D&D General How Do You Handle Falling Damage?

[GrimCo]

There are far too many variables to account for damage in a fall. (height, velocity, angle, wind resistance, and more). Far too difficult and time consuming to replicate in game so as with all things we have to pick what works at our table. Maybe the information below can help if you want something grittier. If not I am sure you will find something that works for you.

Published studies seem to agree that falls of 15m (50 feet) result in approximately 50% fatalities.
A fall from 23.8m (78 feet) results in an approximately 90% fatality rate.

While there are cases of falls from extreme heights where a person survives it would be more a result of extreme good luck than planning, skill, or health of the individual involved.

I used those statistics to create simple system. Under 50 feet, d10 damage per 10 feet. 50-98, you need to roll higher than height you fall from (so 78 feet, you roll d100, survive on 79+). On success you are at 0 hp and doing death saves. On fail, dead. 99+ feet, you need 100 on d100 to survive. So there is always chance to get lucky and beat the odds.

 

[Quartz]

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.

This is the perfect example of a non-combat use for the Fighter's Action Surge. "I failed to catch the ledge / falling PC? I'll Action Surge and try again."

 

[Oofta]

Which I like using inspiration. Make high falls deadly regardless of number of HP, but have an option for modeling extreme good luck.

Roll a percentile dice? Start at 90% chance of death at 100 feet, increment it up to 99% once you get past 500 feet might work.

 

[ezo]

Right now we are doing the standard RAW method, but with a twist:

You have to make a Dexterity saving throw (DC = 10 + number of dice) or the damage rolled is dealt to your MAXIMUM hit points FIRST, and then AGAIN to your remaining hit points. The Dex save can be made with advantage for soft surface or disadvantage for hard or broken surfaces. Success indicates you take the damage as normal without reduction to maximum HP.

Example #1: your PC (max HP 27) falls 30 feet and fails the Dex save. The damage rolled is 12, reducing your max HP to 15 (27-12), and you then suffer the 12 damage to your current max HP 15, leaving you with 3 hit points.

Obviously, you can be healed from 3 hp, but only up to the current max HP 15. So, you need a long rest or more powerful healing to restore you to your normal max HP 27. This sort of mirrors lingering injury.

Example #2: the same PC falls 50 feet, fails the DEX save, and takes 19 damage. His max HP is reduced from 27 to 8 (yikes) and applying the 19 again reduces him to 0, unconscious, and making death saves.

Example #3: the same PC falls 100 feet and fails the DEX save, taking 39 damage. HIs max HP is reduced to 0, and he dies instantly.

While this is extreme (falling should be deadly IMO), it helps with the 20th-level Barbarian with 245 hp. Since the Dex save DC is 30, he fails and 70 damage average, knocking his max HP to 175 and his current HP down another 70 to 105. Yeah, he survives and can "walk away", but ouch!!!

Exhaustion is another way to go in 5E and what we've been exploring for a while, but is more complex...

1. Roll a number of 6's equal to fall distance per 10 feet. The total is the damage in hit points. Maximum 20 dice.
2. Each roll of 4 or higher is a level of exhaustion and a reroll of the die for possible additional exhaustion (but NOT damage!), continuing until a 3 or lower is rolled.
3. Remove 1 level of exhaustion for each CON modifier.
4. Allow a DC 15 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to reduce the levels by half (round down).
5. Grant advantage on the Dex check for softer surfaces and disadvantage for very hard or broken, sharp surfaces.

Spoiler: EXAMPLE #1: 50 feet

Your PC falls 50 feet. The DM rolls 5d6, counting each 4+ on a die as a level of exhaustion as the surface is hard-dirt, AND rolling another die for another possible level (continuously).

STEP 1: The DM rolls: 2, 3, 6, 1, 6 for 18 damage and 2 levels of exhaustion and 2 additional rolls.

STEP 2: the extra rolls are 3, 4; for another level of exhaustion and another roll: 3 (ending the process). A total of THREE levels of exhaustion (bolded numbers).

STEP 3: The PC has a CON 12, with a +1 modifier, reducing the exhaustion by 1 level to two levels of exhaustion.

