Resurrecting this thread, since I'm OP and still working on this issue.
I read the article Lemmy provided and all of the responses in this thread, as well as other threads out there on similar topics. I still have issues with environmental damage all the same. I don't want to play another system, because, overall, I really like Pathfinder and know it fairly well now.
Before I go on, I want to make it clear that I'm perfectly OK with superheroes and demigods. High level characters can survive things real humans cannot, that is fine. As the Alexandrian describes, characters in most famous movies and books with fantasy settings like Aragorn do not require any abilities beyond a level 5 character. So, a level 6+ character is a low grade superhero, and a level 20 character is vying with superman. I get it.
The problem I still have is in 3 parts:
1) What is the rationale for characters surpassing the human realism threshold? How can I come up with a reason (doesn't have to be a realistic reason, just an internal verisimilitude type of reason) for each campaign and character that surpasses the normal mortal threshold for having done so? It would by nice if there was some kind of standard explanation for the Golarion setting as to why superheroes exist. I mean... think about it. If you have a superhero comic strip universe, and you don't have radioactive spiders or kryptonite, just randomly people just have super powers for no reason, that is a poverty of the storytelling.
2) Level 6, even level 5, is too high level for realistic normal humans. If an 80 foot fall is supposed to be almost certainly fatal to a normal human, we have a problem. Level 5 characters can very easily be in the high 30s to mid 40s for hp. An 80 foot fall only does an average damage of 28. So, basically, to have a character not be superheroic, this is a good baseline. Any characters that have more than 28 hp are really superheroes. This is an issue.
3) The characters I describe as local thugs ARE local thugs. These are characters...
1)Explanation: MAGIC. Also psionics. Don't forget magic. And actual gods actively interacting with mortals. Have I mentioned magic? The laws of reality in any fantasy rpg aren't solid. They aren't even flexible. They are outright changeable in a minute to minute basis. Is it really that much of a stretch that a fighter can train his body to the point of superpowers? Think Batman. Better yet, think wuxia movies and japanese anime.
1b)People having suerpowers for no good reason is called mutants. Stan lee invented it just so he could have people with superpowers without having to worry abiout trifle details like reasons. It's better storytelling than anything you can come up with, unless you can prove yourself better than Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and everyone else that has ever wrote for X-man.2)Even discounting that high level is superhuman, you have to understand that low levels are still not realistic. A fantasy setting like Golarion is closer to an action movie world, where Rambo can get impaled, close the wound with fire and keep fighting like nothing happened. Where John McClane can get his feet shredded with glass and not limp and being in an exploding building oly gives you scratches.
3)Bigger fish logic. The 7th evel guys are thugs, because there is an 8th level guy that bosses them around. The 8th level guy is only a small crime boss because there's a 10th level guy that controls more of the region. So on and so forth.
Myself, I prefer homebrew campaigns because I can decide what happens at what levels. The local thugs can be at 3rd level. At 7th level they're not fighting thugs to close a small thiefs guild, they're fighting hand picked liutenants to carve a dent on the underground empire of a major metropole. At 10th to 11th level they are finding out that the Andorjan Kingpon works for a shadow conspiracy spanning the whole Golarion and the Nine Hells.
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1) What is the rationale for characters surpassing the human realism threshold?
Maybe in Golarion or your home-brew campaign world, the glass ceiling is much higher than it is in real life; due to living in a magical world, everyone has much more potential than normal, and near-death situations make for much more effective exercise than safe training. That's why a militiaman can train for two years, yet that guy who regularly risks getting eaten by goblins, oozes, zombies and owlbears is just barely overtaking him in ability, and accellerating.
Or it could just be a sort of response to all the super-deadly critters out there; in a setting with a very active pantheon, if falls at terminal velocity or extra-hot fire is a common occurance, class-using creatures can naturally adapt to survive them.
Just go ahead and enjoy the unrealistic hilarity of it all, or ask your players if they'd like to give E6 a shot.
Also, for the whole "being-on-fire" issue: think of it as if your eyebrows or beard caught fire, not neccesarily as if you'd been doused with gasoline and then napalmed. It isn't going to impede you for a while if you don't put yourself out, but it'll still leave some terrible burn scars until you can get yourself faith healed.
