Yeah a DM can make a ruling based on different rules to determine what happen when you jump and grapple a flying (hover) creature;
A) You fall and as you move you drag the grappled creature with you.
B) You fall as the condition ends because it's an effect that removes the grappled creature from the reach of the grappler.
C) You don't fall as long as the grapple is in effect.
I don't see how RAW can be anything other than C. If you grab a creature, you are holding onto the creature. If you are holding something, you don't automatically fall unless something causes you to fall. It is the same as if you climbing a surface. An external effect is required to knock you off. This thread has some interesting ideas, but the rules as written aren't unclear; no need to overcomplicate it.
People can have different interpretation of RAW it's not necessarily overcomplicating because you disagree. You say an hovering flying creature with a speed of 0 is the same as climbing a surface but this is not written , Hover only prevent the flyer from falling and may not be anywhere as supporting as a steady surface. I see place for different ruling.
Hovering is a wild thing. There are no rules that put ANY limits on what a hovering creature can carry while maintaining their status in the air. If a storm giant jumps up and grapples a low-flying demilich with a strength of 1, you can say that hovering creature stays in the air like an immovable rod whether it is one storm giant, or 100 of them.
Even for non-hovering flying creatures, there isn't a specified limit for how much they can carry while flying. The rules for lifting and carrying just limit you to five feet, which doesn't knock a flying creature out of the air. The variant encumbrance rules can do it if being heavily encumbered lowers your speed to 0, but unless you can hover, simply being grappled in the first place is going to be enough to knock you out of the sky.
Not how I would rule it at my table, but there you have it.
Yeah a DM can make a ruling based on different rules to determine what happen when you jump and grapple a flying (hover) creature;
A) You fall and as you move you drag the grappled creature with you.
B) You fall as the condition ends because it's an effect that removes the grappled creature from the reach of the grappler.
C) You don't fall as long as the grapple is in effect.
I don't see how RAW can be anything other than C. If you grab a creature, you are holding onto the creature. If you are holding something, you don't automatically fall unless something causes you to fall. It is the same as if you climbing a surface. An external effect is required to knock you off. This thread has some interesting ideas, but the rules as written aren't unclear; no need to overcomplicate it.
People can have different interpretation of RAW it's not necessarily overcomplicating because you disagree. You say an hovering flying creature with a speed of 0 is the same as climbing a surface but this is not written , Hover only prevent the flyer from falling and may not be anywhere as supporting as a steady surface. I see place for different ruling.
A hovering creature with a speed of 0 does not fall. This is RAW.
A creature grappling another creature is by definition successfully holding onto that creature. They are in control. This is RAW.
A creature holding onto something does not automatically fall without an external effect. This is RAW.
A creature holding onto a hovering creature does not automatically fall without an external effect.
The basic rules are straight-forward here. It's not complicated. The situation that you are attempting to describe is one in which the grappler has failed.
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
3. Depends if what your holding onto can support you. According to this logic grappling anything prevent a fall, even a thin branch, we know it's not the case by physics, a DM can rule you fall. Which goes back to Hover, and RAW it only prevent the flyer.
Where this gets fun is when the grappled hovering creature turns around and grapples the non-hovering flying creature. For a beholder, this would be tough for anatomical reasons, but let's put that aside. In this case, the non-hovering creature ALSO has a speed of 0 and immediately falls. This ends the grappled condition on the hovering creature as the grappler's distance suddenly exceeds its reach (bullet point 3), and the hovering creature is now free to move again. Good times.
This mechanic I think could be open to debate. The grappled condition says this:
The condition also ends if an effect removes the grappled creature from the reach of the grappler or grappling effect, such as when a creature is hurled away by the thunderwave spell.
So, is this trying to say that all forced movement ends the effect? Falling is certainly forced movement. Or, does the forced movement have to be strong enough such that it "removes the grappled creature from the reach of the grappler or grappling effect"? The example given is thunderwave. Is falling as forceful as thunderwave? It would seem to depend on which definition of "removes" is used in the interpretation.
