Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="talien" data-source="post: 9558967" data-attributes="member: 3285">Exactly, and the issue isn't necessarily the damage, it's how players (and thus their characters) treat the threat of it. Because we know the upper limits of damage ("30 feet? I can handle 18 damage easily!") it's a bounded threat. If the damage range was much wider (one of the solutions I believe proposes exactly this) or the PCs didn't know how much damage they might take because it was the DM's fiat, that changes things quite a bit, and PCs would not just automatically assume they're that WWII pilot.Falling damage is also tied to how the game evolved. As [USER=30518]@lewpuls[/USER] often points out in articles, it used to be dying (or nearly dying) from a fall was character growth and part of your PC's backstory at lower levels, back when dungeon-crawling was the norm and filled with traps. Nowadays PCs tend to come with detailed backstories, and dying from a fall would probably enrage someone who spent hours crafting a nemesis they hoped to kill-or-be-killed by. Resistances also come into it, which weren't a thing originally. PCs resistant to bludgeoning damage can hurl themselves off cliffs; PCs immune to bludgeoning damage can fall off mountains. Conversely, we now have massive damage rules. It's all about the style of game you want to play, and the simple but elegant 1d6/10 feet is for those of us who would much rather develop NPCs than traps.</blockquote>