1)Explanation: MAGIC. Also psionics. Don't forget magic. And actual gods actively interacting with mortals. Have I mentioned magic? The laws of reality in any fantasy rpg aren't solid. They aren't even flexible. They are outright changeable in a minute to minute basis. Is it really that much of a stretch that a fighter can train his body to the point of superpowers? Think Batman. Better yet, think wuxia movies and japanese anime.
1b)People having suerpowers for no good reason is called mutants. Stan lee invented it just so he could have people with superpowers without having to worry abiout trifle details like reasons. It's better storytelling than anything you can come up with, unless you can prove yourself better than Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and everyone else that has ever wrote for X-man.
2)Even discounting that high level is superhuman, you have to understand that low levels are still not realistic. A fantasy setting like Golarion is closer to an action movie world, where Rambo can get impaled, close the wound with fire and keep fighting like nothing happened. Where John McClane can get his feet shredded with glass and not limp and being in an exploding building oly gives you scratches.
3)Bigger fish logic. The 7th evel guys are thugs, because there is an 8th level guy that bosses them around. The 8th level guy is only a small crime boss because there's a 10th level guy that controls more of the region. So on and so forth.
Myself, I prefer homebrew campaigns because I can decide what happens at what levels. The local thugs can be at 3rd level. At 7th level they're not fighting thugs to close a small thiefs guild, they're fighting hand picked liutenants to carve a dent on the underground empire of a major metropole. At 10th to 11th level they are finding out that the Andorjan Kingpon works for a shadow conspiracy spanning the whole Golarion and the Nine Hells.So... yes, magic. I realize the explanation is magical. That's not enough. What spell? What god? Why was this individual chosen to be a hero and another wasn't? Of course the explanation is magical, but the question is what is the nature of that magic.
Similar to your Stan Lee comparison... the "magic" in his world IS that people are mutants. They aren't mutants because there is no explanation... the fact that they are mutants IS the explanation. Its not scientifically accurate and is extraordinarily implausible to impossible in reality... but it is the explanation. If Stan Lee just said that these people randomly have "powers" THAT would be more like what Pathfinder/DnD is saying... which is essentially nothing.
"Magic" is a TYPE of explanation, not a full-fledged explanation. A more full-fledge explanation is that heroes who surpass the abilities of mortals came in contact with otherworldly energies that transformed them. The issue is setting those heroes apart from the non-heroes. What is it that is different about a level 1 commoner from a level whatever hero/villain? Of course it's magic, but what is it about the hero that IS magical exactly?
Bolded the answer for you. Training. The will to live. Sheer badassery. The will to protect. Love and friendship. Pick one. They haven't been chosen by anything, they just made themselves be that good.
I don't have an issue with the PCs being action heroes, but the issue is that every Tom, Dick, and Harry run of the mill low level bad guy is even stronger than Rambo. Surviving an 80 foot plummet and then, not only surviving it, but then springing up and wailing away again with your longsword, is something that any level 3-5 martial class unnamed BBEG minion can do in the current rules. I don't have a problem with superheroes doing it, but there are just way way too many creatures that are superheroes then, and it cheapens what it even means to be a superhero and makes for lots of, in my opinion, dumb circumstances.
Go back and read the article Lemmy posted. I'll wait.
You back? Ok. Aragorn is fifth level. Conan is fifth level. Rambo is third. Every Tom, Dick and Harry are level 1 in some NPC class, with an average array.That unnamed BBEG minion is actually an elite soldier that would give Conan trouble.
And yes, there are lots of powerful creatures roaming around Golarion. That is why people have to train themselves into being superheroes, so civilization isn't destroyed everytime a dragon gets angry.
I don't care about pecking order either. If you have a whole pecking order of people with super powers, they still aren't going to put people who can survive 80 foot falls on extort the baker duty. If they have an army of said individuals, the entire organization is going to skip such activities, and try to conquer nations. A level 7 character shouldn't be doing such petty stuff just because a level 10 exists above him... that's not sound logic.
You're right. Absolutely right.
So then why are you giving people the wrong levels? The thugs extorting bakeries should be level 2, 3 tops. Why are your players even fighting thugs at 7h level? They should be out saving nations by that point.And don't blame the AP or the Module. Those are made for DMs without the time or experience to mold the world. If you're smart enough to notice the problem and has time enough to try and fiddle with the system you are smart enough and have enough time to run your own campaigns.
