Falling damage -- the leaping off a cliff example

[wingsandsword]

From what I recall, the 50 point Massive Damage threshold was introduced in 2nd Edition to deal with the "I jump off the high cliff and even max damage from a terminal velocity fall can't stop me". Sure it just adds a save on top of it, but that is a chance for even Brick McHitpoints to blow the save on a 1 (or 1 to 3 in AD&D) and fall over despite his 200+ HP against 20d6 falling damage (so survival isn't guaranteed, just likely).

If you really want to make it all more bloody and brutal, use one of the alternate damage thresholds from d20 Modern, like setting it at a character's Con score or just a flat 10 (both with a feat you can take repeatedly that lets you add +3 to your threshold). Surviving a long fall is about as realistic as the fireballs, acid traps, axe swings and the like that D&D characters have to deal with.

 

[tigycho]

I've read hundreds of comments about how a high-level fighter can leap off a cliff, hit the bottom, get up and continue fighting. But has this scenario ever actually happened?

Yep. Several times in games I've played. The first happened at least 15 years ago, in an OD&D campaign. We were defending a castle on a mountaintop against hordes of orcs. At the foot of the mountain was the command tent.

So my character and a couple others used up our invisibility potions, jumped off the castle walls using blankets as crude steering devices to try to avoid bouncing off the mountain sides as we went down.

Fell something like 100 feet, baboom, took our damage, drank a couple of extrahealing potions, walked into the command tent and wasted the BBEG.

No problem. Except for the intentional 100 foot fall onto solid rock part. We weren't even trying to use the blankets as makeshift parachutes.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

The next time I say let's go someplace like Bolivia, let's go someplace like Bolivia.

Not that there isn't precedent...

The Auld Grump

 

[Arc]

I've had characters do it, and the added cinematic appeal seems to outweigh the bending of reality. The d6/10' system is a fairly good guideline, and lends itself to ad libbing damages in weird situations. Case in point: My character jumps off a soarsled to save a falling child, makes a grapple check to grab him, and lands underhim to cushion the blow. Result: 1 extra d6 of damage for me, 1 less for him, and the rest converted to subdual.

Sure, it's unrealistic to be able to fall increasingly large distances and brush it off, but the rules work quite well for a heroic and cinematic game, which many campaigns are.

 

[Staffan]

From what I recall, the 50 point Massive Damage threshold was introduced in 2nd Edition to deal with the "I jump off the high cliff and even max damage from a terminal velocity fall can't stop me". Sure it just adds a save on top of it, but that is a chance for even Brick McHitpoints to blow the save on a 1 (or 1 to 3 in AD&D) and fall over despite his 200+ HP against 20d6 falling damage (so survival isn't guaranteed, just likely).

Massive damage was a system shock roll in 2e, so it tended to be in the 95% or higher range - at least in the Dark Sun campaign I was running (DS had higher stats).

 

[wingsandsword]

Massive damage was a system shock roll in 2e, so it tended to be in the 95% or higher range - at least in the Dark Sun campaign I was running (DS had higher stats).

Maybe they changed it in another printing, but my 2nd Edition AD&D Players Handbook (May 1996 Printing, Page 141) says it was a Save vs. Death, which makes it much more likely to fail:

"In addition to dying when hit points reach 0, a character also runs the risk of dying abruptly when he suffers massive amounts of damage. A character who suffers 50 or more points of damage from a single attack must roll a successful saving throw vs. death, or he dies."

This meant that for most characters, they would have roughly only a 50% chance of passing that save, only a 19th+ level priest could make it on a 2, even fighters never got better than a 3 (at 17th level even), and rogues and wizards never got better than 8 (both at 21st level), so the odds of failing that massive damage check were much better than 5% for most characters in 2nd edition. Also don't forget that in 2nd Edition Constitution only affected saving throws vs. poison, and even then only at Con 19+.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Using Gygax's intended falling damage of 1d6 per 10 feet, cumulative, makes falling a very deadly prospect:

10--1d6
20--3d6
30--6d6
40--10d6
50--15d6
60--21d6 (maximum velocity)

 

[Psychic Warrior]

I've never really seen this either. I did have an inner-group conflict cause someone to fall once though. The newest addition to the group (a dwarf) said something that offended one of the founding group members (an elf). Not thinking about the fact she was standing right next to the edge of the cliff she stated "I'm taking a five foot step away form him and knocking an arrow".

She took a five foot back and fell some fifty feet into the darkness below and landed in a pool of blood.

Whose blood did she land in?!

I have not had a player take a deliberate fall. In fact I have seen some really good attempts to 'rule' ones way out of taking any damage (even a 1d6). My PCs don't like pain. It hurts them!

 

[Banshee16]

To me it seems basically like metagaming. In my games at least, though the players conceptually understand that their characters might be able to survive a 100' drop, the characters themselves don't, and take every precaution to tie themselves in with ropes, hold onto climbing surfaces, etc.

Of course, the massive damage threshold also contributes...even if the character can survive 51 dmg from a fall, if he fails his save he may die anyways.

Banshee

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Most of my players have absolutely no problem jumping and soaking up the damage if the situation warrants it. No problems at all.

I look at this as purposeful suicide, and IMG a PC can commit suicide whenever he wants. A dagger only does 1d4 damage, but if a PC stabs himself in the throat, he's dead. Similarly, a PC that purposefully jumps from a height that would kill a person normally ... dies.

Does this make sense? Within the context of the HP system, I believe it does. As much as anything within the context of the HP system does, anyway.