STEP 4: The player rolls the DC 15 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check and fails. There is no advantage or disadvantage due to the surface.

So, the PC survived the fall (assuming the 18 damage didn't kill them), has disadvantage on ability checks and half speed.

Spoiler: EXAMPLE #2: 100 feet

Your PC falls 100 feet into water.

STEP 1: The DM rolls 10d6: 1, 3, 2, 6, 3, 1, 4, 5, 3, 4 for 32 damage and 4 levels of exhaustion and 4 additional rolls

STEP 2: additional rolls are 6, 3, 3, 6; for 2 additional levels of exhaustion and another 2 rolls: 1, 2 (end).

STEP 3: This PC has CON 14, so removes 2 levels of exhaustion, making it 4 levels of exhaustion and the 32 damage.

STEP 4: Since the surface is water, the DM grants advantage to the DC 15 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check, which the player barely succeeds! This reduces the levels of exhaustion by half, to 2 levels.

Again, another survivor, but thankfully that water helped! Only disadvantage on ability checks and half speed until a couple long rests restores the PC (along with the 32 damage).

Spoiler: EXAMPLE #3: 150 feet

Your PC falls 150 feet onto broken, rocky ground!

STEP 1: The DM rolls 15d6: 6, 2, 3, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 6, 4, 1, 3, 2, 5 for 52 damage and SEVEN levels of exhaustion and 7 additional rolls!

STEP 2: The seven extra rolls are 4, 2, 3, 6, 6, 3, 3; for three more levels of exhaustion and three more rolls: 4, 1, 4. Yikes! We are up to 12 levels of exhaustion now (7+3+2) and 2 more rolls: 3, 2 (end).

STEP 3: This (luckily) hardy PC has CON 16, reducing the exhaustion to 9 levels.

STEP 4: The player has disadvantage on the DC 15 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check and fails! Even if the PC survived the 52 damage, the exhaustion killed them.

Had the player succeeded, the exhaustion would have been reduced to 4 levels (disadvantage on ability checks, attacks, and saves, half speed, half maximum HP).

Obviously, this can make far falls lethal quickly, but adds a nice bit of danger to falling IMO.

 

[Lanefan]

If/when I run D&D again, I'm thinking of homebrewing so that falling damage maxes at 12d6 but has a percentage chance of system shock. If you fail the percentile roll, you die instantly, but you can spend an inspiration to go to 0 and start making death saving throws instead. The question is what should be the chance of insta-death. I would like to say 95% but perhaps that is not in the spirit of 5e. Also, it might just be more elegant to say insta-death for any fall over 120 feet but you can spend inspiration to instead turn that into 0 HP with death saves.

In either case, for falls of over 1000 feet you're still taking what should be 1-in-[a huge number] odds of survival and turning it into 1-in-20 (in your system shock system) or even better in your inspiration-death-saves system (players would hoard inspiration to cover against just this, and the odds of surviving death saves are better than 1/20).

Falls are one situation that screams out for a body-fatigue or wound-vitality hit points system: body/wound points don't change with level, and ideally all falling damage would bypass fatigue (or vitality) points and go straight to bodies (or wounds). With this, straight 1d6 per 10 feet fallen works well, capped at 20d6 or even lower; and a rule saying that you auto-survive if all the dice come up 1s neatly covers off the rare miraculous survival piece for long falls and allows a chance for even a low-level character to survive a much shorter fall that would otherwise likely kill it.

 

[Rabulias]

I have a probably far-too-complicated method that I do not need to use often. I tell my players falling -- even a short fall -- can be deadly, so try not to fall. On the other hand, there are the (extremely rare) examples of folks surviving falls from great heights. I wanted to model both possibilities.

It tops out at a base of 20d20, but each die can explode on certain values with no limit. A successful DC 15 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check allows you to remove up to 2 dice (after rolling but before exploding). If you are extremely lucky, you can fall 200 or more feet and only take 18 points. If you are extremely unlucky, you could fall 10 feet and die from massive damage.