I still say that the abstraction of hp against environmental damage is way off. I don't think level 3 characters are supposed to be super heroes. Tons of guards and shopkeepers are level 3 and 4. The dumbass local mayor is level 6, etc. etc. Fall damage, as given for 1d6 per 10 feet makes anyone with 28 hp a superhero... I don't think that is right at all.
Wrong, wrong and also wrong. Seriously, go read that article. Level three is a navy seal or green beret. Level five is Conan.
I give good odds on a green beret falling eight feet and surviving. Broken and wounded, maybe, but surviving.Conan can just jump a hundred feet down into a sword and walk away carrying the mishapen lump of iron that used to be a sword. He does that every other weekend for fun.
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Yes... Yes it is FAR too much of a stretch that someone can train themselves to be a superhuman... Or just have that strong a will to live. Yes it is. Those are not magical explanations. Will to live and training cannot account for such feats. Otherwise, people could do so in reality, and they cannot.
Ah, I see the root problem. You are fixated in a notion that a game containing flying fire-breathing inteligent giant lizards has anything more than a passing verisimillitude to reality.
Also, read some comic books. Watch some cartoons. People just being so badass it's a superpower or training so hard they can do superhuman feats is a common trope. Just because you can't remember anything from the top of you head doesn't mean it doesn't exist.I see that you think a highly trained soldier in real life has good odds to survive such events... That is false. The amount of force involved can't be shrugged of by going to the gym and eating your wheaties, and the fact that you think it can loses you all credibility entirely IMO.
The fact that you can compare military training to 'going to the gym and eating your wheaties' means you never had any credibility to begin with.
And yes, a green beret will probably die if he falls 80 feet. Since, as stated on the article I keep pointing out, most people in the real world has a 10 or 11 in con, 12 or 13 if they're astonishingly tough and healthy, and would rarely have more than 3 levels the average hp of a green beret(fighter 3) would be 23. So yes, an average of 28 damage from that fall will kill most humans in reality. Except for freaky accidents when God roll really low on the damage die.Published adventures are a part of the system too and should reflect that.
It should, I can agree with that. Does it actually do it? I dunno, never needed to run one.
While someone gave me a hard time on falling damage, apparently acceleration is now a constant, fire damage has gone down.
Ordinary oil should stay the same, but lamp oil could be double, or burn longer if not put out. Alchemist fire, which is like Nape, could be triple. Acid on the other hand, dilutes fast unless you fill a big vat with it.
I just want to add that I play Pathfinder because I hate reality. If you can find some people who want to try to win the unwinnable, then more power to you. You don't really have to defend your playing style to me.
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Oh dear, now voices are being raised.
As for the "why" of such commonplace abilities and resilience, all I can say that won't be just going over what I said before is that you can make it up if you're the GM. In a metagame sense, these people are heroes because they're PCs. You can always characterize high-class-level NPCs as swaggery and solipsistic, as if they see themselves as amazing heroes, right up until they find out that they aren't. If you're a player, talk with the GM and see if the two of you can figure out a reason to put in your character's backstory.
...Though you're comparing the game to reality, try doing it the other way around: in a universe where physics can't be bent or sidestepped, people of Golarion might see Earth as weak and boring.
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D&D and realism doesn't mix and never did. That's one of few things that are consistent across editions.
Actually wrong, people just don't understand that level 5+ is literally superhuman. To be level 4 in RL is to be among the best people on the planet. Those big names from history, mostly 3s and 4s a couple of 5s maybe. That gymnastics girl at the olympics, maybe a level 5 but more likely just a level 4 who critted and has skill focus and acrobatics.
So if you have a level 6 fall he is a superhuman person who knew how to roll just right upon landing to avoid death.
DnD 3.0 had DCs designed to match closely to reality but then scaled up all the way to demi-god. They did a decent job, could have done better but it was alright, however 3.5 and PF have moved away from that and gone for simplicity stretching things a little bit.
Edit; Having read some more I see this is brought up already so consider me giving support to that side of the arguement.
Might be that falling damage is somewhat low.
But other forma of enviromental damage are much too high or at least start too soon.
