D&D General How Do You Handle Falling Damage?

[MNblockhead]

Edit: I'm curious, actually. If a player told you that their character wanted to kill themselves (maybe they need to end a curse on their family or something; who knows?), would you tell them it is impossible unless they figure out some extreme way to do it that does more than double maximum their maximum HP in one roll? Like, let's say they've lost the battle and want to commit sepuku, would you tell them that a short sword only does 1d6 damage and they have 150 HP so they are basically immune to it?

No. For me hit points are an abstraction of a lot of elements that increase character survivability: armor absorbing damage, skill in avoiding the brunt of an attack, physical durability, fate, etc. If they are purposefully attempting to cause damage to themselves, most of that goes by the wayside. Also, I often use coup-de-grace rules to hand wave finishing off an opponent. For enemies attacking characters, however, I run it raw. If you are at zero, the death saves give you some plot armor but not enough that makes it unreasonably difficult to finish off a downed character.

The situation and means of attempted suicide could possibly change how I would run it. For example, if they use poison, the normal saves and HP damage would apply. But I am not comfortable roleplaying out character suicide for this kind of thing. If it is a heroic sacrifice a veil is drawn (not that I can recall this situation ever coming up in my years of gaming, at least in the manner I think you are envisioning). If a player is trying to roleplay out a character killing itself out of grief, my ruling would be "sorry, this is not the kind of game I want to run or play in."

 

[Lanefan]

I'm not seeing the problem that solves, though. A wizard could do it from level one.

If said wizard happened to have Featherfall prepared and then was able/had time to cast it, sure.

Otherwise, I'm not sure how a level-1 wizard can survive a fall of more than about 40 feet in greymist's system.

 

[Lanefan]

No. For me hit points are an abstraction of a lot of elements that increase character survivability: armor absorbing damage, skill in avoiding the brunt of an attack, physical durability, fate, etc. If they are purposefully attempting to cause damage to themselves, most of that goes by the wayside. Also, I often use coup-de-grace rules to hand wave finishing off an opponent. For enemies attacking characters, however, I run it raw. If you are at zero, the death saves give you some plot armor but not enough that makes it unreasonably difficult to finish off a downed character.

The situation and means of attempted suicide could possibly change how I would run it. For example, if they use poison, the normal saves and HP damage would apply. But I am not comfortable roleplaying out character suicide for this kind of thing. If it is a heroic sacrifice a veil is drawn (not that I can recall this situation ever coming up in my years of gaming, at least in the manner I think you are envisioning). If a player is trying to roleplay out a character killing itself out of grief, my ruling would be "sorry, this is not the kind of game I want to run or play in."

I think I've DMed two intentional PC suicides of varieties other than face-charging an overwhelming foe.

One was a character heroically sacrificing itself to save what little else was left of its battered party by setting off a known-to-be-deadly single-target glyph so others could pass safely.

The other was a character who had no other way of getting clear of a cursed item, and who knew the party would soon be attempting to revive a bunch of people at once via a wish.

Interestingly enough - and I only just realized this now - those two characters shared the same player.

And if someone wants to roleplay out their character killing itself out of grief or remorse or whatever, I feel it's on me as DM to resolve it just like any other roleplay or action declaration in the game.

As a player, after a string of in-game events that (she thought would have) potentially had half the world out for her head - and by extension, those of her party - I was going to suicide a character once, as it's what she would have done on getting back to town after that adventure. I say "was going to" because as fate would have it, she died before getting back to town...at the hands of the very party she wanted to save!

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I think treatment of falling damage depends on the type/genre of game that you want to run.
D&D is by default a fairly heroic fantasy, where higher-tier characters operate more by "action movie rules", and then can go into into full mythological hero. They are assumed to be resilient and capable in a variety of dangerous situations, not just combat, and will find a way to survive for as long as they can, no matter what.

If you want to run a more realistic game and encourage more use of magic, or run hit points as meat, making hazards like falls more dangerous would help the game fit into that style better.

