Falling with Catstep Boots and Acrobatics

[MatthewJHanson]

Make an Acrobatics check, and reduce the amount of falling damage you take by one-half your check result (round down).

Property: When you fall or jump down, you take only half normal falling damage and always land on your feet.

So if you are wearing Catstep Boots and you a trained in Acrobatics, which do you apply first?

Say you take 20 points of falling damage, and roll a 20 on your Acrobatics check (reducing damage by 10). Do you take:

0 Damage - (20/2)-10
5 Damage - (20-10)/2

Thanks,

Matthew J. Hanson

 

[Mengu]

Boots let you take half "normal" damage. Not sure what "normal" means but it could easily be interpreted as the initial 20. And then when you take half that damage (10), is when you would do the acrobatics check and reduce the damage you took by another 10, down to 0.

Regardless, I tend to do whatever's more beneficial for the player. So, halve, then subtract.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm not really convinced they were intended to stack like that at all. The Acrobatics check is better if you fall a short distance, but the boots are a lot better if you fall rather further. Even an insane Acrobatics bonus is not going to be much over 20, you could take that much damage on average on a 40 foot fall, at which point you would like the boots.

Of course RAW really has nothing to say about it. Personally I'd apply magic stuff before skill based stuff, that also happens to be more advantageous in most cases for the player.

 

[CovertOps]

I would probably go with the less beneficial which is subtract first then divide. Otherwise the two combined could get pretty ridiculously OP.

I'd say you can do it whatever way you want at your table. Kind of like start of turn order...do I regenerate first or taking ongoing damage first.

 

[mmaranda]

I agree with most others here.

The boots say you take half normal damage. So you take half the damage then acrobatics away what you can.

This is based on the assumption that normal falling damage means the total falling damage before modifiers.

This new modified damage would then be applied to the PC. Acrobatics, which reduces the damage you take by 1/2 the check result, would then activate.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

Thanks all for the replies. I think I'll go with the half damage first and then subtract, since that seems like the more popular response.

EDIT: (Apparently I need to spread around XP before giving more to AbdulAlhazred)

 

[TarionzCousin]

EDIT: (Apparently I need to spread around XP before giving more to AbdulAlhazred)

Covered for you.