Saving the multiverse from the bane of the d20 System

[Numion]

A short fall must be survivable by a commoner

An adult commoner (say, Com3, 10 hit points) can be killed by a 10 foot fall if they've gotten hurt earlier in the day, but can also sometimes survive (albeit with broken bones) falls up to 30 feet.

To pick a nit, the national safety council statistics show that falls on the same level, down stairs, involving bed or furniture or ladders are quite common causes of death. I'd consider those falls to be within the 10ft range.

Or what were you saying? As the rules are written, commoners can survive small falls. Or they can die.

Why would you want to roll the dice when every commoner falls, though?

 

[takyris]

I was saying that I liked how the rules as written applied to falls by first-level commoners. For first-level players, the rules work pretty well. A 1st level barbarian with a high Con might very well think a 30 ft. fall isn't that bad -- he can use Jump to drop it to 20 ft., which he can easily survive, with some degree of damage.

But a 5th level barbarian doesn't even bother to jump to shorten the falling distance. And a 5th level wizard can survive that fall without much trouble.

So my first rule was basically, "Don't change it so much that a 10 ft. fall is a ton more dangerous than it is right now."

-Tacky

 

[Psion]

Simple system I considered that probably doesn't handle all the eventualities, but is a step in the right direction:

Add 1d6 damage to falling damage for each class level past first, not more than doubling the base damage.

(If you want to consider all of the character's hp is combat experience, instead of 1d6 use the characer's HD type... but that raises the sticky question of multiclass characters.)

P.S. And yes, this probably does belong in house rules.

 

[RangerWickett]

The solution.

Your Constitution represents how healthy and physically fit you are. A low Con means you're fragile and prone to injury.

Whenever you take damage from a source that cannot be avoided, you take Constitution damage in addition to hit point damage. Things like falling out of a plane, being chained up and tossed in a vat of acid, or having a dagger shoved through your chest while you're sleeping.

If you have a chance to avoid the injury, you only take hit point damage.

Thus, for every 10 feet you fall down a slope, you take 1d6 points of hit point damage.

For every 10 feet you fall with no slope, you take 1d6 points of Constitution damage.

If you have a sheer surface, like a vertical cliff, allow a Climb check (DC 35 I think is the norm) to catch yourself and take hit point damage. Otherwise you take Constitution damage.

 

[Sulimo]

I never understood WHY people want realism THAT badly. Sure it's nice when characters ACT realistically, and magic has some realistic LIMITS. But come on. If people HATE d20 that much, no sense in trying to change their opinions. Gamers are almost as bad as fundementalist when it comes to stuff they believe in. Changing their minds...I'd rather try converting Slitheren.

I really like realism (or grittiness) personally, thats one of the reasons why our groups system of choice has been Rolemaster. That said I also like the change of pace that the superheroics of D&D (esp 3e) gives me. Still there are a few thinsg that still bother me (its probably from playing too much Rolemaster)...the main one being that characters fight at 100% effectiveness till they pass out.

In any case I hope the industry can survive well enough that both styles of games can survive and coexist happily.

 

[Agback]

I never understood WHY people want realism THAT badly. Sure it's nice when characters ACT realistically

Sadly, my experience is that when the chips are down, players follow the incentives of the rules. When they have a vampire coming at them from one direction and five mummies coming at them from another direct, they aren't going to treat the seventy-foot fall out the window as certain death.

Realistic falling rules aren't really supposed to kill lots of characters. They're supposed to stop them from jumping.

When I was playing through the original 'Ravenloft' module we were using realistic falling rules, so none of us jumped out the window and all of us got killed. So the rules worked. Pity about the module design.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Grazzt]

Ryan Dancey posted (I believe it was him) on GamingReport or RPG.net or somewhere (in the forums) that falling damage should deal ability score damage to the person falling. I can't recall if he specified which abilities should take damage, but if its Con, then a Commoner can survive depending on Con and a high level fighter can still die (depending again on Con and ability damage sustained).

 

[Capellan]

Sadly, my experience is that when the chips are down, players follow the incentives of the rules. When they have a vampire coming at them from one direction and five mummies coming at them from another direct, they aren't going to treat the seventy-foot fall out the window as certain death.

It probably wasn't intended as such, but I hereby tender this as exhibit A in my thesis "D&D is designed like an action movie".

Because lets face it: how many movies have you seen where the good guys leap for their lives from the nearest window? To me, the fact that they would do the same thing in a game of D&D is not a "sad" thing at all - it's a good one, since it is true to the genre.

Don't get me wrong: grim 'n' gritty gaming is great (mmm ... alliterative), but I don't think D&D is a particularly suitable choice of system if that's what you want to play ... Warhammer FRP comes to mind as a system which is better designed for that kind of thing.

Note that I'm also not saying that D&D can't handle mature, sophisticated games - Sep's and Piractecat's games prove the lie of that straight away - but it does tend to handle them in a way that reflects its "larger than life" scale.

Which is just fine by me

 

[MerricB]

Don't forget that our current system of falling damage is the result of an editing error.

The original system (that pops up in Dragon and UA) was as follows:

You take 1d6 damage for the first 10' fallen
You take 2d6 damage for the second 10' fallen (thus 3d6 for 20')
You take 3d6 damage for the third 10' fallen (thus 6d6 for 30')
and so on, with a maximum cap of 20d6

A 40' deep pit inflicts 10d6 damage!

Personally, I much prefer this system. Add it to massive damage, and falling becomes a bit... dangerous!

Cheers!

 

[GruTheWanderer]

Crazier things have happened

Numion was right to nitpick about one end of the spectrum (really short falls can kill people). But I need to nitpick about the other end. People have survived falls of more the 22,000 feet (although you reach terminal velocity after 1,800 feet, so above that the distance is somewhat irrelevant). Sometimes it is because they landed in snow drifts or trees, and they often suffered serious injuries, but it is not always fatal. So why should it be so for heroes?

Details here:
http://members.aol.com/MercStG/FFAccPage1.html