I operate on the basis that characters will try to survive situations and will take actions to do so. I run falling damage by the basic rules, and if a character survives an otherwise fatal fall, I will ask the player to describe how their character managed it.
Social contract avoids players abusing this in the hypothetical example of jumping down a cliff with no attempt to mitigate the landing just to save time.

That is where I disagree though. You can say you raised your shield. You can say you buried your face in your elbow. Heck, you can even say you just turned you back to the breath. Whether this is realistic is mostly irrelevant; you brought a narrative element to help make sense to the situation. I still think it is harder to make sense of wading through lava.

How would you feel if the character was described as hop-scotching their way across the rocks floating on the surface of the lava?

But that was my point... this doesn't make sense.

If someone turned a flamethrower on you, ducking behind your shield, turning your back, etc. won't help you one bit. You're still engulfed in flames and burning.

So, those narratives don't help "make sense" because they aren't realistic. Besides which, any of those things would IMO represent a successful save, which is why you decreased the damage. But a failed save? Nope, those things just aren't happening.

I'll turn to a different example: Evasion. For large AoE effects (like an ancient red dragon), how are you evading this!?!

Unless you can, quite literally, get out of the AoE, how can you justify taking no damage? For most players, even avoiding the brunt of damage requires the expenditure of some hit points! Evasion as a half, save for quarter, is better IMO than half, save for none.

But, saving throws are a wierd thing, and really just more plot armor---like hit points. We accept that PCs are "harder to kill" than what would ever be possible IRL. I personally think of things like action movies. The good guy keeps pushing on because of his durability, will to live, and sometimes just dumb luck.

A quick blast of pure fire would be eminently survivable by someone in heavy armour blocking the brunt and protecting any exposed parts with a shield. A sustained blast from a flamethrower, with the likelihood of getting coated in burning fuel, would probably be more dangerous, but it can take a while for heat to conduct through the heavy padding.

A higher level character who failed their save might be taking the same actions as a lower-level one who passed their save, in order to reduce the damage. Such is the capability of experience.

 

[ezo]

No, I totally disagree. It is easy to imagine scenarios where the the character survives dragon breath. In my games, hit points represent general survivability, not meat damage. So dodging, luck, etc. is exactly what happens in the dragon breath scenario.

If you're in the relative center of a 90'-cone of red dragon's breath, there is no dodging, and you are pretty unlucky.

Anything you can do is all about the saving throw. On average you're still taking 45 damage if you make the saving throw, just 10 points shy of the 55 average for wading in a stream of lava. Of course, the odds of you making that DC 24 saving throw is pretty darn low in general, so you are most likely taking 91 damage... well above the average for the lava.

If a character wades into lava, there's no dodging. You can't get lucky. They've just chosen to kill themselves. I would double check if they really want to do that, given the obvious consequences of wading into lava, but if player makes that choice, who am I to overrule them?

I disagree.

How deep is the lava? How wide is the stream? What equipment is the PC wearing? How quickly can they get through it?

Durability and will to live, as well as luck, still plays a part.

---

To be clear, I hope you understand I am just playing Devil's advocate here... right? There are no mortal means to survive "wading through lava" and just keep on going. I believe it is possible to survive, certainly, people have survived in real life, albeit with protective gear. But such things are akin to those who survive 20000-foot falls and live.

IMO the real issue in such cases is hit points, and the fact players know how many they have. You're PC has 54 hit points? Sure, jump 50 feet down to wade into a fight, you'll probably have about 40 left and can always be healed. It is just a part of metagaming that is not easily avoided.

There is also the issue that what should obviously be "meat damage" for hit points it so easily recovered with a short or long rest. Although I know simplicity is always a goal--given it is a game--there are times when I wish designers had embraced more uses for damage to Constitution and reducing maximum hit points.

