I'm not sure if there are any rules on this, but it's an interesting one.
I had a situation in my last game where the Barbarian got killed by a Stone Giant. He was flying 10 feet above the ground, so when he dropped to 0 hit points he lost a death save to fall damage, then the giant hit him again and splat, dead barbarian.
The dwarf cleric was flying about 120 feet and then over 300 feet feet from the Barbarian (who had flown off dashing with a 60ft move speed) in the air using winged boots, carrying a team mate. This made him encumbered, reducing his speed to 15 feet per turn. He needed to get to the barbarian to cast Revivify. This brought up the issue that even Dashing each turn, unless he dropped his badly wounded team mate, he needed 4 turns to get to the ground, then 7 turns (25ft dwarfy legs) to reach the barbarian - which would mean no revivify. Things looked bleak.
Then it occurred to me that couldn't he just stop using the Winged Boots and fall? And surely he could start flying again before he hit the ground?
I ruled that he could stop flying and fall as far as he wanted, then expend 5 feet of movement to start flying again. This effectively makes going downwards any amount of distance cost just 5 feet of movement. How would you rule this? Is there any official rule that I've missed?
(as an addendum, I made the dwarf cleric carrying the ally make a strength check to see if he could hold onto him when the momentum suddenly shifted. He failed and dropped him haha)
RAW, when you fall you immediately and instantaneously drop 500 feet. So in your particular scenario, it’s not possible to start using the boots again until after taking and surviving the fall damage.
In terms of real world physics, falling and then suddenly stopping in midair is exactly the same as falling and hitting the ground, so the dwarf is still probably splat from a “realism” perspective.
That said, playing D&D strictly RAW is dumb, and also it’s magic. I’d let the dwarf stop and start flying, but I’d 100% dealing damage to them every time. I’d base it on the distance fallen (like fall damage) but I’d make sure the dwarf didn’t die because of it? Like maybe I’d use RAW fall damage based on half the distance, or 1/4 of the distance… whatever I had to do not to kill the dwarf. But there have to be consequences; “495 feet of free movement as long as it’s down” is no bueno.
I mean, if you ruled that he could use his items and abilities in creative ways to save his friend, that is probably fine.
The PHB rules on falling treat it as instantaneous. Xanathar's has an optional rule; using that rule, you descend at a rate of 500' a round. I think that if you want to stick to the rules, then you fall if you stop flying, and that means either the entire distance or 500'/round depending on the rules.
In terms of real world physics, falling and then suddenly stopping in midair is exactly the same as falling and hitting the ground, so the dwarf is still probably splat from a “realism” perspective.
I am not sure real world physics can be applied to someone who starts magically flying ^_^ But even a dead stop wouldn't be the same, since you're "landing" on air. It's not falling that hurts you, it's what you fall onto - if you fall into water, for instance, you don't take the same impact as concrete. So essentially the point where you start flying you are only going to impact on the air which would cause no damage.
I suppose a bigger question might be how quickly you could stop your rate of descent when you start flying? Maybe counteract 10 feet of falling for every 5 feet of movement as you 'hit the breaks'?
Terminal velocity is 53m/s or roughly 173/s, so a character should fall 1038 feet in a single turn, but obviously our damage dealing doesn't reflect the lethality of that. I remember once playing a fighter who got grabbed by a roc and carried over 100 feet into the air. I shoved a bead from a necklace of fireballs in its mouth and it dropped me, and I asked to make an acrobatics check to land on my feet since the damage didn't drop me.
In terms of real world physics, falling and then suddenly stopping in midair is exactly the same as falling and hitting the ground, so the dwarf is still probably splat from a “realism” perspective.
I am not sure real world physics can be applied to someone who starts magically flying ^_^ But even a dead stop wouldn't be the same, since you're "landing" on air. It's not falling that hurts you, it's what you fall onto - if you fall into water, for instance, you don't take the same impact as concrete. So essentially the point where you start flying you are only going to impact on the air which would cause no damage.
