Falling from Great Heights

[Elf Witch]

Unfortunately, a high level character can drink a carboy of poison, no matter his body chemistry, or other curious coincidences.

So no, the HPs can't support the "poison is ok, but 200' fall is not".

But here we are underlining that huge amount of poison aren't lethal.

That has nothing to do with the fact that drops of poison can be non lethal.

Again, if you think that 200' fall are lethal, you must make your game inherently coherent and make acid, fire, poison, giant's club hits and so on lethal too.

I have encountered more pools of acid than 200' cliff.
How many rounds should this "regular person" resist?


How many of them have taken hundreds of lethal hits and survived?

The same should go for the thousands of lethal menaces in D&D.

Does this mean that PCs never suffer a good hit?

What about their opponent's critical hits?

Stop there: why?

The same happens with many more variables, so what?

In real life no one would ever face a Trex, but in D&D a high level character can easily defeat it alone, and would know it.

If a high level PC get threatened by a dozen country bandits armed with crossbows he would never acquiesce to their demands, because he would know that he can single handendly defeat all of them in a bunch of rounds.

And how do you handle this scenario in game?

But what if the boulder's thrower hits with a critical hit, and the PCs failed his spot/listen/perception/whatever check?

I can't see how acid, fire, and so many other things could differentiate the damage between a wall and a barbarian.

Not to mention that luck isn't something related to living beings.

Divine intervention? Isn't it the deus ex machina that the "200' fall and survive" critics oppose?

24/7?

24/7?

You live in a wonderful world.

I have seen a high level character fail every save on poison and die. In DND not all poisons does con damage they so it it is very hard to kill someone with it. Strength and dex damage are not lethal. Also we have magical healing that deals with poison something that the real world does not.

In real life most poisons don't kill instantly some take hours, days, weeks even months. And a lot of poisons are not meant to be lethal they are meant to incapacitate.

Actually no I don't need to make all those things lethal. They already are if you run out of hit points and can not get magical healing. The assumption is that until you take enough damage to hit -0 you are dodging and taking glancing blows, shallow cuts but not lethal life ending injuries.

People survive horrible burns and acid attacks here in real life. In the DnD world with magical healing if you live through the fire and the acid and get magical healing then you are as good as new.

I hate hate the mechanic that allows high level characters not to be threatened by a dozen cross bows or bows aimed at them. I hate the meta gaming that goes on with it an if I could figure out a way to fix this bug I would.

Have you ever seen a the insides of a body that has fallen 200 feet? I have seen an autopsy done on a suicide victim. Almost every bone in the body was broken or crushed. These bones were pushed into the organs damaging some of them beyond any hope of repair. This person heart had literally moved to the other side of his chest tearing the aorta and causing them to bleed out into their abdomen in seconds. Their colon and intestines were ruptured in dozen of places. Their liver had been sliced in two both kidneys damaged to the point that they were useless. Major pieces of skull driven into the brain damaging major portions of it.

Knowing this I can't stand the way falling is done in DnD and which is why in my game you have to make a save or die. That way you do have a chance which represents people who have gotten lucky because they fell into mud, or something slowed their fall down.

In combat people have been shot dozens of time and lived because of where the bullets hit. People have been stabbed dozens of times and lived. This is how I look at damage taken in combat until you run out of hit points.

Personally I like Shadowrun better no matter what level you are or what class the same amount of damage will kill you. What goes up is your defense roll which allows you to avoid the damage in the first place. And I also like as you take damage you start taking penalties.

BTW in 30 years of playing I have only seen what pool of acid and the frakking thing had an acid shark in it.

DnD will never be able to be totally realistic. But we all have our WTFs and I think the game can support all kinds of play.

 

[Stormonu]

Ok, after all the song and dance, I really gotta ask a few questions:

1. How often do your characters fall farther than, say, 50 feet? Because, scratching my head, I can't honestly think of that many times.

Seems to happen once, maybe twice a campaign I run. Usually somewhere around 7th level.

2. How often did that character then climb back up and do it again? I know I've never seen that, but, maybe my group is the outlier here.

Once that I can remember, though it was only a 30' fall. I was running "The Seventh Arm" in Dungeon #88. The group was attempting to scale a cliff face, and the party cleric (dressed in Plate) botched a climb check. Stubbornly, he tried to climb back up once again and fell before the party came up with an alternate solution to get him up (I forget how they did it, but it involved him getting out of the armor).

