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

[Fanaelialae]

I disagree. To me those tools ultimately are damage mitigation abilities (for at least slow fall and feather fall, this is explicit). And while the barbarian doesn't have those tools, what they have is the ability to absorb damage.

As far as how you rule in your campaign, you've already said, you'd probably let the guy live if he got knocked off. So to you, a character can only take advantage of his 'luck and skill' when fighting monsters, not when making planned, calculated, purposeful decisions to execute an action.

Separately, your interpretation of hp somehow makes barbarians the luckiest and most skillful characters in the game, which is...odd to say the least.

In addition, an accusation of metagaming based on current hp totals presupposes that characters have no internal awareness of whatever resource yo want to say that hp represent. This is silly. If that were true, no character would ask for healing, bc they're never know they need it.

And, at the end of the day, if the barbarian chooses to take that vertical shortcut, its not free. They still have to pay the hp cost. As such, if the goal of the gorge was to get the party to expend resources to traverse it, mission accomplished.

I definitely think it is meta gaming for a character with 121 HP to feel perfectly safe stepping off the cliff, but as soon as they are reduced below that it becomes a calculated risk because falling damage is capped at 20d6.

You don't need to disallow any internal knowledge of HP to not have a perfectly tuned awareness of HP.

Besides, as I've explained that's simply not how they work IMC. A character who falls 1500' and survives will feel lucky to be alive and in one piece. They're not going to believe that they can just teleport to the top and do it again without consequences, even if meta knowledge says they could.

They could use their HP if they got knocked off. They could even use them if they took a calculated risk (tried to jump on the back of a dragon as it swooped by). But not in meta gaming circumstances.

To reiterate my position, surviving a fall off a cliff is primarily luck. A character who acts out of arrogance and walks off the cliff because they are too lazy to climb down will find that their luck abandons them. You see this not infrequently in heroic fiction. Pride comes before the fall. Albeit, typically not in quite such a literal sense.

If it were just about the PC expending resources like in a board game, then sure, it might be reasonable. However, this is an RPG. The concern is one of verisimilitude. Not just your own, but for everyone at the table.

I believe thar dynamite deals something like 4d6 damage in D&D. Do you think that a high level barbarian should be able to smoke a stick of dynamite like a cigar and walk away mildly singed? I don't. To me that is absolutely absurd and cartoonish, and would shatter my suspension of disbelief. Much like a character walking off a cliff for no reason other than feeling lazy. If you smoke a stick of dynamite in my campaign, that character will die (though I would give a clear warning regarding this outcome).

 

[Gammadoodler]

I definitely think it is meta gaming for a character with 121 HP to feel perfectly safe stepping off the cliff, but as soon as they are reduced below that it becomes a calculated risk because falling damage is capped at 20d6.

You don't need to disallow any internal knowledge of HP to not have a perfectly tuned awareness of HP.

This is a straw man, but I'll bite. It's a calculated risk either way and at all levels of hp, because in all cases, the barbarian will take the damage.

Besides, as I've explained that's simply not how they work IMC. A character who falls 1500' and survives will feel lucky to be alive and in one piece. They're not going to believe that they can just teleport to the top and do it again without consequences, even if meta knowledge says they could.

They could use their HP if they got knocked off. They could even use them if they took a calculated risk (tried to jump on the back of a dragon as it swooped by). But not in meta gaming circumstances.

To reiterate my position, surviving a fall off a cliff is primarily luck. A character who acts out of arrogance and walks off the cliff because they are too lazy to climb down will find that their luck abandons them. You see this not infrequently in heroic fiction. Pride comes before the fall. Albeit, typically not in quite such a literal sense.

If it were just about the PC expending resources like in a board game, then sure, it might be reasonable. However, this is an RPG. The concern is one of verisimilitude. Not just your own, but for everyone at the table.

So in your mind ruling parallel circumstances differently leads to greater verisimilitude?

I believe thar dynamite deals something like 4d6 damage in D&D. Do you think that a high level barbarian should be able to smoke a stick of dynamite like a cigar and walk away mildly singed? I don't. To me that is absolutely absurd and cartoonish, and would shatter my suspension of disbelief. Much like a character walking off a cliff for no reason other than feeling lazy. If you smoke a stick of dynamite in my campaign, that character will die (though I would give a clear warning regarding this outcome).

And if they laid on this dynamite to shield their party from harm? 4d6 damage? More realistic? More verisimilitude?

I guess I just have to wonder, are the fireball-casting wizard, and the wild-shaping druid, and the unpoisonable monk all going "wait that's not realistic" when the tough guy in the party goes to do tough guy things? Like..seriously?

 

[Maxperson]

This is a straw man, but I'll bite. It's a calculated risk either way and at all levels of hp, because in all cases, the barbarian will take the damage.

It's all calculated risk, but it's not all risk of death from the fall.

