Where are you finding your convenient 500 foot cliff in a dungeon? or a City? In the wilderness sure, but how are you getting to the top of that cliff in the middle of a fight?
Even if it happened, it would be tactically unfeasible. You CANNOT get back to your start point and unless you're using a bow or crossbow, you don't have to range to reach a target 250 feet away (not sure about spells but I'm fairly certain not many can reach 250 feet.)
And if you want to play semantics, you can't shoot and scoot while gliding because you've been saying gliding isn't movement. You can only split movement during your turn.
The most reliable source of a 500 foot drop is Dimension Door. Pop 500 feet, straight up. Granted, it's a 4th level spell and you need the head room, but it's certainly repeatable. And I'd naturally assume you'd be using a projectile of some sort, thus the "glide-by shooting". But, considering the resources likely expended going up, a bow attack probably isn't worth it. But there's many, many spells with ranges in the hundreds of feet, even though a range of 30 feet means you can move another 150 feet away. Also, I'd note that I already stated that Glide isn't likely to be a big factor in combat.
As for if you could take an action during the Glide, that's undefined, just like exactly what type of "movement" Glide provides. It'll be up to each DM to rule that, just like each DM must decide what type of movement Glide provides. That, by the way, is the biggest issue with how poorly the Glide ability is written. It's a half-written rule at best, which can easily be interpreted wildly different by each DM. I'm disappointed that such shoddy writing reached final publication.
I find it highly improbable that two different, unrelated abilities have been sandwiched together under a single name. I'd challenge you to find an example of another ability with two totally unrelated functions.
Aren't both abilities related to Healing? Besides it's a feat, not an ability.
Or, to pick a specifically racial feature, warforged's Constructed Resilience
Constructed Resilience
You were created to have remarkable fortitude, represented by the following benefits:
You have advantage on saving throws against being poisoned, and you have resistance to poison damage.
You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe.
You are immune to disease.
You don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep.
All of which are related to the Warforged's "remarkable fortitude". Or their "Constructed Resilience". Basically, it's tough, and here are the game rules repesenting that.
Just like all of the Glide abilities relate to a Glide.
All of the Glide abilities relate to their skinflaps. Not specifically to their ability to do the "move 5 feet per 1 foot you fall" thingy. They're related thematically, but not necessarily mechanically (although they both trigger on a fall), just like Constructed Resilience.
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They DON'T both trigger on a fall. Only the second one triggers on a fall. The first one doesn't "trigger" at all, it's just something you can do. It makes no sense.
Aerial maneuvers aren't a thing with a definition. But you can perform them! I suppose we're meant to read it naturally, in which case, in my opinion, it sounds like a kind of movement. You jump off a ledge and glide instead of falling. You might disagree. Without a formal definition for any of this, we're both right and we're both wrong. Hence the problem.
I find it highly improbable that two different, unrelated abilities have been sandwiched together under a single name. I'd challenge you to find an example of another ability with two totally unrelated functions.
Aren't both abilities related to Healing? Besides it's a feat, not an ability.
Or, to pick a specifically racial feature, warforged's Constructed Resilience
Constructed Resilience
You were created to have remarkable fortitude, represented by the following benefits:
You have advantage on saving throws against being poisoned, and you have resistance to poison damage.
You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe.
You are immune to disease.
You don’t need to sleep, and magic can’t put you to sleep.
All of which are related to the Warforged's "remarkable fortitude". Or their "Constructed Resilience". Basically, it's tough, and here are the game rules repesenting that.
Just like all of the Glide abilities relate to a Glide.
All of the Glide abilities relate to their skinflaps. Not specifically to their ability to do the "move 5 feet per 1 foot you fall" thingy. They're related thematically, but not necessarily mechanically (although they both trigger on a fall), just like Constructed Resilience.
I'm still trying to figure out what not needing to sleep has to do with being "tough"
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Aerial maneuvers aren't a thing with a definition. But you can perform them! I suppose we're meant to read it naturally, in which case, in my opinion, it sounds like a kind of movement. You jump off a ledge and glide instead of falling. You might disagree. Without a formal definition for any of this, we're both right and we're both wrong. Hence the problem.
This is pretty much where I'm at. The RAI on the first bullet point seems like it should be another form of movement, comparable to a hadozee's walking or climbing speed, and the only real argument against that is that it's not written or formatted the way other forms of movement are. Maybe they didn't want it interacting with Dash actions or something, so they tried to make it its own thing. But if it's not supposed to be another form of movement... what is it?
