Anyone else bothered by the falling rules?

[scadgrad]

Ok not to gripe or anything...ok maybe I am griping

Am I the only DM out there who thinks the falling rules are a bit silly? The other night in our Heart of Nightfang Spire session a couple of the characters were faced with falling some 300' to the ground or "jumping" some 60' to the entry level below.

Now I'm all for heroics & everything, but that's just plain silly. "Hey hurl myself off a 4 story building? No prob." Geez isn't there an optional rule somewhere for making falling damage a bit more frightening for higher level characters? Death from Massive Damage helps, but just doesn't seem like enough to even scare fighters beyond 10th level or so. Our dwarf fighter has actually made that 300' fall twice & not even broken a sweat over it.

One other question for all you "physics fans", how far does one fall in 1 round?

Oh & last but not least, what about all those fragile items one is carrying when one throws themselves from such dizzying heights? Are there any rules for item saving throws for when one falls a goodly distance?

I'm not sure which 3E rules I dislike the most, Falling, Grappling, or Acid?

 

[0-hr]

All of your fantasy worlds are low gravity (and places where accelleration due to gravity is linear for some reason). Why? It's magic! Oh wait, that doesn't work here...

It would be nice if falling did something a little less level-dependent, like maybe d4 CON for each 10 feet, with a reflex, jump, or tumble check for half?

I dunno, but it certainly needs something. Otherwise adventurers would go skydiving without parachutes just for the joy of it. Really 20d6 is only 70 points of damage on average. Not a big deal.

 

[hong]

D&D characters past 12th level or so are effectively superheroes, and you have to treat combat that way. Daredevil, Spidey, Batguy and co would probably not have many qualms about jumping off 4-storey buildings. Neither should your PCs.

 

[Orco42]

I really don't like the damage table for falling items.

I can drop a bunch of darts on you from a mile up and you take 0 damage.

But if I drop a pillow that weighs 1 pound you are in big trouble.

 

[Bonedagger]

If the ground hit the PC with something sharp (Improvised weapon) does the ground then get a stenght bonus?

....Or is it the PC who hit the ground. Can the PC's attack then be considdered a Bull Rush?

Sorry. It's late.

 

[Ranger REG]

Did you apply the Massive Damage Threshold rules?

In the standard rules, if you take at least 50 points of damage in one attack or incident, then the character must make a Fort Save or die due to massive trauma.

You could always lower the 50-point threshold and make it more dangerous, or add a condition even if they succeed the Fort Save since the impact from a fall would definitely take the wind out of you.

 

[Thanee]

Acceleration in free fall without air resistance is about 32.2'/s² (9.81m/s²), which means, that every second of falling, your falling velocity increases by 32.2'/s. Air resistance lowers this slightly.

Assuming the same gravity and air resistance as on our planet, you can go by the following numbers.

After 6 seconds the fallen distance is about 500'.
After 10 seconds the fallen distance is about 1000' and terminal velocity has been reached.
For every second thereafter, the fallen distance increases by about 165'.

Bye
Thanee

 

[shurai]

Speaking for myself, I would make falling damage work on a curve rather than a straight line somehow, which would make falls for all levels be dangerous.

If terminal velocity is supposed to be about 100 feet, then we can pretty easily figure out how much damage will definitely kill any adventurer at that height.

So the question is, how many hit points would a 20th level barbarian dwarf with a 20 con get? Likely 240 hit points, maybe 300 if he rolled well a few times and upped his con.

So that's . . . sheesh, 300 points on average would be about 85d6. I have a dice rolling program so I don't mind, but this might not be manageable for some folks.

Hmm . . . lemme think about it.

 

[Macbrea]

Being bored, I decided to look up some real life facts on the terminal velocity of the human body. The site I found was http://hypertextbook.com/facts/JianHuang.shtml . Which goes into a very detailed explaination of how the body falls.

Basicly, For our discussion I will use the follow to help with the real life effects.


The terminal velocity for a skydiver was found to be in a range from 53 m/s to 76 m/s. Four out of five sources stated a value between 53 m/s and 56 m/s. Principles of Physics stated a value of 76 m/s. This value differed significantly from the others. Then again, the value is variable since the weight and the orientation of the falling body play significant roles in determining terminal velocity.

Jian Huang -- 1998



This means at the end of 6 seconds we will be travelling at 53 m/s if accelleration of the human body is 9.81 m/s. And have traveled a distance of 200 meters. After that point we will travel 318 additionally meters every 6 seconds after that point. So, to be more accurate to real life physics the rule should have read: A person falls 650 feet the first round and 1033 feet every round thereafter.

 

[kreynolds]

No. I just make sure I don't fall.