D&D 5E Why is there a limit to falling damage?

[S'mon]

I read that humans reach terminal velocity at 270'.

My personal falling rule for 5e is 1 point of damage per foot fallen onto flat hard surface (5'+), capping at 250. So raging high level barbarians are still fine, but it does get damage back to 1e-style norms. I went over to that after a low level 5e dwarf cleric fell 120' and walked off the 12d6. It feels about right. I have Large take x2, Huge x4 and Gargantuan x8, so elephants do actually splat when dropped from a great height. I reckon I'll have Small take half damage (1 pt per 2' fallen) - it's not come up yet, but would be a nice boost for halflings & gnomes.

Edit: For 5e I tend to have most normal humans have at least 5-8 hp, I think that fits best with eg the animal stats. So a 10' pit is rarely fatal, unless you're a Wiz-1 with a CON penalty! By contrast in B/X RAW a 10' pit does 1d6 and an M-U 1 or Normal Man has 1d4 hp and dies at 0 hp, which feels a bit too 'world of cardboard' to me.

 

[Tormyr]

The answer is not terminal velocity. That happens a considerable distance after this.

This came up in game when a player whose PC was a barbarian came to gorge 1,500' deep and said, "Yeah, I'll just step off."

I asked if they were committing suicide, because this was going to kill the PC. "Nope," the player replied, "The barbarian will survive the fall."

I stated unequivocally the PC would die - yes, I was aware of the rule - yes, I guess this is a ruling outside the rules, and therefore, a house rule that was unannounced. However, I countered, the player was exploiting player knowledge of the rules to benefit his PC.

So, that's where this question comes from - what purpose does the limit on falling damage serve? What am I missing?

I do remember the falling damage rules debates from the early Dragons and the subsequent ban on articles and letters on falling damage. Just reviving an old D&D tradition: Let's debate falling damage!

I had similar annoyances, so I wrote up some alternate falling damage rules a while back. They are loosely based on falling velocity over distance for a 6-foot-tall person. The damage is a fixed number based on distance. A falling creature can use its reaction to reduce the damage by the value of a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. Creatures that fall on purpose have advantage on the check. Creatures take more damage the larger they are, cats and winged creatures take damage based on one size class lower than their size.

The end result is that falling is more deadly, but there is a decent chance of taking little to no damage over short falls. A commoner has a 50% of taking no damage from a fall, or it could kill them. Only the fighters or Barbarians with highest Constitution who are high level (or high-level monks) will survive a 1500-foot drop at 174 damage.

The system is not perfect, but I have used it for several years successfully. The house rule integrates well with things like monk slow-fall, raging barbarians, and becoming prone from taking falling damage. It has instilled a sense of danger in elevated scenarios and has inspired heroics to rescue allies that have fallen as well as trying to get flying creatures knocked prone to get them to fall. I do need to update it to eliminate the extraneous lines though. My updated version fits on a single sheet or two of paper.

Alternate Falling Damage

I wanted to make a falling damage and speed system that was (very) loosely based on falling speed and terminal velocity. This is something that mechanically stops monks and barbarians from being able to fall arbitrarily long distances with little...

www.enworld.org

 

[jgsugden]

For typical people the death rate is 50% from about 48 feet and 90% at 84 feet. So, if you really want realism and assume the average schmoe has 5 or so hps and does not die until negative hps are reached, or 3 failed death saves, around the heights actually fallen in most games, I'd go with (1d6/10' + 3d6) [discard highest 3 dice].

A 10' fall would roll 4d6 and discard the three highest results, generally getting you a 1 or 2 most of the time.

A 50' fall would roll 7d6 and discard the three highest results, generally getting you a lot of results in the single digits, but it might range up to 17 or so.

To avoid silly falls, I would take the cap damage off.

 

[Hriston]

View attachment 123423

Like your player, I would expect the half-yeti ('bom'ble snowman) race in your Christmas special themed campaign to have Bounce as a trait, balanced of course by Cannot Float in Water. Also, I think a half-yeti barbarian should be required to use Rage whenever it encounters an enemy that has something to do with Christmas, which I would expect to be quite often in such a campaign. (Edited because I had a better idea.)