I mean, I started off my third paragraph with “it’s magic” and then explained that I wouldn’t rule by strict realism, sooo…?
Whether or not landing in water is different from landing on concrete depends on how you land. When it is different, it’s different because you’re able to keep on traveling through the water to diffuse what would otherwise be an immediate energy transfer. Since it’s not air that’s stopping you but magical force that stops you immediately, yes, it’s exactly like hitting concrete. Worse, really, since even concrete has a little give, though the difference would be negligible.
But again, I’ve already spoken on how I would allow the dwarf to do what they were trying to do without getting waylaid by the above physical reality.
I'm not sure if there are any rules on this, but it's an interesting one.
I had a situation in my last game where the Barbarian got killed by a Stone Giant. He was flying 10 feet above the ground, so when he dropped to 0 hit points he lost a death save to fall damage, then the giant hit him again and splat, dead barbarian.
The dwarf cleric was flying about 120 feet and then over 300 feet feet from the Barbarian (who had flown off dashing with a 60ft move speed) in the air using winged boots, carrying a team mate. This made him encumbered, reducing his speed to 15 feet per turn. He needed to get to the barbarian to cast Revivify. This brought up the issue that even Dashing each turn, unless he dropped his badly wounded team mate, he needed 4 turns to get to the ground, then 7 turns (25ft dwarfy legs) to reach the barbarian - which would mean no revivify. Things looked bleak.
Then it occurred to me that couldn't he just stop using the Winged Boots and fall? And surely he could start flying again before he hit the ground?
I ruled that he could stop flying and fall as far as he wanted, then expend 5 feet of movement to start flying again. This effectively makes going downwards any amount of distance cost just 5 feet of movement. How would you rule this? Is there any official rule that I've missed?
(as an addendum, I made the dwarf cleric carrying the ally make a strength check to see if he could hold onto him when the momentum suddenly shifted. He failed and dropped him haha)
There's a UA race, Owlfolk, that has an ability like this, but it's UA, and hence not RAW for general gameplay:
Nimble Flight. Thanks to your wings, you have a flying speed equal to your walking speed. When you fall, you can use your reaction to make a Dexterity saving throw (DC 10) to stop falling and fly in place until the start of your next turn.
Xanathar's has more options:
Slowed Descent: A creature with a flying speed that falls subtracts its flying speed from its fall distance when calculating falling damage.
This seems particularly appropriate for letting someone with winged boots use them for a controlled fall.
Falling and catching yourself: a creature with a fly speed can stop a fall by exerting that fall speed, emphasized in Xanathar's by explicitly pointing out that if it's falling because it's prone but has enough vertical distance to have a turn mid-fall, it can stand up from prone in the air and thereby stop falling.
The prone trick won't work with winged boots - they're magical flight, so they hold you up when you're knocked prone.
But the point is, the rules have precedent for a creature using the falling and catching yourself trick to move downward faster than their movement allows - the only caveat is that you need 500 feet of vertical clearance in order to do it.
Possibly relevant: Xanathar's also has rules for letting a creature falling onto another creature split the falling damage between them. Size categories matter and there's a Dex save involved.
I realize you're focused on flying mechanics, but there's a separate concern here: you're badly nerfing your dwarf and I'm not sure you've thought that out. The nerf is technically RAW, but if I were the DM, I would never let it happen. Here are the two rules in question:
Speed. Your base walking speed is 25 feel. Your speed is not reduced by wearing heavy armor.
When you use this variant, ignore the Strength column of the Armor table in chapter 5.
So yes, RAW, when you use variant encumbrance, Dwarves simply lose their racial ability to move at normal speed while encumbered, but that's ridiculous. Imho the reasonable ruling under variant encumbrance is that encumbrance doesn't slow dwarves down, in the same way I think that encumbrance should cause problems for Aarakocra and Winged Tiefling flight, even though RAW it doesn't cause such problems for either.
My rulings would be as follows:
The dwarf is speed 25, not 15, because they are a dwarf.
