Hi! the core rulebook says that the maximum amount of damage you receive due to falling is 20d6. Would you as DM's rule that damage wether you fall 200 ft or 1km or 300 000 km? I mean, being official and all, perhaps it doesn't have to make sense. (Dragons talk and w/e in this world).
As I don't know much about Physics I don't know the real answer. I believe you accelerate at 9.8 m/s2 when you fall, but you do reach maximum speed? Do you reach maximum speed in real life or do you accelerate infinitely? (I believe that's what is friction for, isn't it?)
The point is that we were fighting a dragon 2 man in the summit and I tought we should teleport mid air and fall and I think that surviving the fall would have been way easer (we are lvl 12) than fighting the machine of destruction that was in front of us. I don't think my DM would have let us survive if we jumped down (about 1km high) and I know the DMs word is rule, but in RAW?
edit: We didn't jump and we died at the dragon's claws. Unressable as there was no one that could take our bodies out of there
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Yes, in real life a falling body does reach a maximum speed. When the resistance from the air is pushing up with the same force that gravity is pulling down with, the falling object will stop accelerating. This is called terminal velocity. I think it is around 120 mph (200ish km/h) for a human body, although if you streamlined your shape you could go faster.
So, it does make sense for there to be a maximum falling damage.
However, I have trouble imagining people surviving these falls. The hit point system is abstract. I've always thought of the 12th level fighter's 130 hitpoints is representing his skill at avoiding a killing blow, rather than resisting one. The sword through the skull kills anyone, but the higher level fighter is far less likely to let that happen.
I don't see how greater experience in combat is going to help you avoid the damage from a fall. It is pretty much impossible to deflect the damage from such a fall to a less lethal part of your body.
I would probably stick to the RAW just because it prevents players from griping. Realistically though, I would fully support that 1 km is an unsurvivable fall, even though it is only going to do around 70 points of damage. Does your GM use system shock/death from massive damage rules?
I agree with the other golem. IRL when you human meat bags hit hard ground after reaching terminal velocity there won't be any solid pieces to pick up and survival is not an option. Of course it's a fantasy game, so do with that what you will.
... I have trouble imagining people surviving these falls. The hit point system is abstract. I've always thought of the 12th level fighter's 130 hitpoints is representing his skill at avoiding a killing blow, rather than resisting one. The sword through the skull kills anyone, but the higher level fighter is far less likely to let that happen.
I don't see how greater experience in combat is going to help you avoid the damage from a fall. It is pretty much impossible to deflect the damage from such a fall to a less lethal part of your body.
"Pretty much impossible" and "impossible" are not quite the same thing.. PCs are supposed to be uniquely resistant to death ... that's why commoners have under 1d6 hp (or less) ... for them a fall of 60 feet IS instant death.
ah thanks :D yeah, honestly i believe 1km falls would kill anyone, leaviong only a mess of gore in the ground . But hey Wilie coyote survives everytime, huh? xD.
I believe hp is also that, knowing how to roll with the punches so you can take more punishment before you go down. However by RAW its 20d6, if you survive, you do your massive damage roll, if you pass, you are good (not even unconscious).
I believe 20d6 is not 140. I think it's 3.5 damage per die for a total of 70. extremely bad luck (every die rolling 6 would be 120 i think). I had 108 hp when fully healed and since we were falling from so high i believe i could cast a spell or two before splatting on the ground.
And yes I believe PCs are special. A lvl 1 commoner or expert (like 90% of us in real life) would die from such a fall. But would a character with 100+ hp?
70 hps for the fall doesn't sound that bad when the breath was doing around 60 per and a full attack from the dragon was averaging 90 =/.
Thanks :D especially for the terminal speed, I wasn't sure about that one. Thanks everyone :D
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"Pretty much impossible" and "impossible" are not quite the same thing.. PCs are supposed to be uniquely resistant to death ... that's why commoners have under 1d6 hp (or less) ... for them a fall of 60 feet IS instant death.
Yeah, I thought about those extreme examples of people surviving falls from extreme heights. A 12th level fighter can survive this fall routinely. I think these examples are some of the best evidence out there to use a Hero Point System. Spend 2 Hero Points to avoid death.
