D&D General Alternate thought - rule of cool is bad for gaming

[The Sigil]

According to a quick Google search, you fall 500 feet in a round, so unless someone has feather fall they go splat in a round and take 22 d6 damage, or 77 because I'd average it and I think the limit is dumb. However I'd also probably max damage after 50 feet so (5*3.5)+(17*6) for 120 points of damage. Which a high level fighter or barbarian may survive.

Is that good enough?

My understanding is the limit at 20d6 is intended to represent terminal velocity.

Per What is Free Fall? A Quick Lesson in Physics | Head Rush Blog. this estimate is way too low as the human body reaches terminal velocity after falling about 1500 feet so damage should instead cap at 150d6. So I would accept your damage answer too.

Note that the duration of a round in D&D depends on the edition, 1e for instance uses 1 minute rounds, other editions use 6 or 10 second rounds. For editions with 6 second rounds, the rise and fall consumes more than one round (so the character should only be able to use ranged attacks or spells that round, not melee) and it might be ruled similarly for a 10 second round as the rise and fall takes nearly the whole round before the character lands and can act. I think though the level of abstraction we are dealing with makes this not matter.

 

[Clint_L]

My understanding is the limit at 20d6 is intended to represent terminal velocity.

Per What is Free Fall? A Quick Lesson in Physics | Head Rush Blog. this estimate is way too low as the human body reaches terminal velocity after falling about 1500 feet so damage should instead cap at 150d6. So I would accept your damage answer too.

I like this better, as it should kill almost any character unless they are incredibly lucky. Which is what should happen after a 1500' fall, IMO. But we have a whole thread on the subject.

In the anecdote above the level 4 character was falling far enough that the impact would have killed him outright; making the acrobatics check meant that he was at 0 HP but they were able to rush over and revive him. To much celebration and glory.

I know there are differences of opinion on the lethality levels of D&D. In my games, I always want there to be a credible threat that your character could die. I find it makes the stories so much more exciting. Rule of cool if only a problem is it undermines that ever lurking danger. That character had a +1 acrobatics bonus, so they needed a 14 or higher to survive. Beating the odds made the moment way better; at our final session in June they were still talking about it. "Remember when..."

Maybe we should think of it as "roll of cool" rather than "rule of cool." Yeah, do crazy stuff! Think outside the box! But when the rubber hits the road, you're still gonna have to earn it.

There. I've mixed all the metaphors.

 

[Oofta]

My understanding is the limit at 20d6 is intended to represent terminal velocity.

Per What is Free Fall? A Quick Lesson in Physics | Head Rush Blog. this estimate is way too low as the human body reaches terminal velocity after falling about 1500 feet so damage should instead cap at 150d6. So I would accept your damage answer too.

Note that the duration of a round in D&D depends on the edition, 1e for instance uses 1 minute rounds, other editions use 6 or 10 second rounds. For editions with 6 second rounds, the rise and fall consumes more than one round (so the character should only be able to use ranged attacks or spells that round, not melee) and it might be ruled similarly for a 10 second round as the rise and fall takes nearly the whole round before the character lands and can act. I think though the level of abstraction we are dealing with makes this not matter.

I always assumed the 20d6 was simply plot armor. But as you said, 150d6 will kill any PC so it doesn't really matter.

 

[Clint_L]

I always assumed the 20d6 was simply plot armor. But as you said, 150d6 will kill any PC so it doesn't really matter.

Level 20 raging barbarian. But that guy probably deserves their moment of glory.

 

[Oofta]

Level 20 raging barbarian. But that guy probably deserves their moment of glory.

At that level, the earth is probably trying to move out of the barbarian's way because it's intimidated.

 

[overgeeked]

Which is fine, once.

Except it's never just once; as having finessed the rule to work that way once you're now bound by precedent to have it work that way every time, should the same situation arise again (and in a long campaign, it's almost inevitable that it will).

Even worse is if-when you finesse a rule to account for player B's cool idea when player A did exactly the same action last session and didn't get the benefit of that same rule finesse. If I'm player A in that set-up, I'm feeling a bit ripped off.

Or, if one wants a more grounded and-or less cinematic game, one can houserule the other way. But you're right in saying that hard-coding these finesses and tweaks as houserules is the way to go.

I've never understood this stance of yours that precedent must be perfect and respected until the heat death of the universe. You don't have to try to be perfect. It's not possible. It's okay to make a mistake and admit that, then course correct.

 

[Lanefan]

No, it's clear you're running a board game and I will diligently move my pawn across the board to the prescribed amount of spaces.

Also as an aside: I hate the "20 always wins, 1 always loses" on skill checks. You're telling me I have a 5% chance, regardless of skill and training, to perform brain surgery, seduce the queen, or convince a dragon to part with its gold on a single die roll?

You think you'd even get a roll for anything that extreme?

There's no roll if the chance of either success or failure is zero. But if there is a roll it's implied there's at least a 5% chance either way.

Now one could argue - and I have, in the past - that 5% isn't granular enough and doesn't account for the many instances where a 1% chance would be better; but changing this requires breaking away from unified resolution mechanics, which I'm fine with but all too many are not.

 

[Lanefan]

Every campaign where players turned D&D into a physics game ended up with people arguing over laws of thermodynamics and clamoring for outsized effects. Nonsense like “I froze the dragon so when it uses its fire breath its insides will rupture from the rapid change in temperature.”

And yet that's just the sort of thinking I want to see from the players: what happens if, based on physics, I try this?

 

[Clint_L]

You think you'd even get a roll for anything that extreme?

There's no roll if the chance of either success or failure is zero. But if there is a roll it's implied there's at least a 5% chance either way.

Now one could argue - and I have, in the past - that 5% isn't granular enough and doesn't account for the many instances where a 1% chance would be better; but changing this requires breaking away from unified resolution mechanics, which I'm fine with but all too many are not.

I agree. If you're trying to do brain surgery and you're not a trained surgeon, you don't need to roll anything. You're just murdering someone. Convincing a dragon to just give you its hoard sounds more like suicide.

Seducing the queen, on the other hand, could be eminently doable. I mean, look at the history of royalty. Not exactly paragons of fidelity and virtue, for the most part.

I've had some players who try the "there's always a chance" line, to insist that they should be allowed to roll for anything they want. I'm a firm "nope" on that. I'm a referee, not a yes man.

As for granularity, I'm pretty agnostic. One in twenty is slim enough odds that, should it happen in a crucial situation, it's plenty exciting. On other hand, sometimes you just need those percentile dice. In the current campaign of Critical Role, Travis Willingham's character is so old that he rolls a d100 every morning (in game), and when he finally rolls a 1, the character won't wake up.

 

[Lanefan]

A PC fighting ac dragon gets snatched up and tossed into the air 220 ft. How long does it take him to land and how much damage does he take when he does?

Show all work.

Time: about 6 seconds.

Damage: if the character isn't killed by the damage taken while being snatched and thrown it'll almost certainly die on landing (regardless of its current h.p. total it'd be saving vs straight death on impact) snd even on making that save it's still eating 22d6 worth of pain.

In the interest of protecting Eric's Grandma's eyes I won't repeat my usual response - honed to perfection back in school days - when someone tells me to "show my work".

* - unless the landing area happens to be soft e.g. mud or deep snow, which would allow a big bonus to the save and reduce the damage taken.