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

[The Little Raven]

But should he be able to fall 100 feet and walk away with zero fear of even twisting an ankle. Should he be able to drink a healing potion to heal his non-wounds and do it again? And again? And never break a bone?

Well, the fact that that same hero can take hundreds of sword wounds, axe gashes, dragonfire burns, and never need any corrective surgeries or skin grafts, and able to heal any wound by merely resting long enough... no, I don't see a problem with that. If we have a system where a nasty sword wound has none of the follow-up effects of real life (broken ribs, shattered bones, punctured organs, infection, etc), then why should falling be specifically tailored to do so? If electricity, which causes nerve damage in real life (I know, I have loss of sensation in my left arm because of it), and fire, which causes severe tissue degradation and nerve damage, don't have their real-life permanent effects, then why should one system, above all others, be approached with a higher degree of "realism?"

 

[arscott]

Hmm.....I think I understand how acceleration works, but I think that fails to take into account that the faster you fall per second, the more distance you will cover before you speed up again. Or to put it another way, while you may be accelerating twice as fast during the 2nd second of falling, your also covering twice as much distance so it would kind of even out on damage per 10 feet.

Something like that. Technically, your acceleration remains constant (except for air resistance). On the surface of the earth, that acceleration is g (8.9 meters per second per second, or 32 feet per second per second). Presumably, the strength of gravity on a D&D world is similar enough to that of earth that we can continue to use this value.

What's changing is your kinetic energy. When you land, that kinetic energy will dissipate in ways that cause broken bones, pulverized internal organs, and the occasional giant smoking crater.

The kinetic energy E of a falling body of mass m that has fallen distance d is governed by the equation below:

E=2mgd

So a 200 lb fighter that has fallen 10 feet has a kinetic energy of 4000 foot-pounds. If the same fighter has fallen 20 feet, then his kinetic energy is 8000 foot-pounds, or 1200 foot-pounds for 30 feet and so forth.

It's only when time enters into it that you see the non-linear increase that people seem so keen to apply. What this does reveal, though, is that heavier creatures are more affected by falling that lighter creatures. Then again, if a creature is larger, that kinetic energy dissipates over a larger mass. It'll take people who know physics far better than me to figure out how that applies.

I cap it at 10d6, which means 10d6+9d6+8d6, etc. Comes out to like 48d6 iirc.

55d6. If it went all the way to 200 ft before capping, then you'd be doing 210d6.


Edit: Urg. Can we please stop talking about Con Damage please? The SWSE designers were being very smart when they decided that ability damage is never the solution to anything, ever. I hope with all my heart that the 4e folks follow suit.

 

[mmadsen]

Well, the fact that that same hero can take hundreds of sword wounds, axe gashes, dragonfire burns, and never need any corrective surgeries or skin grafts, and able to heal any wound by merely resting long enough... no, I don't see a problem with that. If we have a system where a nasty sword wound has none of the follow-up effects of real life (broken ribs, shattered bones, punctured organs, infection, etc), then why should falling be specifically tailored to do so? If electricity, which causes nerve damage in real life (I know, I have loss of sensation in my left arm because of it), and fire, which causes severe tissue degradation and nerve damage, don't have their real-life permanent effects, then why should one system, above all others, be approached with a higher degree of "realism?"

I think you missed my point. My point was not that we should have a complicated fall-injury subsystem to handle the peculiarities of falling damage. My point was that surviving a long fall is possible, but extremely improbable, so having a high-level D&D character survive a long fall is not implausible, but having him face no risk at all is extremely implausible.

This, of course, is an artifact of the hit point system, with its large buffer of ablative hit points, which makes any one big injury far more survivable than it should be, in order to make multiple cuts and bruises as survivable as they should be.

 

[The Little Raven]

My point was that surviving a long fall is possible, but extremely improbable, so having a high-level D&D character survive a long fall is not implausible, but having him face no risk at all is extremely implausible.

And I'm saying that if he can be bathed in dragon's fire and not suffer outrageous penalties for it, then he should be able to fall off a cliff without suffering outrageous penalties, since it's heroic fantasy.

This, of course, is an artifact of the hit point system, with its large buffer of ablative hit points, which makes any one big injury far more survivable than it should be, in order to make multiple cuts and bruises as survivable as they should be.

