Correction on 2)Scientific falling damage takes pages of calculations and leads to redundancies like infinity percent.
What I meant was when an equation I was trying to solve in high school gave me a zero fraction, I was doing it wrong. I think I got infinity in error once too.
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.
The issue is that a "once in a generation" person is still NOT a superhero. I absolutely am trying to calculate things to make sure that a level 5 is not superhuman. There are limits to the balance that can be achieved in any system based on levels. If the premise is that a character is a superhuman at level 6, then level 5s cannot be allowed to be superhuman.
Really, if a level 5 character is still not superhuman, than where falling from 50 feet is concerned, a level 5 and a level 1 should have virtually no difference between them. Even if you are very strong, the ways an impact like that will kill you will bypass your strength. Falling from heights like that can rattle your brain inside your skull and lead to hematoma, snap your spine, shove your spine into the base of your skull, or rupture any number of internal organs. Whatever factors make people survive a fall like that is just chance, not strength, in real life.
Levels where people gain hp cannot be modeled that way perfectly. There are limits. There isn't any way to make a level 1 and a a level 5 have the same chance of surviving a fall. How is that any different in my system from another system?
I'm just saying that the game RAW is not pushing that limit, or coming anywhere close. A level 1 character may be more likely to die than a level 5, but so what? And so what if a level 1 PC is less strong than a level 5 NPC? How is that fundamentally any different than the game was before my changes again?
Everyone is aware that the original falling damage equation written for DnD was 1d6 per 10 feet per 10 feet right? Meaning that 20 feet was supposed to be 3d6, and 30 feet 6d6, etc... And that it was mistakenly edited out? Everyone is assuming that 1d6 per 10 feet is "right" because that's the way it has been published and what you are used to. Even that original equation is way off though beyond 30 feet, because then you approach 20d6 WAY too soon. Still, falling damage was meant to be far more lethal to low levels than it is in the existing RAW, which is painfully off the mark.
Besides, as the GM guide says, these games have a bit of solipsism to them. If you don't see level 1 commoners falling from cliffs, it doesn't happen. Who does fall off of cliffs during play? Level 3+. Look at the NPC gallery or any NPCs from published adventures. Who are the PCs interacting with? Level 1 commoners? Where? Mostly they are interacting with level 4 and 5 NPCs.
I realize that you can write whatever you want into your own adventure, but published adventures are being written by those who have written the system. If that doesn't reflect the expectation, something is amiss. Either we have to say that characters are superheroes even if they are level 1, as long as they have enough hp to outdo survival rates for falls, or we have to adjust fall damage. I don't want level 1-5 characters to be superheroes.
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?
The ability to grab onto things, the surface fallen on, and all sorts of other factors are represented by the random dice roll. 10d6 damage could be 10 damage, or 60... there isn't always something to grab on to, and there isn't always a soft patch of mud on a slope to roll down. Sometimes there's a nasty sharp rock right where you land too.
As I explained before, which you apparently didn't read, I have a problem with fall damage because when you fall, the earth cannot "miss" you. A troll's axe can. A "hit" against your HP in the game doesn't have to mean that you actually got cut by that axe. HP are abstract. HP aren't your body's physical toughness necessarily... they are whatever the GM wants them to be... luck, morale, divine favor, your body's toughness, etc. You can lose hp without being struck by that axe. You cannot not be struck by the earth when you fall.
D&D rules are not meant to represent realism, they are meant to vehiculate the feeling of a hero from a tale you are yourself writing as you play. Gaining levels means being abled to perform always more heroical deeds against more potent creatures and deadly situations. Saying it again : the rules are not a realistic simulation, but a way to answer to the question "how much of a chance could a guy like me in this story, be able to deal with this situation, without it to be totally anticlimactic ?".
HP represents the amount of physical harm you can withstand ; just because you are unarmored, suffer a critical hit from a claymore and are still conscious does not mean you should have been cut in half, just that you are THAT badass and combat-savvy enough to take the blow in a non-vital fashion.