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I've been throwing around the idea with my group that on a fall if half your hit points are lost from the fall you suffer a bludgeoning critical effect from the Critical hit deck. So far that's made falling a perilous risk. No more jumping from the back of a Roc 200 feet because your barbarian can take it.
And IRL a fall from as little as 6 feet can be lethal.
--dropped ike a Vrock
"Pretty much impossible" and "impossible" are not quite the same thing.. PCs are supposed to be uniquely resistant to death ... that's why commoners have under 1d6 hp (or less) ... for them a fall of 60 feet IS instant death.... I have trouble imagining people surviving these falls. The hit point system is abstract. I've always thought of the 12th level fighter's 130 hitpoints is representing his skill at avoiding a killing blow, rather than resisting one. The sword through the skull kills anyone, but the higher level fighter is far less likely to let that happen.
I don't see how greater experience in combat is going to help you avoid the damage from a fall. It is pretty much impossible to deflect the damage from such a fall to a less lethal part of your body.
So we have two examples of a person falling from over 2 miles and surviving. Hell, the second example, Juliane, fell two miles and walked away from it, through the effing rain forest. This woman is my personal hero.
It takes an average human body 12 seconds to reach terminal velocity, that is 2 rounds that you can act before you have reached top speed. In 3.5 we estimated that a person would take a max of 120d6 damage if they fell far enough to reach terminal velocity. Being a fantasy game you can survive great falls. The highest ever recorded free fall was 15,000 feet the person reached max velocity and landed within a snow bank and survived. This happened more than once in WW2 and is documented. So in a fantasy setting I would argue that one can survive.
I created a HP fighter in 3.5 using gestalt rules that had over 700 hps and could ignore massive damage rules. He could survive a max damage fall from any height.
Since it only takes 3 seconds to reach 50% terminal velocity, you would only fall 130 ft in that time and take only 13d6 damage, so 26d6 would be max falling damage.
This, of course, is the flaw of scaling linear damage with exponential velocity.
Not to mention that falling 2 miles into thick trees (with branches to break your fall) or deep snow is orders of magnitude different than falling onto, say, a paved parking lot.
I just call it an oversimplified mechanic that doesn't come up all that often and move along.
I would rule a long fall as a coup de grace since really,they are helpless against the attack...flailing about or tucked into a ball, doesn't matter still helpless...it would take a hero point or two to roll out of that fall...or direct the fall to a more forgiving surface.
Using coup de grace rules makes falls much more realistic and gruesome.
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In 3.0/3.5 there was a massive damage rule, where you had to make a fort save or die any time you took more than 50hp damage from any one event (single attack/spell/fall/trap). Not sure if it came over to pathfinder...
Also, 300,000km assuming an earthlike planet would be a re-entry. I would deal gobs of fire damage to the character, then 20d6 impact damage to the cinder that remains...
That rule still exists, only it's optional, and it has a minimum of 50hp or half your hp whichever is higher. Which is no good, because that rule was already rather weak a DC 15 fort save to anyone who can survive a 50 point hit is child's play.
The only time I've seen someone fail that roll was a demon, who failed it twice, once on the mortal plane, again when we went to hell to get our friends back (stupid deck of many things), and he made the foolish error of attacking us again.
Also, anyone falling from that far up probably has some degree of fire resistance. I say probably because there are some foolish people who go up that high with nothing to protect themselves but sheer dumb luck.
Also, because there are people who have fallen from far enough that terminal velocity has long since been reached before they hit the ground, not only survived, but were basically okay, and I mean that by normal standards, not falling-from-unbelievable heights okay. I think that the damage is fine.
In the times I encountered this issue in 3.5 (during Whispers of the Vampire Blade Airship scene) we ruled that the fall was terminal if you were unable to save yourself / be saved. There is a point where the dice just won't tell the tale properly and the only answer left is to say that it is just flat out over.
Of course, during the fall you want to give the players as many chances to rescue or be rescued as are possible. If there are no options available then that is just to bad.