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
All of the Glide abilities relate to their skinflaps. Not specifically to their ability to do the "move 5 feet per 1 foot you fall" thingy. They're related thematically, but not necessarily mechanically (although they both trigger on a fall), just like Constructed Resilience.
Well, the ability is called "Glide", not "Skinflaps". :D Anyway, when it's all boiled down, I think we can all agree that the rule is quite poorly written and about as clear as mud. All it needs is two or three more words to make everything come together. I expect better from expensive products.
Where are you finding your convenient 500 foot cliff in a dungeon? or a City? In the wilderness sure, but how are you getting to the top of that cliff in the middle of a fight?
Even if it happened, it would be tactically unfeasible. You CANNOT get back to your start point and unless you're using a bow or crossbow, you don't have to range to reach a target 250 feet away (not sure about spells but I'm fairly certain not many can reach 250 feet.)
And if you want to play semantics, you can't shoot and scoot while gliding because you've been saying gliding isn't movement. You can only split movement during your turn.
The most reliable source of a 500 foot drop is Dimension Door. Pop 500 feet, straight up. Granted, it's a 4th level spell and you need the head room, but it's certainly repeatable. And I'd naturally assume you'd be using a projectile of some sort, thus the "glide-by shooting". But, considering the resources likely expended going up, a bow attack probably isn't worth it. But there's many, many spells with ranges in the hundreds of feet, even though a range of 30 feet means you can move another 150 feet away. Also, I'd note that I already stated that Glide isn't likely to be a big factor in combat.
In order to get back to your start point, you need to be 250 feet up. If you drop to 30 feet and glide only 150 away that is well within danger range.
What are the many many spells with ranges in the 250 feet or more?
Yes, realistically speaking most GMs don"t present encounters over a thousand feet away.
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The most reliable source of a 500 foot drop is Dimension Door. Pop 500 feet, straight up. Granted, it's a 4th level spell and you need the head room, but it's certainly repeatable. And I'd naturally assume you'd be using a projectile of some sort, thus the "glide-by shooting". But, considering the resources likely expended going up, a bow attack probably isn't worth it. But there's many, many spells with ranges in the hundreds of feet, even though a range of 30 feet means you can move another 150 feet away. Also, I'd note that I already stated that Glide isn't likely to be a big factor in combat.
In order to get back to your start point, you need to be 250 feet up. If you drop to 30 feet and glide only 150 away that is well within danger range.
What are the many many spells with ranges in the 250 feet or more?
You're confusing the maximum total range for the maximum effective range. While there are some spells that work from the maximum range (I counted 10), you obviously don't need to be at the maximum range for this to work. Nor is returning to your starting point, really. As the goal is to make an attack and exit the scene before retaliation is possible, you really only need to get maybe 150-200 feet away and out of sight. When you start looking for spells with a range of 100 feet or more, there's pages of them. Just pull up the spell browser and sort by range.
Yes, realistically speaking most GMs don"t present encounters over a thousand feet away.
I already already stated that Glide isn't likely to be a big factor in combat. While the combat aspect exists, it's non-combat uses that could be quite verisimilitude-breaking. However, the biggest issue with the rule is it's poorly-written nature. It fails to provide even the most basic requirements needed to function consistently, and requires the DM to basically re-write the rule into something usable at their table. That's bad bang-for-buck as they say, since I could write my own rules for free.
An Hadozee jumps off the rigging on a Spelljammer ship, glides over the edge before diving down across the plane launching them-self across the gravity plane threshold. On their next turn could they glide across the under-side of the ship and launch them-self back up the top side effectively putting them a gradually decaying orbit?
An Hadozee jumps off the rigging on a Spelljammer ship, glides over the edge before diving down across the plane launching them-self across the gravity plane threshold. On their next turn could they glide across the under-side of the ship and launch them-self back up the top side effectively putting them a gradually decaying orbit?
As covered in the rules for gravity planes, if you fall in a gravity plane with nothing around to stop you, you oscillate until you stop; as this means fall an infinite distance using the core rules, and no sane DM will let you have that as it will let you build a railgun, presumably the Xanathar's rules for terminal velocity will be used, so you'll oscillate until you use up all 500 feet of falling.
