if someone is under the effects of featherfall,can they grab onto someone whos not and act like a parachute for that person? or would holding onto someone else negate the featherfall?

Well, the spell doesn't say anything about the spell being negated by touching other things... only that it ends automatically when you land. The spell doesn't have any weight restrictions... so I'd say it makes sense to be able to parachute someone else. The odds of being able to catch someone in a situation where one character has featherfall and the other doesn't are pretty low, so I don't think it's too unbalancing to allow it if two players manage to actually pull it off.

I would have to disagree and say no, you couldn't.  The spell is supposed to affect up to 5 creatures and what they're carrying at the time it's cast, and that's it.  Might as well just tie a hundred people together, have them all jump and cast feather fall on one.  Not supposed to work that way.

There is no clear RAW on this but Jaysburn's interpretation makes more sense to me.

Personally I would base it on the affected creature's strength - if they could carry the other creature without becoming encumbered I'd allow it, otherwise it negates the affect of the feather fall.

Quote from Cyb3rM1nd >>

There is no clear RAW on this but Jaysburn's interpretation makes more sense to me.

Personally I would base it on the affected creature's strength - if they could carry the other creature without becoming encumbered I'd allow it, otherwise it negates the affect of the feather fall.

 IMO the RAW is clear on this, it just results in weirdness that has to be addressed by the DM's handling of the situation.

Nowhere in the spell description does it say that it is negated as soon as someone hold on or grapples the falling caster. So it doesn't.

But yes, some additional checks are required. A Str check to see whether they can maintain the hold of someone or vice versa if someone is trying to hold onto your leg. A Dex check to see whether you can catch someone mid flight maybe.

If you consider 100 people tied together with one of them under the spell (as per Jaysburn's scenario) then a ruling is required to consider how much pull your body can take before you are literally torn apart. AFAIK there are no rules for this anyway (for instance if DM wants to pull someone by two horses), so I'd say it's up to DM to consider how much weight a body can take before limbs start to fall off.

Mm, I still mostly disagree.  I'd be lenient if the creature they grab's total weight doesn't exceed the featherfalled characters carrying capacity, as Cyb3r said, but otherwise... This is only a 1st level spell, and other, better spells that defy gravity have stipulations against others benefiting from it.  The spell affects up to 5 people; the magic is only affecting those 5 people, and is only strong enough to enchant them and however much they weighed when it was cast.  Suddenly adding another 200 lbs of weight is too much for the magic to bear.

At best, you could maybe average the fall speed between the two, but that's averaging between 10 feet per second and infinity feet per second, which isn't going to help anyone. 

I suppose if you follow the optional rules in XgtE it'd be between 10 ft/s and 83.33~ ft/s, so I could maybe see an argument for halving the fall damage or something.

This is one of those things where the opportunity to perform this combo is so rare and it's a relatively clever solution to a problem so it would be fair to allow it, although I do agree the DM should give some limitations to it... make it difficult to pull off, have a weight limit, etc. 

I think because Featherfall already is able to target 5 creatures, why would you ever need to use Featherfall in this manner? Let's say you're in a group of more than five people and you have to consciously jump off of something and you need to somehow survive the fall. I think if the team has the time to set up, maybe tie ropes around the extra person and have multiple people hold them or whatever... sure, why not? 

The other possibility is that one character has fallen into a hole and the caster catches them with feather fall, but then in the same turn someone else gets knocked down the hole and the caster has already spent their reaction. You can't control your movement as you featherfall... so in that situation the second character would have to be knocked over in the same place as the first character, then the characters need to use their reactions to make some combination of DEX and STR saves to have the feather falling character catch the other one. At that point the odds of that specific scenario lining up and the additional challenges of just catching someone midair are unique and challenging enough that it doesn't hurt to let the players pull it off if everything lines up.

Maybe, though, I'm not being creative enough, but I still don't see this being a common enough occurrence to be something that characters could extensively abuse.

Oh I totally agree, it's something that will very rarely come up and should really just be dealt with in the situation based on the variables presented.  It's fun to ponder about what would/should happen in situations like this though.

Personally, I try not to allow low level spells to be too powerful.  This is just a 1st level spell that clearly says what it does.  Up to 5 people who are falling can be slowed.  Sure, it doesn't say that the spell is negated if you catch someone/someone grabs you, but it also doesn't say that you can carry someone else with you.  It affects those ~5 people, and that's it.  That's how I would interpret the RAW, though the spell definitely could have used a bit more explanation.

But, yes, it could make for some situational fun, so my only real advice would be adapt for the situation and go with the rule of cool.

 I can't imagine many scenarios where feather fall needs to effect more than 5 creatures (though I suppose AL parties can get as big as 8 players). In these rare scenarios, I don't think 1 or 2 creatures under the spell "carrying" a creature not under the spell is that overpowered.

I mean, I appreciate that as a one off, but if you give an inch players will take a mile, and they always remember.  I can absolutely see myself allowing that once for some certain situation, and then later on it biting me in the ass as my party is trying to save people from -insert catastrophe here- and they chime in with "we can each carry 1 person to safety with featherfall, taking 5 more with us!"  followed by my Goliath player saying "actually I can carry 5 by myself!"

Maybe I'm just paranoid ;)  and also maybe include a few too many rescue quests and such in my games.  It's fun to make the party responsible for groups, preventing them from just Word of Recalling themselves out of every situation.

Anyway, bottom line, FF is supposed to affect up to 5 people that had the spell cast on them.  Not up to 10 people, not up to 7 people.  Not 2 people when ones had the spell cast on them and the other hasn't.  

I think allowing a 5 creature maximum would suffice.  Doesn't matter if they cast it at the start, or "catch" them while they are falling. 

So if less than 5 creatures are affected, fine catch folks until the hard 5 limit is reached.  After that, need another spell, which is a 6 second fall for the same caster to do it, which is 672' fall on good old Earth.

I like that, Pedroig.  A nice compromise while still having the limit at 5 people.

There's a silly answer which is I think the strictest correct under RAW.

Feather fall says "Choose up to five falling creatures within range. A falling creature's rate of descent slows to 60 feet per round until the spell ends. If the creature lands before the spell ends, it takes no falling damage and can land on its feet, and the spell ends for that creature."

So by RAW, the targeted creature's descent slows to 60 feet until the spell ends. So far so good.

If the targeted creature grapples someone - sure, no rules say you can't, and characters can grab things, that's legal. If the targeted creature grapples of an ally, and feather fall still limits its fall speed to 60 ft/s,  that the ally it's grappling also can only fall at 60 ft/s.

Feather fall also says the targeted creature takes no fall damage. ....but it doesn't say anything about the ally! So the ally would still take fall damage. The fall damage rules never mention the speed of the fall, only the height of the fall! So it would even be full fall damage, even if the ally was falling at the same speed as the feather-faller.

So I'll split the baby down the middle and say that RAW, yes, you could grab on to someone when feather-falling... ...but that wouldn't negate any fall damage to the person you grab onto.

In my opinion this is absurd, and mostly illustrates that it's more important to make a DM call about what makes sense to do rather than strictly following RAW.

I personally would pick an appropriate difficulty check to see whether the targeted creature can hold on to its ally. Maybe a Dex check to grab the ally as it's falling by, or a strength check to hold on - with the DC depending on the size of the ally and how long you need to hold on for.

^^ This is hilarious. I can't help but picture a scene where the 2 creatures descend slowly and as the carried creature touches the ground, its body is slowly crushed and broken. Having landed safely, the feather falling creature watches in horror.

Quote from Lathlaer >>

Nowhere in the spell description does it say that it is negated as soon as someone hold on or grapples the falling caster. So it doesn't.

 I disagree with this assertion. The absence of a rule does not in itself imply that there's a rule against it. The rules are not comprehensive, nor are they intended to be. For example, Wall of Fire never states that it ignites flammable objects. That doesn't mean that it doesn't. Fireball says that it ignites flammable objects, but it never says that it doesn't do that in a vacuum or underwater. That doesn't mean that it does.

The game assumes that a referee is present to take what the rules say and will interpret what happens more accurately than the designers could ever envision.

I feel that the explicit limit of 5 people does lend to the idea that you can't have more than that slowed by the spell (even by way of grappling or carrying others). Otherwise - why have the limit? I mean - you can't even increase it by upcasting it. You'd have to cast it again - and since it's not concentration you can do that.

On a similar note, can you make a dex saving throw while in the middle of a feather fall? Is there an official position?

Quote from Mazer1415 >>

On a similar note, can you make a dex saving throw while in the middle of a feather fall? Is there an official position?

 

 
If something calls for a Dex saving throw while you're falling, you still make it as normal. There is nothing in the rules of falling or feather fall that would change how dex saves are done.

I agree. Our battle got sidetracked a while because the DM did not want to give the player his dex save to avoid a dragon acid attack. It was a very circular argument. The DM’s argument was that there was nothing for the player to interact with to use his dex. Thanks for the reply.

Quote from Mazer1415 >>

I agree. Our battle got sidetracked a while because the DM did not want to give the player his dex save to avoid a dragon acid attack. It was a very circular argument. The DM’s argument was that there was nothing for the player to interact with to use his dex. Thanks for the reply.

 
I can sort of see where the DM is coming from - in that it's an easy mistake to make.

However, Dex saves aren't just about interacting with environment - for example it can also be scraping off enough acid to not take full damage, or positioning your body so you take less of it. You can move yourself when free-falling in real life, so it's not unreasonable to think you can do it in D&D especially when your fall is being slowed by feather fall.