Is it not possible to grapple a creature and then hold him over the side of a balcony, threatening to drop him during interrogation?
3. According to this logic grappling anything prevent a fall, even a thin branch
The flyer is hovering and not falling. You are successfully holding onto it, by definition of succeeding a grapple. You are not falling, full stop. This thread is specifically about grappling a hovering creature, which the RAW is clear about. Anything else is irrelevant.
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
3. According to this logic grappling anything prevent a fall, even a thin branch
The flyer is hovering and not falling. You are successfully holding onto it, by definition of succeeding a grapple. You are not falling, full stop. This thread is specifically about grappling a hovering creature, which the RAW is clear about. Anything else is irrelevant.
The grappling creature is not flying (hover). Where does RAW says a non-flying creature in midair doesn't fall? There lies the relevance.
3. According to this logic grappling anything prevent a fall, even a thin branch
The flyer is hovering and not falling. You are successfully holding onto it, by definition of succeeding a grapple. You are not falling, full stop. This thread is specifically about grappling a hovering creature, which the RAW is clear about. Anything else is irrelevant.
The grappling creature is not flying (hover). Where does RAW says a non-flying creature in midair doesn't fall? There lies the relevance.
Dude, where does RAW say they do fall? All of the RAW sources presented thus far in this topic support the conclusion that the grappler would not fall. The player has succeeded on a skill check to grapple, so they get to hold on to what they grappled. Please present evidence that actually supports your specific position.
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
3. According to this logic grappling anything prevent a fall, even a thin branch
The flyer is hovering and not falling. You are successfully holding onto it, by definition of succeeding a grapple. You are not falling, full stop. This thread is specifically about grappling a hovering creature, which the RAW is clear about. Anything else is irrelevant.
The grappling creature is not flying (hover). Where does RAW says a non-flying creature in midair doesn't fall? There lies the relevance.
Dude, where does RAW say they do fall? All of the RAW sources presented thus far in this topic support the conclusion that the grappler would not fall. The player has succeeded on a skill check to grapple, so they get to hold on to what they grappled. Please present evidence that actually supports your specific position.
DMs generally rule that a creature in the air falls unless it can fly or something. The evidence is in the condition, holding something is insufficient under force movement, it removes from reach, which DM may rule when falling this way. That you don't consider this possibility is up to you but it's a ruling a DM can certainly do based on the rules.
Grappled: The condition also ends if an effect removes the grappled creature from the reach of the grappler or grappling effect, such as when a creature is hurled away by the thunderwave spell.
3. According to this logic grappling anything prevent a fall, even a thin branch
The flyer is hovering and not falling. You are successfully holding onto it, by definition of succeeding a grapple. You are not falling, full stop. This thread is specifically about grappling a hovering creature, which the RAW is clear about. Anything else is irrelevant.
The grappling creature is not flying (hover). Where does RAW says a non-flying creature in midair doesn't fall? There lies the relevance.
Dude, where does RAW say they do fall? All of the RAW sources presented thus far in this topic support the conclusion that the grappler would not fall. The player has succeeded on a skill check to grapple, so they get to hold on to what they grappled. Please present evidence that actually supports your specific position.
holding something is insufficient under force movement
Where does any rule ever say this? More specifically, what rule makes you think that forced movement is even a factor here? The player is literally holding onto something that is not moving. Gravity is NOT a factor here. The player has already passed a skill check for this exact purpose. There is no external effect causing forced movement. Falling does not occur in this situation.
Your interpretation would make anyone without hover immediately fall from monkey bars. Think on that.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
While somewhat rule-lite, a fall is a forced movement to the ground, you're being pull down unwillingly. It's not willing movement despite not explicitly mentioned.
You can hold onto monkey bars, they're not using the Grapple rules as they're not creature but an object. As i said previously it depends if what your holding onto can support you, the DM would determine if the object can support your weight. But Grapple rules are different. I see more than one rulings possible depending which rule DM decides to rely on, you don't i concur.
