can hovering character stop hover and drop himself?
I'm asking because I play as a UA Fairy (race) so I can fly and hover as skill (not body property) and I'm a druid, and I want to know if I can make damage by falling as huge beast (wild shape) on enemies and how much damage from what height I can do
yes, a flying creature can choose to stop flying and fall. The general rule for falling on an opponent is that you deal 1d6 damage per 10 feet you fall, with the damage split evenly between both. So if you were to fall from 50 feet above, you would deal 5d6 damage, split between you and the target (so if you were to roll, say... 28 damage, both you and the target would take 14 damage).
However, that doesn't really take into account size differences such as growing into an elephant or something before dropping. I'm not sure if there's specific rules for this, but what i would do is double the number of d6's for a Huge Creature... I wouldn't increase the damage for a Large creature because I think it would be too easy for that ruling to get out of hand or abused by both players and enemies alike, but you'd still take even more damage from it as well.
You are using a skill, so I would definitely rule that you can just stop using it. But honestly, what you are doing is a special Attack, aided by gravity. There is no magical guarantee you fall on the target - you have to aim for it. There is no rule about doing more damage for being larger, but I would probably make you do it for role playing purposes - it's cool. But no, you do not do more damage because of it - but you want to polymorph anyway as you are about to take some damage.
You take 1d6 per 10 ft of fall, so it makes sense to do the same damage you get. Almost anything you use to lessen that damage done to you should also reduce the damage done to them. I would allow you to dive natural weapon first, doing an extra amount of damage equal to your normal natural weapon damage, and changing type from blunt to your natural weapon type.
As a DM, I would let you make a single attack roll against the creature you want to dive at. You are proficient (literally flying as a skill), and you would have to use Dex as your stat to hit. You do not use your strength for damage damage you are relying on gravity and cannot push off of anything.
Assuming you fell 50 ft after transforming into a bear , that would mean you do 5d6 + your 2d6 claw attack, piercing. You take 5d6 damage.
Not a fantastic strategy, but in certain situations, it makes a lot of sense because:
Ideally this is done when the enemy is wounded, in the hopes it will finish him off.
You are polymorphed, so you effectively have these extra HP to burn.
You very well might have some extra abilities that do damage on contact, increasing the damage.
You could roll a natural 20, doing critical damage. This would make the blow VERY worthwhile.
The official rules for falling onto another creature can be found on page 170 of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything and read as follows:
If a creature falls into the space of a second creature and neither of them is Tiny, the second creature must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or be impacted by the falling creature, and any damage resulting from the fall is divided evenly between them. The impacted creature is also knocked prone, unless it is two or more sizes larger than the falling creature.
As far as being crushed by a much larger creature there are no actual rulings for it, however, I imagine that any additional damage from it would be entirely on the crushed victim and personally would apply something more similar to being hit by a falling rock trap, such as:
If the falling creature is huge or larger then in addition to any other results from the fall, the other creature takes 1d10 bludgeoning damage if it failed its save, or half as much and is moved to an adjacent space on a success.
I don't know if this is to easy, but let me present my solution for flying PC races:
Flying is a pretty complex activity, or in other words casting spells or aiming while flying shouldn't be possible for sombody who isn't an experienced flyer. Flying races should reach a certain level to be able to attack or cast spells while fying.
The fly spell is a 3rd level spell and becomes available at the 5th character level and Druid's can wildshape in flying creatures at the 8th level. So flying races should get the ability to attack and cast spells while flying between level 5 and 8. You cold probably allow melee attacks while flying sooner.
How about anything requiring aim during flight is at disadvantage unless you are proficient with ranged weapons rendering it a normal, non proficient, ranged attack in the air. Also, any ranged attack damage is reduced to zero anyway when the target is outside of the weapon’s or spells range. Other than this, I think monster’s and villains will have the same problem with anyone firing any ranged weapon from anywhere. You can also provide them cover rendering any flown attacks useless. There is also the knocked prone in flight danger.