So in your mind ruling parallel circumstances differently leads to greater verisimilitude?

Are all falls of 1500 feet going to be identical, even if you jump from the same spot? If you answer yes, you don't understand falls. If you answer no, different rulings for the same fall lead to greater verisimilitude.

 

[Gammadoodler]

It's all calculated risk, but it's not all risk of death from the fall.

Correct. And?

Are all falls of 1500 feet going to be identical, even if you jump from the same spot? If you answer yes, you don't understand falls. If you answer no, different rulings for the same fall lead to greater verisimilitude.

1. Is 'Falling expertise' part of the DM handbook? Part of the players handbook? Are we only letting physics majors and forensics scientists play D&D now?
2. Even assuming that we somehow answer 'yes' to question number 1, has someone published a full list of the physical constants and rules for all the imaginary worlds we play in to make such spot-on circumstance-specific rulings?
3. Assuming we have a 'yes' to questions 1 and 2... somehow.. are we trying to say that it is more realistic that a desperate failed leap onto a moving mythological creature is less deadly than a deliberate planned leap where there are no visible obstacles?

 

[Flamestrike]

Last I checked it's pretty hard to dodge a planet when it's approaching you at your terminal falling velocity.

Thats where superhuman levels of luck come in.

 

[Flamestrike]

All three of those apply equally well to non-matrials as to martials.

Wizards can fumble with aimed spells in my game and anyone can fumble in combat; and if you step into lava or get assassinated in your sleep it doesn't matter what class you are, you're gonna die.

Not seeing any specific anti-martial things there.

Martials make more attack rolls than casters, and have more hit points as a class feature.

If you houserule fumbles, martials will fail more than casters than they do under RAW. Fighters and Monks in particular get clumsier as they advance in level.

Ditto if you make some silly insta-gib houserule. You're depriving classes the advantage of their hit points, a resource that martials get more of.

There are already rules for falling damage, lava and assasination of sleeping or incapacitated creatures in the rule-book. Martials (having more hit points) are more likely to survive all three.

 

[Fanaelialae]

This is a straw man, but I'll bite. It's a calculated risk either way and at all levels of hp, because in all cases, the barbarian will take the damage.

So in your mind ruling parallel circumstances differently leads to greater verisimilitude?

And if they laid on this dynamite to shield their party from harm? 4d6 damage? More realistic? More verisimilitude?

I guess I just have to wonder, are the fireball-casting wizard, and the wild-shaping druid, and the unpoisonable monk all going "wait that's not realistic" when the tough guy in the party goes to do tough guy things? Like..seriously?

In what way is this a tough guy thing? A high level wizard or rogue with a decent Constitution could walk off a cliff and survive. You don't have to be a barbarian to pull it off. The barbarian can simply do it a few levels earlier.

It's not something I've ever seen Conan, an archetypal barbarian, do. Conan might leap off a tall cliff because of reasons, or he might fall, but never because he's simply too lazy to try climbing. That would be absurd and would totally ruin the reader's suspension of disbelief. It's the sort of thing I might expect to read in an exceptionally bad piece of Conan fan-fic. It's certainly not the kind of campaign I want to run though.

This is not a martial/caster thing. This is about not blatantly meta gaming. It's about respecting the verisimilitude of the game.

Maybe you have a table where this kind of thing wouldn't be seen as immersion breaking, and if so it might not be an issue for you. That's fine.

However, I don't think calling it a nerf is reasonable. It's not intended as a nerf. It will never even come up for a player who takes a campaign like mine seriously, and plays their character like a living person who isn't indestructible.

 

[Laurefindel]

1. Is 'Falling expertise' part of the DM handbook? Part of the players handbook?

It’s part of the agreement that players, including the DM, take when they start a game. Not all D&D games need to play with the same style, even if they’re all played by RAW. Players and DM must then play the rules in good faith of what the decided on.

 

[Gammadoodler]

It’s part of the agreement that players, including the DM, take when they start a game. Not all D&D games need to play with the same style, even if they’re all played by RAW. Players and DM must then play the rules in good faith of what the decided on.

Sure.. it is absolutely permissible to play under any set of ground rules (no pun intended) the table agrees to including, 'I, the DM may take away or disregard your class features if I find your descriptions of your actions insufficiently realistic...unless, of course, it's magic..in that case, go nuts'.

 

[Flamestrike]

In what way is this a tough guy thing? A high level wizard or rogue with a decent Constitution could walk off a cliff and survive. You don't have to be a barbarian to pull it off. The barbarian can simply do it a few levels earlier.

It's not something I've ever seen Conan, an archetypal barbarian, do.

Not Conan, but still Arnie.

John Matrix leaps from the landing gear of an airborne aircraft which has just taken off so is travelling in excess of 200 MPH, and from a height of at least 100 feet (30m at least).

Luckily (i.e. LOTS OF HP) he lands in a swamp and survives.