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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greenfield" data-source="post: 7272531" data-attributes="member: 6669384">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.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />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?</blockquote>

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