D&D rules are not meant to represent realism, they are meant to vehiculate the feeling of a hero from a tale you are yourself writing as you play. Gaining levels means being abled to perform always more heroical deeds against more potent creatures and deadly situations. Saying it again : the rules are not a realistic simulation, but a way to answer to the question "how much of a chance could a guy like me in this story, be able to deal with this situation, without it to be totally anticlimactic ?".
HP represents the amount of physical harm you can withstand ; just because you are unarmored, suffer a critical hit from a claymore and are still conscious does not mean you should have been cut in half, just that you are THAT badass and combat-savvy enough to take the blow in a non-vital fashion.
Actually, the rules are meant to model realism... as much as the GM wants/is able to describe it as realistic. At some point, it is the CHARACTERS that become "unrealistic", not the rules. That is, with the exception of falling damage in particular. This is OK, and even desirable, for high level characters. High level being 6 and over. This really does seem a good transition point. Lower level characters shouldn't be superheroes.
You are incorrect about hp representing the amount of physical harm you can withstand. HP are abstract. HP is only the physical punishment you can take if your GM describes it that way. HP loss doesn't implicitly mean, by the rules, that you took physical damage. Your luck, morale, stamina, or divine favor could be running out, and this is modeled by hp loss.
You can lose HP in this sense in that a "hit" on the attack roll indicates that the attack against you was sufficient to reduce one of those abstract elements as described by the GM. The body of your character isn't actually injured, bruised, burned, or bleeding, etc. until the GM describes it that way. Rules-wise, HP are not physical punishment, they are an abstract countdown to when your character IS wounded or dead... not the amount of toughness or blood you have left or some such thing.
Falling damage undermines all of this because plummeting to earth because it indeed DOES strike you (the earth cannot "miss" hitting you when you fall into it).
What Hit Points Represent: Hit points mean two things in the game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one.
For my part, I describe parrying as the second type of damage wherever possible, and it has made my games action-packed.
I really hate over-use of wounds in description, that's no secret.
What Hit Points Represent: Hit points mean two things in the game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one.
And this is different from what I said how?
Taking physical punishment is part of it. Turning a more serious blow into a less serious one is non-descriptive. It is up to the GM to describe that.
You can turn a more serious blow into a less serious one by parrying or dodging it, or because you are lucky and it just whizzes past your ear, or because you have a divine presence guiding you.
A low level character with 28 hp who just goes back and forth to market each day should not have the capacity to turn the earth striking them from a 50 foot fall into something to shrug off. A level 6, ok then, they can.
Again... how does someone who is not a superhero "parry" the earth hitting them in a fall exactly?
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).
-------------------
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
The issue with this is that it still makes the threshold for being superhuman relative to fall damage extremely low. You can't balance a game where levels gain hp so that things are balanced for level 1 and level 5 the same way. It's just impossible.
So, you have to decide where the threshold for superhuman is first. With your system, you are superhuman if you have 9 hp if you assume everyone will not stabilize after a fall. If you account for stabilizing throwing the LD off even further for each stabilizing roll, and look at what it would take to kill someone outright, you can't even have an hp to Con relationship that is even possible (you'd have to have -3 hp max and 12 Con).
Regardless of how you slice it, your numbers make for superhuman survivability something that is attainable for characters less (far less) than level 6. With your system, a level 5 character that has 35 hp beats the odds of even being put at -1 hp by a 50 foot fall, let alone dead outright, by 4 times! That makes level 5 characters quite superhuman indeed.
If you want the threshold for being superhuman to be level 2 or 3, then your system might be OK. But if you want to make sure that you have to be level 6 to be superhuman, it is off the mark by a lot.
I feel like there is an irrational opposition to this argument, and your response got caught up in what I'll admit is a growing bias I have against everyone's posts in this thread.
I understand if people don't want things TO be realistic. I understand if people like having the game be cartoony. But please, PLEASE, have the courage to admit that it is that. It isn't superheroic to allow level 2 characters to survive 50 foot falls, its looney toons.