For a Hadozee, you can use each and any foot of that oscillation, which is perpendicular to the gravity plane, to also move 5 feet parallel to the gravity plane.
Glide. When you fall at least 10 feet above the ground, you can use your reaction to extend your skin membranes to glide horizontally a number of feet equal to your walking speed, and you take 0 damage from the fall. You determine the direction of the glide.
While this iteration is better, my only complaint would be about what happens to the vertical movement of the fall.
RAW, it appears the glide starts as soon as you use your reaction, which you can do at any point while falling, so long as the ground is at least 10 feet beneath you. However, since it doesn't specify what happens to the verticality of the fall (and it is still a fall, nothing says you stop falling), it seems like you still fall 500 feet at the end of the glide movement, but take no damage from the fall.
It would have been better to include something like "While gliding, you descend 1 foot for every 5 feet you glide, and stop falling at the end of this movement", which would have also negated the fall damage with that wording, but having it be explicitly negated is fine too.
Mechanically, while the distance you can glide is now equal to your speed, it doesn't actually consume your speed, so this new version is essentially a reaction dash. If you can jump at least 10 feet (or just fly somehow), and use your reaction on your turn, you can use your glide movement in addition to your walking movement (or a fly speed) for the round.
Again though, way better than what it was, but still a tad cheesy.
This errata is much better than the previous version. The jump and glide tactic for additional movement is still possible but it's now limited to 1/round due to reaction usage.
The wording is still kinda baffling - "when you fall at least 10 feet above the ground"? - but it works now. Here's an odd thing: you have to glide the full distance. But it doesn't have to be in a straight line, so I guess you can go back and forth in order to land where you would have landed anyway.
It's strange that they got so conservative with it. Just requiring a minimum 10ft fall and a reaction would have done a lot, but they also hit it with a speed limit.
The wording is still kinda baffling - "when you fall at least 10 feet above the ground"? - but it works now. Here's an odd thing: you have to glide the full distance. But it doesn't have to be in a straight line, so I guess you can go back and forth in order to land where you would have landed anyway.
It's strange that they got so conservative with it. Just requiring a minimum 10ft fall and a reaction would have done a lot, but they also hit it with a speed limit.
And it’s restricted to falls “above the ground,” meaning if you fall above water, or above a building you can’t glide. 😂😂
Watching them tie themselves into knots trying to avoid simply adding a Glide movement type is pretty funny, I will admit
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I remember I did a homebrew based on the Gargoyles from the cartoon series, who canonically cannot fly, but they're strong enough to jump really high and then glide. My solution was to just give them a fly speed but with the caveat that they fall at the end of their turn if they're in mid-air and don't take fall damage. I wasn't really happy with it, so I was hoping someone would figure out a more elegant solution to giving gliding of some form replicable rules, but it seems just really hard to do in 5e in a way that isn't either A) Easily exploitable or B) Functionally useless.
I remember I did a homebrew based on the Gargoyles from the cartoon series, who canonically cannot fly, but they're strong enough to jump really high and then glide. My solution was to just give them a fly speed but with the caveat that they fall at the end of their turn if they're in mid-air and don't take fall damage. I wasn't really happy with it, so I was hoping someone would figure out a more elegant solution to giving gliding of some form replicable rules, but it seems just really hard to do in 5e in a way that isn't either A) Easily exploitable or B) Functionally useless.
How about this?
If you fall 10 or more feet, you can choose to glide. If you do so, you move up to 1-foot horizontally in any direction you choose for every foot you fall. This horizontal movement is restricted by your speed (as normal).
I remember I did a homebrew based on the Gargoyles from the cartoon series, who canonically cannot fly, but they're strong enough to jump really high and then glide. My solution was to just give them a fly speed but with the caveat that they fall at the end of their turn if they're in mid-air and don't take fall damage. I wasn't really happy with it, so I was hoping someone would figure out a more elegant solution to giving gliding of some form replicable rules, but it seems just really hard to do in 5e in a way that isn't either A) Easily exploitable or B) Functionally useless.
It's not that hard IMO. It's effectively flight with forced movement and a rule that for every X you travel, you descend Y, and you cannot ascend. There's no good reason that gliding creatures can't stay in the air more than one round.