If you are using the standard rules for measuring diagonals, they can make it to the corpse in 6 rounds of Dashing, and cast Revivify on Round 7.
If you are using the longer diagonals variant, 25 with Dash is 50, which is 35 feet diagonally. The dwarf can do this for 3 rounds, covering 105 feet horizontally and vertically, leaving the dwarf 15 feet up and 195 feet away vertically. On the fourth round, 20 feet of movement gets them to skimming 0 feet up and 180 feet away, so they can get to 150 feet away. That means in 3 more rounds they'll get there, and they can cast Revivify on Round 8.
If the dwarf is speed 15 anyway (Dash 30), but I'm otherwise allowed to make rulings:
Using standard diagonals for diagonals, they will reach 0 feet up and 180 feet away in 4 rounds of Dashing, at which point they can drop their wounded friend for no falling damage and spike to speed 25 (Dash 50). At the end of Round 7 they will be 30 feet from the target, so they can Dash on Round 8 or move normally on Round 8, and either way they'll be in position for Revivify on Round 9.
Using longer diagonals, 30 feet gets you 20 feet down and 20 feet forward, so they can drop their payload at the end of round 6, 180 feet away. At the end of round 9, they'll be 30 feet away, meaning they're 5 feet shy of the necessary movement - the target will die. This plan can't work, but you know what can? Sacrificing some movement and HP to solve the problem: we only need to gain 5 feet to reach the target!
So let's go back to the end of round 5 (20 feet up, 200 feet away at start). If the dwarf drops like a rock at this point, they'll take 2d6 damage - provided they have at least 13 HP + THP, this is acceptable. They'll also be knocked prone, and they can drop their payload after taking the falling damage to their ankles.
Round 6 begins; they are now speed 25, so it costs them 10 to stand up, so they have 40 feet this turn - 160 feet away. At the end of Round 9, they'll be 10 feet away - they can cast Revivify on Round 10, which is the Revivify limit.
Since winged boots can't be turned off early - if you're inside their minimum 1 minute duration, you have a fly speed, no matter what - I would allow them use the boots to brake, as suggested in Xanathar's, which would cut the damage from this fall to 0 (since 20-15 = 5, no falling damage) and hence not knock the dwarf prone. That would mean at the end of Round 6, they're 150 feet away, and at the end of Round 9, zero feet away.
The above trade-off can be done arbitrarily early - for every 12 HP/THP the dwarf has, they can deliberately fall 1 turn earlier to sacrifice HP for mobility, because every turn they'd otherwise move is 20 feet diagonal movement.
Again, I would let the dwarf "shave" 15 feet off the falling damage calculation whenever they accepted this. Assuming they deliberately fell when a multiple of 20 feet up, this would always amount to shaving 20 feet of falling distance off (since falling 5 feet is harmless), cutting the number of falling damage dice by 2.
I like the Owlfolk ability, but I think it has a lot of room for improvement in terms of scaling, and I would move it from a save to an acrobatics check. Essentially, I would allow the dwarf to make an Acrobatics check as an Action to "jump" downward: the dwarf can choose a distance to attempt to fall and arrest. They then have to pass an Acrobatics check with a DC equal to the distance "jumped". If they fail, they fall 500 feet right now. If they succeed, they move the relevant distance downward without spending any movement. Since their Action can also be Dash, this is only really relevant in this situation for a very acrobatic dwarf who can pass a DC 30+ check realistically, or a speed 15 dwarf, for whom a DC 20 check still speeds them up.
Adventurers should always carry rope, and should be punished for not carrying rope in situations where rope would save them, like this one: the injured, carried party member has actions they're not contributing because neither party member has rope. With rope, they could tie themselves to the dwarf, spool themselves downward, and release themselves early, speeding up a speed 15 dwarf. With a standard 50-foot spool (I never bother with this - I always invest in a 60-foot spool, because the rope rules mean calculating the weight and cost of a 60 foot spool can be done without any rules paradoxes or cheating, and 60 feet is much more useful than 50), they could save even the worst-case dwarf above (15 feet of movement, long diagonals) two entire rounds of being speed 15 by cutting loose at the end of Cleric Turn 4 (40 feet up, so 50 feet of rope gets the injured party to the ground safely even with 10 feet spent on tying off to the cleric and tying off to the carried member). I don't feel any need to be more generous than the rulings above - rope is neither expensive nor rare.
