D&D General How Do You Handle Falling Damage?

[el-remmen]

I recently saw You Tube short that was suggesting a Falling house rule I thought was interesting. It basically called it the "Wile E. Coyote" rule.

When you begin a fall, instead of falling immediately, you don't land until the end of your current or next turn. This may not be perfectly emulating the physics/speed of falling - but the argument made was that it makes for more dramatic play as other characters (or the character themself) can take an action or reaction to stop or slow the fall or its cosequences.

I am not necessarily advocating for it (I can't even remember it precisely), but thought the general idea was interesting.

 

[Quickleaf]

I recently saw You Tube short that was suggesting a Falling house rule I thought was interesting. It basically called it the "Wile E. Coyote" rule.

When you begin a fall, instead of falling immediately, you don't land until the end of your current or next turn. This may not be perfectly emulating the physics/speed of falling - but the argument made was that it makes for more dramatic play as other characters (or the character themself) can take an action or reaction to stop or slow the fall or its cosequences.

I am not necessarily advocating for it (I can't even remember it precisely), but thought the general idea was interesting.

That's an exaggerated version, but I do something kind of similar with "falling reactions" – typically the character (or if there's someone nearby/on their path of travel) can attempt a reaction to save themself.

These aren't strictly codified, but stuff like tumbling with an Acrobatics check to halve the damage (on a short fall or intentional fall with stuff to parkour off of), attempting to grab a tree root on the cliffside or a flying creature with an Athletics check (and dropping what you held), on a big fall aiming for a landing to reduce total fall distance, etc.

When I've used it, this house rule allowed for a scene with 300-foot fall risk without immediately taking any PC falling out of the scene.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

I run it RAW. It's capped.

 

[Chaltab]

I run it mostly raw but the damage dice for Large and larger creatures is equal to their hit die instead of 1d6.

 

[el-remmen]

"falling reactions" – typically the character (or if there's someone nearby/on their path of travel) can attempt a reaction to save themself.

Yeah, I have allowed similar reactions to catch a falling ally (or catch yourself). Recently, a PC hiding behind a rock on the edge of a snowy cliff was pushed out of the way by an NPC "ally" looking to use the rock for cover for himself. I gave the PC a chance to catch themselves, but since he was holding a bow, I ruled that he had to drop it to catch himself. He succeeded but then I declared a 50/50 chance the bow falls down the cliff when let go (which it did, leading to a failed search for it when the battle was over).

 

[Blue]

I don't think I've met anyone who thinks the current RAW is a great solution. A barbarian should not be able to rage and drop a thousand feet into combat as a viable strategy.

I'm fine with RAW as a solution. We are trying to replicate the heroic fantasy genre, which is full of the cliche "if you didn't see the body, they aren't really dead". Heroes surviving great falls and washing to the banks of a river, villains tumbling down the gorge only to reappear at a later point. And if you're not a hero, villain, or massive creature, RAW will still do enough to kill you off.

Mimicking reality is at best accidentally right for the wrong reasons, when it produces the same results as the genre of the game. And this isn't one of those cases.

So yeah, I'm good with RAW.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I recently saw You Tube short that was suggesting a Falling house rule I thought was interesting. It basically called it the "Wile E. Coyote" rule.

When you begin a fall, instead of falling immediately, you don't land until the end of your current or next turn. This may not be perfectly emulating the physics/speed of falling - but the argument made was that it makes for more dramatic play as other characters (or the character themself) can take an action or reaction to stop or slow the fall or its cosequences.

I am not necessarily advocating for it (I can't even remember it precisely), but thought the general idea was interesting.

Oh that is really interesting. I wouldn't do it for short falls or jumps, but I could see doing it where someone is blasted off a cliff and saying that they don't land until the start of their next turn. That way people can do the dramatic leaping after them trope.

Hmmm. I like that a lot.

 

[el-remmen]

wouldn't do it for short falls or jumps,

Yeah, I think falls of 50 feet or more if you're generous and 100 feet or more if you want to be even close to something like reality. Of course, this system punishes falling/jumping on your own turn. I guess you fall faster when it is your intention to land

 

[Celebrim]

Mimicking reality is at best accidentally right for the wrong reasons, when it produces the same results as the genre of the game. And this isn't one of those cases.

I largely agree except that in mimicking the genre at any point before tier 4 when we are dealing with Justice League level superheroes, the hero always hesitates before making that jump and I want to capture that hesitation in the game and fiction and you can't do that with RAW.

Hense, I'm trying not so much to model reality but to model reality vaguely enough that I can capture that moment of hesitation where the player has to gulp and sweat before the jump. And thus the extra complexity.

I also want to avoid the fiat death and special slow time resolution systems being advocated as a way to get around the fact that falls strongly tend to set stakes in a way that attacks don't. There really is something subtle about how falls tend to not fit in D&D's standard FitM model of resolution.

Not that there is one right way to do this, just that this is what works for me.

 

[the Jester]

I've only ever handled it RAW, but I can't say that I'm happy with that.

This is the perfect way of putting it.

And by RAW, I include 1d6 per 10' (most editions), 1d6 per 10' cumulative (late 1e), and 1d10 per 10' (4e).

I'm not sure what kind of system I actually want for falling damage. People do sometimes survive falls from unbelievable heights.