I remember I did a homebrew based on the Gargoyles from the cartoon series, who canonically cannot fly, but they're strong enough to jump really high and then glide. My solution was to just give them a fly speed but with the caveat that they fall at the end of their turn if they're in mid-air and don't take fall damage. I wasn't really happy with it, so I was hoping someone would figure out a more elegant solution to giving gliding of some form replicable rules, but it seems just really hard to do in 5e in a way that isn't either A) Easily exploitable or B) Functionally useless.
It's not that hard IMO. It's effectively flight with forced movement and a rule that for every X you travel, you descend Y, and you cannot ascend. There's no good reason that gliding creatures can't stay in the air more than one round.
I think that last point is the biggest challenge with this concept... I feel like there seems to be an innate sense that the difference between Flying and Gliding is that A Flying creature can remain mid-air at the end of their turn, but a gliding character is assumed by some that they must end their turn on the ground. I think that's more a mistake in thinking than any kind of problem with the mechanic itself...
Ending turns mid-air has always been tricky in D&D. Like... if you have the Jump spell cast on you, odds are it will increase your Jump Distance even further than your max speed. As long as you're not in combat, it's generally accepted that you can leap across chasms that exceed your walk speed, but once initiative is rolled you either drop to the ground somewhere in the middle of your arc, or you get to travel just extra far that round, and in rare instances... you're just kind of "floating" mid-air until your next turn comes around and your movement gets resolved. I believe that just dropping mid-jump is the RAW interpretation.
The most reliable source of a 500 foot drop is Dimension Door. Pop 500 feet, straight up. Granted, it's a 4th level spell and you need the head room, but it's certainly repeatable. And I'd naturally assume you'd be using a projectile of some sort, thus the "glide-by shooting". But, considering the resources likely expended going up, a bow attack probably isn't worth it. But there's many, many spells with ranges in the hundreds of feet, even though a range of 30 feet means you can move another 150 feet away. Also, I'd note that I already stated that Glide isn't likely to be a big factor in combat.
As for if you could take an action during the Glide, that's undefined, just like exactly what type of "movement" Glide provides. It'll be up to each DM to rule that, just like each DM must decide what type of movement Glide provides. That, by the way, is the biggest issue with how poorly the Glide ability is written. It's a half-written rule at best, which can easily be interpreted wildly different by each DM. I'm disappointed that such shoddy writing reached final publication.
All of the Glide abilities relate to their skinflaps. Not specifically to their ability to do the "move 5 feet per 1 foot you fall" thingy. They're related thematically, but not necessarily mechanically (although they both trigger on a fall), just like Constructed Resilience.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
They DON'T both trigger on a fall. Only the second one triggers on a fall. The first one doesn't "trigger" at all, it's just something you can do. It makes no sense.
Aerial maneuvers aren't a thing with a definition. But you can perform them! I suppose we're meant to read it naturally, in which case, in my opinion, it sounds like a kind of movement. You jump off a ledge and glide instead of falling. You might disagree. Without a formal definition for any of this, we're both right and we're both wrong. Hence the problem.
I'm still trying to figure out what not needing to sleep has to do with being "tough"
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
This is pretty much where I'm at. The RAI on the first bullet point seems like it should be another form of movement, comparable to a hadozee's walking or climbing speed, and the only real argument against that is that it's not written or formatted the way other forms of movement are. Maybe they didn't want it interacting with Dash actions or something, so they tried to make it its own thing. But if it's not supposed to be another form of movement... what is it?
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Well, the ability is called "Glide", not "Skinflaps". :D Anyway, when it's all boiled down, I think we can all agree that the rule is quite poorly written and about as clear as mud. All it needs is two or three more words to make everything come together. I expect better from expensive products.
In order to get back to your start point, you need to be 250 feet up. If you drop to 30 feet and glide only 150 away that is well within danger range.
What are the many many spells with ranges in the 250 feet or more?
Yes, realistically speaking most GMs don"t present encounters over a thousand feet away.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
You're confusing the maximum total range for the maximum effective range. While there are some spells that work from the maximum range (I counted 10), you obviously don't need to be at the maximum range for this to work. Nor is returning to your starting point, really. As the goal is to make an attack and exit the scene before retaliation is possible, you really only need to get maybe 150-200 feet away and out of sight. When you start looking for spells with a range of 100 feet or more, there's pages of them. Just pull up the spell browser and sort by range.
