D&D General How Do You Handle Falling Damage?

[Chaosmancer]

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?

That is just always going to happen.

I've seen a character like McClain or Wick survive falling from 3 to 5 stories and landing on a car, limping off before fighting in the next scene. Never seen someone get hit by a charging rhinoceros get back up. But a charging minotaur can't be a death sentence that causes multiple broken bones and permanent injury. Game would just break down.

Meanwhile, while falling is relatively mundane, lava is the raw power of creation, in many ways, vastly and cataclysmically destructive. It has a narrative weight to it.

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!

See, you are trying to avoid it, but I just don't see the point in that. We don't make rules to make weapons suddenly more dangerous in certain circumstances, we just ignore the discrepancy. I also just don't usually take player's hostage. I take an NPC hostage. Works better on most levels.

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.

I don't understand what you are trying to say here. Enemies that deal a lot of damage ARE risks. I don't see how hitting -15 and dying outright makes them better fights. To me, it seems like it will just make the characters unwilling to engage unless they are at full hp.

I was talking to a fellow GM not too long ago. He has a party that recently hit level 11... and are still scared of a side mission he gave them forever ago to investigate a hag. He's worried that they are going to be disappointed, because the Hag mission was given to them early on, and she is like CR 4. But they still are building her up as this massive threat.

I just very rarely see players not feeling like things are a risk. Meanwhile, I have to constantly reassure them that... it is okay for them to actually take risks. I don't want them retreating after each fight, to attempt to heal to full, and constantly making that a needed goal because if they are down even a little hp, they run the risk of suddenly dying.

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.

We were literally in a situation where the cleric wanted to cast stone shape, to seal the room, so that they could long rest, because they were down three spell slots, a channel divinity and a some hp. I, as another player, had to convince them that we really didn't need to take a long rest.

Sure, the DM could have told us that they were going to gather the enemy outside the former door (hello fireball formation) or try and break through the wall (which would break the rest, but wouldn't be too fast for us to react to) but what finally convinced them was me pointing out... the bad guys could just walk past and leave the tower. And since we were here for a McGuffin, we would lose, because we would be giving them 8 hours to just... walk out.

 

[ezo]

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

It isn't really a mix up though. You can do everything as a function of the time fallen or in terms of the height fallen.

However, either way, I see your point about the energy at impact, which is linear due to height. In short:

Joules = mass (kg) * 9.8 * height (m).

So, if you double the height, you double the energy (joules). Ten times the height, ten times the energy. And so on.

 

[ezo]

That is just always going to happen.

I've seen a character like McClain or Wick survive falling from 3 to 5 stories and landing on a car, limping off before fighting in the next scene. Never seen someone get hit by a charging rhinoceros get back up. But a charging minotaur can't be a death sentence that causes multiple broken bones and permanent injury. Game would just break down.

Well, McClain and Wick are action heroes. So you haven't seen an action hero hit by a charging rhino can get back up? What about a charging bull? That is closer to a charging minotaur--and I've seen that in movies.

Meanwhile, while falling is relatively mundane, lava is the raw power of creation, in many ways, vastly and cataclysmically destructive. It has a narrative weight to it.

If you make falling lethal as it shoud be, it carries narrative weight. I had a PC flung by a frost giant off a glacier into the foggy, frozen depths below... it had quite a bit of narrative weight.

See, you are trying to avoid it, but I just don't see the point in that. We don't make rules to make weapons suddenly more dangerous in certain circumstances, we just ignore the discrepancy. I also just don't usually take player's hostage. I take an NPC hostage. Works better on most levels.

If you don't see the point that's fine. I do. The weapons, themselves, do have to be suddenly more dangerous, but the situation can make them so.

Friday night our group of PCs infiltrated a building with the bandits sleeping. Now, the weapons still did a d8, d6, or d4 (longsword, shortsword, and dagger). But, as unconscious targets, the attacks had advantage and were automatically criticals. Using our critical damage houserule, the d8 weapon dealt d8+12 (including STR mod), auto "killing" (reduce to 0 hp) the bandits with 11 hp. The d6 weapon was 2d6+9 (includes d6 sneak attack and DEX mod), minimum 11 so auto kills. Finally, the d4 weapon was the only one which wasn't auto kill: d4+5, but fortunately that PC attacked with two daggers, and the bonus action hits finished the sleeping bandits off.

