Gravity

[HeinorNY]

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

D&D stops being traditional fantasy by level 6. After that it's just D&D.
WOTC should make it clearer for everyone, veterans and new players, in the core books so people could stop frustrating themselves and they start seeing their characters doing things that traditional fantasy heroes would be far from doing and then thinking: OMG this game is broken/cheesy/unreal.
I see no problem in thinking that, I spent many years playing D&D with LOTR in my mind and always wanted to tone down the game a lot to fit my idea of fantasy gaming. But now I understand you don't need to change D&D too much, all you gotta do is play the game up to the power level you consider the right tone for your game.
The E6 thread is a great start. With an average of 70 points of damage, falling from any height above 200 ft. is pretty deadly to level 6 characters.
D&D is a game for almost all tastes, but you need to find your niche inside the game, it's there, somewhere. If it didn't have all this flexibility and possibilities, it wouldn't be the greatest RPG of all.
I believe in 4E we will have that kind of options even more clear and explicit, with the division of tiers heroic/paragon/epic. If you want to play your Conan style game, cap it to level 10. Also, with the advent of specific roles, less focus on magic items and the fact that characters will be able to handle themselves without a cleric, it will be easier to play in low magic settings.
D&D IS about superheroic fantasy but it is also about traditional gritty fantasy and godly/epic fantasy. It's all in there.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

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

Uhm, not to niggle you to death, but your kinetic energy should be in Joule [J], and"force" as in Newton [N] isn't given in lbs. but in...well, Newton.

And if I take your numbers and use them as they should be used, I get a weight of roughly 82 metric tons of weight pressing down at normal gravity...which would make one VERY obese elephant (poor beast ) or a block of steel roughly 21 meters (or 63 feet) on every side.

Now, that's Marvel Comics proportions!

 

[see]

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.

That's fine. Your problem isn't falling damage, though; it's hit points. They don't make any sense unless they're supernatural.

 

[AffableVagrant]

Uhm, not to niggle you to death, but your kinetic energy should be in Joule [J], and"force" as in Newton [N] isn't given in lbs. but in...well, Newton.

And if I take your numbers and use them as they should be used, I get a weight of roughly 82 metric tons of weight pressing down at normal gravity...which would make one VERY obese elephant (poor beast ) or a block of steel roughly 21 meters (or 63 feet) on every side.

Now, that's Marvel Comics proportions!

I actually skipped a lot of the math on the page...
I converted the jules to newtons, and newtons to equivalent force of weight, and the whole thing came to a few hundred pounds more than the average elephant.

Follow the link at the bottom of that post, there's a calcualtor right there that does all the work for you. It's pretty cool.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

I actually skipped a lot of the math on the page...
I converted the jules to newtons, and newtons to equivalent force of weight, and the whole thing came to a few hundred pounds more than the average elephant.

Follow the link at the bottom of that post, there's a calcualtor right there that does all the work for you. It's pretty cool.

Hmm...I'm not too senile to type in numbers yet, I hope. See, that's why I said the kinetic energy should be in Joule. The kinetic energy before impact is 81286.31 Joule. The force of impact is 812863.19 N (given by that same calculator). Now Newton is kg*m/s^2, so if you want to know what weight would cause an equal force at normal gravity, you divide by 9.81 m/s^2 and get a result of 82860.67 kg, or roughly 82.5 tons. So a the force of impact of a person of 90.71 kg falling down a distance of 91.44 meters has the same force of impact as a block of 82.5 tons "falling" 10 centimeters. Distance after impact can play a role, too, though.

(And here I thought I had missed a decimal point somewhere. )