Apologies if this has been asked before, I didn't see anything resembling it in Search
A Glabrezu casts fly on itself. On a subsequent turn, it ends it's movement 60 ft. above 3 PC's - one of whom is a Fighter(Cavalier) with the Sentinel feat - and then cancels the spell, intending to do falling damage. The Fighter declares that when the falling Glabrezu gets within 5ft. of him, it will provoke an opportunity attack, which would allow him to reduce the creature's speed to 0 for the rest of the turn, thereby avoiding any falling damage.
This led to heated debate about voluntary vs. involuntary movement, weather or not the act of falling constituted an attack, and if it was possible to reduce the movement of a falling creature to 0 via Sentinel.
Any clarification on this matter would be greatly appreciated.
(I would have sent this to @JeremyECrawford on Twitter, but I'm not on Twitter and have no desire to join)
Movement, and Speed (a trait that you require for it) is covered in page 181-2 of the Player's Handbook (or here), including special types of movement such as running, flying, swimming, and climbing.
Falling is covered on the next page, as the first hazard (and most common one for adventurers, usually) of the environment. Falling rules are entirely unconcerned about a character's Speed trait.
So, Sentinel feat or not, falling happens. Speed 0 means you can't walk or run or fly, but a creature that suffers 5 levels of exhaustion isn't suddenly able to be suspended mid-air. :p
Edit: Also, the Cavalier has a reach weapon, right? Hold the Line doesn't give you an attack of opportunity when an enemy enters your threatening range (only when they move in it).
A Glabrezu casts fly on itself. On a subsequent turn, it ends it's movement 60 ft. above 3 PC's - one of whom is a Fighter(Cavalier) with the Sentinel feat - and then cancels the spell, intending to do falling damage.
That seems like a waste of the spell considering it has 10 foot reach and can easily harass the players while staying out of their melee range.
The Fighter declares that when the falling Glabrezu gets within 5ft. of him, it will provoke an opportunity attack
How/why? If you mean they readied an attack, that's not an opportunity attack.
which would allow him to reduce the creature's speed to 0 for the rest of the turn, thereby avoiding any falling damage.
Reducing a flying creature's speed to 0 won't prevent it from falling - on the contrary, it'll cause it to fall if it can't hover.
For those who are curious as to why the Glabrezu was using Fly ...
The fighter (who wields a magic quarterstaff w/o reach; also, has 1 level of Barbarian) had been stunned and the demon picked him up and flew straight up intending to do falling damage. Unfortunately (from my perspective; I'm the DM), he made his save 1 turn later and broke free taking only half damage from a 60' fall. He then used his magic Ring of Jumping to try and escape, but couldn't jump further than the Glabrezu could fly. However, as that used the demon's movement, I decided to go wrecking-ball on them.
As I always try to see things from each players' perspective, I decided to let the Fighter make an Athletics check to deflect the falling Glabrezu and only take half damage (which was halved again due to him raging), but not knowing for certain if that was the right call has been bugging me.
Interesting tidbit: The entire encounter was the result of a completely optional draw from a Deck of Many Things. The player who drew it used his insanely high CHA to convince the demon that destroying another member of the party with whom he'd been feuding would ruin his plans.
A lot of things down the line break when you start out trying to do something not in the rules.
The monster does not have a charge or plummet or other attack ability that would allow it to deliberately fall into a character for massive damage. Allowing this becomes open to massive abuse and as you note really breaks all the rest of the rules as you try to follow through things. As such I would advise to rule it in a way that is unlikely to make it highly effective or equivalent to and normal attack or spell. Because if you can do it to them, your players can do it to your monsters
If I allowed something like this... first it would be an non-proficient dex attack roll at disadvantage to even try to hit the area you want. That should not be automatic. Not sure of the AC I would give. If they miss they land in a spot, maybe random or maybe not, depends not sure how I would go with that. If someone is then in that space they would take half the falling damage or a reflex save for none.
There actually is a way to get an AoO when they enter a space, it's the polearm master feat. The second part of the description says:
"While you are wielding a glaive, halberd, pike, quarterstaff, or spear, other creatures provoke an opportunity attack from you when they enter your reach."
