Falling Damage - Anyone else hopes falling hurts just a little bit more?

[Victim]

In virtually all sub-genres of adventure fiction, the villain dies by lunging at the hero, missing, and falling to his death.

A) That's because the hero often isn't permited to kill the villain directly after beating him to show that he's one of the good guys, but the villain still needs to die for resolution. Same thing as the 'justifying gun.' DnD characters kill tons of people directly; the need for a 'clean' death doesn't seem particularly pressing.

B) The villain falls, the hero and sidekick go "no one could have survived that fall," villain survives and comes back in a later story. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for deadly falls.

 

[Derren]

There's a problem with the argument being made that "you can survive ridiculously lethal things for other types of damage, then why not falling?" Falling is fundamentally different. Due to the abstract nature of HP most "damage" doesn't mean that you were stabbed and somehow survived, it means that some of your luck has run out, you took a minor cut that slowed you down, or something like that. (Yes I know that we all already know this) That doesn't work for falling. If you fall for 100 feet you're going to take physical damage. It's not a near miss. You don't graze the ground. You hit, hard, which is going to do a lot of physical damage. If you're actually taking physical damage then your HP must be all gone.

People have fallen for a mile or more and lived. So why can't you use luck for surviving falls too?

 

[KarinsDad]

People have fallen for a mile or more and lived. So why can't you use luck for surviving falls too?

One person in a million.

Sure, those things have happened. But typically, there are extenuating circumstances that allowed for it (having a partial parachute deployed, gusting ground winds, falling onto steep slopes, falling into water, etc.).

Not:

PC: "I fell into five 40' pits today and hardly felt it each time"

 

[Raven Crowking]

I have personally fallen 35 feet onto a hard, flat surface.

The results:

First off, I was winded, and it hurt. Oh, how very much it hurt.

I had landed on my feet, and my back hurt. But my feet felt okay. That rattled around for a while before I realized that I might be paralyzed from the waist down. Instant panic.

Wriggle the left big toe. Seemed to work.

Wriggle the right big toe. Seemed to work.

Elation! I just dropped 35 feet and I'm okay!

When I tried to get up, however, the fractures in my right heel became a bit more...obvious, shall we say? A shard of bone severed my right Achilles tendon. The heel bone itself was in four pieces (I still have three screws in that foot to this day). This hurt somewhat more than the fall.

At the hospital, I discovered that I had broken my back in four places: L1, L2, L3, and L4 vertebrae. In addition (and much later) I discovered that I had also broken my left ankle....by the time this had been discovered it had already healed badly, and I was given the choice of break & reset (no thank you) or deal with it (yes please). I was told that I would probably never walk without the assistance of a cane, and if I could even walk around well with the assistance of a cane I should consider myself lucky.

I honestly doubt that D&D should model this very well, even if it could be modelled. Better to go the REH/ERG route and say that something happened allowing the PC to survive the fall relatively intact.

(As luck would have it, I healed much, much better than expected, and only when there is a rapid shift in weather, or if I am getting ill, do I even have a noticeable limp.)

RC

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

And to throw another ancedotal log on the fire...

Went climbing with a buddy of mine and he dropped 50 feet into a crevasse, able to touch the sides all the way down before *thumping* feet first into the crack at the bottom. He wrenched his ankle getting it unstuck, but otherwize no damage. Guess he had enough levels in Monk

Had to rig a pulley system to get him back up, but it all worked out okay.


Waaaay back on page two someone comments 'stop with the Con damage!' {or something like that..}
Given the mechanics we have available, CON damage/permanent loss is really the most appropriate method of modelling long term injury/wounds. Unless we layer on a secondary mechanic of wounding... which was a pretty good idea back in 2e when it was published in the Dragon article titled "PAIN!!!!"

 

[KrazyHades]

In addition to falling, I understand there's already a 4e compatible supplement that provides more simulationist rules for lava immersion. Very handy.

Haha, that got a laugh from me. A real one, not some "lol" that represents a small smile. An actual, audible "haha!"

I already use the lava supplement in my game.

 

[arscott]

Waaaay back on page two someone comments 'stop with the Con damage!' {or something like that..}
Given the mechanics we have available, CON damage/permanent loss is really the most appropriate method of modelling long term injury/wounds. Unless we layer on a secondary mechanic of wounding... which was a pretty good idea back in 2e when it was published in the Dragon article titled "PAIN!!!!"

I disagree. It might be the most realistic method we have of modeling wounds, but that doesn't make it the most appropriate for D&D. After all, hit location tables and critical hit effect charts would probably be more realistic that hp, but you don't see me rushing out and buying hackmaster.

 

[shilsen]

One person in a million.

Sure, those things have happened. But typically, there are extenuating circumstances that allowed for it (having a partial parachute deployed, gusting ground winds, falling onto steep slopes, falling into water, etc.).

Not:

PC: "I fell into five 40' pits today and hardly felt it each time"

And there are extenuating circumstances in the case of the PC. He's a denizen of a fantastic world and is (if at a level when he can fall into 40' pits and hardly feel it) well beyond the range of human capability as we know of it.

 

[The Little Raven]

One person in a million.

Why would I want to play a game where I'm a regular person? I have to be one of those every time I stop gaming. I want to be one in a million, and I suspect a lot of other people that play D&D feel the same.

 

[Derren]

One person in a million.

In 4E the PCs are supposed to be the destined heroes who are better than other, normal persons.