New DM here. I have a world started with plenty of adventure up front and plenty of room to grow. I am looking to build it with players. I don't see DM'ing as DM against players, more of a storyteller and referree. I can't wait to see how the adventure progresses!
How about anything requiring aim during flight is at disadvantage unless you are proficient with ranged weapons rendering it a normal, non proficient, ranged attack in the air. Also, any ranged attack damage is reduced to zero anyway when the target is outside of the weapon’s or spells range. Other than this, I think monster’s and villains will have the same problem with anyone firing any ranged weapon from anywhere. You can also provide them cover rendering any flown attacks useless. There is also the knocked prone in flight danger.
The DM can houserule anything, but RAW making ranged weapon attack while flying doesn't cause disadvantage unless proficient, nor it is possible to attack any target out of range.
That is inaccurate. Your total movement ability is determined by your greatest movement range. You can alter between both in any way you want up to that max range as long as you do not exceed any individual range limit. Basically you are limited to 30ft of walking only because it states 30ft.
So you could 30walking/30flying, or 20walking/40flying just fine. However you could not do 40walking/20flying as you'd have 10ft walking to far.
Aarakocras have 2 "speed" 25ft for walking and 50ft for flying. Does that mean i can move 75ft?
(Sorry new to the game)
You can use your move action to either walk 25 ft. or fly 50 ft. not both.
That is inaccurate. Your total movement ability is determined by your greatest movement range. You can alter between both in any way you want up to that max range as long as you do not exceed any individual range limit. Basically you are limited to 30ft of walking only because it states 30ft.
So you could 30walking/30flying, or 20walking/40flying just fine. However you could not do 40walking/20flying as you'd have 10ft walking to far.
Okay, the numbers above don't make sense. So let me use an example.
Scarmaker the Orc Barbarian has a walk speed of 30 feet, but a magic item grants him a flying speed of 60 feet.
Scarmaker can walk 30 feet, but any other movement must be flight. If he chooses to fly after walking 30 feet, he has 30 feet remaining (because any movement takes away from all movement speeds).
If Scarmaker flies 30 feet and chooses to land, he can't walk anywhere because he's already used all 30 feet of speed he could use for walking.
Basically, for every 5 feet, you track it against all move speeds. So that 30/60, after 10 feet of movement, is 20/50 remaining. You can only keep moving with a move speed that's above 0.
I'm mean. Can't the DM add some ranged enemies to pelt them with arrows, etc? I'm sure there are ways to rebalance against flying PCs
1. The last post on this thread was 3 months ago.
2. Yes, ranged attacks are one of the main ways for a DM to balance for flying PCs. Another is flying monsters. There's 6 pages of flying enemies not including partnered content in the D&D Beyond Monsters search.
There is no rule saying that a flying creature must move on each of its turns without falling.
So an Aarakocra can fly 50 feet in the air and spend each of their turns shooting arrows at stuff without using any movement and not fall?
This is why flying races are not a valid choice in Adventurers League play. They can really unbalance some encounters by flying into the air and sniping. At level 4 they could take sharpshooter and demolish outdoor encounters from 600' up with little of countering them ... unless everyone runs inside :)
But if they do get hit with an effect that knocks them prone or reduces their speed to 0, they will probably not survive the fall from 600 feet.
This is a response to you and a few others who posted similar comments. 1. They specified adventurers league so the DM has kind of set encounters which likely does not include that. 2. A dm will fix it is not the best design principle. As yes while a DM can fix it, some might not be up to it, or maybe they are lazy like me and if I am spending too much time working around 1 stupid ability so it does not unbalance the campaign I am going to ask the player to redesign without it.
The rules for falling from great heights is that you descend 200 ft immediately and then another 200 ft thereafter. So as long as your bird can right himself in 2 rounds, he’ll be fine.
