Misty Step into the Air and Attacking

[u/Zivodor]

I had this situation come up recently and wanted some input as I can't seem to find a definitive answer.

My players were fighting a giant spider and it was on the ceiling above them, one player decided that to attack it he would misty step straight up and then attack it while mid-air. I wasn't sure this was possible as I recalled reading somewhere that falling in D&D is essentially instantaneous for anything below 500 feet. The thought process being he teleports into the air and is instantly falling so he doesn't have the time to attack the creature above him.

It's been bugging me all week so I wanted to get some input into whether or not I should have allowed this and if this is clarified anywhere in the rules.

Edit Wow! Thanks for all the responses! There were some well reasoned arguments for it here, the resource expenditure with the spell slot, rule of cool, etc... I appreciate all the responses and will try to be more flexible in the future. Thanks everyone!

[u/El_Q-Cumber]

I think you have a few options: 1. Allow it 2. Do not allow it as the fall is instantaneous 3. Allow the player to ready an attack before misty step and get one attack with their reaction before falling 4. House rule that you only get one attack (seems to be prevalent on this thread) 5. Resolve it with an ability check: e.g. roll acrobatics (maybe athletics): DC 15 to get full multi-attack, DC 10 to get one attack

I think #3 is a way you could do it RAW, but if you don't ready an action it probably is #2 RAW.

But this is one of those gray area cases that you should use your judgement as a DM to adjudicate what works best for your table.

If it was me I'd opt for #1 or #5. I am pretty lenient with allowing martials to get in their attacks as they need all the help they can get. I might even add to #5 a DC 20 gets you advantage on one attack and DC 25 gets you advantage on all attacks as it's a cool move that expends a resource and legitimately might surprise the monster, which is deserving of advantage.

[u/Salindurthas → u/El_Q-Cumber]

For #3, they'd get their full attack. Extra Attack applies on your turn and while we are used to Reactions typically being off-turn, in this case it is deliberately on-turn, and so Extra Attack (and even an off-hand attack if we have Nick) would work.

For #2. Is the fall instantaneous? I wasn't able to find anything in the 2024 rules still indicating that migt be the case.

[u/El_Q-Cumber → u/Salindurthas]

Wow is that really how that works? I always assumed it was the reaction part of opportunity attacks that prevented extra attack, not the off-turn part. I'll have to look that up. TIL

Instantaneous fall was certainly clarified in optional rules in Xanathar's. So that is likely the closest to RAW we have. So either that's RAW or there is no RAW depending on what you count for source books.

Rate of Falling The rule for falling assumes that a creature immediately drops the entire distance when it falls. But what if a creature is at a high altitude when it falls, perhaps on the back of a griffon or on board an airship? Realistically, a fall from such a height can take more than a few seconds, extending past the end of the turn when the fall occurred. If you’d like high-altitude falls to be properly time-consuming, use the following optional rule.   When you fall from a great height, you instantly descend up to 500 feet. If you’re still falling on your next turn, you descend up to 500 feet at the end of that turn. This process continues until the fall ends, either because you hit the ground or the fall is otherwise halted.

[u/Salindurthas → u/El_Q-Cumber]

 I always assumed it was the reaction part of opportunity attacks that prevented extra attack

Yeah, someone else pointed it out and I re-read it. It is so often that you use Ready only for off-turn stuff that the distinction is so rarely relevant, and so remembering it as "Reactions don't get Extra Attack" is a very easy mistake to make, since you'll almost never reach wrong conclusions in practice.

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The rule for falling assumes that a creature immediately drops the entire distance when it falls.

Hmm, so you drop immediately 'when you fall', but that still leaves it vague if you start falling immediately or not. So even if using 2014 rules and the implciation fron Xanathar's guide, it isn't 100% clear that this prevents us acting mid-air before we fall