maritimo80
First Post
A character in free fall, falls how many feets by turn?
D&D 5E A character in free fall, falls how many feets by turn?
- Thread starter maritimo80
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better answer below
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Ravenheart87
Explorer
Depends on how long he's been falling, since the falling speed is not static until you reach terminal velocity. But neglecting air resistance and friction the gravitational acceleretion of a falling body is 9.78-9.83 m/s^2, so calculating with an average g=9.8 m/s^2 acceleration and t=6s time the equation for distance (d=1/2*gt^2) gives us d=176,4m. That's 578.74 feet under a round. I don't think you will ever need calculation where someone falls for more than a round, because the damage caused by one is already pretty deadly.
iserith
Magic Wordsmith
The relevant rules are:
Falling, Basic Rules, page 65
My ruling is:
The speed at which a character falls is not covered by the rules. Therefore, it is elastic depending on the needs of the scene with an eye toward drama. If the adventurer, for example, has fallen off a short ledge that has been dramatically telegraphed in the scene as a potential hazard, then the falling damage is resolved quickly and we carry on. If instead we're in a scene involving aerial combat in the clouds, then a falling character might be given a reasonable amount of actions to perform some (possibly final) dramatic flourish before reaching the ground.
A quick Google search reveals that terminal velocity is around 120 miles per hour or 176 feet per second. A round is six seconds, so that's just north of a 1000 feet per round. This level of granularity isn't something I would consider in my game, however. Drama comes first.
But you or your DM may make a different ruling based on this or other criteria.
Falling, Basic Rules, page 65
My ruling is:
The speed at which a character falls is not covered by the rules. Therefore, it is elastic depending on the needs of the scene with an eye toward drama. If the adventurer, for example, has fallen off a short ledge that has been dramatically telegraphed in the scene as a potential hazard, then the falling damage is resolved quickly and we carry on. If instead we're in a scene involving aerial combat in the clouds, then a falling character might be given a reasonable amount of actions to perform some (possibly final) dramatic flourish before reaching the ground.
A quick Google search reveals that terminal velocity is around 120 miles per hour or 176 feet per second. A round is six seconds, so that's just north of a 1000 feet per round. This level of granularity isn't something I would consider in my game, however. Drama comes first.
But you or your DM may make a different ruling based on this or other criteria.
Celebrim
Legend
Depends very much on the attitude of the person with respect to the ground. In a head first dive, probably 1000 feet or more. Spread eagled and rafting on the air (make a skill check) maybe around 500. Anywhere in between is a reasonable estimation. Since characters rarely fall more than 100 feet or so, you can assume that falls are basically instantaneous.
While we are on the subject of falling, my preferred methodology is a little complicated.
Roll 1d20 for each 10' of the fall (maximum 20d20). Sum this and divide the total by 1d6. Additionally, have the ground make a 'melee attack' on the character at +3 to hit for 1d6 damage, with a bonus of +1 to hit and damage per 10' fallen (maximum +20). There is a bunch of additional complexity for falling on rough and unusually hard ground, or soft ground, or spikes, or if you are not medium sized, and so forth, but all you really need is the basic idea to use this additional complexity to solve a couple of nagging problems.
a) How is it that falling a short distance is occasionally lethal to ordinary people?
b) How is it that falling a long distance is occasionally lethal to ordinary people?
c) How is it that falling any distance is something heroes can survive?
d) How do we keep players from metagaming 'c'.
e) How do we avoid the problem of needing pits to be 100 feet deep before they are even remotely a threat to high level parties?
The above technique ensures that falling damage remains a frightening thing regardless of level, while ensuring that like the heroes of action adventure movies, PC's can survive falling off things that would normally kill people.
My rules are normally not this complicated, and I hate the idea of using division to calculate something in a PnP game, but it works.
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
I love this answer. You fall at the speed of plot.
Celebrim
Legend
I don't think you could have more directly contrasting answers than iserith's and mine.
Iserith basically says, "It doesn't matter. Drama determines rules."
I basically said, "It matters greatly, because rules determine drama."
Note that we are both prioritizing drama, just with the opposite assumptions.
When I watch a movie or TV show, I often am required to suspend disbelief. I can do so if the show/movie explicitly tells me something is possible in world (warp drive! teleporters! translators!). I can also do so if the world follows the rules it's laid out for themselves.
However, if the show/movie hasn't told me it violates the laws of physics (it's not real, it's the Matrix!) I assume gravity works like it does on earth. When I see terrible special effects that violate the laws either the show has defined or reality has defined then I am pulled out of the show and the drama is lessened.
Gravity functioning at the whim of the GM would pull me out of the game in a similar fashion. It'd be like gaming with (a far more benign) Queen of Hearts as DM.
However, if the show/movie hasn't told me it violates the laws of physics (it's not real, it's the Matrix!) I assume gravity works like it does on earth. When I see terrible special effects that violate the laws either the show has defined or reality has defined then I am pulled out of the show and the drama is lessened.
Gravity functioning at the whim of the GM would pull me out of the game in a similar fashion. It'd be like gaming with (a far more benign) Queen of Hearts as DM.
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
I see where you are coming from. How's this - I've run and played very realistic games and enjoyed them greatly. Knowing I have three turns before hitting the bottom of the canyon gives the character (and the others) a wonderful countdown timer for drama. It's not arbitrary and as well supports the physics (in this case literally) of the setting. And I would love how real it was, and with some DMs the not-arbitrary portion was important. Not because of lack of trust, but because of lack of consistency.
Right now I'm a fan of simple and of subtractive design - give us enough rules we're all on the same page and then trust that everyone at the table wants a good story. I'd rather say "You've got three rounds before you splat at the bottom of the canyon. Go!" rather then spending looking for falling speed in the rules, not finding it and googling terminal velocity of a man-shaped object in air, checking that vs. height of the cliff and rounding up to deal with acceleration time, and then giving it to the players. Just kills the pacing. And if the realistic number ens up being too long (or worse, grossly too short) for drama I think need to break player expectations I've set up and fudge it anyway.
Right now I'm a fan of simple and of subtractive design - give us enough rules we're all on the same page and then trust that everyone at the table wants a good story. I'd rather say "You've got three rounds before you splat at the bottom of the canyon. Go!" rather then spending looking for falling speed in the rules, not finding it and googling terminal velocity of a man-shaped object in air, checking that vs. height of the cliff and rounding up to deal with acceleration time, and then giving it to the players. Just kills the pacing. And if the realistic number ens up being too long (or worse, grossly too short) for drama I think need to break player expectations I've set up and fudge it anyway.
In my mind, I read that sentence this way: "depends on the attitude of the person with respect to the Dungeon Master".
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