Even running it RAW with double damge on crits, it would have most likely had the same results.

Now, what about sleeping PCs with 80 hp? Few humanoids will deal sufficient damage to auto kill such a PC (although massive damage might come into play...) making it virtually impossible (if not absolutely).

FWIW, I don't take PCs hostage, that was your scenario.

I don't understand what you are trying to say here. Enemies that deal a lot of damage ARE risks. I don't see how hitting -15 and dying outright makes them better fights. To me, it seems like it will just make the characters unwilling to engage unless they are at full hp.

Because you weren't talking about enemies that deal a lot of damage? You were talking of a goblin with a knife or a crossbow to your head. If you have 30 hit points, RAW those aren't really risks at all.

And those examples won't drop a PC to -15 so they die outright, even using our houserules, without an even more insane amount of (bad, for the PCs) luck.

I was talking to a fellow GM not too long ago. He has a party that recently hit level 11... and are still scared of a side mission he gave them forever ago to investigate a hag. He's worried that they are going to be disappointed, because the Hag mission was given to them early on, and she is like CR 4. But they still are building her up as this massive threat.

He should tell them some other adventures already dealt with it... their time (and chances) passed a long time back.

I just very rarely see players not feeling like things are a risk. Meanwhile, I have to constantly reassure them that... it is okay for them to actually take risks. I don't want them retreating after each fight, to attempt to heal to full, and constantly making that a needed goal because if they are down even a little hp, they run the risk of suddenly dying.

If those are your experiences then you have nothing to worry about or change. I've seen and had players who, due to knowing their AC and hp, didn't view many things as risks. The only things they viewed as risks where very powerful foes they knew obviously were risks.

But getting back to falling. If a player knows their PC has 80 hit points, what is there to worry about a 50-foot fall? Most likely at 5d6 being 22 damage or less, barely 25% of the "resource", which can be recovered VERY EASILY in most cases.

We were literally in a situation where the cleric wanted to cast stone shape, to seal the room, so that they could long rest, because they were down three spell slots, a channel divinity and a some hp. I, as another player, had to convince them that we really didn't need to take a long rest.

Not knowing the full scenario, why not let them long rest? Sealing up a room is possible with stone shape if it has a small enough door/entry.

Sure, the DM could have told us that they were going to gather the enemy outside the former door (hello fireball formation) or try and break through the wall (which would break the rest, but wouldn't be too fast for us to react to) but what finally convinced them was me pointing out... the bad guys could just walk past and leave the tower. And since we were here for a McGuffin, we would lose, because we would be giving them 8 hours to just... walk out.

Why would the DM tell you anything unless it was actually happening??? As DM, I would just let the time pass if you decided to rest, and let you find out what happens when you cast stone shape again to unseal the door...

Ok, so that is more the scenario: being under a "time crunch".

 

[Zubatcarteira]

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.

Ironically, they can survive The Scroll of the Comet with around 165 HP, which I'd say is around tanking a small nuke considering the size of the crater (just in regards to the explosion, there'd still be the radiation to worry about, of course".

 

[Clint_L]

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.

Sure there is. I've seen this situation in media lots of time. The character rolls out of the way, or steps under it, or pulls up their shield just in time, or whatever. That's not hard to imagine.

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.

See, this is just not something I would worry about. Wading into lava is not a viable strategy (barring extraordinary circumstances like heat immunity, obviously). A human intentionally wading into lava and surviving is no more possible than a human flapping their arms and flying.

I mean, if the lava is very shallow so they are just on the surface they could survive briefly, though taking catastrophic damage to whatever they intentionally placed in lave. But to be clear, the suggestion was that a player declare their character to be intentionally "wading" into lava. That's just suicide.

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?

Well, obviously if the lava is 1mm deep they aren't exactly "wading." And if they're wearing magical armour that makes them immune to heat, then that's different, too. I feel like you are trying to move the goalposts from the original suggestion.

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

If you choose to wade into lava your will to live is not great.

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.