So we have two examples of a person falling from over 2 miles and surviving. Hell, the second example, Juliane, fell two miles and walked away from it, through the effing rain forest. This woman is my personal hero.
Yeah, I read about that, too.
It is important to state why her aeroplane fell out of the sky from a height of about 3200m - it was hit by lightning and exploded.
And when she walked away from the thing through the Amazon, finding civilisation again after 11 days, she did so without her glasses, with an inedible Christmas cake and some sweets as her only food.
That's several things that most people wouldn't survive individually, and she just went for the killer combo and did it all.
Unsubstantiated reports say that she walked up to Chuck Norris and called him a pansy, and he had to agree. Her zodiac sign is Honey Badger, which was created especially for her (the stars rearranged themselves in her honour, or maybe out of fear of her).
I'd like to have a 30-40 cm commemorative statue of her feats of survival, made of a somewhat less durable material than her herself, maybe adamantine. I'd carry it on my person at all times, and any time someone rants about how "THE MAX FALL DAMAGE RULE MAKES NO SENSE YOU DONT SURVIVE THAT FALL !!!!!1!" I'd him him over the head with it. :D
Aaaah, D&D, physics and realism. Always my favorite. Especially when coupled with flamewars over how one long piece of sharp metal is superior to another...
Lemme get this straight... you are saying the longer piece of sharp metal is NOT superior??
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Aaaah, D&D, physics and realism. Always my favorite. Especially when coupled with flamewars over how one long piece of sharp metal is superior to another...Lemme get this straight... you are saying the longer piece of sharp metal is NOT superior??
Depends on the shape really. Frankly, there are this little pieces of metal withe a bit of explosive attached to them that do way more damage than pretty much every other piece of metal. Though they need a special device to make them function.
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I'm fine with the way falling works now. You're not going to jump off of a cliff safely unless you have >= ~120HP which, let's face it, is beyond what any living person has ever had or ever will have. Probably by almost twice, in fact. Remember, above 5th-6th level you are becoming a super-human being. Normal physics should start seeming less scary to you. That's okay.
Anyone who does "you die" rules is just not prepared for dealing with what high level parties should be capable of.
The "You Die" is dependant upon what you land on. Snow, trees, water and other items that allow for a longer distance to decelerate over allow for survival for mortals. Living near Beachy Head I know of people that have survived that fall. {its 530' tall cliff)
I think that at 20d6 characters at a certain level can start to just let themselves fall endless distances as a way of getting form A to B (it did actually happen in my last campaign).
Yeah, I'm sure that happens all the time. On Nar Shaddaa....
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I use 50d6 - as that was a figure I was more comfortable with. I think that at 20d6 characters at a certain level can start to just let themselves fall endless distances as a way of getting form A to B (it did actually happen in my last campaign).
Richared
I fix it easily. The moment i see that the player is contemplating jumping because he knows that his PC can survive the fall, and he jumps his PC dies, no save, no damage rolled. I punish metagame severely.
There was an article dedicated to this very topic in Dragon Magazine #88, complete with all the math.
The result was the same, though it affected the outcome of lesser distances fallen a great deal.
For example, while 20d6 remains the damage at terminal velocity, falls of 10' equate to 3d6 and 20' to 5d6 based on 32ft/sec being the instantaneous beginning fall speed with acceleration toward terminal velocity.
Of course, this is all based on scientific fact, and therefore has no place in Pathfinder.
:)
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I fix it easily. The moment i see that the player is contemplating jumping because he knows that his PC can survive the fall, and he jumps his PC dies, no save, no damage rolled. I punish metagame severely.I use 50d6 - as that was a figure I was more comfortable with. I think that at 20d6 characters at a certain level can start to just let themselves fall endless distances as a way of getting form A to B (it did actually happen in my last campaign).
Richared
That's stupid. Offense meant.
That is NOT metagaming any more than it is metagaming that you know you can handle the heat of a bowl fresh out of the microwave. Characters should know how much punishment they can take. To assume anything else is just silly.
