Falling Damage House Rule: soliciting feedback

[dropbear8mybaby]

this is true. A 5ft fall on your head can kill you instantly or a little later after few days in coma.

We also as teenagers jumped from 10-15ft just because we could. There were just few sprained ancles and that is it.

Now I would probably snap knee tendons or worse.

5ft. fall would be a DC 5. 10 ft. fall a DC 10. So even an average hero has a 50/50 chance of jumping and doing no damage. Or 10 points of damage if they fluff it. Most 1st-level characters can survive taking 10 points of damage. Sure it hurts, but it's not going to kill the character. So a "sprain" it is.

Now, when you get up to 15 ft., then you're talking serious damage, serious risk, and either luck or skill required. But gravity being what it is, even a skilled person who fluffs that will hurt a lot from such a fall. Further you fall, faster you fall, harder you hit. Fluffing a 5 ft. fall is radically different from fluffing a 15 ft. fall and my system represents that.

Besides which, my system keeps it simple. I like simple.

 

[Shiroiken]

Oh, that's really interesting. (Except that 60 feet would be 21d6; these are the triangular numbers.) A similar rule that might be easier to articulate is 1d6 for 10 feet, doubling the number of dice for each additional 10 feet (20 feet = 2d6, 30 feet = 4d6, 40 feet = 8d6, 50 feet = 16d6, 60 feet = 32d6, etc.).

It's because the cap was 20d6. Doubling might be easier to articulate, but I feel the triangular numbers seem to work better.

I don't see why we put a cap on falling damage or why we ever have. If we're going to cap it, shouldn't it be related to terminal velocity? A human in air reaches terminal velocity at around 1500 feet. That's 150d6 using the PHB system or about 1,400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000d6 using the exponential system I proposed above. Of course it's only 11,325d6 using Gygax's original system of triangular numbers.

Larger creatures generally have a higher terminal velocity, and smaller creatures have a lower terminal velocity. This is proportional to the creature's mass and cross-sectional area. Since mass grows cubically with size and cross-sectional area grows with the square of size, each D&D size increase should roughly double terminal velocity, and each size decrease should halve it.

Thus, using the simplistic PHB falling damage (1d6 per 10 feet), we have the following:

Size: Max Falling Damage (average damage)
Tiny: 37d6 (129)
Small: 75d6 (262)
Medium: 150d6 (525)
Large: 300d6 (1,050)
Huge: 600d6 (2,100)
Gargantuan: 1,200d6 (4,200)

The problem is the number of dice required to roll. IRL games generally don't want to roll 20d6 for falling damage, so 150d6 for real terminal velocity is nuts. If you want a more realistic system for falling, you'd probably want to set up a system that has a cap of damage, then require a Con Saving throw based on the distance fallen. For example:

Falling deals 1d6 cumulative bludgeoning damage per 10' fallen to a maximum of 60'. If you fall beyond that you are reduced to 0 HP and must make a Con Save DC: 10+ 1/10' beyond 100'. If you fail you are Dying, and if you fail by 5 or more, you are Dead. The maximum distance and damage may be modified by the DM based on the surface fallen on to.

This is just a rough idea, but you should get the picture. Falls are dangerous, and no one take a huge fall and just gets back up and shrugs it off.

 

[Yunru]

At first I thought this was going to be for landing on people, and I was all set to chime in with my house rules for that.

But now, I'll just say "Yoink!" and vanish.

 

[dropbear8mybaby]

At first I thought this was going to be for landing on people, and I was all set to chime in with my house rules for that.

But now, I'll just say "Yoink!" and vanish.

I have a houserule for that as well. The person being landed on takes the same amount of damage as the person doing the falling. The person being landed on gets a Dex save to avoid being splatted on though.

 

[Yunru]

I have a houserule for that as well. The person being landed on takes the same amount of damage as the person doing the falling. The person being landed on gets a Dex save to avoid being splatted on though.

Remarkable similar. I have opposed Acrobatics checks, if the faller wins, the damage is devided evenly between them. Otherwise splat.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Won't Gargantuan creatures be almost killed by tripping over?

You exaggerate, but yes. There's a reason why elephants don't ever run in real life, with or without scissors.

 

[jgsugden]

Generally, monsters do not fall often enough that this type of house rule would get much use. To that end, it is not worth the effort.

However, if I were doing a house rule for falling damage, it would be: Damage = Feet fallen - (acrobatics check). You're allowed to take 10 on the check. I'd give certain creatures (cats) advantage on the check, etc...