Gravity

[Jefe Bergenstein]

It's easy to handwave combat like that. It's not so easy to handwave falling - you either hit the ground, or you don't. That's why the falling damage rules are problematic IMO.

Aww come on, you know you wanna parry the ground...

We just use an expanded HP/Wound system, and have falling damage go straight to wounds in most cases.

 

[apoptosis]

Says you. I don't like to have things decided after the first round of combat (which is why I also don't like save-or-dies). That's not tense, that's annoying and anticlimactic.

And "death spiral" fights turn things into even more of a "he who wins initiative wins" situation than D&D currently is.


The same thing could be said of just about any fight.

I actually think death spirals are far more interesting and make for a better game.

I find the general ablation system where it is all or nothing to be pretty boring.

I just realized that actually i don't play any games that don't actually have penalties for being damaged (When I played D&D I used alternate damage rules for D&D)

 

[AffableVagrant]

Science!!

If an object of mass (m=90.71kg) is dropped from height (h = 91.44m), then the velocity just before impact is (v = 42.334666645669955m/s). The kinetic energy just before impact = 81,286.31952 N

1 N = .2243 lbs of force

so, 81,286.31952 N * .2243 lbs = 18,232.5214 lbs of force

In conclusion:

The force of a 200 lb guy falling 300 ft is 18,232.5214 lbs of force (assuming he's hitting concrete, not Jell-o or something soft)

So, the unfortunate guy would suffer similar effects to that of being crushed beneath an obese elephant balancing on one leg.

...or, in other words, DEAD!!!! VERY, VERY DEAD!!!

check my math here: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/flobi.html

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Who on earth says that a 20th-level D&D fighter who falls off a cliff is necessarily going straight down, with no means of slowing his fall, and landing on his head? That seems unlikely. More likely is the fact that he uses the friction of his glaive, his feet, or whatever against the cliff to slow down, grabs some branches along the way, and ends up landing in a compact ball, with his gigantically muscled legs absorbing the worst damage.

I fail to see why falling is somehow not subject to the convention of hp being narrative shorthand for partly evading, partly absorbing physical damage, while other forms of gross physical damage are.

Because it's simply less believable, to the point of destroying suspension of disbelief for many people. That you fail to see that is completely meaningless, given the vast number of people for whom this clearly is a problem, and the fact that no D&D book has ever attempted to explain away falling in the fashion you did.

Not only that, but the Fighter can do this pretty much every time, and it's just as easy for him to do it when he's fallen off the back of a griffon at 2000ft as it is when he's right next to a cliff.

Really, it conjures up a whole, far more retarded game, with very "1950s" comic-book-style images.

 

[HeinorNY]

So, the unfortunate guy would suffer similar effects to that of being crushed beneath an obese elephant balancing on one leg.

No big deal. D&D characters can withstand crushing damage from a colossal dragon. An elephant? Piece of cake. I had a character that could carry an elephant on his back.
D&D, what a great game!

 

[Sundragon2012]

See, this seems to completely miss the point.

Who on earth says that a 20th-level D&D fighter who falls off a cliff is necessarily going straight down, with no means of slowing his fall, and landing on his head? That seems unlikely. More likely is the fact that he uses the friction of his glaive, his feet, or whatever against the cliff to slow down, grabs some branches along the way, and ends up landing in a compact ball, with his gigantically muscled legs absorbing the worst damage.

I fail to see why falling is somehow not subject to the convention of hp being narrative shorthand for partly evading, partly absorbing physical damage, while other forms of gross physical damage are.

Oh. come on man. That is a thin argument at best. The context of a fall determines whether your warrior gets to work his glaive against a cliff face or whether you bounce on branches or whatever. Look if you are playing Wuxia and Dragons that's fine with me, but I'd prefer my D&D looked more like Conan or LoTR than Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Hero though I greatly enjoyed both films.

Surviving a fall like this once....fine. Making it a rule where anyone of a given level can survive such a fall is ridiculous.



Sundragon

 

[HeinorNY]

High level D&D characters should not only easily survive falls like that, but they also should kill the ground!

 

[AffableVagrant]

High level D&D characters should not only easily survive falls like that, but they also should kill the ground!

Nice one

 

[Kraydak]

Because it's simply less believable, to the point of destroying suspension of disbelief for many people. That you fail to see that is completely meaningless, given the vast number of people for whom this clearly is a problem, and the fact that no D&D book has ever attempted to explain away falling in the fashion you did.

Not only that, but the Fighter can do this pretty much every time, and it's just as easy for him to do it when he's fallen off the back of a griffon at 2000ft as it is when he's right next to a cliff.

Really, it conjures up a whole, far more retarded game, with very "1950s" comic-book-style images.

I can sort of see why falling (as opposed to weapon attacks) is the thing that people have the most suspension of disbelief issues with, as it is something that most people actually have RL exposure to. It isn't that surviving falling isn't reasonable compared to other things such characters can do (it is minor at best), but that people want to force RL experience in that one thing. I find it wierd. You have blatantly supernatural characters, so let them be supernatural.

Further, I have yet to see an hp explanation that doesn't allow for falling under the current rules w/the introduction of physics. HP as dodging (the worst explanation I have ever encountered in terms of explaining DnD rules) ends up by forcing high level fighters to react on a time scale equivalent to falling impact time scales, and accelerate meaningfully on those time scales. Anyone capable of doing that is *strong* and *fast* enough not merely to survive but flat out ignore falling. Personally I like cleric hp as divine providence, mage hp as passive defensive spells, somewhat a la Black Company, rogue hp as supernatural luck, and fighter hp as supernatural toughness. It actually explains DnD rules.

 

[Sundragon2012]

I want rogues, warriors and non-magic using classes to be distinctly un-supernatural. These folks survive by being tough, skillful and resourceful and not by magic. To mess with that IMO is to utterly divorce D&D from the traditions of fantasy fiction. Any character can use a magic weapon, that's fine, but to explain everything through the handwave of "they're superheroes" or "its magic" it to make D&D something other entirely than I have ever considered it to be.

I think they call these games Mutants and Masterminds or Exalted or something strange like that. In any case, this isn't D&D or anything based on traditional fantasy.



Sundragon