Constitution is long-term damage, requiring several days or weeks to heal without very powerful magic.
Maximum hit points is medium-term, requiring days, maybe a week or so, to fully heal.
Hit points are very short term, recovering them in hours or a day at most.

d20 Star Wars with Vitality / Wounds approached this, and it is why I think it is one of the better systems. Other games have systems with "stun vs. physical" or "non-lethal vs. lethal", but D&D doesn't make this distinction with hit points, so you have to simply accept it or rule as common sense might dictate--especially since there are no longer save or die effects. An option that also appeals to me from Vampire is "aggrevated damage", which something like lava and dragon's breath would deal, which would reduce hit point maximum as well as hit points.

Another thing I've seen in the past is when hit points to 0 are like "vitality", and going negative is "wounds". Or many groups use a level of exhaustion at 0 hit points.

Finally, my personal favorite for simplicity using hit points is just to change the rule for Instant Death to have a PC die if the overflow damage after reaching 0 hit points exceeds the Constitution score. This way, even if you get 100 hp, you don't have instant death at 100 additional points, but likely 12-20 at most.

And by the time you've found and used that safer way, your friend is dead and the foe's long gone....

He might have survived if he hadn't taken the falling damage by foolishly jumping down 50 feet...

Of course, if he's that confident then perhaps he didn't need my help anyway?

Viewing hit points "as a resource" is part of the hit point problem, along with the fact that hazards like falling damage can't result in critical damage. Instead of 5d6 damage, if you might possibly face 10d6, losing a third of your hit points before facing the foe, you might give it some more thought and go the safer route.

But hey, you want to take the leap, go ahead and jump.

 

[ezo]

A quick blast of pure fire would be eminently survivable by someone in heavy armour blocking the brunt and protecting any exposed parts with a shield. A sustained blast from a flamethrower, with the likelihood of getting coated in burning fuel, would probably be more dangerous, but it can take a while for heat to conduct through the heavy padding.

Who said a quick blast? Any media that has ever protrayed a dragon's fiery breath has lasted a few seconds or much longer. Take a deep breath and breathe out imagining yourself the dragon. I'm guessing you could do this for much longer than a "quick blast".

But this is all subjective, of course. Dragonfire might easily "coat in burning fuel" as well. Each DM / group makes that call, along with others. So, I'm not saying that ruling it as a "quick blast" is wrong or anything, just subjective.

A higher level character who failed their save might be taking the same actions as a lower-level one who passed their save, in order to reduce the damage. Such is the capability of experience.

Possibly, but then what action is the high-level character taking when he makes the save if he is taking the same actions when failing as a low-level character takes when making it?? Is he just "doing it better" when making it? I suppose that could be.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I like the d10s thing. I may need to use that. I use d6s but do the cumulative thing of 1d6 for first 10 feet, 3d6 for 20 feet, 6d6 for 30, 10d6 for 40 feet and so on, and have never worried about a cap. I also require a Con save vs. death if you take over 50 points of damage (DC 10 + 1 / 10' of the fall) - a failure meaning no matter what your HP total you are dying when you hit the bottom. And sometimes require similar saves vs. being stunned depending on what you land on.

I too allow an acrobatics check for half damage.

Cumulative does not make a lot of sense.
Damage is proportional to energy lost on impact which is proportional to fallen height.
If anything makes sense is decreasing the damage after some height, as terminal velocity is reached at some point and before that the air resistance takes some of the energy away already.

I do agree with your massive damage rule though. I liked that in 3e.
So everyone has to fear a fall from too high.

 

[ezo]

Cumulative does not make a lot of sense.
Damage is proportional to energy lost on impact which is proportional to fallen height.
If anything makes sense is decreasing the damage after some height, as terminal velocity is reached at some point and before that the air resistance takes some of the energy away already.

I do agree with your massive damage rule though. I liked that in 3e.
So everyone has to fear a fall from too high.

Except terminal velocity isn't reached until 1600 feet or so depending on conditions, and takes about 10-11 seconds to reach.

You are accelerating up to that point, so accelerating damage up to that point also makes sense.

I would not decrease damage after reaching terminal velocity, but it should be basically capped there.

Hopefully most people agree massive damge rules are a good thing.