I see what you are saying, but we don't have the system in place to determine how much weight a particular hovering creature can carry while remaining aloft. We can figure encumbrance rules based on the strength of the hovering grappled creature, but that only serves to slow down their movement. If they were grappled, they would already have 0 speed, so they cannot move around anyway. In the absence of a mechanism to tell us how much weight causes a hovering creature to sink, the DM has to make a ruling. I don't see this as a shortcoming in the game. You have just encountered a situation for which the rules don't provide specific guidance, which means I cannot point to RAW one way or the other.
Having done no research whatsoever on the hover ability, my hunch is that there is no weight limit. So, a giant mountain could come crashing down onto a hovering creature and that would cause the mountain to rest on top of this creature -- the two of them hovering there together, at least momentarily.
Of course, if such a creature is completely crushed during this process and dies, I assume that it no longer hovers at that point.
While somewhat rule-lite, a fall is a forced movement to the ground
And my point is, what exactly makes you think that this is occurring in the OP's situation? Movement is not being forced just because the grappler doesn't have feet on the ground or a fly speed. Falling occurs when an external effect directly causes movement such as a spell like Gust of Wind, or when there is nothing preventing gravity from taking its course. Successfully holding onto something that is not moving prevents gravity from taking its course.
The player succeeded at a skill check that has the direct consequence of successfully holding onto a creature that is hovering and not moving. There is no distinction in the rules between holding onto a creature or an object (don't be absurd). Therefore, there is no effect--inexplicably negating the skill check that they just passed--causing the grappler to break their grapple and automatically & immediately fall.
Does that mean they can hang on perpetually? Of course not! You can always require an Athletics check on subsequent turns to keep holding on, per normal rules on climbing. Alternatively, on subsequent turns, the grappled creature can gain control of the grapple and drop the player.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
It makes me think that because the Falling rule don't mention grappling a creature prevent a fall.
I dunno. It isn't hard to make a case that a creature grappling is still holding onto something, and if the creature hovers, you're holding them the same as if you were holding onto a cliffside. The only difference is that the DC to hold on is set by the hovering creature's Athletics/Acrobatics check instead of a standard DC. The only way to rule that the creature falls after successfully grappling and remain logically consistent is to also make them fall every time they try to climb anything.
I never it was a hard case i listed it among the different possible ruling based on different rules to determine what happen when you jump and grapple a flying (hover) creature in post #41.
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People can have different interpretation of RAW it's not necessarily overcomplicating because you disagree. You say an hovering flying creature with a speed of 0 is the same as climbing a surface but this is not written , Hover only prevent the flyer from falling and may not be anywhere as supporting as a steady surface. I see place for different ruling.
Hovering is a wild thing. There are no rules that put ANY limits on what a hovering creature can carry while maintaining their status in the air. If a storm giant jumps up and grapples a low-flying demilich with a strength of 1, you can say that hovering creature stays in the air like an immovable rod whether it is one storm giant, or 100 of them.
Even for non-hovering flying creatures, there isn't a specified limit for how much they can carry while flying. The rules for lifting and carrying just limit you to five feet, which doesn't knock a flying creature out of the air. The variant encumbrance rules can do it if being heavily encumbered lowers your speed to 0, but unless you can hover, simply being grappled in the first place is going to be enough to knock you out of the sky.
Not how I would rule it at my table, but there you have it.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
The basic rules are straight-forward here. It's not complicated. The situation that you are attempting to describe is one in which the grappler has failed.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
This mechanic I think could be open to debate. The grappled condition says this:
So, is this trying to say that all forced movement ends the effect? Falling is certainly forced movement. Or, does the forced movement have to be strong enough such that it "removes the grappled creature from the reach of the grappler or grappling effect"? The example given is thunderwave. Is falling as forceful as thunderwave? It would seem to depend on which definition of "removes" is used in the interpretation.
Is it not possible to grapple a creature and then hold him over the side of a balcony, threatening to drop him during interrogation?
