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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4001056" data-attributes="member: 143">I think falling damage is one area where the abstractions that surround damage in D&D falls down (pardon the pun) a bit. I know it's supposed to be a "heroic" game and while I can visualize amazing spells and deadly sword blows (in part because the character has a chance to dodge/roll with it/avoid the attack), falling 60' and walking away without serious injury is harder. In part because of the d6/10' rule, which doesn't take into effect the fact that falls get more serious the farther you plummet.I remember an old variant rule, I think it was in Dragon, where you added a cumulative dice of damage with each 10' you fell. So 10' remained d6, but then 20' was 3d6, 30' 6d6, and so on until you hit terminal velocity (20d6) at 60'. I only used that system in one campaign, and it has its disadvantages, but it does make players less cavalier about things like pits. I can certainly see the justification for D&D's simple 1d6/10' rule. Maybe it is best if we keep it "heroic"; it allows for silly but fun situations were a player can leap off a building, splat, and dust himself off before resuming the chase of the bad guy. Sort of like Claire in "Heroes". <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />* * * * * Chapter 339GRAVITY’S A BITCHDar kicked off with both legs and lunged.  His hand snapped around Allera’s wrist like an iron shackle, arresting her fall and swinging her in an arc that came back to the rope dangling below him.  The healer grabbed onto it with her other hand, taking the weight off him. Letellia would have had a much more unpleasant end to her trip down had it not been for Alderis.  The elf, floating above, cast his feather fall spell on the sorceress, which arrested her descent about halfway down toward the base of the cliffs.  She still landed awkwardly, bouncing off the slope as the base of the hill jutted out from the near-sheer face of the cliffs higher up, but the injuries were trivial compared to a full-force impact, and her stoneskin protected her from any scrapes that the sharp rocks would have inflicted.  Once he had verified that Allera had a good grip, Dar pulled himself up the last remaining feet to the top of the cliff.  Once he had helped Allera up to join him, he turned on Talen.  “What the hell was that?”Talen shrugged.  “Hedder was trying to help the sorceress; he did not mean to startle her.”  The vampire bandit, standing behind his master, smiled and shifted slightly, but he looked anything but abashed.  There was a tense moment as the two—man and vampire—faced off on the narrow ridge at the mound’s crest.  Finally Allera took Dar’s arm, and he turned to look down to where Letellia had recovered below. “Just tie the rope into a sling, I’ll pull you up!” Dar yelled down to her.  But Letellia had apparently lost all interest in rock climbing; a moment later she vanished, materializing next to them as her dimension door closed behind her. “So much for conserving our resources,” Calla said.  “You will be silent, unless I seek your counsel,” Talen said.  The girl vampire shot a malevolent gaze at him, and stalked sullenly off, treading the narrow and treacherous lip of the crest as though it was a broad boulevard.  Of course, she did not have to fear falling. “I am sorry I did not help,” Varo said, coming up from a stone outcrop that jutted down and out over the water.  There was more space to stand there, and Shay and two of the vampire bandits were perched on its edge, looking up at those on the crest.  “I was distracted by the next problem.”The cleric’s words drew their attention into the crater, where the surface of the small lake within glistened brightly in the light of their torches.  The pool was over ninety feet long and sixty feet across, and if it extended as far down as the exterior of the mountain, it had to be over forty feet deep.  There was no sign of the creature that Shay had spotted, but the water still seemed anything but inviting. “Well, cleric, time to call upon your god,” Talen said.  Varo ignored him, walking back down to the edge of the outcrop.  Shay held her ground, but the vampire bandits took a step back as Varo lifted his divine focus from the chain around his neck, and held it out over the water.”Dagos invotatus,” the cleric said, his voice pitched low, “Custodis divinus, open the way.”The lake obeyed his command.  The control water spell seemed to push the waters down and away, first one foot, two, and then more quickly, five feet, ten, fifteen, twenty.  As the waters receded, they could see the steep inner slope of the caldera, slick with crusted growths and clinging moisture. They also saw the lake’s inhabitant.  “Big sucker,” Needles said, his voice breaking off into a mad cackle.  Talen shot a hard look at the former bandit, then back down.  The thing was big, over twenty-five feet from head to tail.  It was a fish of some sort, its hide an ugly mottled gray, uneven and broken.  At first they got only a quick look at it before it sank again below the water, but as Varo’s spell continued to press the surface down it emerged again, this time enough to recognize the distinctive fins protruding from its back and sides.  “A dire shark,” Shay said.  “It is not alive,” Allera said.  As the body of the creature peaked above the surface they could see the truth of the healer’s words; there were great swathes along its body where the flesh had parted, revealing bones underneath.  But the great shark continued to move, animated to serve as a guardian for this place.  Varo let out a tired sigh as the control water ended, leaving the level of the lake over thirty feet lower than where it had started.  The lake had shrunk to a fraction of its original size, and was now barely large enough to hold the shark.  It thrashed about in the limited space, revealing different parts of its body as it rose and fell beneath the reduced surface of the lake.  As it lifted its head, they could see its milky white dead eyes, and jaws big enough to swallow a man whole without difficulty. “All right, let’s kill that bastard,” Dar said, unlimbering his heavy bow.  He’d lost his magical quiver, but he still had a small bundle of arrows he’d stashed in his pack.  “Arrows will not do much good,” Varo said.  “It is a zombie; it will have to be hacked apart.”The vampires, however, were already attacking, taking up large rocks and hurling them down upon the zombie.  The undead bandits hooted in derision at the creature, and while most of the missiles splashed loudly in the water or glanced harmlessly off the flanks of the thing, at least one in the initial barrage scored a significant hit, sinking hard into the shark’s snout with enough force to crack the spongy cartilage. Alderis lifted a wand, and started firing magic missiles into the creature.  The glowing bolts streaked unerringly into the monster’s body, blasting pits into its rotting flesh.  The elf’s expression seemed utterly absorbed, and he kept uttering the command word to the device, firing more and more of the magical darts into the caldera. The shark, unable to escape, simply absorbed the barrage.  Dar lowered his bow, and turned to Talen, who watched as his minions continued their attacks.  Drudge and Utar nearly followed a boulder that they dislodged and rolled down into the pit; both vampires laughed as they pulled themselves back up from their precarious position.  The boulder clattered loudly into the caldera, bouncing off of the cliff walls several times before it splashed loudly into the water adjacent to the shark’s tail. “Any enemy within ten leagues is going to know we’re here, if they don’t already,” Dar said.  Talen laughed.  “Let them have their fun.  Do not fear; you will be fighting for your life soon enough.  It is rare to face a foe in Rappan Athuk with an advantage such as this.  You should savor the opportunity.”Dar turned back as Hedder thrust past Allera, carrying a rock twice the size of his head.  The vampire hurled it out over the pit; the ungainly missile plummeted down and hit the shark squarely in the center of its spine.  The water around it cushioned the force of the impact, but they could see the stone jutting from its back, embedded in the battered frame of its body.  More magic missiles blasted into it; at least a dozen blackened spots covered its body where Alderis’s shots had struck it.  Allera watched with a look of disgust; it was not clear whether her feelings were directed more at the vampires, or the undead monstrosity below.  At one point she looked up to see Varo staring at her; the cleric nodded at her meaningfully. Talen surprised them with a sudden yell.  All of them spun to see the vampire knight draw his sword, and their surprise was eclipsed yet further as he leapt forward, out into pit.  The armored vampire plummeted like a stone; below the shark, perhaps sensing the approach a foe within its reach, reared up, its clenching jaws turning the water around it into white froth.  Talen struck it in the head between and above its eyes, and as he sank into its wasted body he brought his sword down in a blinding arc.  There was a blur of movement, and then Talen was flung away.  He hit the caldera wall hard, but landed on his feet, balancing on a steeply slanting rock shelf before gravity could pull him down and forward.  Water sprayed over him from the shark’s frenetic thrashings.  Half of its face had been shorn clear away; the entire upper part of its jaws were gone, and only one eye remained, clinging to a jagged strip of flesh.  A few more rocks hit it, and a final blast of magic missiles, but it was clear they marked only the dénouement of the scene, as the zombie shark’s struggles were already fading.  Finally its movements ceased, as the unholy force that had animated it fled.  Talen leapt down into water that swirled up to his chest.  The shark carcass had sunk into the water, but it was clearly draining away, revealing more of the creature as it receded.  Talen splashed around its body, finally stopping near a black slab sunk into the surrounding rock that became more visible as the waters fell.  The slab was cracked, either by the shark’s death throes or by one of the boulders hurled down from above.  Talen laughed as he looked up at the others gathered around the caldera’s edge, fifty feet above.  “Come on down,” he shouted up at them.  “The water’s fine.”</blockquote>

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