Citation needed. "Wading?" Maybe "stepping briefly onto mostly congealed lava". Or, as you suggest, they had some kind of protective gear, but even so I highly doubt a person has survived being significantly immersed in lava, which to me is what the word "wading" describes. I don't really want to get into semantics. That's not what we were talking about, anyway.

But such things are akin to those who survive 20000-foot falls and live.

No, they aren't. There are plenty of mitigating circumstances that affect falling damage. There are not any mitigating "wading into lava" circumstances that I can imagine, barring the magical options that are part of D&D. But that's not what the discussion is a bout. The discussion is about whether wading into lava with no mitigating circumstances should be survivable by a human, elf, etc. I say that, for my games, that would be an instant death sentence, and obviously so.

IMO the real issue in such cases is hit points, and the fact players know how many they have. Your 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.

It's fairly easily avoided by making it clear to players that obviously suicidal moves are obviously suicidal. That the HP system is not designed to account for players intentionally doing things that are plainly not survivable. If a player tells me chooses to do something that is obviously (to me) not survivable, I will caution them. They can argue the point if they wish. But in my long experience, it's never an issue. Players want the story to feel immersive as much as I do, and I've never had one suggest wading through lava as a viable strategy. And I use lava all the time!

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.

At home, we house rule that if you go below 0 HP you have to roll on a critical damage table, because now you're actually getting injured.

 

[ezo]

Sure there is. I've seen this situation in media lots of time. The character rolls out of the way, or steps under it, or pulls up their shield just in time, or whatever. That's not hard to imagine.

You are not "rolling out of the way, stepping under, or using your shield" to block a 90-FOOT CONE of FIRE! when you're near its center.

Burning hands, a wyrmling dragon, etc. sure.

See, this is just not something I would worry about. Wading into lava is not a viable strategy (barring extraordinary circumstances like heat immunity, obviously). A human intentionally wading into lava and surviving is no more possible than a human flapping their arms and flying.

Unlikely, most definitely, but surviving is certainly possible as it has happened IRL.

Also not a strategy I would recommend, either IRL or in D&D.

I mean, if the lava is very shallow so they are just on the surface they could survive briefly, though taking catastrophic damage to whatever they intentionally placed in lave. But to be clear, the suggestion was that a player declare their character to be intentionally "wading" into lava. That's just suicide.

Likely suicide, but then again for 10d10 fire damage most creatures would die quickly... but D&D is also fantasy and the PCs are heroes... so depending on how you play your game it's possible, but I agree foolish.

Well, obviously if the lava is 1mm deep they aren't exactly "wading." And if they're wearing magical armour that makes them immune to heat, then that's different, too. I feel like you are trying to move the goalposts from the original suggestion.

LOL don't go too extreme then, ok, and the goalposts aren't moved.

Wading doesn't necessarily mean "waist-deep". I mean, given lava is molten ROCK and thus incredibly heavy, it would be like trying to walk through thick concrete! Good luck with that! So, I have to imagine we are talking something ankle to maybe knee deep at most.

Also, it would be difficult terrain, so you'd maybe cover 30 feet if you Dashed as well. Unfortunately D&D doesn't have much in the way of rules for things catching fire, but at the very least ruling an affect like alchemist's fire (double strength or more even!) after going through the lava would be reasonable IMO.

Resistance to fire would be sufficient if you can get it, like a Tiefling doing it. Immunity would, well, make you immune, so let's not move the goalposts that far, ok?

If you choose to wade into lava your will to live is not great.

Nothing has anything to do with the other. Leaping off of a cliff means you have no will to live, either? Of course not, there is no connection. The will to live is about surviving the lava and continuing to live.

Citation needed. "Wading?" Maybe "stepping briefly onto mostly congealed lava". Or maybe they had some kind of protective gear, but even so I highly doubt a person has survived being significantly immersed in lava, which to me is what the word "wading" describes. I don't really want to get into semantics.

Neither do I, but without a common ground on it, any discussion is moot.

The real like incident was in protective gear, of course, the man was walking across a lava field when the upper crust broke and he feel through waist deep. A companion managed to free him, and he had severe damage to his legs, as well as many other injuries. But, he lived, and recovered use of his legs.