3. How often do your players intentionally burn hit points by jumping down long distances simply to save time?

I had a rules lawyers/powergamer in early 3E who talked the party into trying this, even having his barbarian leaping down to "prove" it could easily be done. No one jumped after him, when upon landing I ruled he took max damage and that required a Massive Damage save - and he failed it.

On the other end of the spectrum however, my own Dwarf Barbarian character has taken out two BBEG by charging said BBEG and tackling them off the edge of a cliff. On the second one, I even screamed for the party druid to hit us (still grappling the evil sorcerer) with his Call Lightning after impact when it didn't kill 'im.

4. Is this really something that comes up so often that we need rules more complicated than, d10/10 feet fallen? Really?

In spite of my examples, I don't think we need a complicated system. Just something that makes falling something you don't really want to do, unless your a suicidal Barbarian intent on taking the bad guy out with you.

 

[Hussar]

In my experience it doesn't go back near that far. Certainly I make no claim that it didn't progress at different rates in different areas.

But I can't make the same presumptions of common ground even here on ENWorld that I could have six years ago.

Well, if by "near that far" you mean about 1980 when I started playing, then, I guess you'd be right.

Point is, BryonD, you're actually mistaken here. You said that in earlier editions, if you looked at a medusa you turned to stone. This was never true in any edition of the game and this point was hammered home pretty thoroughly with actual quotes from nearly every edition of the game.

So, fine, if you want to house rule that staring at a medusa turns you to stone, then more power to you. But, don't pretend that this is how the game was written. It wasn't. It never was. This is only your interpretation of things.

In the same way, my character, in any edition, can drink a bottle of poison, the deadliest poison known in that world, and if I roll my saving throw, I survive. Now, since a 1 always fails a save in 3e, you'd always have a 5% chance of dying, but, if my fort bonus is higher than the save DC, I can drink that bottle several more times without the slightest effect.

Now, you might not like those rules and you might want to change them. No problem, that's great. But, again, THAT'S what D&D says. There's nothing there about abrogating a saving throw, nor does that appear anywhere in D&D.

It's not a bad house rule and probably one I'd agree with. But, it's still not what the game says.

AFAIC, I don't ever worry about things like this because it's never come up and I doubt it ever will. I'm of the opinion that we really don't need mechanics for extreme corner case situations. That's what DM's are for.

 

[pemerton]

I think the issue is a bit of a red herring. Jokey or gamist games where PCs blithely jump off cliffs generally don't coexist with players who object to such shennanigans. I have seen PCs jump off cliffs as the lesser of two evils, but generally they either have feather fall or equivalent or expect their PC to die or the referee to throw them a bone.

I agree, with the exception that when PCs choose the lesser of two evils I'm happy to let them have the benefit of their hit points.

But the whole "jumping off cliffs for fun" thing is something I've never seen. My players have more interesting stuff to do than to prove that the mechanics break down when you approach them with a different metagame agenda from that which they were designed to support.

So your PCs are going to face deadly enemies 24/7 because they know they are incredibly lucky?

Isn't the same thing as jumping from 200' and knowing the impact will not kill you?

Nice point!

Here's a possible way out I haven't seen suggested:

<snip>

Essentially, the "Die Hard" version is that you have to lobby within the fiction to use the more friendly numbers, and how you lobby determines what nasty position you are in aftewards. Convince the DM (or table) that your action is plausible, you get to take a lot of damage and be in a bad spot. Fail in your lobbying, you get to take almost certainly fatal damage. The "Demigod" version is that your lobbying attempt atomatically succeeds by virtue of that is what the group is playing--even if tied up over the pit. Now all you have to do is narrate how it works, however implausible.

Intriguing modularity, but I'd be gobsmacked if D&Dnext includes anything like this, which is so overt in linking method of resolution to a metagame agenda that is defined by reference to something other than petty differences of technique (like "wants tactical combat" or "wants more freeform roleplaying").

 

[Elf Witch]

I think the thing that bothers me about so much about DnD, which is why I both hate and love the game, is that there are players who metagame so much it ruins the feel of role playing. I end up feeling that I am now playing a video game or some kind of in interactive board game.

PCs should not be aware that they level or how much damage they can take. So facing the chance of falling off a cliff should always be scary. Facing a dozen archers surrounding you should make you think twice about surrendering.

I know players who will role play well and will surrender if faced with what looks like insurmountable odds even if they know that their characters hit points means they could take it.

But so many don't and that frustrates me both as a player and a DM.

 

[pemerton]

I think the thing that bothers me about so much about DnD, which is why I both hate and love the game, is that there are players who metagame so much it ruins the feel of role playing.