 

[Chaosmancer]

To be clear, I hope you understand I am just playing Devil's advocate here... right? There are no mortal means to survive "wading through lava" and just keep on going. I believe it is possible to survive, certainly, people have survived in real life, albeit with protective gear. But such things are akin to those who survive 20000-foot falls and live.

Since you seemed annoyed by talking about it scientifically, maybe you won't mind talking about it in literary terms.

Lava is used to destroy things. It (technically molten steel) is how you kill a terminator. It is how you destroy evil artifacts. I've seen it used to destroy villains who are otherwise impervious to harm.

Seeing someone jump off a cliff and survive? Certainly happens. Seeing someone get bathed in acid and stumble out? Yep. Lava? It takes characters who are specifically indestructible to a high degree for them to not be horrifically burned by lava. Sure, if you can tank a nuke, you can tank lava, but DnD characters do not get that level of indestructibility.

IMO the real issue in such cases is hit points, and the fact players know how many they have. You're PC has 54 hit points? Sure, jump 50 feet down to wade into a fight, you'll probably have about 40 left and can always be healed. It is just a part of metagaming that is not easily avoided.

There is also the issue that what should obviously be "meat damage" for hit points it so easily recovered with a short or long rest. Although I know simplicity is always a goal--given it is a game--there are times when I wish designers had embraced more uses for damage to Constitution and reducing maximum hit points.

Constitution is long-term damage, requiring several days or weeks to heal without very powerful magic.
Maximum hit points is medium-term, requiring days, maybe a week or so, to fully heal.
Hit points are very short term, recovering them in hours or a day at most.

d20 Star Wars with Vitality / Wounds approached this, and it is why I think it is one of the better systems. Other games have systems with "stun vs. physical" or "non-lethal vs. lethal", but D&D doesn't make this distinction with hit points, so you have to simply accept it or rule as common sense might dictate--especially since there are no longer save or die effects. An option that also appeals to me from Vampire is "aggrevated damage", which something like lava and dragon's breath would deal, which would reduce hit point maximum as well as hit points.

Another thing I've seen in the past is when hit points to 0 are like "vitality", and going negative is "wounds". Or many groups use a level of exhaustion at 0 hit points.

Finally, my personal favorite for simplicity using hit points is just to change the rule for Instant Death to have a PC die if the overflow damage after reaching 0 hit points exceeds the Constitution score. This way, even if you get 100 hp, you don't have instant death at 100 additional points, but likely 12-20 at most.

This is an entirely different problem to my mind. Because it is the exact same as seeing a goblin with a knife, seeing you have 30 hp, and realizing that you will likely be fine even if it stabs you. Or having a bandit hold a crossbow to your head and having the same thought.

Personally, I don't want death from massive damage in the game, because it punishes characters for doing exactly what they should be doing. Fighters, Barbarians, Paladins, heck even rangers, clerics, roges and druids... they should be able to have that moment of fighting at the tail end of their strength, of feeling that desperation of being down to their last 10 hp at high level, without it consistently leading to death. Because once it does? Once a player sees having 40 hp as "certainly dead if the dragon uses their breath weapon" then they will retreat, they will not take that fight, they will insist on buying out dozens or hundreds of healing potions. And I'm not terribly interested in high level characters fleeing MORE often than low level ones, because the enemy can deal 50 damage and that is a death sentence if you have 30 hp. That just gives more hoops to jump through to actually get to fights.

And I ALREADY have to press players to take short rests instead of always taking a long rest.

 

[ezo]

Since you seemed annoyed by talking about it scientifically, maybe you won't mind talking about it in literary terms.

Lava is used to destroy things. It (technically molten steel) is how you kill a terminator. It is how you destroy evil artifacts. I've seen it used to destroy villains who are otherwise impervious to harm.

Seeing someone jump off a cliff and survive? Certainly happens. Seeing someone get bathed in acid and stumble out? Yep. Lava? It takes characters who are specifically indestructible to a high degree for them to not be horrifically burned by lava. Sure, if you can tank a nuke, you can tank lava, but DnD characters do not get that level of indestructibility.