In conditions of severe cold or exposure (below 0° F), an unprotected character must make a Fortitude save once every 10 minutes (DC 15, +1 per previous check), taking 1d6 points of nonlethal damage on each failed save. A character who has the Survival skill may receive a bonus on this saving throw and might be able to apply this bonus to other characters as well. Characters wearing a cold weather outfit only need check once per hour for cold and exposure damage.
So the rules say that any lowlevel character in perfect winter clothing has a good chance of collapsing unconcious after 1 hour of being outside in witer?
I mean 0°F is cold but not THAT cold.As a child that was the temperature our mothers didn't have to remind us to wear gloves for going outside with the sled. But we didn't die or at least be K.O.
I mean 0°F is cold but not THAT cold.
As a child that was the temperature our mothers didn't have to remind us to wear gloves for going outside with the sled. But we didn't die or at least be K.O.
Once our body gets acclimated, 0°F is cold, but you ain't going to pass out in 10 minutes.
I remember in high school, the "cool kids" would have to go outside to have a smoke. Off course even in winter at -30° Celsius (close to 0°F), no one would were a jacket because you know, high school and being cool (in this case literally)...
Without acclimatisation however, 0°F can be pretty deadly. I also remember an Indian delegation flying from Delhi to Montreal in mid-February. There were given rather good winter clothes but nevertheless, two were sent to the hospital for system shock from the 30 sec walk from the airplane to the airport. Took them almost a week to recuperate.
Personally, I think the RaW is Ok (although I'm not big fan of nonlethal damage), but I would consider a +2/-2 circumstances modifier for acclimatisation.
It's a game.
Realistic falling damage would be annoying.
And off-trope. My players all know that you need to go to the base of the cliff and make certain the villain is dead.
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Then stop giving random farmers six hit dice.
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... LD50 (50% of those who experience the event die) for a fall is 48 feet, and the LD90 is 84 feet...So, the average damage for 5d6 is 17.5. ...
Actually you are mistaken with your own math.
From your info, 50% chance of survival at 48 ft means that the average roll for a fall of ~50' should equal the average HP of people falling, and the average damage for ~85' should be equal to 90 percentile of the hp roll for average level people.
So lets call it level 2 as average for people who end up falling. HP is between 2 and 22 using NPC classes.
The average of that is, 7,7,9,9,11 per class for a total of 8.6, and the 90% mark is 19.8 (less then this due to the bell curve but I am sticking to simple math for now).
So falling damage at ~50' should be 8-9 and for ~85' should be 19-20.
Edit; Oh and min damage for a fall is low enough that circumstance bonus can allow for survival.
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Yes... Yes it is FAR too much of a stretch that someone can train themselves to be a superhuman... Or just have that strong a will to live. Yes it is. Those are not magical explanations. Will to live and training cannot account for such feats. Otherwise, people could do so in reality, and they cannot.
I see that you think a highly trained soldier in real life has good odds to survive such events... That is false. The amount of force involved can't be shrugged of by going to the gym and eating your wheaties, and the fact that you think it can loses you all credibility entirely IMO.
Published adventures are a part of the system too and should reflect that.
The problem you have is that you are comparing an abstracted game that is very much NOT simulationist at its core to real life. This isnt real life. This is an adventure where a character has a reasonable chance of taking a hit from a troll that can throw a half ton boulder. Or to take a goute of flame from a young dragon. In real life people hit with a flame thrower die...horribly, people who get a half ton bolder dropped on them, die, horribly.
But for the sake of the game, a player needs after a couple level to have a reasonable chance of surviving these things. The game INTENDS for players to be unrealistically survivable. Consequently, since there is no 'minion' rule in pathfinder npcs have that achieved toughness.
This has nothing to do with some magic in world, or a campaign setting choise. It has to do with making a game where people fight dragons, trolls, giants, and more on relatively equal footing. It is neccessary for the game to work at all.
If you want a gritty realistic setting where injury death and disabilities mimic real life you are looking in the wrong place if you are looking at d20.
If you want properly calibrated expectations, comics, and action movies are a far more reasonable point of comparison then real life.
Your 4th level pc is not a navy seal, hes john mclain, or batman.
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Falling damage is such a small part of the ruleset that spending hours fixing the entire hp system just to make sure that mayor Borgobber realistically turns into a pile of goo after falling from 37 feet (which you, as the GM, could always wing and players would never know any difference) is like trying to kill an ant with a howitzer, but YMMV.