The flyer is hovering and not falling. You are successfully holding onto it, by definition of succeeding a grapple. You are not falling, full stop. This thread is specifically about grappling a hovering creature, which the RAW is clear about. Anything else is irrelevant.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
The grappling creature is not flying (hover). Where does RAW says a non-flying creature in midair doesn't fall? There lies the relevance.
Dude, where does RAW say they do fall? All of the RAW sources presented thus far in this topic support the conclusion that the grappler would not fall. The player has succeeded on a skill check to grapple, so they get to hold on to what they grappled. Please present evidence that actually supports your specific position.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
DMs generally rule that a creature in the air falls unless it can fly or something. The evidence is in the condition, holding something is insufficient under force movement, it removes from reach, which DM may rule when falling this way. That you don't consider this possibility is up to you but it's a ruling a DM can certainly do based on the rules.
Where does any rule ever say this? More specifically, what rule makes you think that forced movement is even a factor here? The player is literally holding onto something that is not moving. Gravity is NOT a factor here. The player has already passed a skill check for this exact purpose. There is no external effect causing forced movement. Falling does not occur in this situation.
Your interpretation would make anyone without hover immediately fall from monkey bars. Think on that.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
While somewhat rule-lite, a fall is a forced movement to the ground, you're being pull down unwillingly. It's not willing movement despite not explicitly mentioned.
You can hold onto monkey bars, they're not using the Grapple rules as they're not creature but an object. As i said previously it depends if what your holding onto can support you, the DM would determine if the object can support your weight. But Grapple rules are different. I see more than one rulings possible depending which rule DM decides to rely on, you don't i concur.
I see what you are saying, but we don't have the system in place to determine how much weight a particular hovering creature can carry while remaining aloft. We can figure encumbrance rules based on the strength of the hovering grappled creature, but that only serves to slow down their movement. If they were grappled, they would already have 0 speed, so they cannot move around anyway. In the absence of a mechanism to tell us how much weight causes a hovering creature to sink, the DM has to make a ruling. I don't see this as a shortcoming in the game. You have just encountered a situation for which the rules don't provide specific guidance, which means I cannot point to RAW one way or the other.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Having done no research whatsoever on the hover ability, my hunch is that there is no weight limit. So, a giant mountain could come crashing down onto a hovering creature and that would cause the mountain to rest on top of this creature -- the two of them hovering there together, at least momentarily.
Of course, if such a creature is completely crushed during this process and dies, I assume that it no longer hovers at that point.
And my point is, what exactly makes you think that this is occurring in the OP's situation? Movement is not being forced just because the grappler doesn't have feet on the ground or a fly speed. Falling occurs when an external effect directly causes movement such as a spell like Gust of Wind, or when there is nothing preventing gravity from taking its course. Successfully holding onto something that is not moving prevents gravity from taking its course.
The player succeeded at a skill check that has the direct consequence of successfully holding onto a creature that is hovering and not moving. There is no distinction in the rules between holding onto a creature or an object (don't be absurd). Therefore, there is no effect--inexplicably negating the skill check that they just passed--causing the grappler to break their grapple and automatically & immediately fall.
Does that mean they can hang on perpetually? Of course not! You can always require an Athletics check on subsequent turns to keep holding on, per normal rules on climbing. Alternatively, on subsequent turns, the grappled creature can gain control of the grapple and drop the player.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
It makes me think that because the Falling rule don't mention grappling a creature prevent a fall.
I dunno. It isn't hard to make a case that a creature grappling is still holding onto something, and if the creature hovers, you're holding them the same as if you were holding onto a cliffside. The only difference is that the DC to hold on is set by the hovering creature's Athletics/Acrobatics check instead of a standard DC. The only way to rule that the creature falls after successfully grappling and remain logically consistent is to also make them fall every time they try to climb anything.
I never it was a hard case i listed it among the different possible ruling based on different rules to determine what happen when you jump and grapple a flying (hover) creature in post #41.