I visualize what is happening in my head as I play tabletop games and read. When I get the information presented to me that someone fell 50 or 100 feet... (and the die roll is an average or higher value) I see them plummet with great violence and a sickening thud. If the dice rolled lower than average, then I might envision that they got a lucky fall of some kind. If not, to then have to be presented with the information that they do a kip and start waving their sword around 1 second later unscathed is an insult to my brain unless there is some internal explanation of WHY reality has been suspended (they are superheroes with unnatural capabilities and properties).
Its not just the PCs. Any NPC that surpasses a (very low in the RAW) hp value is a superhero. If you like level 2s to be superheroes, be my guest, but you have to admit that it is looney.
You are incorrect about hp representing the amount of physical harm you can withstand. HP are abstract. HP is only the physical punishment you can take if your GM describes it that way. HP loss doesn't implicitly mean, by the rules, that you took physical damage. Your luck, morale, stamina, or divine favor could be running out, and this is modeled by hp loss.
Hmmm. If you're even throwing things like "divine favor" into the equation for axe hits I'm a bit unclear as to what exactly the problem is with doing the same sort of things with falling damage. If a given patron's favor could cause the blow of an axe to be less devastating than it otherwise would have been, then what's to say they couldn't also subtly influence things to cushion or reduce the speed of a fall?
setzer9999 wrote:
Actually, the rules are meant to model realism... as much as the GM wants/is able to describe it as realistic. At some point, it is the CHARACTERS that become "unrealistic", not the rules. That is, with the exception of falling damage in particular. This is OK, and even desirable, for high level characters. High level being 6 and over. This really does seem a good transition point. Lower level characters shouldn't be superheroes.
Why would we expect a single, specific "transition point", though? In-world, it's not like "Golarion Humans" are anywhere promised to function exactly as "Earth Humans" right up until level 5, and only then suddenly BAM! They're Touched by the Vorlons and have a fundamental alteration performed on them. I mean, they're still of the same essential nature at level 6; they've simply progressed yet another 1/20th along the road to reaching what is the pinnacle of (natural) human achievement for humans from their world--however ridiculously "superhuman" we would consider it in ours.
Now, level 6 is recognized by players as the level when "Golarion Humans", more or less reach a point that completely, utterly and definitively transcends what humans (in our world) could do, in most all respects. But that's an entirely different matter from saying that this fact implies that they must therefore follow an entirely normal "Earth Human" progression until reaching that point.
(Heck, I'd find it unrealistic to expect their progression to follow the exact same progression curve up to that point, considering that the final destinations of those progression curves, between the full potential of a "Golarion Human" and an "Earth Human" are so drastically different in where they end up.)
When you look at a level 1 Pathfinder adventurer, you are not looking at a "normal" human. They may be comparable in some outward respects, but in nature the differences are profound. Fundamentally speaking, you are looking at the still-developing, nascent stages of a being whose ultimate potential far exceeds anything an "Earth Human" could ever hope to achieve.
Is it really so surprising that, given such a difference in fundamental nature between the two types of beings, some differences show up much sooner than others?
setzer9999 wrote:
You can lose HP in this sense in that a "hit" on the attack roll indicates that the attack against you was sufficient to reduce one of those abstract elements as described by the GM. The body of your character isn't actually injured, bruised, burned, or bleeding, etc. until the GM describes it that way. Rules-wise, HP are not physical punishment, they are an abstract countdown to when your character IS...
The really funny thing is that describing it this way actually wrecks realism itself, you really think about it. Say some giants with huge axes are swinging at a fighter with a really high AC. Miss, miss, miss. Then, eventually, one of them gets a lucky hit in for a substantial HP cost... but the GM describes it as another non-hit that eroded some of your "luck" reservoir, and that he "isn't actually injured, bruised, burned, or bleeding".
The thing is... any attempt to regain those lost HP now suddenly becomes utter metagaming. In-game, if they're trying to role-play from their characters' viewpoints, the party healer has no even remotely sane reason to expend one of his "Cure X Wounds" spells on someone who has no "wounds" of any kind.