I plan on increasing damage for alchemist fire found at higher levels.
The same for weaponized acid. While I am happy with falling damage, you could just use D8s or D10s instead. If you replace every D6 with 2D4 wimp survival will go down.
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So is there an actual simple and consistent rule that is possible to actually remember, or do I need to actually look up your chart every time something falls? Simplicity is important and you've completely thrown that out the window.
Also, you've been assuming that falling doesn't kill you unless it wipes out your HP and puts you straight to negative Con. But guess what? If your level 1 commoner with 11 Con falls and is reduced to -9 HP, the fall probably killed them unless they happen to land right next to a Cleric. Random peasants are bad at Con checks and don't have party members following them around with magical healing; that DC10 save to stabilize, made at a penalty equal to the negative HP value, is going to let a lot of them bleed out quickly after they land. In the real world, if I jumped off a building and spend ten seconds bleeding out before actually dying, would you really say that the fall didn't kill me?
These arguments are always silly, because they operate under the conceit that the Player Characters are normal people. The PCs are not normal people. They are equivalent to the main characters of a book or a movie.
Bruce Willis in the real world is like an NPC. He has at most a couple of hit points. 1d6 fire damage would likely kill him, or at least it would maim him severely.
Bruce Willis regularly gets blown up with fire in the Die Hard movies and not only survives, but laughs about it. Then he gets off, rubs the blackened grease off his face, gets a few shots off with a 9mm, and leaps out a 20-story window.
JUST LIKE A PLAYER CHARACTER IN AN RPG.
Point is, environmental damage is consistent with how much it simulates damage to the "normal" people of your world. The PCs aren't normal. They are action movie characters. If you want damage to be in-line with the real world for your PCs, cap hit points at 6, and never roll HD again.
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The acceleration curve is relatively constant for the first second, but the difference between 10 and 20 feet is MUCH steeper in terms of percentage than any other interval. The jump from 1d6 to 4d6 is TOTALLY justified.
The difference between 5 feet and 15 feet is a much steeper percentage than that. The difference between 1 foot and 11 feet is even steeper. The difference between 0 feet and 10 feet is something on the order of infinity percent.
Does what the character actually land on ever get put in the equation? I mean, if we're going to discuss real life, isn't the actual landing more important? It's not the distance traveled that really matters. It's how they hit the surface that they land/dive on/into. What do you do for characters that just got thrown into a wall (by a dragon's tail or something), or would you use the fall damage for that too (makes sense)?
Anyway in real life, people have died from falling off a footstool, and some people survived falling thousands of feet and out of a plane. I also don't think that combat survivability has much to do with it, so hp which is based on class doesn't make much sense being linked with survival.
Keep in mind, that NPC classes don't get full hit points for their first hit die. A level 3 commoner has only ~10 hit-points (d6 HD, 11 con). That is well within the level of near guaranteed death from a 50ft fall.
Also, assuming NPCs are rolling for HP, fully half of commoners have even less hit points than that.
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A fifth-level Commoner with 13 Con (aka the strongest any pseudo-normal person could be) has, on average, 22 HP - which means they have a better than 50% chance of dying from taking 10d6 damage even before bleeding out is accounted for. So how exactly does 10d6 match up to LD50? A standard Commoner 1 with Con 11 (aka that random unremarkable farmer who you fear will be jumping off cliffs for fun) has less than a 50% chance of surviving even 3d6 once you account for bleeding out.
Remember that when people say "being a superhero starts at 6th level", they don't mean "average people are usually fifth level". They mean "fifth-level characters would in the real world be incredible once-per-generation individuals of unparalleled strength and ability". If your goal is to make it so that fifth-level characters usually die from falling in the same way that real-world people do, you're missing that key point.
I will just point out that the dissonance with falling damage is all exactly the same for giant axes. I don't see how you can be bothered by one and not the other.
I know this... I admit I've come to realize this in the past several months, and didn't understand how powerful even a few levels was by comparison to a real person this time last year... but since I've come to understand that that is the relationship things are supposed to have, I still see a discrepancy even in that take on it.
A level 4 character is actually already much stronger than Batman. I WANT level 6 characters to be like Batman and Captain America, and then of course as you keep climbing the levels things get into totally unrealistic stuff (which is good!)... but the problem is that where falling damage is concerned, characters are already outdoing Batman at level 2! Not 4, not 6... 2!
