I don't know if there will be any changes to falling damage in the beta but I hope so.
Tonight our group (12th level) were considering jumping off a 450' cliff. Everyone laughed at the idea, but knew it would work. They all have good fort saves for massive damage and plenty of hit points for the 20d6 falling damage.
I've always hated the relatively minor damage from falling and came up with a quick rule tonight: Fort save or die, with the DC equalling the height/10. In this case a Fort save DC of 45.
What do you think? A 200 foot drop at DC 20 doesn't seem too bad, maybe even a little weak, but it would make the players think before they jump.
And maybe lessen the save required with an Acrobatics check, something like -1 to the save DC per 5 or 10 on the Acrobatics check.
Enough rambling, time to get some z's.
There does need to be some cap to the DC, given terminal velocity.
Unless you're falling in a complete vacuum, in which case a simple upper bound would be however much damage you think someone would take hitting the ground near the speed of light. I don't think you'll have to worry about reaching that upper bound.
Unless you're in a vacuum, and the local planar laws of physics allow acceleration past the speed of light. Then I'd cap it at DC "Youwillfail."
The way I do falling is each 10 feet increases the die.
10ft = 1d4
20ft = 1d4 + 1d6
30ft = 1d4 + 1d6 + 1d8
40ft = 1d4 + 1d6 + 1d8 + 1d10
50ft = 1d4 + 1d6 + 1d8 + 1d10 + 1d12
60ft = 1d4 + 1d6 + 1d8 + 1d10 + 1d12 + 1d20
70ft = 1d4 + 1d6 + 1d8 + 1d10 + 1d12 + 2d20
etc
The way I do falling is each 10 feet increases the die.
10ft = 1d4
20ft = 1d4 + 1d6
30ft = 1d4 + 1d6 + 1d8
40ft = 1d4 + 1d6 + 1d8 + 1d10
50ft = 1d4 + 1d6 + 1d8 + 1d10 + 1d12
60ft = 1d4 + 1d6 + 1d8 + 1d10 + 1d12 + 1d20
70ft = 1d4 + 1d6 + 1d8 + 1d10 + 1d12 + 2d20
etc
I like that and may end up borrowing it. Anything that will make falls a little more lethal or 'real' will work for me.
Interesting, how do you handle terminal velocity, at which point the impact would be the same no matter what additional distance may be.
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I think falling damage is fine. Considering it's happened quite a few times that people have survived hitting the ground at terminal velocity, it makes sense to me that it's not completely deadly.
Most famously, a stewardess managed to survive when her plane exploded and she fell 33,000 ft. On top of that, there are records of pilots who have survived falling from heights of over 5,000 meters without a parachute.
And these are normal people! They're not level 15, they don't have magic items, and they (probably) didn't take Toughness (because it's not that good).
I think falling damage is high enough to kill the weak members of the party like Wizards and (maybe) Rogues/Bards, but leaving the real tough members probably OK. Sorcerers especially have the worst time of surviving the massive damage (since their Fort saves are lower due to needing Cloaks of Charisma instead of Cloaks of Resistance), but even Wizards at 15th level probably only have Fort saves in the +9-+10 region, which fails 25% of the time (assuming you don't die from the 70ish average damage).
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I had a co-worker once that fell from a ladder while installing a lightbulb and died from head trauma. I knew a guy in the army whose parachute failed and he survived the fall (pretty banged up though).
Falling in the real world is wonky enough that trying to "realistically" model it in the gaming world is probably an exercise in futility.
That said, I think 1d6/10' with 20d6 as the max is too low. I would probably prefer something similar what PPP suggested, but I think I'd modify it to cap at 20 damage dice. That would be: 1d4 + 1d6 + 1d8 + 1d10 + 1d12 + 15d20. The expected value of all those dice would be 180 damage. That's plenty enough to kill most characters.
-Skeld
Fort save or die, with the DC equalling the height/10. In this case a Fort save DC of 45.
But this means that a 60 ft. drop (a six story building, 5 for a commercial building) would be a DC 6; a breeze...
I don't care how realistic (or not) the damage/fall mechanics is, nobody in his right mind should consider jumping off the 5th floor and expect to walk away, unless you know you can land on something soft (water, tent, hay etc...), have magical or supernatural help, or at the minimum (we're in a fantasy world after all) some training in the matter (such as slow fall).
