying are superseded by Mighty Impel and it causes any affected creature to fall, regardless of their ability to hover, but hovering is supposed to prevent falling even when Incapacitated, and while Mighty Impel is a strong feature, it doesn't cause anything nearly that strong, so it doesn't feel right.

Quote from Natrel >>

Here's what Mighty Impel does:

10th-Level Path of the Giant Feature

Your connection to giant strength allows you to hurl both allies and enemies on the battlefield. As a bonus action while raging, you can choose one Medium or smaller creature within your reach and move it to an unoccupied space you can see within 30 feet of yourself. An unwilling creature must succeed on a Strength saving throw (DC equals 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier) to avoid the effect.

If, at the end of this movement, the thrown creature isn’t on a surface or liquid that can support it, the creature falls, taking damage as normal and landing prone.

The question is: does the creature still fall if they have a Flying Speed and can't Hover?
All that the feature says is that:
- The creature falls
- It takes the normal falling damage
- It lands prone

If this was meant to only apply to creatures that can't fly, then none of this would need to be said. This is the behavior of the general rules already.
But specific rules like this one usually aren't there just to remind you how the general rules work. When something doesn't need to be said, it rarely is.
So if this was added, surely it's for a reason, right?

But on the other hand, the creature falling without being knocked prone beforehand, or having their speed reduced to 0, or Incapacitated feels weird. But also it makes sense considering that they're being forcibly moved up to 30 ft. Not a really a situation where you can easily stabilize in the air, even if you can fly. So it seems like a "specific beats general" situation here.

And yet... it feels weird.

I would say they fall because the feature says they fall. On that logic it would also affect something with hover.

"A variety of effects allow a creature to fly. While flying, you fall if you have the Incapacitated or Prone condition or your Fly Speed is reduced to 0. You can stay aloft in those circumstances if you can hover"

Mighty Impel isn't any of these, and MI just makes em fall specifically, so it would work, weirdly.

To be fair, the target isn't being gently moved. It's brutally yeeted across the room... Rules that concern normal movement aren't really appropriate to adjudicate this situation.