 

[Laurefindel]

Personally, and i suspect that’s the case with many players also, the problem is not with the falling damage itself. The problem is with the metathinking of knowing one can easily survive the fall because they can afford the damage.

Character falls 200m and survive? No problem there.

Character jumps 200m down out of a despaired last attempt to escape or save someone, and survive? No problem there either.

Character steps down 200ft because it’s quicker and can’t be bothered to climb down? Not cool in my book. At any case, not the style of game that was advertised for the campaign.

We’ve all seen or read of the hero or villain who fell from impossible heights and survive against what everyone thought. Like in every story. But that only works if people think that falling is actually lethal. Being too casual about it takes away from the illusion of the threat, and the threat needs to be somewhat illusory to bend the odds of « surviving against the odds » in the PCs favour.

I do wish that pit traps didn’t have to be 50-60 feet to be anything more than a speed bump however...

 

[Oofta]

...
I do wish that pit traps didn’t have to be 50-60 feet to be anything more than a speed bump however...

Spikes. You can never go wrong with spikes. Make the spikes poison for extra fun. Then have the spikes be barbed so you can't get off them easily while the pit slowly fills with water. Oh, and throw in an anti-magic zone so they can't do some silly get out of jail free teleportation. Sit back and let loose that well practiced evil DM laugh.

P.S. Do people still really use pit traps as anything other than a diversion? I use sinkholes ever other blue moon, but that's just so I can throw the PCs into a dynamic environment.

 

[Inchoroi]

The answer is not terminal velocity. That happens a considerable distance after this.

This came up in game when a player whose PC was a barbarian came to gorge 1,500' deep and said, "Yeah, I'll just step off."

I asked if they were committing suicide, because this was going to kill the PC. "Nope," the player replied, "The barbarian will survive the fall."

I stated unequivocally the PC would die - yes, I was aware of the rule - yes, I guess this is a ruling outside the rules, and therefore, a house rule that was unannounced. However, I countered, the player was exploiting player knowledge of the rules to benefit his PC.

So, that's where this question comes from - what purpose does the limit on falling damage serve? What am I missing?

I do remember the falling damage rules debates from the early Dragons and the subsequent ban on articles and letters on falling damage. Just reviving an old D&D tradition: Let's debate falling damage!

From an RPG writer's perspective, that's just a lot of dice, and its d6s because that's what most players have the most of. Its most likely a, "Yeah, that's a lot of friggin' dice to roll. Twenty is enough." I hesitate to apply real-world logic--e.g. terminal velocity--to such a thing, as its simply unnecessary for such an event. Your ruling would be how I would rule, and, opposite things like feather fall or similar things, the character would die.

 

[Maxperson]

For typical people the death rate is 50% from about 48 feet and 90% at 84 feet. So, if you really want realism and assume the average schmoe has 5 or so hps and does not die until negative hps are reached, or 3 failed death saves, around the heights actually fallen in most games, I'd go with (1d6/10' + 3d6) [discard highest 3 dice].

A 10' fall would roll 4d6 and discard the three highest results, generally getting you a 1 or 2 most of the time.

A 50' fall would roll 7d6 and discard the three highest results, generally getting you a lot of results in the single digits, but it might range up to 17 or so.

To avoid silly falls, I would take the cap damage off.

You would also need to strip away most of the hit points from PCs that are higher than level 1. The vast majority of hit points come from skill and such, and a high level PC isn't going to have much more, if any at all, physical hit points than the average schmoe.

 

[jgsugden]

You would also need to strip away most of the hit points from PCs that are higher than level 1. The vast majority of hit points come from skill and such, and a high level PC isn't going to have much more, if any at all, physical hit points than the average schmoe.

That would depend upon what hps represent to you. In my world, they represent a combination of your toughness (which is more than just your ability to withstand injury), and the touch of the Gods. A loss of hps is not an injury, it is something that taxes this supernatural capability to survive danger, through force of will, divine intervention, and other forces. Sound nebulous? That is intentional. However, it works for falling damage survival.

 

[Umbran]

We don't know how far he really fell, but he landed in water. Then he and the Balrog climbed the Endless Stair* to the top of the mountain and continued their fight.

And, the metaphorical imagery in that is so strong... I think my suggestions for interpretations largely still hold together.