I ruled that he could stop flying and fall as far as he wanted, then expend 5 feet of movement to start flying again. This effectively makes going downwards any amount of distance cost just 5 feet of movement. How would you rule this? Is there any official rule that I've missed?
I would rule that he fall and take 12d6 damage, so his team mate. There's no rule letting you stop a fall once you start falling.
RAW, when you fall you immediately and instantaneously drop 500 feet. So in your particular scenario, it’s not possible to start using the boots again until after taking and surviving the fall damage.
Xanathar's Guide really did us dirty on that rule. I strongly recommend disregarding it and sticking with the more general PHB rules for falling.
You can cast Feather Fall when you fall, wether you usine XGTE or not, since that's what the spell specifically does. But Cleric don't get Feather Fall anyway so its irrelevant. i was more saying that because there's very few ways to interrupt a fall.
The dwarf cleric was flying about 120 feet and then over 300 feet feet from the Barbarian (who had flown off dashing with a 60ft move speed) in the air using winged boots, carrying a team mate. This made him encumbered, reducing his speed to 15 feet per turn. He needed to get to the barbarian to cast Revivify. This brought up the issue that even Dashing each turn, unless he dropped his badly wounded team mate, he needed 4 turns to get to the ground, then 7 turns (25ft dwarfy legs) to reach the barbarian - which would mean no revivify. Things looked bleak.
Flying diagonally using 5-10-5 rules, it would have take 6 turns to land 180 feet away, and 3 turns of dashing and 1 turn of walking moves 175 feet, putting them 5 feet away on the 10th turn to cast revivify.
In terms of real world physics, falling and then suddenly stopping in midair is exactly the same as falling and hitting the ground, so the dwarf is still probably splat from a “realism” perspective.
I am not sure real world physics can be applied to someone who starts magically flying ^_^ But even a dead stop wouldn't be the same, since you're "landing" on air. It's not falling that hurts you, it's what you fall onto - if you fall into water, for instance, you don't take the same impact as concrete. So essentially the point where you start flying you are only going to impact on the air which would cause no damage.
I suppose a bigger question might be how quickly you could stop your rate of descent when you start flying? Maybe counteract 10 feet of falling for every 5 feet of movement as you 'hit the breaks'?
Technically, Saga is right. It isn't what you land on that kills you, it is how quickly that thing slows you down. Just air doesn't slow you down much, but if the winged boots make you stop suddenly, it is as if you landed on solid ground feet first.
You could realistically use 15 feet of movement for a controlled decent. Calculating that with IRL physics depends on distance fell and isn't practical. The slowed decent option in XGtE that quin mentions is the official application of this concept, but I think what you mentioned (5 flight for every 10 fall) should work (softer than a parachute probably).
RAW, when you fall you immediately and instantaneously drop 500 feet. So in your particular scenario, it’s not possible to start using the boots again until after taking and surviving the fall damage.
Xanathar's Guide really did us dirty on that rule. I strongly recommend disregarding it and sticking with the more general PHB rules for falling.
RAW, when you fall you immediately and instantaneously drop 500 feet. So in your particular scenario, it’s not possible to start using the boots again until after taking and surviving the fall damage.
Xanathar's Guide really did us dirty on that rule. I strongly recommend disregarding it and sticking with the more general PHB rules for falling.
500 feet is pretty close to what you'd fall in 6 seconds starting from 0 speed. That rule actually greatly underestimates your falling speed on the following rounds; 6 whole seconds of terminal velocity would be about 1000 feet.
I would rule it that downward movement doesn't count as long as you move less than your total speed downward. So if you have a speed of 25 and dash, you could move 50 forward and 50 down. If you wanted to move more than that down, you'd take falling damage for the remainder.