I already already stated that Glide isn't likely to be a big factor in combat. While the combat aspect exists, it's non-combat uses that could be quite verisimilitude-breaking. However, the biggest issue with the rule is it's poorly-written nature. It fails to provide even the most basic requirements needed to function consistently, and requires the DM to basically re-write the rule into something usable at their table. That's bad bang-for-buck as they say, since I could write my own rules for free.
An Hadozee jumps off the rigging on a Spelljammer ship, glides over the edge before diving down across the plane launching them-self across the gravity plane threshold. On their next turn could they glide across the under-side of the ship and launch them-self back up the top side effectively putting them a gradually decaying orbit?
As covered in the rules for gravity planes, if you fall in a gravity plane with nothing around to stop you, you oscillate until you stop; as this means fall an infinite distance using the core rules, and no sane DM will let you have that as it will let you build a railgun, presumably the Xanathar's rules for terminal velocity will be used, so you'll oscillate until you use up all 500 feet of falling.
For a Hadozee, you can use each and any foot of that oscillation, which is perpendicular to the gravity plane, to also move 5 feet parallel to the gravity plane.
New glide rules released today:
While this iteration is better, my only complaint would be about what happens to the vertical movement of the fall.
RAW, it appears the glide starts as soon as you use your reaction, which you can do at any point while falling, so long as the ground is at least 10 feet beneath you. However, since it doesn't specify what happens to the verticality of the fall (and it is still a fall, nothing says you stop falling), it seems like you still fall 500 feet at the end of the glide movement, but take no damage from the fall.
It would have been better to include something like "While gliding, you descend 1 foot for every 5 feet you glide, and stop falling at the end of this movement", which would have also negated the fall damage with that wording, but having it be explicitly negated is fine too.
Mechanically, while the distance you can glide is now equal to your speed, it doesn't actually consume your speed, so this new version is essentially a reaction dash. If you can jump at least 10 feet (or just fly somehow), and use your reaction on your turn, you can use your glide movement in addition to your walking movement (or a fly speed) for the round.
Again though, way better than what it was, but still a tad cheesy.
This errata is much better than the previous version. The jump and glide tactic for additional movement is still possible but it's now limited to 1/round due to reaction usage.
The wording is still kinda baffling - "when you fall at least 10 feet above the ground"? - but it works now. Here's an odd thing: you have to glide the full distance. But it doesn't have to be in a straight line, so I guess you can go back and forth in order to land where you would have landed anyway.
It's strange that they got so conservative with it. Just requiring a minimum 10ft fall and a reaction would have done a lot, but they also hit it with a speed limit.
And it’s restricted to falls “above the ground,” meaning if you fall above water, or above a building you can’t glide. 😂😂
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Watching them tie themselves into knots trying to avoid simply adding a Glide movement type is pretty funny, I will admit
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I remember I did a homebrew based on the Gargoyles from the cartoon series, who canonically cannot fly, but they're strong enough to jump really high and then glide. My solution was to just give them a fly speed but with the caveat that they fall at the end of their turn if they're in mid-air and don't take fall damage. I wasn't really happy with it, so I was hoping someone would figure out a more elegant solution to giving gliding of some form replicable rules, but it seems just really hard to do in 5e in a way that isn't either A) Easily exploitable or B) Functionally useless.
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How about this?
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That still has a strangeness when you fall and it's not your turn. The "(as normal)" doesn't make sense there.
It's not that hard IMO. It's effectively flight with forced movement and a rule that for every X you travel, you descend Y, and you cannot ascend. There's no good reason that gliding creatures can't stay in the air more than one round.
I think that last point is the biggest challenge with this concept... I feel like there seems to be an innate sense that the difference between Flying and Gliding is that A Flying creature can remain mid-air at the end of their turn, but a gliding character is assumed by some that they must end their turn on the ground. I think that's more a mistake in thinking than any kind of problem with the mechanic itself...
Ending turns mid-air has always been tricky in D&D. Like... if you have the Jump spell cast on you, odds are it will increase your Jump Distance even further than your max speed. As long as you're not in combat, it's generally accepted that you can leap across chasms that exceed your walk speed, but once initiative is rolled you either drop to the ground somewhere in the middle of your arc, or you get to travel just extra far that round, and in rare instances... you're just kind of "floating" mid-air until your next turn comes around and your movement gets resolved. I believe that just dropping mid-jump is the RAW interpretation.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium