Falling damage

[Greenfield]

This past week my players faced a classic challenge: Having sneaked past an army they saw a long, narrow bridge across a 100 foot deep chasm, with two Large guards on the other side.

And, in tribute to every structure in the Star Wars universe (just because), there were no rails or raised edges at all.

They tried to bluff their way past the guards, but there were too many people in their party to match the story they told.

Oh, did I mention that many were on horses? Such fun!

One charged forward, intending to bull-rush the Fiendish Ogre Barbarian off the bridge. It had to be a sort of bank-shot, since the guard had a wall at his back.

I gave him two options, presuming success: Attempt to bail out of the saddle as horse and Ogre went over the side, or attempt a more difficult Ride check to keep the horse from going over. It was a surprise action, so all he had was the one action. The Dismount needed a DC20 ride check to be a Swift action. Saving the horse was a DC 25 ride check.

I figured that the Ogre would, instinctively, grab whatever it could to avoid that drop, and the horse would have to come in at full speed to do what the PC wanted.

PC, being a Druid, elected to try and save the animal. Points for RPing that part.

He succeeded on the Bull Rush, but failed the Ride check though, so down went the horsie, saddle and all.

By the book, that 100 foot drop into the gorge will do 10 D6 of damage. An alternate system, I think it's from an old Dragon, says to do 1 die the first 10 feet, 2 more the second ten feet, 3 more the third, etc. In short, 55 dice for the whole thing.

I figure that that fall should kill the Ogre, which 10 D6 won't do. That would be about half his HP. The player figured that the 100 foot fall should definitely kill his PC.

But I'm a rules guy, whether it gives me the outcome I want or not.

Now if we follow anything like physics (which I hate to apply in a fantasy game), he hits the bottom in a hair over two seconds. Not nearly enough time for him to save himself.

Real world he'd reach terminal velocity at about six seconds (192 feet per second, which is about 128 miles an hour). So if I go with the 55 dice answer there's no grounds for capping the damage based on top falling speed.

Game rules, he and the Ogre are fine, the horse is pavement-pizza, and life goes on.

How would you handle it? Book rules, optional rules, DM's fiat, or something else?

 

[GMMichael]

100 feet, 10 stories? Over a chasm that could easily be filled with foliage or a river? Ogres and heroes could survive those. Horses, only if they're hero-horses.

A die pool above five is pretty boring to me. If a player says his character dies in a story event, then he dies. You don't need dice to tell you that.

 

[Celebrim]

I use very extensive house rules for falling damage designed to be a good compromise between gamist concerns (don't kill the PCs) and realistic concerns (falling is scary).

For a 100 foot fall the maximum damage is over 200: but, the minimum is around 3. Some prior conversations here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...-free-fall-falls-how-many-feets-by-turn/page2

Short version is that there are two components to the damage

{1d20 per 10' fallen} / 1d6 for falling damage
An attack, made by the ground on the player where the base damage depends on the surface fallen on.

The result together is slightly more than 3.5 damage on average per 10'. But on the other hand, the maximum damage for a mere 10' fall is like 30. You can die falling off a ladder, or survive falling out of an airplane without a parachute.

However, back in 1e I used the cumulative damage (1d6+2d6+3d6...) rule. The trick with that one is you have to appropriately control the falling distances because your heroes are unlikely to survive it.

 

[Imaculata]

Sometimes I roll for falling damage when it concerns monsters and npc's, if I think they might survive. But I'm not afraid to just have them die outright, if survival seems unlikely, and makes for a more fun story. As for players though, I always roll.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

I am perfectly fine with characters (player, or otherwise) falling hundreds of feet with little consequence. In games that I run, I see no reason to alter the falling damage rules.

 

[Cleon]

How would you handle it? Book rules, optional rules, DM's fiat, or something else?

Hmm… If the group I was running the game for wanted to play 3.5 I'd likely use the standard 1d6-per-10-feet-with-a-20d6-cap rule.

If the group were agreeable to homebrewing and we wanted to make falling damage more "realistic" I'd likely tweak the damage based on size (maybe 1d8-per-10-feet for Large, 1d4-per-10-feet for Small and so on?) and maybe have a (best of Fortitude/Reflex/Acrobatics) saving throw to avoid critical injury (Str damage, Con damage, broken limbs) if the fall is far enough to be life-threatening.

 

[Joshua Randall]

There are real world cases of people falling hundreds or even thousands of feet and surviving. Because the PCs are awesome heroes, I don't have a problem with them doing it, too.

 

[Trebloc]

I use the rules here. It's not realistic for Rogues to evade fireballs in an empty room, or to even create fireballs out of bat poop.