Even without that ruling, I use 5-10-5 movement, so the total distance you need to move is the longest axis plus half of the other two axies. So if you're 300 horizontal and 120 vertical from the target, that's 360 ft you need to move.
Even without that ruling, I use 5-10-5 movement, so the total distance you need to move is the longest axis plus half of the other two axies. So if you're 300 horizontal and 120 vertical from the target, that's 360 ft you need to move.
That's what I used in my comment. The tricky part is the division of the distance across the 2 speeds. In this case by coincidence it is 180 flying and 180 walking. With the 30 feet flying dash that takes 6 turns, and 3 turns of dashing on ground covers 150 feet. That leaves you 30 feet away with 25 movement and 1 action left (just makes it assuming a 5 foot reach).
You could tactical drop the passenger from 10 feet up to get at least 5 more feet of movement if that is absolutely necessary.
RAW, when you fall you immediately and instantaneously drop 500 feet. So in your particular scenario, it’s not possible to start using the boots again until after taking and surviving the fall damage.
Ready an action to move when you are within 10ft of the ground. Then, when you fall and get within 10ft of the ground your action triggers, allowing you to use your reaction to move up to your speed. You readied action can, indeed, interrupt the fall.
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I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Also, falling doesn't necessarily drop you 500 feet in core, only with the optional Xanathar's rule. The basic rule is "at the end of a fall, a creature takes damage," so if there's a different reasonable way that you want to arbitrate falling speed or intentional falls on a character's own turn or in general... have at it, Xanathar's isn't "the rule" unless you want it to be.
RAW, when you fall you immediately and instantaneously drop 500 feet. So in your particular scenario, it’s not possible to start using the boots again until after taking and surviving the fall damage.
Xanathar's Guide really did us dirty on that rule. I strongly recommend disregarding it and sticking with the more general PHB rules for falling.
Instantly?
Here's the text.
A fall from a great height is one of the most common hazards facing an adventurer.
At the end of a fall, a creature takes 1d6 bludgeoning damage for every 10 feet it fell, to a maximum of 20d6. The creature lands prone, unless it avoids taking damage from the fall.
It is nonspecific on how far or how fast you fall. There is no problem with cinematic falling, giving players time to do wild stuff while falling, etc. Or instantly. Or anywhere in between.
I realize you're focused on flying mechanics, but there's a separate concern here: you're badly nerfing your dwarf and I'm not sure you've thought that out. The nerf is technically RAW, but if I were the DM, I would never let it happen. Here are the two rules in question:
Speed. Your base walking speed is 25 feel. Your speed is not reduced by wearing heavy armor.
When you use this variant, ignore the Strength column of the Armor table in chapter 5.
Dwarfs don't just totally ignore encumbrance and have limitless carrying capacity. He was encumbered because he was carrying another party member.
In terms of the rest, I can't say that calculating that kind of thing is plausible whilst DM'ing for a group of four players in the middle of combat, but I only allow one diagonal movement for every movement of up to 30 feet. Allowing 6 diagonals massively increases movement speed to crazy levels. It doesn't really matter that much anyway, as regardless of which way you rule movement they could still be in a scenario where you couldn't reach them without falling out of the sky. But I do appreciate the effort you went to in the post, and thanks for the Xanathar's link.
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I'm not sure if there are any rules on this, but it's an interesting one.
I had a situation in my last game where the Barbarian got killed by a Stone Giant. He was flying 10 feet above the ground, so when he dropped to 0 hit points he lost a death save to fall damage, then the giant hit him again and splat, dead barbarian.
The dwarf cleric was flying about 120 feet and then over 300 feet feet from the Barbarian (who had flown off dashing with a 60ft move speed) in the air using winged boots, carrying a team mate. This made him encumbered, reducing his speed to 15 feet per turn. He needed to get to the barbarian to cast Revivify. This brought up the issue that even Dashing each turn, unless he dropped his badly wounded team mate, he needed 4 turns to get to the ground, then 7 turns (25ft dwarfy legs) to reach the barbarian - which would mean no revivify. Things looked bleak.