Sorry. It wasn't so much annoyed but more because it is unhelpful to discuss lava scientifically when comparing it to dragon's breath--which we have no science to back up because precisely what is involved in dragon's breath is entirely subjective being as it is "made up".

Falling also destroys things. Granted falling isn't as destructive as immersion in lava!

However, whether it is falling/jumping from heights, acid, lava, dragon breath, or whatever, you can "walk away" after losing tons of HP--which is the real problem. Although IRL falls can break bones, acid and lava can burn and scar, unless you use lingering injuries and roll significant issues from that, none of it really matters--hp simply become and remain a resource, like spell slots, that you judge when is expending them worth it?

This is an entirely different problem to my mind. Because it is the exact same as seeing a goblin with a knife, seeing you have 30 hp, and realizing that you will likely be fine even if it stabs you. Or having a bandit hold a crossbow to your head and having the same thought.

In many ways it is the same (or related) thing to those other situations. But those exists because HP is really plot armor more than anything else--justify the abstraction however you wish.

Assuming in such situations you aren't restrained or unconscious or something so you can actually act and react normally, the goblin-knifer might not be seen as much of a threat for several reasons if you've got 30 hp, since you're likely 3-4th level. Given it manages to hit you, RAW its threat potential is low (20% of your hp per hit), but still something you can't just ignore.

Having a crossbow pointed at your head of course should be threatening at any level--however trained, experienced people who have weapons endangering them know how to deal with those threats. The problem is again when they try to avoid/disable the threat and fail... and the damage is likely less than half their HP. In other words, narratively, since they aren't reduced to 0 hp so they were never really in any real "immediate danger."

Our houserule answers this to a point with critical damage, not critical hits. The above goblin has a chance (only 1 in 250,000) that it can deal enough damage to reduce you to 0 hit points with a single hit. With the (light) crossbow example, critical damage houserule would give a 1 in 2048 to reduce you to 0 hp on a hit. Since we've been using this houserule, players sweat it a bit more when they hear they've taken critical damage. Granted, the odds are still very long in most cases, but at least now it's possible!

Personally, I don't want death from massive damage in the game, because it punishes characters for doing exactly what they should be doing. Fighters, Barbarians, Paladins, heck even rangers, clerics, roges and druids... they should be able to have that moment of fighting at the tail end of their strength, of feeling that desperation of being down to their last 10 hp at high level, without it consistently leading to death. Because once it does? Once a player sees having 40 hp as "certainly dead if the dragon uses their breath weapon" then they will retreat, they will not take that fight, they will insist on buying out dozens or hundreds of healing potions. And I'm not terribly interested in high level characters fleeing MORE often than low level ones, because the enemy can deal 50 damage and that is a death sentence if you have 30 hp. That just gives more hoops to jump through to actually get to fights.

Sure, that's fine of course, many people don't like massive damage rules. No issue with that, I just prefer them.

I've never seen it as punishing characters in any way or stopping them from taking those risks. Now, they just understand those things are ACTUALLY risks! And I prefer players to realize certain threats are simply likely beyond them (at least at present) and they either have to find another way to deal with it or something. Getting into the fights has never been an issue, regardless of having critical damage and using massive damage rules. Being more cautious and prepared however, I see as a blessing by comparison.

Also, to be clear, massive damage rules should not be auto death sentences, but definitely carry a chance of being knocked out or dying. What I don't like about 5E's massive damage option is the idea of being reduced to 0 hp. System shock might knock you out or kill you, but failing that you took the damage and should still have any remaining hp IMO.

And I ALREADY have to press players to take short rests instead of always taking a long rest.

Really, IMO, that is on the DM, not the players. As DM, players can tell me they want to take a long rest, but if they're in a dangerous area/ situtation, odds are something will happen that will prevent the long rest. I'm not saying it's impossible, but unlikely.

A short rest, in such times, they are more likely to get away with and benefit from.