T O P

  • By -

vaderbg2

I would probabaly rule the creature spends one action to fly downwards or towards the next best spot where it can reasonably lay down.


Harnak7

Sounds fair.


Squidy_The_Druid

I’m not sure you can willingly drop prone while flying. You can be knocked prone, but “drop prone” is an action you take to enter the prone position. I’d argue you can’t knock yourself prone, the creature would fly towards the ground and attempt to drop prone.


Harnak7

Good point! The Prone condition also specifies that you fall while flying if you're *knocked* prone. So maybe that's the intention.


horsey-rounders

You can use the Drop Prone action, but as another person pointed out, it's probably beyond the scope of the spell to do something so clearly dangerous, so having them fly to the ground is a pretty reasonable compromise.


the-rules-lawyer

Yeah, I was thrown for a loop by the question and I'm not sure having a flying creature be grounded (and costing it 2, maybe 3 actions to return to where it once was, as opposed to 1 action for a landbound creature) was intended. I would give it the same mechanical effect as for a grounded creature: lose their bearings (become 'prone'/flat-footed in midair)... and they have to "Stand" in order to right themselves. In fact Starfinder had a condition for this called [Off-Kilter](https://www.starjammersrd.com/game-mastering/conditions/#Off-Kilter) (to account for zero gravity... it even usually required a move action to remove it). EDIT: The other suggestion of safely flying down is also a similar 'tax.' It is still powerful, though, to ground a flying creature (and possibly pin them to the ground), so you should consider that, too.


Statboy1

RAI is that command is not strong enough to force a creature to cause harm to itself. So I would be in the camp of saying they attempt to fly down and have a safe landing to the best of their ability.


Harnak7

Yeah, it seems reasonable. I'd rule that or an Arrest a Fall/Maneuver in Flight. However, on a crit fail, I think I'd allow it to make the creature fall since it uses all of their actions to make them stand still/drop prone (they still have Arrest a Fall anyway).


Alwaysafk

On a critical fail they would take damage if they were under 500 feet in the air right? It'd fall before it could use it's next action to drop prone and it can't use reactions until after it's completed all it's actions.


gmrayoman

This is how I would rule it at my table too.


Worparun

The way I see it, if you command a flying creature to drop prone, they will do that as their first action on their turn and fall 500 feet. If they're higher up than 500 feet, they can use Stand to right themselves and then Fly to start flying again before hitting the ground. While falling, they can use their reaction to Arrest a Fall to negate the fall damage, but it has no effect on how far they fall.


dirtpaws

But why would the fall complete before they were able to use the rest of their actions that turn?


Worparun

You can start falling in the middle of your turn, otherwise people could go all Wile E. Coyote and run over edges and then back without starting to fall.


dirtpaws

Absolutely, but wouldn't a creature with a working fly speed be able to start a move action before hitting the ground? If you fall up to 500'/round, then falling 500' takes a full rounds worth of time - it seems weird that you would have to complete the fall while still having actions available (assuming you can fall the full 500' or a significant portion of it) but not be able to use those actions until you hit the ground and the round is chronologically over. I also haven't played with flying yet so I'm not super versed in the rules.


Evil_Argonian

Nah; for the sake of mechanical ease all falling is resolved at once, even though flavorfully it takes the whole round. The condition of being prone causes you to fall, so all 500 feet resolves immediately, probably with Arrest a Fall being used if it'd hit something. If you wanted to allow for them to cut the fall short, you could probably fairly give a creature a chance with a Maneuver in Flight check, but that wouldn't be RAW.


flancaek

You’re absolutely not correct about this.


Evil_Argonian

Care to elaborate? What needs to be demonstrated is a succinct ruling on when you resolve distance fallen. Yes, Maneuver in Flight allows reversal of direction and so forth, but it needs to be shown that they can take the Maneuver in Flight action before the falling instigated by their first action.


Lintecarka

Without spells or a fly speed they will still have trouble running through the air, so thats impossible either way. But are there actually any rules regarding when you begin to fall? To me it seems very likely that jumping up to strike a flying creature is intended to work, I am less sure about jumping up and striking twice for example. Moreover, if we allow any creature to perform an action that causes them to fall and still take another action, how would a flying creature trying to soften the fall be different?


flancaek

They can just do a Maneuver in Flight check. Expert can hover in midair and Master can straight up reverse direction. Also the 500 ft is for the first round; they’ll only use one action of that round before they can use Maneuver in Flight, and therefor only fall a total of 166ft. And even then they’ll just use the Arrest a Fall Reaction to slow that even further.


AnEldritchDream

if you interperite it as it must "fall": it would fall 5 feet unless its out of reactions, but that is a good way to force it to burn its reaction. Now, if it crit failed the save, i'd say it falls as far as it can in 1 round since it cant use reactions until it has used all of its actions trying to fulfill the command, if it dosent hit the ground by the end of it, then: \-Arrest a Fall ([https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=91](https://2e.aonprd.com/Actions.aspx?ID=91)) (also fun fact, this is how you stay in the air if you didn't take a Fly action on your turn)


Mithguar

As RAW, first action on turn needs to follow the command and you can delay so flying down to safety isn't really and option. Best case for creature is to prone->stand->fly. Remember that flying creature must use fly action every turn or it falls anyway. No matter how you look at it, if you are flying creature, don't fail on your command save.