Then it occurred to me that couldn't he just stop using the Winged Boots and fall? And surely he could start flying again before he hit the ground?
I ruled that he could stop flying and fall as far as he wanted, then expend 5 feet of movement to start flying again. This effectively makes going downwards any amount of distance cost just 5 feet of movement. How would you rule this? Is there any official rule that I've missed?
(as an addendum, I made the dwarf cleric carrying the ally make a strength check to see if he could hold onto him when the momentum suddenly shifted. He failed and dropped him haha)
RAW, when you fall you immediately and instantaneously drop 500 feet. So in your particular scenario, it’s not possible to start using the boots again until after taking and surviving the fall damage.
In terms of real world physics, falling and then suddenly stopping in midair is exactly the same as falling and hitting the ground, so the dwarf is still probably splat from a “realism” perspective.
That said, playing D&D strictly RAW is dumb, and also it’s magic. I’d let the dwarf stop and start flying, but I’d 100% dealing damage to them every time. I’d base it on the distance fallen (like fall damage) but I’d make sure the dwarf didn’t die because of it? Like maybe I’d use RAW fall damage based on half the distance, or 1/4 of the distance… whatever I had to do not to kill the dwarf. But there have to be consequences; “495 feet of free movement as long as it’s down” is no bueno.
I mean, if you ruled that he could use his items and abilities in creative ways to save his friend, that is probably fine.
The PHB rules on falling treat it as instantaneous. Xanathar's has an optional rule; using that rule, you descend at a rate of 500' a round. I think that if you want to stick to the rules, then you fall if you stop flying, and that means either the entire distance or 500'/round depending on the rules.
I am not sure real world physics can be applied to someone who starts magically flying ^_^ But even a dead stop wouldn't be the same, since you're "landing" on air. It's not falling that hurts you, it's what you fall onto - if you fall into water, for instance, you don't take the same impact as concrete. So essentially the point where you start flying you are only going to impact on the air which would cause no damage.
I suppose a bigger question might be how quickly you could stop your rate of descent when you start flying? Maybe counteract 10 feet of falling for every 5 feet of movement as you 'hit the breaks'?
Terminal velocity is 53m/s or roughly 173/s, so a character should fall 1038 feet in a single turn, but obviously our damage dealing doesn't reflect the lethality of that. I remember once playing a fighter who got grabbed by a roc and carried over 100 feet into the air. I shoved a bead from a necklace of fireballs in its mouth and it dropped me, and I asked to make an acrobatics check to land on my feet since the damage didn't drop me.
I mean, I started off my third paragraph with “it’s magic” and then explained that I wouldn’t rule by strict realism, sooo…?
Whether or not landing in water is different from landing on concrete depends on how you land. When it is different, it’s different because you’re able to keep on traveling through the water to diffuse what would otherwise be an immediate energy transfer. Since it’s not air that’s stopping you but magical force that stops you immediately, yes, it’s exactly like hitting concrete. Worse, really, since even concrete has a little give, though the difference would be negligible.
But again, I’ve already spoken on how I would allow the dwarf to do what they were trying to do without getting waylaid by the above physical reality.
There's a UA race, Owlfolk, that has an ability like this, but it's UA, and hence not RAW for general gameplay:
Xanathar's has more options:
I realize you're focused on flying mechanics, but there's a separate concern here: you're badly nerfing your dwarf and I'm not sure you've thought that out. The nerf is technically RAW, but if I were the DM, I would never let it happen. Here are the two rules in question:
speed is not reduced by wearing heavy armor.
So yes, RAW, when you use variant encumbrance, Dwarves simply lose their racial ability to move at normal speed while encumbered, but that's ridiculous. Imho the reasonable ruling under variant encumbrance is that encumbrance doesn't slow dwarves down, in the same way I think that encumbrance should cause problems for Aarakocra and Winged Tiefling flight, even though RAW it doesn't cause such problems for either.