True, some have been known to survived a terminal velocity fall, but none as far as I know just walked away, dusting the dirt off their shoulder...
D&D uses a abstract hp system, so specific injuries are hard to translate. Yet there are spells/effects/conditions that slow movement to simulate a movement-impeding injuries, such as the spike stone spell and caltrops. I think falls should result in damage AND force a Fortitude check to avoid a similar effects (DC = 10+damage?).
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ya know, honestly falling from great heights is just one of those things I wouldn't bother with a damage rule for, past 100ft I'd just roll d% with a 4% chance of survival and be done with it, it's pure luck past a certain height that determines whether you live or die, I don't care if you're an UFC champion or 90lb joe weakling.
I looked it up and on earth, falling objects accelerate by 9,81m every second until they have reached terminal velocity, which for a skydiver is about 190-200 km/h. This seems to be 54 m/s, which would be attained after 5,5 seconds.
Let's say you fall 9,81 in the first second (which you don't, because you had less speed for most of this second), another 19,62 in the second second, and so on until 58,86 m in the sixth second. All added up, you end with about 200 m fall in these 6 seconds. Which is 690 feet. Not 200 feet.
Even if you say you fall 0 meter in the first second and 9,81 in the second, you still fall 140m/460'. Let's go for the middle and say 170m/560'. Which is not 200 feet.
I don't know if someone in armor and with a backpack has greater drag, which would lower treminal velocity speed but in any event, I think it's fairly save to set maximum falling damage at 40d6 for 400 feet.
I don't know if someone in armor and with a backpack has greater drag,
Armor = more weight for virtually the same area of surface, with a neglectable increase in friction. So it would increase terminal velocity rather than reduce it...
A backpack increases the area of surface more significantly, which may increase drag. Whether or not it affects terminal velocity is a question of extra weight from the said backpack...
But this is all far-stretched anyway. I am more interested in a mechanic dealing for medium falls of, lets say, 20 ft. 20 ft. is pretty high, its about jumping off the window of the third floor... Chances of survival are high (which is well represented by a relatively low damage, i.e. 2d6) but the chances of being able to continue the chase(or retreat) at full speed is not so high (which is lacking in the present system).
Any idea for extra rules that would still be simple, elegant and already working within the frame of existing effects (slowed of stunned for a certain amount of rounds? Movement divided by half on failed Fort save? 1d4 damage per 5ft. movement on failed Fort save? etc)
anyone?
I do 1d6 for 10 ft., +2d6 = 3d6 for 20 ft., +3d6 = 6d6 for 30 ft., etc., to a maximum of 210d6 at 200 ft. Acrobatics checks can reduce the effective height by 10 ft. (which for a 150-ft. fall drops damage from 120d6 to 105d6). The "slow fall" monk ability is obviously a lot more useful in my game.
I like changing from d6 to d10. That changes the avg damage of a 200ft fall from 70 to 110. This stays consistent with the hp increases from 1st/2nd edition to 3rd. It is an easy mechanic and allows for pure luck (come on no wammies, 1s and 2s). Using Spires of Xin-Shalast as an example only Valeros (at 14th level) has in excess of 110 and then his 123hp could easily disappear if enough high numbers are rolled. DnD has always had a player friendly physical environment, total immersion in lava...20d6 damage.
D = 1/2 ATT. You fall, potential energy becomes kinetic energy, which is dissipated into the impact surface and the impacting body when it hits. If a 10' fall does "1d6" points of damage, a 20' fall should do 2d6 (twice as much energy to dissipate), a 40' fall should do 4d6 (four times as much energy) and so on. Having people just walk away may not be “realistic” (as in: conforming to the expectations I have developed thanks to my experiences in living in a non-magical universe with very different laws of nature), but there is no “realism” (as previously defined) to “hit points” - and to not taking penalties for each wound, ignoring internal bleeding and shock effects, or for higher level characters being able to walk around burning buildings for extended periods of time - to start with.
Basing things on impact velocity is a (semi-) popular notion - but: at 1 second under normal gravity you've fallen 16 feet, and have a velocity of 32 feet per second - call it 1 1/2d6 for the sake of discussion and consistency with the good old 10' fall. At two seconds you've fallen 64 feet, and have a velocity of 64 feet per second, which would be 3d6 based on velocity. At three seconds you've fallen 144 feet, have a velocity of 96 feet per second, and would take 4 1/2d6 damage. Now, air resistance gradually builds up (it depends on your speed, and thus the number of particles which must be forced aside in a given period, the square of the velocity which must be imparted to those particles to move them out of the way in time for you to pass, turbulence, and several other factors - all dissipating part of that kinetic energy a falling object is accumulating) until a freefalling human will hit a terminal velocity of approximately 180 feet per second after (sources differ) a ten to fifteen second fall. If velocity was the key this would peak out at about 17d6 - and a fall of around 1500 feet.
