Falling Damage - Anyone else hopes falling hurts just a little bit more?

[Victim]

Whether or not you think deadly falling fits D&D, there's a good reason not to include it without changing the whole basis of the game - falling can be induced.

If you make one effect, such as falling, realistically deadly, while other effects stay the same, then falling becomes some kind of superweapon. And falling is by no means hard to take advantage of: dropping things on people (already a problem), picking people up and dropping them from flight, offensive teleportation powers - the list goes on.


It's the same as if you made "being on fire" as distracting and debilitating as it really would be. Should there realistically be significant penalties for trying to fight or cast spells while on fire? Yes.

What would happen if those penalties existed? Everyone would buy tons of Oil/Alchemist's Fire and always start combat by igniting their foes.

Exactly.

 

[Plane Sailing]

If you fall a distance (in yards) equal to your level+3 or less, you take no damage. For example a level 1 human could fall 4 yards (12 ft.) harmlessly.

I think this underestimates the potential damage from a fall.

I remember falling just 8ft when trying to climb a fence and sprained my back on landing so badly that I couldn't run for a week (and this was in my younger, fitter days!)

 

[loseth]

I'll just throw in one idea:

It's possible to draw a distinction between falls where the hero couldn't possibly modify the outcome and falls where the hero could conceivably use his heroic awesomeness (aka HP) to grab onto something as he fell, deliberately aim for the canvas roof of a market-stall, etc. I'm not sure the two instances should be treated the same. Maybe you could apply 1d8/10' damage to the faller's Constitution for the first instance (and, if he protests, let him roll a d1,000,000 to see if he's one of the lucky freaks of nature to survive a freefall from a great height, with success on a roll of '0000000'), but apply the 1d8/10' to HP in the second case and narrate how he managed to save himself.

 

[Derren]

Perhaps a rule that being able to survive the fall is one thing, but being able to just get up and walk away is another?

D&D characters can be shot (and hit) by a tank and walk away (10d12 damage) so why should falling from a cliff seriously hurt them?.

 

[robertliguori]

That might work for a guy jumping off a cliff and living once. But D&D characters can do it over and over and over, and so long as they rest up first, their survival is almost guaranteed. That stretches the verisimilitude just a little too far for me personally.

Consider it this way: In 3.XE, past about level 4 or 5, characters stop having real-world analogues. It is not logical for a person to get solidly hit on the head with a greathammer and for it to bounce off. It is logical for a block of solid iron to take such a hit with only fractional damage. In the universe of D&D, a moderately-leveled character's ability to survive damage has much more in common with the block of iron than the person from our world. It's not particularly realistic that wizards can throw fireballs, either, but it's a feature of the world; some people are just that tough.

 

[Szatany]

I think this underestimates the potential damage from a fall.

I remember falling just 8ft when trying to climb a fence and sprained my back on landing so badly that I couldn't run for a week (and this was in my younger, fitter days!)

Allright, then 3+level for jumping down and bare level for falling?

 

[Celebrim]

I'd just prefer falling to be a little more painfull. With first level PCs able to take a bit more abuse maybe a bump to falling damage is in order. Or maybe a round or two of stunning.

This would have been an area in my game that was a problem that needed fixing. Statistically speaking, if I think it was a problem that needed fixing, the designers don't.

Hense, I think it would be safe to bet that the rules for falling won't be changed.

I've experimented with several different rules approaches: cumulative damage (1d6 for 10', 3d6 for 20', 6d6 for 30', etc.), different 'terminal velocities' (dice poll caps) based on the size of the faller, different damage modifiers based on the size of the faller, different damage dice based on the size of the faller, falling damage that involves different numerator and divisor dice, and so forth.

The problem is that the better systems (in terms of producing more realistic results) tend to be more complicated to resolve. I have something I like reasonable well right now (but keep a calculator handy), but I'd really like to see some new takes on the problem.

Isn't likely to happen.

 

[Celebrim]

D&D characters can be shot (and hit) by a tank and walk away (10d12 damage) so why should falling from a cliff seriously hurt them?.

Interesting. So, per the official rules, a tanks gun can't harm other main battle tanks without a critical?

For example, a modern mainbattle tank has front armor of about 12 inches thickness. At minimum, face hardened steel 12 inches thick has a hardness of 12 and 360 hitpoints (30 hit points/inch of hardness per the rules). That's actually probably too low since most modern MBT's use special harder/denser/tougher materials than steel, but it illustrates the point. Since the above gun does about 65 points of damage per shot, we'd expect a MBT to take at least 7-8 direct hits to its front armor before being penetrated.

These kind of mental exercises matter to the extent that per the official rules, the characters should be able to easily shelter from artillery fire behind simple stone walls. For example, D&D generally assumes stone buildings to have 1' thick laid stone block walls. Per the rules, each 10' section of said wall could absorb three shots from the above tank cannon without collapsing.

Anyway, the point is that maybe it is not the assumption of how tough the characters are that is the problem.

 

[Stormtalon]

I'll admit, I recently abused the 3.5 falling rules to my own benefit with a level 17 character (and previously to a lesser extent with a 5th level character) -- and I'll do it again (and when DMing, allow it) in 4th Ed if the circumstances are right. Falling, to me, is one of those things where plot and the needs of a combat can sometimes outweigh the need for strict realism.

150' controlled fall for a high-level thri-kreen warblade (hello abusive character combo!) to use a charge? Yes, I took the damage -- and yes, I survived to unload a nasty attack on the BBEG. THAT'S the sort of stuff the current falling rules play into and it makes for a memorable session, when used sparingly. On the other hand, a fall can be extraordinarily deadly -- again, based on the needs of the plot and prior consent between DM & player. The rules, to me, are there for those "in-between" times where a fall simply happens. Usually, those are of a distance that's not immediately and obviously lethal. It's the extreme end where the group I play with uses judicious DM fiat and "DAMN that was wicked!" as the criteria for how a fall works out.

 

[Celebrim]

I'll admit, I recently abused the 3.5 falling rules to my own benefit with a level 17 character (and previously to a lesser extent with a 5th level character) -- and I'll do it again (and when DMing, allow it) in 4th Ed if the circumstances are right. Falling, to me, is one of those things where plot and the needs of a combat can sometimes outweigh the need for strict realism.

That's a perfectly valid opinion, and I respect the fact that there are people who think so and I even understand why they think so.

But speaking for myself, had I been another player in that group and what you described happened, I would given serious thought to quietly and without fanfare making that the last session I showed up to. It just would have killed the fun for me. If you got a 'ring of feather' falling, great. If you 'boots of the soft landing', swell. But if you are just jumping off 150' cliffs landing on your feet and be off and running with no explanation but that you are super tough and know you can take it, it turns the game into 'swords and capes' and I'm really not interested in that. It doesn't satisfy. It's too far removed from what I find interesting in a game except as the occasional one shot. It may be a rare filet mignon, but I guess I'm not a filet mignon kinda person. I'm the kinda guy who has had the most fun playing Chill, and CoC, Paranoia, and a grittier D&D than what goes with falling 150' deliberately because he knows he's going to survive it.

I'd much rather play in a game where if the player did that, he had a reasonable belief that he wouldn't survive it but that the needs of the story compelled him to do it anyway. That way, if he survives it means something. And if he doesn't, it meant something to. But all it means to me in the current context is, "OMG did you see that!", and only if you are cognizant of the limitations of the rules to begin with. The second time you see it, it really grates on me.