My rulings would be as follows:
I would rule that he fall and take 12d6 damage, so his team mate. There's no rule letting you stop a fall once you start falling.
Xanathar's Guide really did us dirty on that rule. I strongly recommend disregarding it and sticking with the more general PHB rules for falling.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
There ways to stop a fall as a reaction such as Feather Falling but these are specifically made to interrupt it and not general rule.
You can cast Feather Fall when you fall, wether you usine XGTE or not, since that's what the spell specifically does. But Cleric don't get Feather Fall anyway so its irrelevant. i was more saying that because there's very few ways to interrupt a fall.
Flying diagonally using 5-10-5 rules, it would have take 6 turns to land 180 feet away, and 3 turns of dashing and 1 turn of walking moves 175 feet, putting them 5 feet away on the 10th turn to cast revivify.
Technically, Saga is right. It isn't what you land on that kills you, it is how quickly that thing slows you down. Just air doesn't slow you down much, but if the winged boots make you stop suddenly, it is as if you landed on solid ground feet first.
You could realistically use 15 feet of movement for a controlled decent. Calculating that with IRL physics depends on distance fell and isn't practical. The slowed decent option in XGtE that quin mentions is the official application of this concept, but I think what you mentioned (5 flight for every 10 fall) should work (softer than a parachute probably).
Instantly?
Heck, the rules don’t even say that you take damage from hitting the ground. You take damage at the end of the fall.
500 feet is pretty close to what you'd fall in 6 seconds starting from 0 speed. That rule actually greatly underestimates your falling speed on the following rounds; 6 whole seconds of terminal velocity would be about 1000 feet.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
I would rule it that downward movement doesn't count as long as you move less than your total speed downward. So if you have a speed of 25 and dash, you could move 50 forward and 50 down. If you wanted to move more than that down, you'd take falling damage for the remainder.
Even without that ruling, I use 5-10-5 movement, so the total distance you need to move is the longest axis plus half of the other two axies. So if you're 300 horizontal and 120 vertical from the target, that's 360 ft you need to move.
That's what I used in my comment. The tricky part is the division of the distance across the 2 speeds. In this case by coincidence it is 180 flying and 180 walking. With the 30 feet flying dash that takes 6 turns, and 3 turns of dashing on ground covers 150 feet. That leaves you 30 feet away with 25 movement and 1 action left (just makes it assuming a 5 foot reach).
You could tactical drop the passenger from 10 feet up to get at least 5 more feet of movement if that is absolutely necessary.
Ready an action to move when you are within 10ft of the ground. Then, when you fall and get within 10ft of the ground your action triggers, allowing you to use your reaction to move up to your speed. You readied action can, indeed, interrupt the fall.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Tbh I’d drop the guy a sensible distance and fly the rest of the way. Especially assuming the fly speed is 60 feet, 120 with a dash.
If my players asked for this I would probably allow an acrobatic check to make it, perhaps with increments of success that involve damage.
Also, falling doesn't necessarily drop you 500 feet in core, only with the optional Xanathar's rule. The basic rule is "at the end of a fall, a creature takes damage," so if there's a different reasonable way that you want to arbitrate falling speed or intentional falls on a character's own turn or in general... have at it, Xanathar's isn't "the rule" unless you want it to be.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Here's the text.
It is nonspecific on how far or how fast you fall. There is no problem with cinematic falling, giving players time to do wild stuff while falling, etc. Or instantly. Or anywhere in between.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Dwarfs don't just totally ignore encumbrance and have limitless carrying capacity. He was encumbered because he was carrying another party member.
In terms of the rest, I can't say that calculating that kind of thing is plausible whilst DM'ing for a group of four players in the middle of combat, but I only allow one diagonal movement for every movement of up to 30 feet. Allowing 6 diagonals massively increases movement speed to crazy levels. It doesn't really matter that much anyway, as regardless of which way you rule movement they could still be in a scenario where you couldn't reach them without falling out of the sky. But I do appreciate the effort you went to in the post, and thanks for the Xanathar's link.