And really, there’s only two ways to realistically hit someone 600 ft away and that’s with a longbow at disadvantage or as a warlock with eldritch spear and spell sniper, so not much is going to be touching our far out friend.
As for comparing this to real life, there are many simplifications for the sake of convenience and game balance, so it’s best not to get hung up on any particular detail (personally I’d like a more in depth combat system, but the way it is is simpler).
Even that seems like a lot. The flaws with turn based rules imo.Even tripping and falling to the floor people can do some acts to try and catch themselves, maybe not stop the fall but make sure they don't hurt themselves too much. So this idea you are falling for 200 feet and doing nothing is just weird to me. Maybe its my time playing 4e but I give a lot of reaction based saves to catch a edge if being shoved off a cliff, or here I'd have them get a reaction use save or 2nd save if being knocked prone required one to stop the fall before impact if the fall is more than 30 feet or so. The Dc would get higher if they were close to the ground.
Edit to add, damn did not catch how old this thread was, Would have skipped the first pages for commenting if i had noticed earlier.
I'm mean. Can't the DM add some ranged enemies to pelt them with arrows, etc? I'm sure there are ways to rebalance against flying PCs
1. The last post on this thread was 3 months ago.
2. Yes, ranged attacks are one of the main ways for a DM to balance for flying PCs. Another is flying monsters. There's 6 pages of flying enemies not including partnered content in the D&D Beyond Monsters search.
I wish I had read this before commenting. I did not realize how old this thread was at first. I am supremely unobservant.
yes, a flying creature can choose to stop flying and fall. The general rule for falling on an opponent is that you deal 1d6 damage per 10 feet you fall, with the damage split evenly between both. So if you were to fall from 50 feet above, you would deal 5d6 damage, split between you and the target (so if you were to roll, say... 28 damage, both you and the target would take 14 damage).
However, that doesn't really take into account size differences such as growing into an elephant or something before dropping. I'm not sure if there's specific rules for this, but what i would do is double the number of d6's for a Huge Creature... I wouldn't increase the damage for a Large creature because I think it would be too easy for that ruling to get out of hand or abused by both players and enemies alike, but you'd still take even more damage from it as well.
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You are using a skill, so I would definitely rule that you can just stop using it. But honestly, what you are doing is a special Attack, aided by gravity. There is no magical guarantee you fall on the target - you have to aim for it. There is no rule about doing more damage for being larger, but I would probably make you do it for role playing purposes - it's cool. But no, you do not do more damage because of it - but you want to polymorph anyway as you are about to take some damage.
You take 1d6 per 10 ft of fall, so it makes sense to do the same damage you get. Almost anything you use to lessen that damage done to you should also reduce the damage done to them. I would allow you to dive natural weapon first, doing an extra amount of damage equal to your normal natural weapon damage, and changing type from blunt to your natural weapon type.
As a DM, I would let you make a single attack roll against the creature you want to dive at. You are proficient (literally flying as a skill), and you would have to use Dex as your stat to hit. You do not use your strength for damage damage you are relying on gravity and cannot push off of anything.
Assuming you fell 50 ft after transforming into a bear , that would mean you do 5d6 + your 2d6 claw attack, piercing. You take 5d6 damage.
Not a fantastic strategy, but in certain situations, it makes a lot of sense because:
The official rules for falling onto another creature can be found on page 170 of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything and read as follows:
As far as being crushed by a much larger creature there are no actual rulings for it, however, I imagine that any additional damage from it would be entirely on the crushed victim and personally would apply something more similar to being hit by a falling rock trap, such as:
I don't know if this is to easy, but let me present my solution for flying PC races:
Flying is a pretty complex activity, or in other words casting spells or aiming while flying shouldn't be possible for sombody who isn't an experienced flyer. Flying races should reach a certain level to be able to attack or cast spells while fying.
