D&D 5E Can you use misty step to arrest a fall?

[Maxperson]

This is the trigger, I am chosen as a target, it's a perceivable circumstance.

Wanting to make an attack is not a perceivable circumstance. Deciding you are going to be the target is not a perceivable circumstance. Nor is calculating bonuses. Only the actual attack is involved in a perceivable circumstance. By the time it starts, the conclusion of the "beginning of the attack" is the attack roll itself.

 

[Horwath]

5e characters falls 500 ft instantly. The rules say so. Why I'm getting so much push back on this simple fact?

500ft per round is somewhat correct. Not really, but it's a nice round number. For a round or two. After, your free fall will be more than 1000ft/round.
And games need clear rules for for it to have a nice flow.
Sometimes those rules bend reality a little. This is bending reality by A LOT.
And that is why many people here try to modify the wording of a rule to make sense in reality.

Having fall mechanics work like a teleport is maybe fine by some groups that want to completely throw physics out of the window, but most people don't.

 

[S'mon]

For example, on your turn you use movement to jump off of a 50 foot cliff. Then after you have dropped 20 feet you use misty step to misty step to the ground and land without taking any falling damage.

Would you allow this?

PC would take 20' worth of damage IMC.

Edit: It's a nice idea to reduce falling damage. Letting it reduce say a 500' fall to zero would be way OP, but letting it shave off the range of the MS from the fall damage looks reasonable per both physics & game balance. I can see a case for requiring an Arcana check to time the resolution of the MS just right, but I think IMC I'd not bother with that.

 

[S'mon]

Ok, let me address this, broadly.

EVERYTHING that is not magical or described by the lore as different should be assumed to work like the real world. Why? Because the players don't live in the D&D world. They haven't grown up in it and learned all its quirks.

Having stuff work according to (a) best-current-scientific understanding (b) Hollywood physics (c) an average of what the players expect (d) medieval or ancient world understanding (e) 18th century fairytale understanding (f) by genre - these will give very different results. Applying (a) in Traveller may work well, but is likely to be very jarring in a fantasy game like D&D. I generally recommend applying genre norms, so in my mythic Greece game/setting the world works in a mythic sort of way, something like the 4e D&D approach, eg the sky is literally the astral sea, and is a dome over the world. In my swords & sorcery setting the world works similarly to 1930s-70s S&S genre norms, including appropriate 'science' elements.

Edit: No one expects a Teleport spell from a standing start to conserve absolute momentum and smear you over the landscape of a rotating planet, so I obviously wouldn't do that. Whether it can save you from falling damage when you're already falling is iffier, I'd rule no I think; there are plenty of spells/actions that do work though. I remember a druid who fell over a high cliff and Wildshaped to Air Elemental before she hit the ground.

 

[Deset Gled]

Edit: No one expects a Teleport spell from a standing start to conserve absolute momentum and smear you over the landscape of a rotating planet, so I obviously wouldn't do that. Whether it can save you from falling damage when you're already falling is iffier, I'd rule no I think;

Why would you rule differently in these two cases? I place a very high value on consistency of rulings, and I am interested in why these cases would have different outcomes.

If you don't mind getting sophistic for a minute, how would you deal with some similar cases? Lets say, teleporting from a boat travelling at maximum speed to land. Does the teleported character take damage due to the rapid speed change? Can they stay standing? Hypothetically, what about teleporting between two magi-tech trains (a la Eberron) going maximum speed in opposite directions? Does Teleport function differently from Misty Step in these cases?

 

[S'mon]

Why would you rule differently in these two cases? I place a very high value on consistency of rulings, and I am interested in why these cases would have different outcomes.

Because we know we're falling, but we don't know we're on a rotating planet - and in many fantasy settings, we may well not be on a rotating planet. IMO in fantasy it's best to avoid Newtonian Mechanics that conflict with everyday experience.

 

[S'mon]

If you don't mind getting sophistic for a minute, how would you deal with some similar cases? Lets say, teleporting from a boat travelling at maximum speed to land. Does the teleported character take damage due to the rapid speed change? Can they stay standing? Hypothetically, what about teleporting between two magi-tech trains (a la Eberron) going maximum speed in opposite directions? Does Teleport function differently from Misty Step in these cases?

1. I don't think a boat speed is going to be analogous to falling in a fantasy setting. I'd say you can teleport safely to land, maybe with bit of a lurch.

2. Eberron - I don't run it, I'd want to get a sense of what the genre norms are, but my gut impression is this feels like a setting with no conservation of momentum. I'd probably rule that teleport in Eberron always puts you at rest state vis a vis your environment. Unlike eg Gygaxian Greyhawk.

 

[Lyxen]

Wanting to make an attack is not a perceivable circumstance.

Where in the RAW does it say this ? I say that choosing a target and actually targeting him, and pointing your weapons at hum and pulling bacl for the blow is certainly perceivable, and I've been in enough fights of all kind support this claim.

Now, I am very surprised that you take the opposite position, since you have already argued in other threads that people know exactly what is happening all over any battlefield, including a wizard casting a spell 100 feet away while you have multiple opponents in your face fighting you.

But of course, if you want to make local rulings about perceiving an attack you are welcome to it. But once more, the RAW totally supports my position.

 

[Lyxen]

We shouldn't put too much weight in those abstractions. 5e has decided that diagonals are 5 feet same as the side of the square.

No, it has not. Using a grid is an option, and there is another option that allows you to use a more accurate way of computing diagonals, so let's leave options aside. As per the standard rules, 5 ft is 5 ft in any direction including 3d diagonals.

 

[Horwath]

No, it has not. Using a grid is an option, and there is another option that allows you to use a more accurate way of computing diagonals, so let's leave options aside. As per the standard rules, 5 ft is 5 ft in any direction including 3d diagonals.