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

[Maxperson]

So, was this expectation about falling damage set at start of play... or even anywhere along the way? Have characters been taking falling damage as normal throughout the game?

Because, while the GM is in charge, they do have some responsibility to be consistent. It they haven't set it forth beforehand, to depart from established pattern suddenly isn't really a great move on the GM's part.

Ideally things are set forth up front. Sometimes, though, you don't expect shenanigans like a player turning his barbarian into Wile E. Coyote. A ruling has to be made on the spot for the integrity of the game(my game).

If something unexpected comes up that I think should be changed, but doesn't break the integrity of the game, I just let it be known that a change will be made for the next campaign.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Not Conan. Conan's player. This is a metagame issue.

And the important factor that should govern the variance in the behavior of the world relies solely upon Conan's 'heroic intent'? Are we looking for more or less nonsensical character behavior?

It "nerfs" virtually every class, magical or otherwise. Only the Bard, Sorcerer and Wizard have feather fall on their spell list, and isn't smart to include Featherfall in the list of prepared spells. It's so incredibly rarely useful that you'd be gimping yourself by taking it.

HP are a resource which are only expended to survive hazards. Martials have more of these. When the hazard makes that resource worthless, it hurts all classes but the classes that have more of them take the bigger loss. If I have $50 and you have $100 we can use to buy things, when the store refuses to take dollars, we both are at zero, but your missed opportunity was worse.

Separately, at the suggested level of fall lethality, feather fall becomes a spell tax for being able to fly.

I prefer my martial characters to have better super powers than, "I can splat and live!" I prefer heroes.

For example?

 

[Gammadoodler]

There you go again.

Stop conflating what your player knows with what your character knows.

Your character knows that falls hurt, and even minor falls can kill. Just like what we know.

And they know that swords hurt, arrows hurt, fire hurts, etc. They also know that neither these things nor falling have killed them yet.

Besides that I don't actually think the metagaming player is the issue. There is some threshold height where you don't even blink at the 'shenanigans'. Can a metagaming barbarian drop 10ft without dying? 20? 50? What's the point where you as the DM step in and say 'stop it, that's ridiculous'. Whatever that limit, it's a DM thing, not a player thing.

 

[DND_Reborn]

If your goal is to simply make falling deadlier, then sure.

However, IMO, a feature of the existing system is that it isn't particularly deadly, which mirrors much of heroic fiction (even in the gritty stuff, like Joe Abercrombie's books, major characters rarely die from falling).

Obviously, if you want a more lethal system that's fine. However, at least for myself, making falling more deadly would be undesirable since that might discourage heroic actions (and could be used to decimate flying opponents as well). I like the falling rules as they are; I simply have no desire to see players abuse those rules.

While I'm not opposed to heroic actions in general, my general preference is for more "realistic" games. I don't want the hero to necessarily die from such a fall, but I want there to be a chance if they are going to do it, because otherwise it really isn't heroic, is it?

A character with over 120 hp can make such a leap, and the player knows the PC cannot be killed. A short rest or long rest later, and everything is fine again. How is that heroic?

Now, change the system so it could do more damage or SoD or something to there is a chance they could die, then it would be "heroic" maybe IMO.

 

[Umbran]

Just because it's in the RAW doesn't mean it's right.

I agree with speed=0 causing a dive and deprivation of movement causing either a free-fall or uncontrolled glide, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around how a creature can be knocked prone when in flight, given that standing/prone implies one is already on the ground. (you can't be 'standing' in flight either, again unless you can hover)

What would you say if it read, "if a flying creature suffers an effect that would otherwise knock it prone..."?

It is not insensible to think that the forces applied that knock standing creatures prone will, when applied to flying creatures, cause them to no longer be in controlled flight.

And the speed=0=fall RAW completely misses or ignores one factor: the speed (through the air, which is what matters) will no longer equal zero once the creature starts falling, and the creature can thus attempt to pull out of what's become a dive.

Again, I think that's a language issue - the character's speed is not the absolute value of their velocity in flight. It is their movement rate. Like, "this creature has a fly speed of 30".

There's a point where nitpicking words is less useful than thinking about what they really intend to mean.

 

[Gammadoodler]

It seems to me that by this reasoning, many second level characters would believe themselves able to handle stabbing themselves in the heart with a dagger. Even if we assume a crit and max modifier, the most that dagger can do is 13 damage. So once a character has at least 14 HP they can stab themselves in the heart once a day every day and be no worse for wear (let's say they're doing it in town where it's safe rather than while adventuring).

To me, however, that's completely unreasonable. If you get stabbed in the heart you are dead or dying. HP simply help prevent you from getting stabbed in the heart. Not by making your chest impervious to daggers, but rather by allowing you to dodge the attack that would have stabbed a lesser hero through the heart survive.

