D&D 4E How should falling be handled in 4E?

[IceFractal]

Just a minor point, but I've noticed that faster-than-linear falling damage (such as 1d6 for 10', 3d6 for 20', 6d6 for 30') is often listed as being more accurate. However, it's actually the reverse - falling damage should scale slower than distance.

Reason:
1) Damage is presumably proportional to force.
2) The force is directly proportional to the velocity right before hitting the ground.
3) V = D / sqrt(D / 32), because V = 32T and D = 32T^2
4) So as you can see, velocity, and therefore force, scale at a slower than linear rate with distance - and if we were being realistic, so should damage. This isn't even taking terminal velocity into account.

Some quick figures:
After falling 10': 17.9 fps
After falling 50': 40 fps
After falling 100': 56.6 fps
After falling 150': 69.2 fps
After falling 200': 80 fps

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Don't forget, people have fallen thousands of feet, and lived. This isn't just Urban Myth, but documented. So it is possible for people to survive huge falls.

From a quick Google search I found cases of people surviving falls from great heights, but they all seem to have an obvious reason they might have survived; falling in wreckage of plane - wreckage provides greater drag and absorbs some of the force upon impact, falling into deep snow or trees, failed parachute etc.

The one that seems most incredible so far that I found is a B-17 gunner who jumped from his plane without a chute. He fell 20,000 feet and survived after hitting an angled skylight on a rooftop - which he didn't crash through.

This must be the reason why so many fantasy PCs wear travelling cloaks - to provide drag when they fall.

 

[gizmo33]

Reason:
1) Damage is presumably proportional to force.

This is the only part of this that I question. We're talking about biological systems here, so the force require to break ribs and stave them into someone's internal organs is some X factor - force short of that X-factor is going to cause signicantly less damage to a creature than one beyond it.

 

[gizmo33]

Meaningfully in that you can react not just mentally but physically. Accelerating your body enough to generate a miss takes effort.

AFAICT This misses the point of what the concept of "hit points" represents. The "coup de grace" rules look like they do for this reason. In those rules, there's no question that the person taking the damage is not doing any sort of accelerating (or moving at all). Being hit with a fireball and standing in the same square and yet surviving is another example.

Dodging/parrying 200 arrows (roughly equivalent to taking a 10d6 fall) is vastly beyond human strength.

In what way can you possibly establish that these two things are equivalent? I just don't think there is enough to say anything meaningful in terms of Newtonian physics about what hitpoints, damage and all the rest means in DnD.

 

[jolt]

...I propose the following rule:

If you fall, you die.*

Man, those trip attacks are going to be nasty!

jolt

 

[WhimsyTheFae]

How about a more heroic ruling: 1 point of damage per 10' fallen. Only low level characters (or damaged characters) would risk dying from a fall. PCs would be jumping off cliffs left and right, it would be awesome...no really.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I like the option in post #28, if it's combined with the pyramid damage (1d6 at 10 feet, 3d6 at 20 feet, ... appropriately capped). That is deadly, but don't forget "Action Points". If you have an action point, then you have conveniently placed snow or skylight or whatever that means you aren't dead. Just remember what happened to one of those real-life WWII guys.

He hit small successive tree limbs before plunging into a deep snow bank, just outside of Switzerland. He broke both legs. The Germans prompty captured him. He had no parachute. The Germans were ready to shoot him as a spy (assuming that he had snuck across the border posing as a downed pilot). He had to do some extremely fast talking.

So remember, it could take two action points. One to survive the fall, and one to deal with the fallout.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

You do realize that most of your examples are a product of various safety equipment being used like fly wires, crush cartons, mattresses, etc and the safety equipment is edited out.

It is best not to cite movies as proof considering how far the magnificent art of special effects has advanced.

Normally, yes. However Jackie Chan's work tends to be sans the wire-fu of most stunt action.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Just curious, how was 210d6 arrived at?

 

[ShinHakkaider]

You do realize that most of your examples are a product of various safety equipment being used like fly wires, crush cartons, mattresses, etc and the safety equipment is edited out.

It is best not to cite movies as proof considering how far the magnificent art of special effects has advanced.

In most movies yes, in those movies no.

I told you the most that was used in both of those cited stunts were packed earth at the base of those falls, jumps thats it.

You can believe or not believe if you've want but I've seen both of those movies enough times and multiple documentaries on how jackie chan and his stunt team actually do their stunts to know that back in the early 80's when they made their best films that those two particular stunts were the real deal which is why I was specific.