D&D General How Do You Handle Falling Damage?

[UngeheuerLich]

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.

No, accelerating damage makes no sense. Because the time it takes you to fall down an equal distance decreases the faster you are.
So the damage you take is proportional to the distance.

 

[ezo]

No, accelerating damage makes no sense. Because the time it takes you to fall down an equal distance decreases the faster you are.
So the damage you take is proportional to the distance.

I think we're looking at this from two different directions and talking past each other.

 

[Lanefan]

No, accelerating damage makes no sense. Because the time it takes you to fall down an equal distance decreases the faster you are.
So the damage you take is proportional to the distance.

Until you're getting close to terminal velocity, your acceleration is fairly constant; meaning that for falls of less than 1000 feet or so the speed at which you hit the ground (and it's that collision that does the damage! )is pretty much directly proportional to the distance you fell.

As for lava, I wonder if some people - including the game designers - took a few too many cues from the climactic battle on the lava at the end of Star Wars III; where both Anakin and Obi-Wan really should have become ash about ten seconds in.

 

[ezo]

As for lava, I wonder if some people - including the game designers - took a few too many cues from the climactic battle on the lava at the end of Star Wars III; where both Anakin and Obi-Wan really should have become ash about ten seconds in.

Yeah, that was pretty bad... I always just attributed it to the idea the platforms they were on were "shielded", but when Obi is on the "higher ground" at the end of the fight... um, no. Just no.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Until you're getting close to terminal velocity, your acceleration is fairly constant; meaning that for falls of less than 1000 feet or so the speed at which you hit the ground (and it's that collision that does the damage! )is pretty much directly proportional to the distance you fell.

Which is wrong... v is proportional to falling time. Not falling distance:

Consider:

Energy conservation gives us:
(I) E(end) = E(beginning)

(II) E(beginning) = E(pot) = m*g*h
(III) E(end) = E(kin) = 1/2*m*v^2 (if you neglect energy lost due to friction)

so II and III in I:
1/2*m*v^2 = m*g*h
so after some simple transformations you get
v = squareroot(2*g*h)

So the speed is proportional to the square root of the fallen distance (if you neglect friction... otherwise it is even lower).

Now the question is, if kinetic energy or momentum deals damage. And a short google search is that experiments with a falling ball in clay show that the damage is proportional to speed^2. Which is proportional to the energy transferred. And this is proportional to distance fallen. So linear increasing damage makes sense.

As for lava, I wonder if some people - including the game designers - took a few too many cues from the climactic battle on the lava at the end of Star Wars III; where both Anakin and Obi-Wan really should have become ash about ten seconds in.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I think we're looking at this from two different directions and talking past each other.

Yeah. Other people mix up time with height...

 

[Laurefindel]

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

That’s what I tend to do. The most extreme the situation, the more « creative » I tend to be in my description as a DM.

However for many players, the description doesn’t match the consequence.

Me: the dragon throws you in the lava, you take 10d10 as you hopscotch your way back on solid slag / you fall from the 100ft tower, you take 10d6 as you fall in the hay cart.

Player: if I hopscotched on the slag / fell on the hay stack, why did I take damage?

 

[Laurefindel]

As for lava, I wonder if some people - including the game designers - took a few too many cues from the climactic battle on the lava at the end of Star Wars III; where both Anakin and Obi-Wan really should have become ash about ten seconds in.

But the thing is, they didn’t fall into the lava. They made sure they wouldn’t because that would be game over. The audience wouldn’t accept obi-wan falling neck-deep in the lava river and climbing back up, brushing the slag off his shoulder with the back of his hand, only to keep fighting Anakin. Their suspension of disbelief, already stretched, would be broken.

That’s a good example of situation where fighting a formidable opponent head on is still preferable to the consequence of being thrown off - a situation D&D rules sometimes struggle to convey - even if realistically, the proximity alone should have burned them to a crisp.

 

[MNblockhead]

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.

I'm not against this idea, but it is something I would need to be absolutely clear that all the players at the table were okay with. As a DM, I'm would just not be comfortable roleplaying out and describing the scene. Perhaps it is a bit hypocritical, given how I will lean into the description and acting out of many other things, especially violence in combat, etc. But playing out a PC suicide with a player is up there with roleplaying sex scenes to abuse of children. That's a pull down the curtain situation. We all have our limits on what we want to act out in a TTRPG game.

 

[MNblockhead]

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

Depends. Do they have heat resistance? Is it pahoehoe that is slow moving but with an insulating skin? IRL people can get close enough to this to take a sample, though still hot enough that you can't actively step on it. In game I would less have rocks "floating" on it and more that it is slowly flowing and branching around uneven rocky ground so that there are safer rock out cropping that you can jump from one to another. A'a flows, would be similar, but the dangers much higher because they flow faster and give off much more radiant energy. IRL life there are people who will collect samples but wear more protection and have to do it a lot more quickly. But folks have had their hair singed and skin blister just from a change in the wind. In one article I've read, the author recalls feeling the radiant heat of an a'a channel flying 200-400 meters over it in a helicopter.

More interestingly, for this discussion, in that same article they discuss two instances of people falling into lava.

Lava won't kill you if it briefly touches you. You would get a nasty burn, but unless you fell in and couldn't get out, you wouldn't die. With prolonged contact, the amount of lava "coverage" and the length of time it was in contact with your skin would be important factors in how severe your injuries would be! The health of the individual, the amount of time before care can be given and the quality of that care would also be important. In fact there have been 2 cases at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory where a geologist fell into lava. Fortunately in both instances the lava was not very deep and they were able to get out quickly. Both ended up in the hospital and it was a scary and painful experience. Both recovered fine. Blong (1984) points out that little research has been done on injuries caused by lava. People have been killed by very fast moving lava flows. A recent example was the 1977 eruption at Nyiragongo.

How close can I get to lava and will it hurt or kill me?, citing Blong, R.J., 1984, Volcanic Hazards: A Sourcebook on the Effects of Eruptions: Orlando, Florida, Academic Press, p. 424.

Now everything I've read has been scientists or thrill seekers above ground. If your characters are underground near a pool a lava, the ambient temperature alone should kill them rather quickly without magic protection. This makes me curious to look up any examples of folks getting near magma. Doesn't seem realistic that you are going to run into magma pools while spelunking. But I have no idea.