All characters should know the approximate limits of their capabilities, including (but not limited to) how much damage they can take. This is NEVER metagaming. It is only metagaming when they make decisions using information that the character does not have, which does NOT include the aforementioned capabilities.
Attacking a troll with fire despite failing the knowledge check is metagaming. Knowing you can take a second hit because the last hit did less than half your HP in damage is not.
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That's stupid. Offense meant.That is NOT metagaming any more than it is metagaming that you know you can handle the heat of a bowl fresh out of the microwave. Characters should know how much punishment they can take. To assume anything else is just silly.
All characters should know the approximate limits of their capabilities, including (but not limited to) how much damage they can take. This is NEVER metagaming. It is only metagaming when they make decisions using information that the character does not have, which does NOT include the aforementioned capabilities.
Attacking a troll with fire despite failing the knowledge check is metagaming. Knowing you can take a second hit because the last hit did less than half your HP in damage is not.
Knowing how much damage you will take from a fall off an unspecified height without doing any calculations is definitely using meta-game knowledge.
I would never simply kill the PCs, instead you have an encounter on the ground below them so that they are down a total of 80D6 of HP.
Is your PC blind? Can your player predict the exact value that those 20d6 might fall on any more than their character can (i.e., there is uncertainty at certain HP-height combinations for both player and character equally)?
If your player's character inaccurately judges the height, then YOU DON'T TELL THEM THE CORRECT HEIGHT. If a character sees a 50 foot fall and figures they can make it, and it turns out to be a 200 foot fall. Guess what? More damage. That's about it.
EDIT: I should note that this kind of ploy by a DM is, to me, just as bad if not worse than a player metagaming. It's effectively a DM version of metagaming where you change reality to spite your players because you don't like that fantasy characters can do fantastical things.
A level 20 fighter is no longer human. He hasn't been human for the pass few levels.(LOL HE WAS A DWARF, HA HA HA!)
That is how I play it, after pass level 6 ish, your character are entering myth territory.
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A level 20 fighter is no longer human. He hasn't been human for the pass few levels.(LOL HE WAS A DWARF, HA HA HA!)
That is how I play it, after pass level 6 ish, your character are entering myth territory.
This is also how I treat it. Anything else becomes logically inconsistent.
1st-2nd - Normal: Basically a normal person, or maybe a bit better if a PC class.
3rd-6th - Hero: Mostly within normal human limits, but definitely above the norm. Most likely famous in some capacity.
7th-10th - Low-End Superhero: Notably above normal human limits, but not above being taken out by a lucky human (or group of them). At this point, even many non-magical things they do are things that are outright impossible for normal people (aka "real-world" people).
11th-15th - Mythic: Now shows up on Legend Lore (this part is RAW). Definitely a power house. Could probably take out anyone in the Justice League.
16th+ - Demi-god: Would give hercules or superman a run for their money, if not win.
I stick with the 20 die limit, but I vary the die type used by the surface they land on. Soft (water, snow, loose sand) d4, regular (turf, wooden floor) d6, hard (packed earth, stony ground) d8, very hard (rock, cobblestone, paving) d10, very hard and uneven (jagged rock, spikes, stakes, etc.) d12. Not too "realistic" but it satisfies me and lets the players make choices as in "let's try to hit the water and not the rocks". Ymmv.
I fix it easily. The moment i see that the player is contemplating jumping because he knows that his PC can survive the fall, and he jumps his PC dies, no save, no damage rolled. I punish metagame severely.I use 50d6 - as that was a figure I was more comfortable with. I think that at 20d6 characters at a certain level can start to just let themselves fall endless distances as a way of getting form A to B (it did actually happen in my last campaign).
Richared
So you punish metagaming by fiat?
Eye for an eye, jerk move for a jerk move?
Knowing how much damage you will take from a fall off an unspecified height without doing any calculations is definitely using meta-game knowledge.
Wrong. The fact that the damage caps out so that falling from 60km is no more damaging than falling from 60m is not meta-game knowledge, since it is a fact that once you reach terminal velocity, it won't get any worse.
That means that if you know that you have a decent chance of surviving a fall at terminal velocity, you can jump even if you don't know exactly how far down it goes and it's not metagaming to assume that you have a chance of survival.