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Apologies if this has been asked before, I didn't see anything resembling it in Search
A Glabrezu casts fly on itself. On a subsequent turn, it ends it's movement 60 ft. above 3 PC's - one of whom is a Fighter(Cavalier) with the Sentinel feat - and then cancels the spell, intending to do falling damage. The Fighter declares that when the falling Glabrezu gets within 5ft. of him, it will provoke an opportunity attack, which would allow him to reduce the creature's speed to 0 for the rest of the turn, thereby avoiding any falling damage.
This led to heated debate about voluntary vs. involuntary movement, weather or not the act of falling constituted an attack, and if it was possible to reduce the movement of a falling creature to 0 via Sentinel.
Any clarification on this matter would be greatly appreciated.
(I would have sent this to @JeremyECrawford on Twitter, but I'm not on Twitter and have no desire to join)
Movement, and Speed (a trait that you require for it) is covered in page 181-2 of the Player's Handbook (or here), including special types of movement such as running, flying, swimming, and climbing.
Falling is covered on the next page, as the first hazard (and most common one for adventurers, usually) of the environment. Falling rules are entirely unconcerned about a character's Speed trait.
So, Sentinel feat or not, falling happens. Speed 0 means you can't walk or run or fly, but a creature that suffers 5 levels of exhaustion isn't suddenly able to be suspended mid-air. :p
Edit: Also, the Cavalier has a reach weapon, right? Hold the Line doesn't give you an attack of opportunity when an enemy enters your threatening range (only when they move in it).
That seems like a waste of the spell considering it has 10 foot reach and can easily harass the players while staying out of their melee range.
How/why? If you mean they readied an attack, that's not an opportunity attack.
Reducing a flying creature's speed to 0 won't prevent it from falling - on the contrary, it'll cause it to fall if it can't hover.
As others have said - there is no AoO for a monster entering a space. Only leaving.
And yeah reducing a flying (falling) creatures speed to zero makes it fall so it wouldn’t work for that reason either.
Thank you for the replies.
For those who are curious as to why the Glabrezu was using Fly ...
The fighter (who wields a magic quarterstaff w/o reach; also, has 1 level of Barbarian) had been stunned and the demon picked him up and flew straight up intending to do falling damage. Unfortunately (from my perspective; I'm the DM), he made his save 1 turn later and broke free taking only half damage from a 60' fall. He then used his magic Ring of Jumping to try and escape, but couldn't jump further than the Glabrezu could fly. However, as that used the demon's movement, I decided to go wrecking-ball on them.
As I always try to see things from each players' perspective, I decided to let the Fighter make an Athletics check to deflect the falling Glabrezu and only take half damage (which was halved again due to him raging), but not knowing for certain if that was the right call has been bugging me.
Interesting tidbit: The entire encounter was the result of a completely optional draw from a Deck of Many Things. The player who drew it used his insanely high CHA to convince the demon that destroying another member of the party with whom he'd been feuding would ruin his plans.
A lot of things down the line break when you start out trying to do something not in the rules.
The monster does not have a charge or plummet or other attack ability that would allow it to deliberately fall into a character for massive damage. Allowing this becomes open to massive abuse and as you note really breaks all the rest of the rules as you try to follow through things. As such I would advise to rule it in a way that is unlikely to make it highly effective or equivalent to and normal attack or spell. Because if you can do it to them, your players can do it to your monsters
If I allowed something like this... first it would be an non-proficient dex attack roll at disadvantage to even try to hit the area you want. That should not be automatic. Not sure of the AC I would give. If they miss they land in a spot, maybe random or maybe not, depends not sure how I would go with that. If someone is then in that space they would take half the falling damage or a reflex save for none.
And yeah, that isn't a very good trade at all.
There actually is a way to get an AoO when they enter a space, it's the polearm master feat. The second part of the description says:
"While you are wielding a glaive, halberd, pike, quarterstaff, or spear, other creatures provoke an opportunity attack from you when they enter your reach."