Since it is kinetic energy that matters, and it’s proportional to the square of the velocity, we can easily calculate that a 10' fall produces a velocity of 25.3 feet per second. Terminal Velocity is 7.1 times that - which means that a terminal velocity impact should do fifty times as much damage as a 10' fall, or 50d6. 20d6 implies that there’s either some other factor at work or that the local terminal velocity is only about 114 feet per second.
Of course, if you can dissipate some of that energy in some other fashion - by rolling, by hitting something even vaguely cushioning (such as tree branches) or a slanting surface, by increasing your surface area to dissipate more of it into the air on the way down, by being inhumanely durable enough to dissipate a fair chunk of it by forcing the material you hit out of the way, or by using some sort of magic, you can reduce that damage considerably. Skydivers are routinely expected to handle terminal velocities equivalent to that 10' fall. As noted earlier, in real life fairly normal people may die from small falls and sometimes survive extremely long ones.
In d20 terms, we’d probably be looking at a Reflex save to see if you can (1) reduce the damage by 1d6 per 10' (or, to be slightly generous, any part thereof) of your upward jumping distance and (2) reduce the damage by rolling and thus spreading out the time over which the energy must be dissipated (since normal people and parachute jumpers commonly manage this the DC should be pretty low), a rather large modifier for what you land on and how you hit it (ranging from extra damage for pointed objects down to virtually no damage (For example, the Skydiver Klint Freemantle. In August of 1993, his main and reserve parachutes failed to open. He fell 3,600 feet and landed in a shallow duck pond. He walked away with just a small cut over his left eye. http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/unlucky.html . Some interesting WWII cases can be found at http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/ffallers.html ), a modifier for how tough you are and thus how much energy you can dissipate into a surface, another for any measures you can take to dissipate energy on the way down (maybe that’s why cloaks are such common items of dress in d20), and on whatever supernatural benefits (if any) you can get from prayers, small magics, lucky rabbits feet, and whimsical game masters.
Overall, adventurers mostly have well above average reflexes, often have superior jumping ability, will very often be landing on slanted snow, brush, or sand-covered surfaces near the base of cliffs rather than on flat stone, are inhumanly tough, and have access to major magic, not just to minor folk magic.
Given all that, I could easily make a case for any given fall inflicting anywhere from 20% to 60% or so of the “basic” 1d6 per ten feet out to a similar percentage of that 50d6 theoretical cap.
In the interests of ease of use, the game rolls all those modifiers and effects into a single damage cap and keeps relatively small falls threatening-yet-predictable by ignoring the complications for short falls. Ergo: 1d6 per 10 feet, capped at the middle - 40% of 50d6 or 20d6.
I could easily make a case for 1d6/20 feet - and I usually do make notable allowances for what you land on in my games - but the 1d6 per 10 feet capped at 20 to 30 d6 (according to taste) has been hashed out over and over again since the little blue book came out. It’s actually one of the more “realistic” (in terms of expectations based on a non-magical universe) parts of the game.
Now, if you want to change that base figure - such as to 1d8, 1d10, or 1d12 for a 10 foot fall (or to base dice size on body mass, thanks to the good old square-cube law) that's easy enough. It doesn't change anything in the calculations except the dice size though.
I like changing from d6 to d10.
Sticking with d6's makes the pit trap CRs a lot easier to recalculate, however (they're based on multiples of 7 points of mean damage).
But this means that a 60 ft. drop (a six story building, 5 for a commercial building) would be a DC 6; a breeze...
I don't care how realistic (or not) the damage/fall mechanics is, nobody in his right mind should consider jumping off the 5th floor and expect to walk away, unless you know you can land on something soft (water, tent, hay etc...), have magical or supernatural help, or at the minimum (we're in a fantasy world after all) some training in the matter (such as slow fall). [...]
It was off the top of my head, but that's why I liked the 10'/1 DC. There would always be the small (5% at least) chance of a fall from any height killing the character. If it didn't, there would still be the falling damage.
