Making falling more like lava

[El Mahdi]

[MENTION=86402]marli[/MENTION]

That's a very interesting idea, and you're right that it's very simple. I'll have to explore that a bit. I don't know what the OP thinks about it, but I like it. (For clarification though: what is "minimal" damage?)

I think that could be a very elegant solution.

 

[marli]

minimal damage...still surges I guess. 1 per 10 feet + 1 hp per 1 foot?

somthing approperate that scales

 

[Zaran]

I don't see a reason to make a rule about it. The gm says if you fall from the height you die. If the gm doesn't want them to die they can use the rules as written.

Say the hero is at the edge of a cliff and the posse is on his heels. Fighting would mean death. Jumping might have a chance of living. Do you really want to make it that much harder to survive?

 

[Kzach]

I don't see a reason to make a rule about it. The gm says if you fall from the height you die. If the gm doesn't want them to die they can use the rules as written.

Say the hero is at the edge of a cliff and the posse is on his heels. Fighting would mean death. Jumping might have a chance of living. Do you really want to make it that much harder to survive?

I honestly don't understand why people post comments like this to a house-rules forum. Don't like house-rules? Don't read 'em or post to threads about them. Forums and threads like this are for people to whom the answer to your question is yes, not no.

 

[Ritalin]

I had to register to comment on this First post Sorry, english isn't my first language.

Actually, the falling velocity is gonna increase and reach the terminal velocity when the grativity force is gonna be balanced by the drag force, which increases with speed.

The kinetic energy is equal to the potential energy All the time But the impact force can't be determined without knowing how far the chracter is gonna travel trough the terrain he falls into..

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Say the hero is at the edge of a cliff and the posse is on his heels. Fighting would mean death. Jumping might have a chance of living. Do you really want to make it that much harder to survive?

How deep does the cliff need to be?
Does a 40' cliff provide a meaningful choice when the hero is at the edge of the cliff... but not remove a character from combat if its a 40' pit that the PC gets pushed into.

Basically, once you get to higher levels and the damage of a 20' fall means nothing... does the GM ramp the distance to 40' in order to make the pit 'dangerous'... and risk trapping a non-mobility based PC at the bottom and out of combat?

IMHO, the answer is to increase the danger inherent in falling in a less level-dependant method. I think the loss of healing surges is the way to go here.

The other answer, is that the hero being changes by a posse and facing a cliff should be in a skill challenge, not in round by round inititative.

YMMV.

Regarding the whole physics thing.
The easy answer is that a creature falls 500 feet for the first round, and 1000 feet for each round after that. This is close approximation of terminal velocity and is alot easier to run in game than calculating airspeed.