As others have stated, fumes alone and radiant heat would kill long ahead of time, however, in a scenario where the lava stream is 20-feet wide (for example), too far to jump for most PCs, and some must wade through or risk being trapped and die anyway, I could see it happening. Wearing thick leather boots, possibly leg armor, etc. would provide protection, but it won't last long and would be like heat metal---you better remove it quickly even if you manage to get through the lava.

No, they aren't. There are plenty of mitigating circumstances that affect falling damage. There are not any mitigating "wading into lava" circumstances that I can imagine, barring the magical options that are part of D&D. But that's not what the discussion is a bout. The discussion is about whether wading into lava with no mitigating circumstances should be survivable by a human, elf, etc. I say that, for my games, that would be an instant death sentence, and obviously so.

LOL look at the survival rates for falling 20000 feet. It is pretty much zero, just like surviving being in lava.

Cool, do it for your games. But does that include auto-death from similarly lethal hazards? Such as an extreme fall?

There are tons of things in D&D that should also not be survivable, but we run with those. You don't need magic or other non-mundane things to help, but it should be possible if you allow all those other threats to be.

But hey, it is your game, and as long as your players are on board, that's cool.

It's fairly easily avoided by making it clear to players that obviously suicidal moves are obviously suicidal. That the HP system is not designed to account for players intentionally doing things that are plainly not survivable. If a player tells me chooses to do something that is obviously (to me) not survivable, I will caution them. They can argue the point if they wish. But in my long experience, it's never an issue. Players want the story to feel immersive as much as I do, and I've never had one suggest wading through lava as a viable strategy. And I use lava all the time!

Like jumping from hundreds of feet? Getting hit (reduced to 0 hp) by a critical fire giant greatsword which is twice as long as the PC is tall? Etc., etc., etc.

Again, your game, your players, etc. I use it whenever it is appropriate to the scenario. I've never had a player suggest they need to wade through a lava stream, but 10d10 damage followed by a lingering fire-effect (a version of alchemist's fire or heat metal) works fine for me. Good chance it might bring up massive damage issues and/or lingering injuries, too.

At home, we house rule that if you go below 0 HP you have to roll on a critical damage table, because now you're actually getting injured.

Good, I guess, depending on the table and your happy with the results.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Ironically, they can survive The Scroll of the Comet with around 165 HP, which I'd say is around tanking a small nuke considering the size of the crater (just in regards to the explosion, there'd still be the radiation to worry about, of course".

Not sure what that is from to be honest, never heard of it before

 

[Chaosmancer]

Well, McClain and Wick are action heroes. So you haven't seen an action hero hit by a charging rhino can get back up?

No. I have not.

What about a charging bull? That is closer to a charging minotaur--and I've seen that in movies.

Sure, maybe. Seen real-life people get tossed around by a bull. Broke bones. Some people have even died. Which, again, if a Minotaur, which is a relatively low-level threat is going to be consistently shattering bones and causing months long recovery times... the game would fundamentally stop functioning as intended.

If you make falling lethal as it shoud be, it carries narrative weight. I had a PC flung by a frost giant off a glacier into the foggy, frozen depths below... it had quite a bit of narrative weight.

Sure, which is why I uncap falling damage. Falling 6,000 feet onto shards of frozen bones from ancient beasts... that has an impact that feels right to be deadly. Falling fifty feet off a building.. less so.

Lava is always a big deal. The start of the scale is "wiping out villages and restructruring the ecosystem"

If you don't see the point that's fine. I do. The weapons, themselves, do have to be suddenly more dangerous, but the situation can make them so.

Friday night our group of PCs infiltrated a building with the bandits sleeping. Now, the weapons still did a d8, d6, or d4 (longsword, shortsword, and dagger). But, as unconscious targets, the attacks had advantage and were automatically criticals. Using our critical damage houserule, the d8 weapon dealt d8+12 (including STR mod), auto "killing" (reduce to 0 hp) the bandits with 11 hp. The d6 weapon was 2d6+9 (includes d6 sneak attack and DEX mod), minimum 11 so auto kills. Finally, the d4 weapon was the only one which wasn't auto kill: d4+5, but fortunately that PC attacked with two daggers, and the bonus action hits finished the sleeping bandits off.

Even running it RAW with double damge on crits, it would have most likely had the same results.