Well, we also have had massive damage threshold rules for this sort of thing, which may still be the case, so you can still have your "long fall could kill you" without it having to equate to a total loss of hit points by falling damage.

 

[shilsen]

But should he be able to fall 100 feet and walk away with zero fear of even twisting an ankle. Should he be able to drink a healing potion to heal his non-wounds and do it again? And again? And never break a bone?

Absolutely. The sort of PC who can do that is akin in his abilities to characters like Achilles and Cuchulainn. Would Cuchulainn be able to jump over a cliff and walk away? Sure. Would it make sense for him to be damaged by it? Absolutely not. D&D characters, once they have a few levels under their belts, are not normal human beings, as evidenced by many of the things they can do. So why should they be restricted to normal human parameters when it comes to falling?

Seriously, this fetishization and worship of falling in holes must stop!

 

[IceFractal]

Because velocity scales linearly with time while distance scales geometrically, velocity will actually rise slower than distance. So for instance, if you fall 100', you hit with less than twice as much force as if you'd fallen 50'.

For this reason, the 1d6/3d6/6d6/etc falling damage rule makes no sense. If anything, it would make sense to slow down the numbers a little at the higher end - requiring 250' to reach 20d6, for instance. However, the deviation over 200' is not that big, so linear works fine.

 

[IceFractal]

Whether or not you think deadly falling fits D&D, there's a good reason not to include it without changing the whole basis of the game - falling can be induced.

If you make one effect, such as falling, realistically deadly, while other effects stay the same, then falling becomes some kind of superweapon. And falling is by no means hard to take advantage of: dropping things on people (already a problem), picking people up and dropping them from flight, offensive teleportation powers - the list goes on.


It's the same as if you made "being on fire" as distracting and debilitating as it really would be. Should there realistically be significant penalties for trying to fight or cast spells while on fire? Yes.

What would happen if those penalties existed? Everyone would buy tons of Oil/Alchemist's Fire and always start combat by igniting their foes.

 

[apoptosis]

Whether or not you think deadly falling fits D&D, there's a good reason not to include it without changing the whole basis of the game - falling can be induced.

If you make one effect, such as falling, realistically deadly, while other effects stay the same, then falling becomes some kind of superweapon. And falling is by no means hard to take advantage of: dropping things on people (already a problem), picking people up and dropping them from flight, offensive teleportation powers - the list goes on.


It's the same as if you made "being on fire" as distracting and debilitating as it really would be. Should there realistically be significant penalties for trying to fight or cast spells while on fire? Yes.

What would happen if those penalties existed? Everyone would buy tons of Oil/Alchemist's Fire and always start combat by igniting their foes.

This is my thoughts on the matter as well.

 

[Szatany]

Seriously guys, I think the whole rules for falling could use an overhaul. The days when you have to roll 32d6 are over (or at least should be) - lets not forget that 4e is moving away from simulation and toward a game. So why don't we simplify falling as well.

If you fall a distance (in yards) equal to your level+3 or less, you take no damage. For example a level 1 human could fall 4 yards (12 ft.) harmlessly.

If you fall a distance equal to twice your (level+3) or less, you take damage equal to half your HP total. You can also spend an action point to take no damage in this case.
The said human could fall 8 yards (or 24 ft.) and take the damage. At lvl 30 he could fall 66 yards.

If you fall a distance equal to triple your (level+3) or less, you take damage equal to your total hit points. You can spend an action point to take half HP damage instead. At level 1 this is 12 yards. At level 30 this is 99 yards.

If you fall a distance greater than triple your (level+3) in yards, you die. You can spend two action points to take total HP damage instead.

What do you think?

 

[TwinBahamut]

I have absolutely no problem with a high-level D&D character falling from a height of 3 miles (maybe he fell off a flying castle?), tumbling into the ground at terminal velocity, taking a wide swath of ground as he rolls away from the impact, and then standing up, wiping some of the dirt out of the scratches in his body, and complaining about the pain in his back as he walks off to find a way back up, leaving a group of nearby farmers staring in shock.

High-Paragon to Epic level characters should be awesome. I really don't care if the things they do are implausible by the standards of real-world mortals.