The fly spell is a 3rd level spell and becomes available at the 5th character level and Druid's can wildshape in flying creatures at the 8th level. So flying races should get the ability to attack and cast spells while flying between level 5 and 8. You cold probably allow melee attacks while flying sooner.
How about anything requiring aim during flight is at disadvantage unless you are proficient with ranged weapons rendering it a normal, non proficient, ranged attack in the air. Also, any ranged attack damage is reduced to zero anyway when the target is outside of the weapon’s or spells range. Other than this, I think monster’s and villains will have the same problem with anyone firing any ranged weapon from anywhere. You can also provide them cover rendering any flown attacks useless. There is also the knocked prone in flight danger.
New DM here. I have a world started with plenty of adventure up front and plenty of room to grow. I am looking to build it with players. I don't see DM'ing as DM against players, more of a storyteller and referree. I can't wait to see how the adventure progresses!
The DM can houserule anything, but RAW making ranged weapon attack while flying doesn't cause disadvantage unless proficient, nor it is possible to attack any target out of range.
Like perhaps described in AD&D in the dungeon masters guide many many years ago?
That is inaccurate. Your total movement ability is determined by your greatest movement range. You can alter between both in any way you want up to that max range as long as you do not exceed any individual range limit. Basically you are limited to 30ft of walking only because it states 30ft.
So you could 30walking/30flying, or 20walking/40flying just fine. However you could not do 40walking/20flying as you'd have 10ft walking to far.
That is inaccurate. Your total movement ability is determined by your greatest movement range. You can alter between both in any way you want up to that max range as long as you do not exceed any individual range limit. Basically you are limited to 30ft of walking only because it states 30ft.
So you could 30walking/30flying, or 20walking/40flying just fine. However you could not do 40walking/20flying as you'd have 10ft walking to far.
Okay, the numbers above don't make sense. So let me use an example.
Scarmaker the Orc Barbarian has a walk speed of 30 feet, but a magic item grants him a flying speed of 60 feet.
Scarmaker can walk 30 feet, but any other movement must be flight. If he chooses to fly after walking 30 feet, he has 30 feet remaining (because any movement takes away from all movement speeds).
If Scarmaker flies 30 feet and chooses to land, he can't walk anywhere because he's already used all 30 feet of speed he could use for walking.
Basically, for every 5 feet, you track it against all move speeds. So that 30/60, after 10 feet of movement, is 20/50 remaining. You can only keep moving with a move speed that's above 0.
I'm mean. Can't the DM add some ranged enemies to pelt them with arrows, etc? I'm sure there are ways to rebalance against flying PCs
1. The last post on this thread was 3 months ago.
2. Yes, ranged attacks are one of the main ways for a DM to balance for flying PCs. Another is flying monsters. There's 6 pages of flying enemies not including partnered content in the D&D Beyond Monsters search.
This is a response to you and a few others who posted similar comments. 1. They specified adventurers league so the DM has kind of set encounters which likely does not include that. 2. A dm will fix it is not the best design principle. As yes while a DM can fix it, some might not be up to it, or maybe they are lazy like me and if I am spending too much time working around 1 stupid ability so it does not unbalance the campaign I am going to ask the player to redesign without it.
Even that seems like a lot. The flaws with turn based rules imo.Even tripping and falling to the floor people can do some acts to try and catch themselves, maybe not stop the fall but make sure they don't hurt themselves too much. So this idea you are falling for 200 feet and doing nothing is just weird to me. Maybe its my time playing 4e but I give a lot of reaction based saves to catch a edge if being shoved off a cliff, or here I'd have them get a reaction use save or 2nd save if being knocked prone required one to stop the fall before impact if the fall is more than 30 feet or so. The Dc would get higher if they were close to the ground.
Edit to add, damn did not catch how old this thread was, Would have skipped the first pages for commenting if i had noticed earlier.
I wish I had read this before commenting. I did not realize how old this thread was at first. I am supremely unobservant.
i think I'm going to just use fly to avoid traps on the ground