I haven't used it yet and may not do so. I'd probably feel bad killing a character who fell in a 10' pit trap.
A more balanced and simple solution to the problem, IMO, would be to deal Strength, Dexterity, and/or Constitution damage at particular distance intervals along with regular falling damage.
That would nicely simulate sprains, broken limbs, etc. -- yeah, I could get into that. Good one. And it would sure be a deadly combo with a spiked pit, if the spikes were poisoned with something that did Str, Dex, or Con damage...
You don't "increase" terminal velocity - it's a constant. You can increase the rate of falling (and therefore how fast you reach terminal velocity), but once you reach TV, you can't go any faster.
Correct, the proper wording should have been that "the extra weight of an armor is inferior to the increase in surface (drag) would result in a higher terminal velocity."
A skydiver in free-fall position can reach approximatly 200 km/h. The same skydiver can reach 300 km/h or more by pulling his limbs and assuming a more aerodynamic position (reduced drag). We could assume that an unconscious or panicking person would fall at roughly 250 km/h...
Terminal velocity varies directly with the ratio of drag to weight. More drag means a lower terminal velocity, while increased weight means a higher terminal velocity. If you want to be really technical about it, a falling body asymptotically approaches its terminal velocity, but can never reach it.
But more to the point, I am more concerned about medium falls, like 30 ft. A fall that you can easily survive the damage, but that you should not consciously attempt. A fall that should not be high enough to kill (we're in a fantastic, heroic setting here so work with me) but that could bare more consequences than mere lost hp. The abstract concept of hp makes this harder, but the system already has other form of damage. Ability damage is a good option to experiment with. There is also bleeding damage and spell effects (such as spike stone, symbol of pain etc).
My house rule solution is getting rid of all the dice.
20d6 has an average roll of 70. Eighth level characters can easily survive a two hundred foot fall and won't even be unconsious.
My rule is one d6 +1 per foot fallen. 10 foot fall 1d6+10 (average 13). 30 foot fall 1d6+30 (average 33). 100 foot fall 1d6+100 (average 103). 200 foot fall 1d6+200 (average 203).
Mass damage save for 50+ damage applies.
Really high hit dice creatures could survive, but they won't walk away happy. Low hit dice creatures go splat.
There are ways to reduce the damage too. DR applies (but not if bludgeoning damage overcomes), tumble check can avoid 10' of damage, slow fall under the right conditions could apply. A character with some kind of drag could have reduced damage (DM fiat); a cape for example or drogue wings. Even an unconscious creature with wings will have some drag that could reduce damage.
Another DM in my group has an additional house-rule that falling does an amount of non-lethal damage equal to half the regular damage, Ref save DC 10+1/10' fallen for half damage.
How about, in addition to the standard d6/10' hp damage, including +1d4-1 (0-3) str, dex and con damage for every increment over the first 10'.
That would simulate a "luck factor" in surviving a fall.
This could get very crippling! I don't think we should go that far, but a -1 penalty to STR, DEX and CON per 10' increment over 10' seem a good start. Fortitude save to negate ability damage maybe?
This however does not affect movement. Our hero may be crippled, but may still run at full speed after the fall.
Are there any condition that restrict movement other than fatigue/exhausted? What are the effects of entangled again?
This however does not affect movement. Our hero may be crippled, but may still run at full speed after the fall.
Exhausted creatures are at -6 Str, Dex, and move at half speed. So maybe we retain that, but declare that the speed decrease is due to the ability damage.
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How about some ability damage per x points damage taken to simulate that a fall is much more body wracking than a hit by a sword (or even a dragon). That would mean that the further a character falls, the worse it is, without being totally crippling with a two storey fall (after all, people in real life have fallen more than a mile and survived).
I haven't tested this at all, but 1 point ability damage to Strength, Dexterity and Constitution per 10 damage would mean that a 30' fall would do 1 point ability damage to each stat, and a 200' fall would do 7 points damage to all physical abilities. Even a 20th level barbarian with 240 hit points will feel it when he loses a minimum of 30 additional hit points, -3 to hit and damage and -3 to AC. Ouch.
For added lethality, just reduce the threshold. Reducing it to 5, would double all the above penalties and really ruin a high level character's day if he jumps off a cliff.
To reduce the lethality, you could increase the threshold, or say the first x amount of falling doesn't count.