Height	Damage	Explodes On		Height	Damage	Explodes On
10 feet	1d6	6		110 feet	11d20	15+
20 feet	2d10	10		120 feet	12d20	15+
30 feet	3d20	19+		130 feet	13d20	14+
40 feet	4d20	19+		140 feet	14d20	14+
50 feet	5d20	18+		150 feet	15d20	13+
60 feet	6d20	18+		160 feet	16d20	13+
70 feet	7d20	17+		170 feet	17d20	12+
80 feet	8d20	17+		180 feet	18d20	12+
90 feet	9d20	16+		190 feet	19d20	11+
100 feet	10d20	16+		200 feet	20d20	11+

 

[Raiztt]

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.

I find it much too lenient, so I don't cap it, and I also use D10s, because I like the synergy of rolling a D10 for every 10 feet fallen. But I do allow a skill check against acrobatics for half damage, DC depending on access to potential means to break the fall, and a natural 20 means that you survive no matter how far you fell (it does happen).

I don't cap it, and if I think the fall is unsurvivable they just die.

 

[Blue]

 

[MNblockhead]

In either case, for falls of over 1000 feet you're still taking what should be 1-in-[a huge number] odds of survival and turning it into 1-in-20 (in your system shock system) or even better in your inspiration-death-saves system (players would hoard inspiration to cover against just this, and the odds of surviving death saves are better than 1/20).

Falls are one situation that screams out for a body-fatigue or wound-vitality hit points system: body/wound points don't change with level, and ideally all falling damage would bypass fatigue (or vitality) points and go straight to bodies (or wounds). With this, straight 1d6 per 10 feet fallen works well, capped at 20d6 or even lower; and a rule saying that you auto-survive if all the dice come up 1s neatly covers off the rare miraculous survival piece for long falls and allows a chance for even a low-level character to survive a much shorter fall that would otherwise likely kill it.

Yeah, the more I think about it, I would not have any roll to survive. After a certain distance you are dead unless you spend inspiration. I'm not worried about hoarding inspiration, because I've always used inspiration as a binary. You have it, or you don't. I don't mind players holding on to it. That's what it is for. Hold on to it until it is really needed. My problem with inspiration is that it has always felt pretty lackluster. Get advantage on a roll. Okay, fine. But I like to find other more interesting and flavorful uses. If I were to use inspiration to allow you to spend inspiration to go into death saves instead of instadeaths, and other similar heroic-incredible-luck-miracle uses like this, I would end my normal practice of players being able to give other players their inspiration. Or maybe not. I'd talk to the players first and see what works for them. Besides, at higher levels there are abilities and spells that greatly mitigate the risk of falling damage.

Personally, I like the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4e system of Fate, Fortune, Resiliency, and Resolve metacurrency. But I think that works better in a more deadly system like WFRP than D&D 5e. But I don't want to derail a D&D thread with discussion of another system.

 

[MNblockhead]

I have a probably far-too-complicated method that I do not need to use often. I tell my players falling -- even a short fall -- can be deadly, so try not to fall. On the other hand, there are the (extremely rare) examples of folks surviving falls from great heights. I wanted to model both possibilities.

It tops out at a base of 20d20, but each die can explode on certain values with no limit. A successful DC 15 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check allows you to remove up to 2 dice (after rolling but before exploding). If you are extremely lucky, you can fall 200 or more feet and only take 18 points. If you are extremely unlucky, you could fall 10 feet and die from massive damage.

Height	Damage	Explodes On		Height	Damage	Explodes On
10 feet	1d6	6		110 feet	11d20	15+
20 feet	2d10	10		120 feet	12d20	15+
30 feet	3d20	19+		130 feet	13d20	14+
40 feet	4d20	19+		140 feet	14d20	14+
50 feet	5d20	18+		150 feet	15d20	13+
60 feet	6d20	18+		160 feet	16d20	13+
70 feet	7d20	17+		170 feet	17d20	12+
80 feet	8d20	17+		180 feet	18d20	12+
90 feet	9d20	16+		190 feet	19d20	11+
100 feet	10d20	16+		200 feet	20d20	11+

This is the type of thing I'm far more willing to use now that I run my games in Foundry. I'd create a macro for this that prompts me for the distance fallen and then it would automate the rest.