This is false equivalence, both from a rules perspective and (presumably) from a character perspective.

From a rules perspective, there are no rules for stabbing anything in a particular anywhere, while there are rules for 'a fall from great height'. Weapon damage tables reflect abstracted effectiveness rather than specific effects. In the case of 'I stab myself in the heart' you aren't 'overruling a rules exploit', you are making a ruling where no rule exists.

From a character perspective, by the time the character has the hp to reliably survive max fall damage, they've probably fallen a few times and survived. They may have seen other heroes survive these falls, possibly other even more impressive ones. In contrast, they have (probably) never seen anyone getting stabbed in the heart and survive.

So in one case you're making a ruling that overrides existing rules and may also run contrary to the character's (and the player's) experience of the world.

In the other, you're looking at making a ruling in the absence of rules, and your ruling reasonably reflects that character's experience of the world.

 

[Fanaelialae]

While I'm not opposed to heroic actions in general, my general preference is for more "realistic" games. I don't want the hero to necessarily die from such a fall, but I want there to be a chance if they are going to do it, because otherwise it really isn't heroic, is it?

A character with over 120 hp can make such a leap, and the player knows the PC cannot be killed. A short rest or long rest later, and everything is fine again. How is that heroic?

Now, change the system so it could do more damage or SoD or something to there is a chance they could die, then it would be "heroic" maybe IMO.

I think that certain kinds of heroism require risk, but it doesn't necessarily need to be risk of immediate death.

My primary objection is that if the risk of death is too significant, the players may never opt to attempt anything heroic because the risk is too great. They'll just play it safe, which is smart but not fun. Conversely, if the risk is too minimal then it may as well not be there at all.

The real tricky bit is that, IMO, the sweet spot will vary from player to player. Conservative playstyles will likely view almost any chance of instant death to be an unnecessary risk, while reckless playstyles may disregard even significant likelihood of death and therefore end up with a revolving door of disposable characters.

That said, I'm not suggesting you do things differently. These are just my own thoughts on the matter.

 

[Gammadoodler]

In natural flight, that means it's stalled.

A stalled flier falls - to begin with. It can, however, then attempt to control its fall into a dive and then pull out of said dive. Even powered aircraft can do this and they're a whole lot less maneuverable than anything with natural flight; some birds can flip a stall into level flight without falling more than a few feet, and even something as big and lumbering as a Roc or Dragon would have a good chance to recover from a stall unless it happens at very low altitude.

The RAW conveniently ignore this bit and strongly imply that a fall caused by speed=0 will continue to the ground regardless of starting altitude.

The 'sent spinning' idea is a good one for prone-in-flight but again can be recovered from - I guess this would equate to a prone-on-the-ground person standing back up - and might not cause all that much loss of altitude, depending on the creature. The difference would be that a flier sent spinning is extremely unlikely to be within range of any opportunity attacks while it "stands up".

Reasonably sure what you are describing is RAW related to prone. That said if they start 'diving' lower than 600 ft (1 round of fall distance), they will hit the ground before they get the chance to recover (and potentially take the 'your hp mean nothing' version of fall damage).

Edit: also polymorphing the creature into a cow or something would accomplish a similar function as proning but even more effectively.

 

[Maxperson]

And the important factor that should govern the variance in the behavior of the world relies solely upon Conan's 'heroic intent'? Are we looking for more or less nonsensical character behavior?

Metagaming is bad.

HP are a resource which are only expended to survive hazards. Martials have more of these. When the hazard makes that resource worthless, it hurts all classes but the classes that have more of them take the bigger loss. If I have $50 and you have $100 we can use to buy things, when the store refuses to take dollars, we both are at zero, but your missed opportunity was worse.

This isn't the case, though. The case is that 99 out of 100 stores take your money just fine. The last store just requires that you not deliberately walk yourself off of a 1500 foot cliff. Being useful 99 out of 100 times is hardly worthless.

For example?

Doing lots of damage with a great big sword. Cleaving through enemies like they're stalks of wheat. Things like that. Being a rubber ball isn't at the top of the list of heroic activities for me.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Metagaming is bad.

So we're just going with non sequiturs now? Cool.

This isn't the case, though. The case is that 99 out of 100 stores take your money just fine. The last store just requires that you not deliberately walk yourself off of a 1500 foot cliff. Being useful 99 out of 100 times is hardly worthless.

So at what height does your store stop taking hp in payment for deliberate falling? When does it go from woah to Wile Coyote? 10 ft.? 50? 200?. And why is that your limit?

Doing lots of damage with a great big sword. Cleaving through enemies like they're stalks of wheat. Things like that. Being a rubber ball isn't at the top of the list of heroic activities for me.

Oh the stuff that's already in the rules for martials. Truly, you are generous.