For my money? Accepting the simple proposition that the different races inhabiting Golarion have the innate potential to be "just that tough" is far less of a stretch that the verisimilitude-obliterating shenanigans that result from trying to handwave damage away as not actually being damage. I mean, immensely resilient heroes are an utterly fundamental staple of fantasy literature, running back all throughout human history and culture to ancient times, and all the way up to the present. If you run it that way, you're standing firmly in a long tradition, with a rich and varied ocean of precedent.
But having to "heal your luck" after certain random enemy misses, but not after others? Not so much in the heritage department.
Setzer a level 5 with 35 hp is a physically oriented person who better able to time and roll there landing, I have jumped 20 ft and been able to land it without any trouble, so why do you want to say its impossible for me to do that?
There is a happy medium. Even without houseruling, describing non-crit damage as parrying (and other abstract defense loss) does the trick nicely, and it is technically Rules-As-Written. HP are defined as abstract in the rulebook.
Parrying a giant's club is still superheroic in nature, but a good bit more believable than the direct-hit interpretation of HP that proliferates for some reason.
I've always had a rough time with the 'abstract/Luck/parry' concept. The system really isn't DESIGNED for that...
The fact that any 'non-crit' still POISONS you... or causes BLEED damage... or any other of secondary effects, mean that the blade HAD to have hit you ;)
HONESTLY... I usually go with 'wounds'.. He rolled with it or SOMETHING... but it STILL hit.. he Still bleed.. and he'll PROBABLY have a scar.
I played an unarmored martial artist a few years ago... and he was a BEAR to write up descriptions for what happened. In the end it was kinda cool in that every scar had a story... but still, got kind of redundant a few times ;)
in the end... I usually tell people HP are there.. because you need them to play. DON'T focus TOO hard on it or try to make sense of it... It only leads to pain ;)
setzer9999 wrote:
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.
Batman for the win.
Nightwing get's second place.
Captain america is SOMEWHERE in there... but his 'ordinary vs. superhuman is constantly debated...
Green Arrow... Robin 1-14... Daredevil... Bruce willis, Schwartzenager, Basically the media is FULL of 'heroes doing extraordinary things.'
I really have zero problem in a fantasy game believing that people can 'train themselves to be superhuman'. I prefer my games more 'cinematic blockbuster' then 'realistic documentary'. Some people WANT over realism... I'm just not there.
If Batman or Green Arrow can do something... I want my characters to have a shot at it too ^_^
So, 84 feet should kill a non-superhuman 90% of the time. I’ll admit, I haven’t brushed up on how to calculate what 10% on the low end of 8d6 are… but calculating the 50% for 5d6 is much easier, and that’s a perfectly good place to establish the baseline anyway by using averages for hp per level later on.
I know 2nd Edition had a rule right in the handbooks about DM's flat out killing people. Something about inescapable death.
NOT sure it was carried over, but rule 0 would still apply. If as a DM you feel a a freefall with no handholds/flags/canopies to break the fall... and landing on the hard hard ground is something that the character would NOT survive...
then Kill him.
I think most players wouldn't complain TOO much if their pegasus was killed out from under them and they fell to their death. Honestly I'd PROBABLY have forgotten the DM was supposed to roll Damage!!! :D
Actually knowing that normal people have survived freefall from an airplane means I would be angry with any GM who didn't give my superhuman person a chance of doing what real people have done. That said rolling percentile rather then damage would be fine if done right.
But I feel the OP has unrealistic expectations. 50% of people who fall 48', survive, but he wants to make that extremely difficult so that only 50% of superhumans will survive despite the fact that it goes well beyond what reality shows and then he wants to say he does it to be more realistic.
Despite level 5 not being to far superhuman I can almost garuntee that those statics do not apply mostly to level 4-5 people, those statistics apply to level 1-3 people with a lot more 1s then 3s. Yes, what you hit makes a difference but that's why it is a dice roll and not a straight up listed damage.
Setzer a level 5 with 35 hp is a physically oriented person who better able to time and roll there landing, I have jumped 20 ft and been able to land it without any trouble, so why do you want to say its impossible for me to do that?
