Falling damage -- the leaping off a cliff example

[Storminator]

I use the 1d6/10'/10' rule, except in Sharn (which is on the manifest zone). I cap the damage at 200' falling distance (55d6). Using these rules the Jump check and the Tumble check can save you a LOT of damage. 50' fall, normally 15d6, make the jump check and the tumble check --> 30' fall, 6d6. It also makes Slow Fall (any) very useful.

In first ed we had a fighter decide it would be safer to leap out of the cloud city than fight the giants headed his way. And he was likely right.

PS

 

[Greylock]

To me it seems basically like metagaming.

Really? Did you never, when you were a kid, look down from a tree and wiegh whether to climb down or jump? Or a similar decision as an adult? I sure have.

 

[Rel]

Really? Did you never, when you were a kid, look down from a tree and wiegh whether to climb down or jump? Or a similar decision as an adult? I sure have.

Moreover I hardly see how it can be considered metagaming when it reflects the way things actually work in the D&D world.

We react this way to the concept of falling because in our world a fall from 100' onto a hard surface is almost universally fatal. It is considered "common knowledge".

In a world where you take an average of 35 points of damage from such a fall, there are lots of people living that could survive it (particularly if you consider that they don't die until -10 HP) and so it would be common knowledge that such a fall is survivable by "heroes".

 

[JRRNeiklot]

A friend of my dads fell about 5,000 feet when his parachute didn't open. He landed in a freshly plowed field, got up and walked about 2 miles to the nearest house. (This was during WW2). He had a broken back and didn't get out of bed for about 6 months, but he survived just fine. So, yes, you can survive falls of great distances. I think, though, that the rules for massive damage should definitely be applied, whatever the dice rolls are. You might survive a 5,000 feet fall, but it is VERY, VERY unlikely. For shorter falls, I myself fell about 40 feet once, I slipped off a rock, fell, landed on my feet, rolled down the hill a bit and survived with hardly a scratch. There is no fast and certain method to retain realism with falling damage. One guy might fall 20 feet and die, another might live through a thousand foot fall. I'd like some method for making even short falls have some risk, though.

 

[Hand of Evil]

My fix was to use Gygax's and 10 points of damage for every 10 feet beyond 20 (rounded up) so:

10--1d6
20--3d6
30--10 points + 6d6
40--20 points + 10d6
50--30 points + 15d6
60--40 points + 21d6

 

[D'karr]

One need only look at the rules for the Thief-Acrobat to see what Gary really intended for falling damage.

Why not put this question to Gary in the Q&A thread?

If somebody has search capabilites they can find the exact thread. He has already answered this question in the Q&A.

 

[D'karr]

SNIP
For shorter falls, I myself fell about 40 feet once, I slipped off a rock, fell, landed on my feet, rolled down the hill a bit and survived with hardly a scratch. There is no fast and certain method to retain realism with falling damage. One guy might fall 20 feet and die, another might live through a thousand foot fall. I'd like some method for making even short falls have some risk, though.

This reminds me of the "Simpsons" episode where Homer accidentally jumped a canyon on a skateboard. His first fall was funny. When he fell out of the ambulance, that was classic.

 

[takyris]

I've seen it done a few times, but only a few times. Heck, I had a monster do it a few times to get to the party.

Although I'm more likely to play d20 Modern now than D&D (and am currently between campaigns, having just moved), I didn't have an enormous problem with the falling damage. If you're a CG bard hit by an axiomatic unholy greatsword, that's 6d6 damage right there -- but if you survive the hit and if the hit is just a tiny fraction of your hit points (ie, you're 15th level with a good Con), you say that you dodge back and it's just a very painful scratch, 4d6 of which feels eldritch and magical. You use flavor-text to have it make sense.

So in games, I do the same for falling damage. 100 foot fall and you walk away with 14 points of damage due to my horrific rolling? That was an awning. You fell into one of those overhanging awnings and collapsed it, and then you landed in a tomato cart, and then rolled out onto the ground. 100 foot fall with just 20 points of damage? You desperately grabbed at the rope for a convenient hanging flag, one of those flags that juts out of city walls at a forty-five degree angle, and you swung to the ground and then rolled as you hit the cobblestones, and yeah, it hurt, but you're okay. And so forth.

I do that in d20 Modern, too -- it's just that if you blow the save on the 20 damage, then when you swing to the ground, you land headfirst anyway and land in a limp, boneless heap.

It's all about the flavor text. Most of the hate for the concept of hit points comes from the failure to appreciate them as flavor text, and falling is one way that most DMs, who can conceptualize parries and dodges and tiny scrapes, don't think to translate the numbers into flavor that makes sense.

 

[JamesDJarvis]

Real life falling damage-

I've jumped 10-12' onto a drive way over and over again as a child and was never hurt much, skinned my hand or knee a couple of times.

A window washer in the building i worked in fell about 10 stories onto the sidewalk. He lived but his hip and both legs were fractured to the point it altered his posture. He is still a window washer many years later.

A rock climbing frind slipped and fell about 50' before he came to a stop from a slightly functional safety line. He skinned the hell out of himself on the rock face but didin't break anything.

Christopher Reeves fell off a horse and broke his neck leaving him paralyzed.

A rules set that could account for all of the above would be a pain in the butt.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

A rules set that could account for all of the above would be a pain in the butt.

It really wouldn't be. It would involve an escalating saving throw of some kind combined with Constitution damage/drain. It certainly wouldn't be any more trouble than the rules for drowning, say, or grappling. And, as I said, the same mechanic would work for many situations that HPs model poorly. (Just as HPs poorly model poison.)

As for "flavor," sometimes there simply isn't room for flavor. If someone falls 100 feet into a featureless pit and lands on a stone floor, there's not much way to "flavor" out of that.