Jeff/kerrick: Regarding rate of fall, granted but I was referring to practical falling scenarios, and as Ashtagon pointed out, the difference is negligible at the distance we are discussing. I barely remember the science behind all this, just the main lessons (i.e. things basically fall at 1g).
Yeah, in the vast majority of scenarios (i.e., unless you're involved in aerial combat), there's no real difference.
Kerrick: I know about the amazing falls, and that contributes to my personal "buy in" to the half damage thing. But I consider those scenarios "crazy and heroic" in our own world. Cause the rest of us commoners just go SPLAT-KRUNCH!!!!
PS-Kerrick, I just read your blog post about Phoenix...is that your project? Cause I keep waiting for more/am interested in the "final product". I'm preparing to do essentially the same thing with my group as we all poo-pooed 4E.
It is. Check the link in my sig - that's got several files I've posted for review/testing, more information on Phoenix, and more design diary entries (which I've started crossposting here to gain more visibility).
And speaking of aerial combat... here's an excerpt of those rules I wrote awhile back, regarding falling (you can read the whole thing
here):
[sblock]
Falling is the single greatest threat to an airborne creature, especially one without the ability to fly on its own. Under rare circumstances, a falling creature can land in an area that might break its fall, to the point where it suffers little to no injury. Such circumstances are ultimately up to the DM, but can provide a way to save unlucky PCs who fell through no fault of their own – bad die rolls, bad luck, etc., or to provide a warning to incautious players.
Contrary to popular belief, water will not break a fall – water has surface tension and does not compress like normal soil (the ground has a certain "give", whereas water doesn't), so falling onto water from a great enough height is just like falling onto stone. Even if a falling creature does somehow survive a fall into water from a great height, he still has to contend with drowning.
Trees are the best way to slow/break a fall – conifers (pines, firs, etc.) are the best among these, because they usually grow close together, and their branches point mostly downward, which means a falling body won't get caught on them. Deep snow is, obviously, also a good way to break a fall, as are thick bushes/brush, or mud (swamps), as opposed to water. Trees, brush, snow, etc. can reduce the damage from a fall by up to 90% (DM's discretion as to degree).
A falling flying creature requires a certain amount of space to recover; once it gets too close to the ground, however, it loses the chance to pull out of its fall, and it hits the ground. The table below shows the minimum distance a creature of a given size must be from the ground to be able to pull out of a fall or dive without actually hitting the ground.
Code:
Size Min. Dist.
Tiny and below 5 ft.
Small 10 ft.
Medium 15 ft.
Large 20 ft.
Huge 25 ft.
Gargantuan 30 ft.
Colossal 35 ft.
Even if a creature is within the minimum distance, it can still attempt a DC 20 Reflex save to slow its fall slightly, taking less damage. The DC remains the same; if the save is successful, the creature takes 2d6 fewer dice of damage, plus 1d6 per 10 points by which its check result exceeds 20. In most cases, this won't matter, since the creature will likely die anyway, but it can help for shorter falls.
Falling Speed
Terminal velocity is around 165 ft./second. For game purposes, a falling object reaches terminal velocity on the third round – on the first round it reaches the 50% mark, or around 80 ft./second (500 feet); by the end of the second round, it's reached 99%, or around 160 ft./second (960 feet), and at the beginning of its turn on the third round, it's falling at 165 ft./second. This equates to:
First round: 480 feet (round to 500 feet);
Second round: 960 feet (round to 950 feet);
Third round+: 990 feet (round to 1,000).
A person falling from 5,000 feet would fall for five rounds and hit the ground on the sixth. If it were a flying creature, it could attempt to pull out of the fall during its turn on the sixth round instead.
It is possible to achieve speeds greater than terminal velocity – a skydiver in freefall position can fall up to 200 mph, as opposed to 120 mph for terminal velocity, by decreasing the amount of drag – but this system assumes that falling creatures are in that position unwillingly, and are thus not trying to fall faster.[/sblock]
