Environment

Certain Paths may provide characters with bonuses restricted to a specific locale. These are referred to as Favored Terrains. See below for a complete list of what Favored Terrains there are to choose from

What goes up must eventually come down, particularly when it comes to adventurers. Below are the rules for how painful that process may be, and how quickly it occurs.

A creature falls at the beginning of their turn, and the effects of the fall must be calculated immediately. When falling, you are far to preoccupied with approaching terminal velocity to act as you normally would upon solid ground. The creature may employ Immediate Actions as normal, but no others. This means that if a character is pushed from a ledge in the middle of combat, there is time for an ally to attempt to grab them, as the character does not fall until the beginning of their own turn. When a creature falls, that creature takes an amount of damage equal to half the distance fallen (round up to the nearest full increment). The maximum damage a creature can take from falling is 750, from falling 1,500 ft.

A character cannot cast a spell while falling, unless the fall is greater than 500 feet, or the spell is an Immediate Actions, such as Feather Fall. Casting a spell while falling requires a Concentration check at a DC of 10 + Spell Tier. Casting Teleport or a similar spell while falling does not end your momentum, it merely changes your location, meaning that you still take falling damage, even if you arrive atop a solid surface.

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In order to avoid such a devastating fall, a creature may employ some helpful measures. A successful Athletics check (DC 20) or Reflex save (DC 15) allows a creature to catch themselves upon a solid surface. This check may be raised or lowered, depending on how easily caught the surface is, at GM discretion (see the Climbing DC Table under Athletics for examples of this). If you successfully cut your fall short by catching onto something on the way down, you take damage equal to 1/10th of the distance fallen. If you fell 30 ft. or less before doing so, you take no damage at all, assuming that you succeed your check.

If a creature jumps down on purpose, rather than through involuntary means, they may use Acrobatics or Athletics to aim their jump - this negates a number of falling distance in feet equal to the result of the skill check, rounding down to the nearest 5 ft. increment.

Falling onto a particularly soft surface (such as a conveniently placed hay bale, sand, mud, and the like) converts half of the fall damage into Non-Lethal Damage. Similarly, water or similar surfaces turn all fall damage to Non-Lethal. You take no damage at all when falling onto a soft surface from 20 ft. or less, though these surfaces provide no benefit on falls which exceed 100 ft.

Small objects that are too weak to provide a handhold may still impede a fall and soften the landing, and as such this may confer the effects of a soft landing (at GM discretion), or to “stagger” the fall into easier, smaller falls. Suitable surfaces for this purpose include monstrous webs, branches, market stalls overhangs, and ropes on a ship.

To deliberately dive into a suitable surface, such as water, you may roll an Athletics check, at a DC of 15, to avoid damage from dives of 50 ft. or less. Increase this DC by 1 for every 10 ft. past fifty, if applicable. However, the water must be sufficiently deep to accommodate your dive - 10 feet of depth is required for every 100 feet of falling distance, to a maximum required depth of 50 feet for a 500 ft. dive or more. After a dive (successful or not), a creature ends their action 10 feet below the water's surface for every 100 feet of distance fallen (to a maximum of the aforementioned 50 ft. of depth).

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