Horwath
Legend
which is spot on for my house rule.
100ft gives you 200% damage of your MAX HP. death by massive damage.
D&D 5E Falling Rules and actually Falling
- Thread starter jodyjohnson
- Start date
which is spot on for my house rule.
100ft gives you 200% damage of your MAX HP. death by massive damage.
The main problem with that is high level characters in all other circumstances can survive things lower level characters can't...so why is falling such an exception?
To me the problem is not that high level characters can survive larger falls, it's the degree and ease they can do it.
snickersnax
Explorer
You could add a saving throw for half damage and no damage on a 20.
I agree, I still want long falls to be bad, just not universally so. High level monks, raging barbarians, and those with high Con should have a decent chance of surviving incredibly high falls.
In my opinion, a falling house rule should at minimum incorporate increased survivability from higher levels as well as class features that mitigate falling damage. I like giving creatures a chance of avoiding short fall damage as well. The easiest way to incorporate this is more damage. Exploding dice is a simple solution that does a bit more damage (and sometimes a lot more damage), and my solution does a lot more damage, but still maxes out within the limits of what high level creatures can survive.
snickersnax
Explorer
Its mostly because of hit points as abstraction. Crashing into the ground from a large height isn't so abstract.
I think a lot of the problem comes from changes in the rules from edition to edition without editing for consistency. In early editions of D&D 70 hit points was how much a full heal did (high level characters rarely had more than that). 20d6 (average 70 hit points) was nearly certain death. Now in 5e where high level characters all have over 100 hit points and hit point optimized characters can have over 300 hit points and resistance, the heal spell still does 70 hit points and max falling damage is still 20d6.
The question is: What's a high level character supposed to survive? And I guess our mileages may vary much.
Now I'm not that much into 5E, but we discussed other systems as well, so I'd just add some random thoughts:
I wouldn't really let a character take damage from a fall that's not exceeding the height he can jump (some characters can get incredible speed and jump to ridiculous heights)
There should be a minimum falling distance to really take damage for large creatures. For example, Tormyr's chart lets a gargantuan creature take more damage from a 10 ft fall than a medium sized one. But a gargantuan creature falling 10 ft. should be the same equivalent as a medium sized creature falling 3 ft. Because drag (which leads to terminal verlocity) is only one part of the equation. Structural stability is the other. (Yes I know HP cover that as well, but falling from a 75cm equivalent shouldn't do lethal HP damage.)
Ref or acrobatics to mitigate some damage should be appropriate. Cats exist, you know?
Now I'm not that much into 5E, but we discussed other systems as well, so I'd just add some random thoughts:
I wouldn't really let a character take damage from a fall that's not exceeding the height he can jump (some characters can get incredible speed and jump to ridiculous heights)
There should be a minimum falling distance to really take damage for large creatures. For example, Tormyr's chart lets a gargantuan creature take more damage from a 10 ft fall than a medium sized one. But a gargantuan creature falling 10 ft. should be the same equivalent as a medium sized creature falling 3 ft. Because drag (which leads to terminal verlocity) is only one part of the equation. Structural stability is the other. (Yes I know HP cover that as well, but falling from a 75cm equivalent shouldn't do lethal HP damage.)
Ref or acrobatics to mitigate some damage should be appropriate. Cats exist, you know?
The reason the chart has a gargantuan creature take more damage for is that the chart is more about falling than jumping. In 5e a creature can take a 10' run and jump up 3 + STR modifier feet. So a strength 30 creature can jump 13 feet off the ground. There is no distinction between creature sizes, although I suspect the 3' was an abstraction for half the height of a 6' tall humanoid since the rule is in the PHB. So the height a creature can jump does not really factor in that much, and if the creature can reach the distance by just stepping down, that height doesn't factor in while it is walking.
Where it does factor in is if the gargantuan creature is actually falling. This can occur in situations where the gargantuan creature is somehow knocked prone and falls backward off a 10' ledge. Then it might be hitting head or waist first, and that 10' fall damage actually applies. If the creature has a reaction, it can spend that for the Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to reduce the damage, catching itself with a hand or arm before taking full damage. In these cases, the parts of the creature taking damage have fallen much more than the 10' change in elevation. The gargantuan creatures feet were 10' up, but the waist or head can be another 10', 20', or more feet up from that. This is why construction and heavy industry safety training mentions that a person can suffer fatal injuries from a height as small as two feet. The person gets their feet tangled up and manages to hit the ground head first. The head has traveled about 8'. The gargantuan creature also has significantly more mass to slam into the ground, adding to its damage received.
That being said, the rules need to be adjusted on the fly for creatures that can actually vertically leap tall heights if they are leaping down on purpose within that distance.
As an aside, my rules handle cats and other creatures that have some means of increasing drag mitigating falls. They are treated as one size class less if they spend a reaction to mitigate the fall damage. Cats spread out a bit and relax their muscles for the landing. Since cats are tiny, they are treated as a size class down from tiny and only take 1 damage (a clause I need to add) regardless of the height they fall from within the first round. If they have a reaction to spend, they negate the damage with a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check and take 0 damage.
jodyjohnson
Adventurer
In game terms, how many of those could continue to act in initiative order after merely taking half their movement to get up from prone? Based on the study they didn't mention any - they were all hospitalized for breaks and internal injuries. But of course those are also mundanes not heroes and beneficiaries of modern medical care.
My biggest concern is that players would intentionally make jumps beyond a reasonable range because 'Hit Points'. No matter what the system because they calculate they can take it and recover.
I had tried a damage plus injury idea but injuries also seemed so bothersome after the fact (they would still roll the dice and try their luck). My inclination would be to just over-rule them and say their character wouldn't intentionally fall long distances just on instinct. However, they would certainly balk at setting limits on their character's 'heroism' (faux heroism).
But the DM is really setting up the scenario in the first place - a character is above another location and wants the quick way down. It could be that instead they are below the other location and falling up there is off the table - or across a distance the rules don't give mechanical success to cross without help. The main intended way I've seen that scenario used is to have the character see something but be powerless to stop it (i.e. "Hundreds of feet below you a drow warrior is 'doing violence' to a woman") but fails to account for the inability of the damage rules to enforce that powerlessness.
But I'd want a metric to base the decision to disallow falls on rather than Damage math. At the same time, I would allow smaller jumps down because heroes can jump down some undefined distance and keep going. I prefer that to be because they are heroic rather than because they've run the math.
Ovinomancer
No flips for you!
As an idea for falls pier 100ft.:
If you accidentally fall, rules as per book.
If you intentionally jump, you die, no save.
If you accidentally fall, rules as per book.
If you intentionally jump, you die, no save.
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