If the alternative is facing that great wyrm red dragon and his friend the demon god, that jump looks quite inviting.
I would never simply kill the PCs, instead you have an encounter on the ground below them so that they are down a total of 80D6 of HP.
So more GM fiat? "You fall for 20d6 damage, and now you get 60d6 because I don't like the way you play?"
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Knowing how much damage you will take from a fall off an unspecified height without doing any calculations is definitely using meta-game knowledge.
Wrong. The fact that the damage caps out so that falling from 60km is no more damaging than falling from 60m is not meta-game knowledge, since it is a fact that once you reach terminal velocity, it won't get any worse.
That means that if you know that you have a decent chance of surviving a fall at terminal velocity, you can jump even if you don't know exactly how far down it goes and it's not metagaming to assume that you have a chance of survival.
If the alternative is facing that great wyrm red dragon and his friend the demon god, that jump looks quite inviting.
So more GM fiat? "You fall for 20d6 damage, and now you get 60d6 because I don't like the way you play?"
I would never simply kill the PCs, instead you have an encounter on the ground below them so that they are down a total of 80D6 of HP.
If I had a reasonable chance at surviving a terminal velocity fall, I'd still want a good reason to make the jump. Now, if I was a 20th level paladin I'd make that jump all the time, as I could just heal myself after landing, and peeling myself out of the ground.
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If I had a reasonable chance at surviving a terminal velocity fall, I'd still want a good reason to make the jump. Now, if I was a 20th level paladin I'd make that jump all the time, as I could just heal myself after landing, and peeling myself out of the ground.
Knowing how much damage you will take from a fall off an unspecified height without doing any calculations is definitely using meta-game knowledge.
Wrong. The fact that the damage caps out so that falling from 60km is no more damaging than falling from 60m is not meta-game knowledge, since it is a fact that once you reach terminal velocity, it won't get any worse.
That means that if you know that you have a decent chance of surviving a fall at terminal velocity, you can jump even if you don't know exactly how far down it goes and it's not metagaming to assume that you have a chance of survival.
If the alternative is facing that great wyrm red dragon and his friend the demon god, that jump looks quite inviting.
So more GM fiat? "You fall for 20d6 damage, and now you get 60d6 because I don't like the way you play?"
I would never simply kill the PCs, instead you have an encounter on the ground below them so that they are down a total of 80D6 of HP.
Do you think the average person would really jump off the cliff "just because"? They have to burn resources of some form (either HP or healing) to do so. Unless they are VERY sure they are safe, it likely simply won't be done unless that is the only path to be taken or some other reason is given that they are in such haste.
When a first level spell can allow you to take no damage from a fall of any height, and works on the whole party, I don't see why surviving it without one a much much higher level by expending a lot of HP is considered uncouth. A ring of feather fall also solves this with a one-time expenditure.
And even then, some people just don't see their characters as the reckless type and would avoid doing it just because it "doesn't suit them."
The point is, they have the resource, let them spend it how they wish. If they do something stupid like this on a consistent basis then, and only then, would it be okay to have an encounter at the bottom. And that would only be because their enemies have learned about it and wish to take advantage. Being down 70HP on average is nothing to sneeze at no matter what the level.
So more GM fiat? "You fall for 20d6 damage, and now you get 60d6 because I don't like the way you play?"
I would never simply kill the PCs, instead you have an encounter on the ground below them so that they are down a total of 80D6 of HP.
I think he meant four characters, 20d6 damage each, the party is down 80d6 hp in total - possibly with a dying wizard or so.
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I think he meant four characters, 20d6 damage each, the party is down 80d6 hp in total - possibly with a dying wizard or so.
So more GM fiat? "You fall for 20d6 damage, and now you get 60d6 because I don't like the way you play?"
I would never simply kill the PCs, instead you have an encounter on the ground below them so that they are down a total of 80D6 of HP.
Naw, it was 5 characters. The wizard used arcane bond to cast feather fall, but was kind-of a dick and let the other players just fall despite being high enough level to target them all.
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