Now, what about sleeping PCs with 80 hp? Few humanoids will deal sufficient damage to auto kill such a PC (although massive damage might come into play...) making it virtually impossible (if not absolutely).

FWIW, I don't take PCs hostage, that was your scenario.

If the party successfully infiltrated, alerted no one, and had a bunch of helpless targets... I wouldn't even have them roll. They killed them. I don't need special rules for that.

This also, again, doesn't have anything to do with what you claimed was the problem, which was the party and the PCs metagaming how much damage they could take from a source, and therefore not finding that force threatening. That is an entirely different scenario from coup de grace'ing completely helpless foes who are completely unaware of them.

For a sleeping PC... I wouldn't kill them. I might use the normal weapon rules and get a free attack, but again as I mentioned earlier in the thread, the goal is not to kill the PCs. I don't care how "realistic" it would be for the PCs to wake up one day and three of their party members had their throats slit and those characters are now dead, it would be horrific of me to do that to the party. There is no challenge in "and now you are dead from a threat you had no idea was coming". And the goal is to challenge the Players. Not to kill their characters.

Because you weren't talking about enemies that deal a lot of damage? You were talking of a goblin with a knife or a crossbow to your head. If you have 30 hit points, RAW those aren't really risks at all.

And those examples won't drop a PC to -15 so they die outright, even using our houserules, without an even more insane amount of (bad, for the PCs) luck.

But I WAS talking about your house rule of how hitting negative Con score is instant death. Which I find to be a bad rule, because there are enemies that deal all their damage a turn in a single blow, and it is far too trivial for them to drop someone to -14 hp. You are mixing my example of "your issue with metagaming fall damage is the same as metagaming if the PCs were taken hostage" with the discussion of your houserule for instant death.

He should tell them some other adventures already dealt with it... their time (and chances) passed a long time back.

1) He doesn't want to do that
2) How do you know? He is the DM, not you.

If those are your experiences then you have nothing to worry about or change. I've seen and had players who, due to knowing their AC and hp, didn't view many things as risks. The only things they viewed as risks where very powerful foes they knew obviously were risks.

But getting back to falling. If a player knows their PC has 80 hit points, what is there to worry about a 50-foot fall? Most likely at 5d6 being 22 damage or less, barely 25% of the "resource", which can be recovered VERY EASILY in most cases.

Changing a rule to make death even easier won't freak out people who are already hyper cautious with even dropping to zero hp, let alone allowing a single death save...

Do you people? Of course that would change things. They are cautious now, making it deadlier will make them more cautious. That's how people respond to threats.

And yeah, a PC might look at a 50 ft drop and say "I can survive that". I'm fine with that. I've seen people do that in movies, and by the time that is a viable strategy for the player, we have already gotten into a very niche scenario.

Not knowing the full scenario, why not let them long rest? Sealing up a room is possible with stone shape if it has a small enough door/entry.


Why would the DM tell you anything unless it was actually happening??? As DM, I would just let the time pass if you decided to rest, and let you find out what happens when you cast stone shape again to unseal the door...

Ok, so that is more the scenario: being under a "time crunch".

Why did I not let them long rest? Because it was unneeded and would have made us lose. Because me and the DM both did not want the group to take an 8 hour nap when we just needed to spend some Hit Die and still had most of our spells.

This again goes back to "why I would not want to have it even easier to kill players in combat" because people like this are already treating the game like being below max resources requires a rest. I don't want a 5-minute work day. And making it so you don't even want to hit having 30 hp left towards the end of a high level fight, and therefore will want to plan to be as close to max as possible, would just make those things worse.

 

[Chaosmancer]

View attachment 365859

Just wanted to say, cool map. Very chill

 

[CleverNickName]

Late to the thread, and I see we're already talking about physics, but here's how I do it: damage for every 10 feet fallen and no cap, just like several others have mentioned. But I roll a single die and multiply it--I don't roll dozens of dice and add them up. This makes the damage very swingy, which I narrate as good/bad luck (instead of saves or skill checks).

For a fall from a 300-foot cliff, the damage will be 1d6x30, not 30d6. So the PC has a 1-in-6 chance of taking only 30 damage, and equal odds of taking 180 damage. If I roll low damage, they got lucky and something broke their fall... if I roll max, they had a really bad landing.