<snip>

I know players who will role play well and will surrender if faced with what looks like insurmountable odds even if they know that their characters hit points means they could take it.

Whereas I don't get this at all. The whole point of hit points is plot protection - why have them if the players don't use them to create plots that need them (eg by having their PCs escape from a dozen archers by jumping over a nearby cliff!).

If I want my players to have their PCs surrender when surrounded by archers, I will use a system whose mechanics reflect this - Rolemaster, Runequest, Burning Wheel etc.

 

[delericho]

I don't think the problem is that a high level character might survive a fall from a great height. The problem is that he will, for certain, survive it. If falling damage was to be more random, if even an epic character would pause before jumping 100 ft. down, then I would have no problem with it.

This.

It's a bug. It has always been a bug, an artifact of the wonkiness of HP in general. There are a number of situations, like falling, like lava, where a character's experience, skill and luck (which is what HPs represent) would have no realistic impact on survivability.

Hit points represent experience, skill and luck, but also toughness and divine favour.

And both divine favour and luck always apply.

 

[Hussar]

I think the thing that bothers me about so much about DnD, which is why I both hate and love the game, is that there are players who metagame so much it ruins the feel of role playing. I end up feeling that I am now playing a video game or some kind of in interactive board game.

PCs should not be aware that they level or how much damage they can take. So facing the chance of falling off a cliff should always be scary. Facing a dozen archers surrounding you should make you think twice about surrendering.

I know players who will role play well and will surrender if faced with what looks like insurmountable odds even if they know that their characters hit points means they could take it.

But so many don't and that frustrates me both as a player and a DM.

Honestly, in my mind anyway, this is a social contract issue. These kinds of things have to get discussed away from the table and some sort of compromise found. I really can't think how mechanics are going to help you out here. If someone's playstyle really doesn't mesh with yours, no amount of mechanics is going to help you.

Mostly because if you get the mechanics you want - a high level character is still threatened by mundane archers, the guy who would just leap to the attack isn't going to be happy because he WANTS that plot protection.

 

[Elf Witch]

Whereas I don't get this at all. The whole point of hit points is plot protection - why have them if the players don't use them to create plots that need them (eg by having their PCs escape from a dozen archers by jumping over a nearby cliff!).

If I want my players to have their PCs surrender when surrounded by archers, I will use a system whose mechanics reflect this - Rolemaster, Runequest, Burning Wheel etc.

It is not just the surrendering, and believe me if I want the PCs to surrender they will find these archers are more powerful then them, its the whole metagaming thinking that goes on.

I have heard players say we can't tackle this it is to high a level for us. Or the mob of over 100 can't hurt us because we are 10 level and the most they can be is third.

Hey the King is most likely a 4 level noble we don't have to listen to him we can kick his butt.

DnD seems to encourage this kind of play and it is something I don't really like.

Sure I could play a different system but I hate with a passion Rolemaster because it has too many tables and takes forever to get through combat it is like playing a strategy wargame.

I have the old boxed set of Runequest and I enjoyed it but it has things in that make it at least to me setting specific.

I have tried GURPS and Fanasty Hero but I don't like that you have to create everything from scratch. I want the work done for me and I want to be able to find adventure paths and modules written that I can slide into my game when needed and I have never found that with GURPS or Hero system.

I would love to find a system like say Shadowrun for generic fantasy.

 

[Elf Witch]

Honestly, in my mind anyway, this is a social contract issue. These kinds of things have to get discussed away from the table and some sort of compromise found. I really can't think how mechanics are going to help you out here. If someone's playstyle really doesn't mesh with yours, no amount of mechanics is going to help you.

Mostly because if you get the mechanics you want - a high level character is still threatened by mundane archers, the guy who would just leap to the attack isn't going to be happy because he WANTS that plot protection.

Partly it is a social contract.

But rules do help this attitude and encourage it.

In Shadowrun games because it is not a level based game you don't see this attitude very often. Those security guards you are up against may have the same skills as you do you will never get to the point that it will be a cake walk. If the police surround you with guns it won't matter how long you have been running in the shadows and how much your character has improved you will die if all those bullets hit you.

I have seen many DM post their frustrations at how once their PCs get to a certain level they become uncontrollable bullies and feel entitled to just walk over any one lower.

I would like to see rules that make mobs scary no matter your level and ways to make a PC think twice about taking on the entire city guard who have the drop on them and have crossbows and bows aimed at them.

And I want falling to always be a thing that makes you pause and causes your heart to pound.