As for other stuff that happens, hp is abstract. You don't have to view it as that you took that fire full in the face from the dragon. HP damage doesn't mean you are bleeding... it is abstract as you want it to be. Luck, morale, divine intervention, whatever it is, it isn't your body's ability to take punishment unless the GM decides to describe it that way. The issue with falling damage is that unless the story already described something like a cart full of hay (which in reality really wouldn't even help that much, but at least its something) or something else like that... you fall, and you simply take the falling damage.
So wait, you are willing to thematically explain what 'hits' mean with regard to a troll hitting a player with an axe, but doing that same thing with falling damage is unacceptable? Use that same description, with a soft landing, or the character slowing himself on the way down by grabing onto things, or a slope at the bottom that reduces the fall or any number of things. Why is falling damage or any hazard exempt from the behavior of every other kind of damage?
These arguments are always silly, because they operate under the conceit that the Player Characters are normal people. The PCs are not normal people. They are equivalent to the main characters of a book or a movie.
I agree with you wholeheartedly.
One the other hand, there's only one set of rules for heroes, villains, monsters and ordinary people alike. The unified rules of the d20 engine makes that the underlying rules reference everyone, with extraordinary individuals having extraordinary abilities to cope with the otherwise ordinary rules.
When playing a RPG, its always a fine balance between the entertainingly cinematic action and what I can relate to as a human being role-playing another (in)human being. My voluntary suspension of disbelief can only stretch so far before it stops being plausible enough to be enjoyable (note that I didn't say "realistic enough)". And this fine line seems to be different for different gaming groups. Some can suspend disbelief longer, some have less patience for it.
Both as a player and a DM, I don't have a problem with the character surviving a 3-story fall with only a scratch; I have a problem with the character knowing that it can routinely survive a 3-story fall with only scratches... Same with surviving an avalanche, swimming through quicksands, camping overnight in the North Pole or crossing the desert on foot.
These arguments are always silly, because they operate under the conceit that the Player Characters are normal people. The PCs are not normal people. They are equivalent to the main characters of a book or a movie.
Bruce Willis in the real world is like an NPC. He has at most a couple of hit points. 1d6 fire damage would likely kill him, or at least it would maim him severely.
Bruce Willis regularly gets blown up with fire in the Die Hard movies and not only survives, but laughs about it. Then he gets off, rubs the blackened grease off his face, gets a few shots off with a 9mm, and leaps out a 20-story window.
JUST LIKE A PLAYER CHARACTER IN AN RPG.
Point is, environmental damage is consistent with how much it simulates damage to the "normal" people of your world. The PCs aren't normal. They are action movie characters. If you want damage to be in-line with the real world for your PCs, cap hit points at 6, and never roll HD again.
You may want to watch Die Hard again....
The acceleration curve is relatively constant for the first second, but the difference between 10 and 20 feet is MUCH steeper in terms of percentage than any other interval. The jump from 1d6 to 4d6 is TOTALLY justified.The difference between 5 feet and 15 feet is a much steeper percentage than that. The difference between 1 foot and 11 feet is even steeper. The difference between 0 feet and 10 feet is something on the order of infinity percent.
Infinity percent is an unreal number like dividing by zero.
You have to erase the equation and start from scratch. :)
Infinity percent is an unreal number like dividing by zero.
You have to erase the equation and start from scratch. :)
Which is why I said "something on the order of infinity percent" instead of exactly "infinity percent". Take the limit as x goes to zero of the difference between x feet and x+10 feet, and the percentage goes to infinity; colloquially, there's nothing inaccurate about calling that infinity percent-ish.
You know what is inaccurate? Using "unreal" as a synonym for "transfinite" or "undefined". Or failing to distinguish between discontinuities at asymptotes and discontinuities where no limit exists. Or... erasing equations in general. If an equation's value ends up being undefined, you don't just throw it out and erase it; the fact that it is undefined has meaning.
Will nobody think of the poor equations so casually discarded? D:
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I hate dropped posts! Now I have to redo it.
While I don't doubt that my math is often imperfect, as it is not my strongest suit, your math is based on a flawed premise. Your assumption is that the hp average matters first... this is false. Falling damage is the same for a level 1, a level 2, or a level 20 character. ...
