D&D General How Do You Handle Falling Damage?

[Moonsoon]

Raw so far, but tbh the only time a player took max damage - terminal velocity - he died
Tbh in real life there's - rare - occurences of people surviving huge falls, so why not capping it.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I tend to concern myself as DM more with the actions of the players to avoid falling to begin with. Or if they do fall, what they do to try and save themselves as they plunge. Those are the kind of theatrical narrative hero moments that are the most interesting and compelling to play out, not the actual connection to the ground. So if when all is said and done the PCs have failed in their attempts to stop themselves or their allies from dropping the hundreds of feet, when they collide with the ground I do not concern myself with the "mechanics" of falling damage. Rather, the character has been killed and now the story becomes whether or not the rest of the group tries and finds the body and then takes what's left of it to try and get their friend raised from the dead.

I do not believe everything in the game should be mechanized. It changes what players become focused on, too often to its detriment in my opinion.

 

[GMMichael]

This came out of another discussion, but I'm curious as to how other DMs handle falling damage. Matt Mercer famously killed Marisha Rey's character Keyleth because he doesn't cap falling damage.

That's funny. I bet he caps dragonfire damage.

I use standard 1d6 damage per 10 feet, but no cap on damage taken. RAW is incredibly silly to pretend like you reach terminal velocity after only 200 feet, I'm all for suspending real life physics but that's just so far off

Well, I recall reading that the CIA expects non-recoverable injuries after a fall of at least 70 feet. So 200 feet isn't the worst number.

But more importantly: why is it called falling damage? Falling doesn't hurt. Hitting something does. It should be a matter of looking through a monster manual and deciding which monster attack (plus or minus a weapon) most resembles the end of the fall. So, it'll probably be a big monster attack, which might include spikes, a water gush, an earth-elemental slam . . .

 

[Oofta]

No limit, go to d10s after 20 feet, 10 damage per 10 feet after 50 to make it easy. Fall 100 feet or more and you die.

Or at least that's the theory. Once I tell people they will likely die if they fall and I don't care how many HP they have falling becomes something to avoid at all costs.

 

[Meech17]

So I killed my first PC with fall damage. Just doing the standard 1d6/10ft.

I had the party climbing down a rope into the ravine that holds the Sunless Citadel. I asked what order they climb down the rope in. In that moment I think they assumed that I was setting up for combat at the end of the rope, so the order ended up being Paladin, Barbarian, Sorcerer, Ranger, Wizard.

I was trying to set up a dramatic ending to the session, and the mercenary captain who led them to the ravine looked over the ledge, into the wizards eyes and said "If you don't come back with the macguffin, don't bother coming back at all" and then cut the rope. Like I said, I wanted it to be a dramatic, burning the boats type of ordeal. I said the paladin takes 1d6 damage, falling from the bottom of the rope, and each player up takes an additional die.

For most of the party the damage wasn't too bad. I think the first three players collectively took less damage than the wizard did, but she rolled really well.. Or really poorly, depending on how full you think the glass is. I think I also over estimated how many HPs a level 3 caster has. She rolled close to, if not more than 200% of her HP total. She asked if she was dead, and I said I didn't know, and that we'd talk about it.

I think I'm going to keep the 1d6 rule for the time being... But the lesson I learned was to not allow dice rolls to determine cinematic damage.

 

[Quickleaf]

My falling house rule:

Damage Die type is determined by surface, and damage is capped at 50 dice for a 500 foot fall – which approximates terminal velocity. Often, you can try a Reaction to save yourself at a cost.

d4 = water, pile of hay or other soft material
d6 = falling thru trees or thatch roofs, quicksand
d8 = solid ground

 

[Clint_L]

Raw so far, but tbh the only time a player took max damage - terminal velocity - he died
Tbh in real life there's - rare - occurences of people surviving huge falls, so why not capping it.

My issue with capping it is that falling, from any height, very soon becomes a viable strategy for most characters. For some, the damage is negligible. A raging barbarian, for example, can probably survive a fall from any height, RAW, after level 4 or so.

My falling house rule:

Damage Die type is determined by surface, and damage is capped at 50 dice for a 500 foot fall – which approximates terminal velocity. Often, you can try a Reaction to save yourself at a cost.

d4 = water, pile of hay or other soft material
d6 = falling thru trees or thatch roofs, quicksand
d8 = solid ground

Water and falling damage is weird. Past a certain speed (certainly 500' would do it) falling onto water is effectively the same as falling onto a solid surface. Water is only "soft" at slower speeds because it has time to get out of the way. At high speeds, you're effectively trying to compress the water. Water does not compress well. At all.

You could potentially survive a massive fall by hitting something that can continue to give and disperse the energy, so a big enough pile of very loose hay would be ideal. But water would be about as deadly as hitting the ground.

So I would have to house rule water. It would depend on how high the character was, and their skill in diving (acrobatics) to let them cut through it. At a low enough height, they could potentially take no damage. Past a certain height, they're just gonna die.

 

[el-remmen]

Yeah I was gonna say that I'd probably not have water start doing damage until 20 ft, but counts as the full fall damage after that point.

 

[Chaosmancer]

1d6 per ten feet. No Cap.

The rest is case by case basis with factors rarely coming into play because... well, people rarely jump or fight near ledges. I've seen acrobatics for half, I've had people ask to cast various spells as they fall, but it is just a rare occurrence.

Edit: I should say, rare above 20 ft. I've had plenty of people make 10 ft jumps and eat the d6 damage.

 

[Ancalagon]

I use the regular rules, but I very frequently adjust on the fly. Very large creatures use a bigger dice (a giant falling is bad). Flying tripped creatures take less (1d6/20 feet, as I rule they can slow down their fall somewhat). Landing on snow, granite? that will influence damage too.