Actually I am just coming at it from the other side (side 1, falling damage. side 2, hp.) I figured out how much damage an average person needs to match statistics. Above, before your post, the idea was that falling damage was not right. We could change hp to match falling damage but that entails many other changes as well, so lets stick with changing falling damage to match statistics.
In order to make falling damage match statistics we need to know at what amount of damage would result in particular survival rates. I did this above.
Now we just need to figure out how to make the damage rolls match that.
50' of falling damage needs to average 8-9 and 85' of damage needs to be ~19. Get the falling damage to match that then your problem is solved (for medium sized creatures anyway).
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Suggestion to match statistics
The dice get bigger the more you fall. The first 40' each adding a d2, the next 30' add d4s, the next 20' add d6s, the next 50' each step up the die size.
Distance/die/dmg range/average
10'/1d2 /1-2 /1.5
20'/1d2 /2-4 /3
30'/1d2 /3-6 /4.5
40'/1d2 /4-8 /6
50'/1d4 /5-12 /8.5
60'/1d4 /6-16 /11
70'/1d4 /7-20 /13.5
80'/1d6 /8-26 /17
90'/1d6 /9-32 /20.5
100'/1d8 /10-40 /25
110'/1d10/11-50 /30.5
120'/2d6 /13-62 /37.5
130'/2d8 /15-78 /46.5
140'/3d6 /18-96 /57
150'/3d8 /21-120 /70.5
160'/4d8 /25-152 /88.5 Max for Terminal Velocity could be a bit lower but I am not doing that math right now. Maybe later
This seems like a lot of work with very little actual payoff.
Instead of doing all this extra work, why not just change environmental damage to be a Constitution check or a saving throw? Make it a simple DC 10 + 1/d6. If that's not high enough, then go for 15 +1/d6. So a 100 foot fall would be a Constitution check of DC 20 (or 25 if you want it higher). That should be harsh enough. For energy-based environmental damage, do the same thing but allow a reflex save with the same DCs. On the surface of lava? Reflex DC 12 (or 15). Under lava? Constitution DC 30 (or 35).
Of course, you could just stop worrying about it all and just have fun. Not everything needs an explanation or realism.
Even a mere 1d6 fall has a 2/3 chance of knocking your standard first-level commoner unconscious. Seriously, why are you worrying about random farmers casually jumping off cliffs?
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Because the rules that apply to players are the same rules that apply to farmers, and some individuals like having things somewhat closely resemble reality. If we know in real life a farmer has 50% chance of surviving a 48' fall then we make that assumtion in game, because it resembles our actual knowledge and experience.
When it breaks away from our expectations it also breaks immersion. To fix this we can either change our expectations or we can change the game. Both paths are valid.
But falling 48 feet, by the rules as written, deals ~17 damage on average. If your farmer is a second-level commoner with average Con, that will indeed kill them at least 50% of the time.
It seems to me that the falling damage amounts are actually pretty reasonable; it's the expectation that your average farmer has five hit dice and 14 Con that's the problem. (Combined with forgetting that bleeding out is a thing and only considering instant death.)
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Actually that would kill them more then 50% of the time. Second level has average of 6hp and con of 10, sure there is bleeding out but that means you are relying on others to be present and giving immediete aid (or passing a 10% stability check).
Also there is the fact that such people have survived falls from terminal velocity. Yes luck was a factor but 20 dice rolling minimum would still kill instantly most any commoner and consider this has been done without needing hospitalization makes it even more clear that current damage is a tad high. Maybe not by a lot but still.
And tumble checks should reduce falling by more then just 10', I have jumped and landed almost 20' without any pain or hurt so that's another thing that needs touched on. It should scale with success.
But the OP's complaint wasn't that the current damage is a tad high, it's that the current damage is way too low. The OP's revisions make the damage far higher than it is in the game as written (now a 20-foot fall is killing second-level commoners more often than not, and every distance from 20 feet to 60 feet of falling deals twice as much damage on the new scale as it does in the original game).
Which, to me, doesn't make sense unless you assume that standard villagers are all fifth-level characters (and therefore, if the PC's start at level 1, they spend their first few levels far weaker than the random farmers around them) with the Heroic array.