You JUMPED down 20 feet. That's one part of the rule I haven't gotten to yet, but is in the falling rules too. When you intentionally jump, up to a certain level, you convert lethal to nonlethal damage. I'd say that onto a hard surface, between 20 and 30 feet is about the limit a normal human can mitigate their fall to any significant degree by intentionally dropping down. Beyond that, the returns are extremely diminishing. I'll get around to adding that to the system.
These are FALLS we are talking about. In fact, I've adjusted the 10 foot fall to just be 2d6, because it is a fall. Falling from 10 feet shouldn't be able to do an average of 3.5 and a maximum of 6. A maximum of 12 is more reasonable, because a fall from 10 feet should certainly be able to kill someone, but 1d6 can't kill someone.
@claymade
If everyone has the same kind of divine favor, a level 1 character and a level 6 character, what is the point of differentiating that favor or levels at all? It doesn't matter what in-game rationale is used to grant super powers. If its divine favor, otherworldly energy, mutant genes, or whatever other mechanism you want to use to grant superpowers, you can't just give the same thing to everyone from level 1 up.
There is no BAM! you are suddenly a superhero with no transition in my system. Yes, I want there to be a superhero threshold, but your strength level is not a progression from level 1, then leap to level 6 suddenly. A level 5 character is still far superior to a level 1, and a little stronger than a level 4. A level 5 character is more likely to survive falls than a level 1. The reason I am gearing things for level 5 is because I am more concerned about characters at levels 4-5 than I am for levels 1-3 for falling damage. Even with the low RAW falling damage, throwing huge falls at level 1-3 characters is pretty rude IMO, and you don't see much of it in published adventures.
I'll say again, the game has a touch of solipsism to it. I don't care that the average is well above 50% for death for a level 1 commoner to fall 50 feet, because I don't plan to throw level 1 commoners off of 50 foot cliffs all that often. If one does happen to fall off and inevitably die here and there, it really doesn't break the "realism" that a few commoners fell 50 feet to their death. I'm not planning on just sitting around playing a game where my players and I line commoners up on a cliff edge and shove them off for hours to see how many live.
And I find the very idea of a "Level 5 Commoner" offensive. Commoners shouldn't even ever be higher than level 2, and only a very limited few should ever achieve that.
In any case, there is a sliding scale where a level 5 is stronger than they were at level 1-4, and stronger each level through that process. I happen to like using published adventures, so instead of having to rewrite every single NPC stat block to tone down level 5 NPCs into level 2 NPCs (a level of work that makes me wonder why I'm using the published adventures) I need a solution that makes the dozens of level 4-5 NPCs out there not be superheros when the plot and their activities are such that they have no business being superheroes.
The problem is that you still try to use hp damage. If hp can be considered fighting ability or stamina or whatever, hp doesn't make sense with environmental damage.
If everyone has the same kind of divine favor, a level 1 character and a level 6 character, what is the point of differentiating that favor or levels at all? It doesn't matter what in-game rationale is used to grant super powers. If its divine favor, otherworldly energy, mutant genes, or whatever other mechanism you want to use to grant superpowers, you can't just give the same thing to everyone from level 1 up.
Who said they'd be the same? Obviously, a level 6 character has far more hitpoints than a level 1 character, so of course their level of whatever-those-represent isn't going to be the same.
All I'm pointing out is that you were arguing that falling was a special case because unlike combat, you had no way of "explaining away" a low damage roll if it somehow happened way out in an open field with no branches to grab on your way down, etc.
But since you're also allowing HP to represent some level of "someone Upstairs is looking out for you", if you ever run into the case where someone has to take falling damage, AND the roll is less that what you think is plausible for a straight fall AND the fall doesn't happen in a situation where there are those sort of cliffside branches to grab onto AND there's also nothing that could plausibly be underneath them to luckily mitigate their fall... then even in the situation where every single one of those conditions are met you can STILL do the sort of "GM description" that you talked about doing for the giant's axe, by means of explaining it via the abovementioned "someone Upstairs was looking out for you" description options for what you said HP could describe.
In this case, it's just them deciding to intervene to slow/cushion/mitigate the fall, instead of to deflect a giant's axe.
As it is, though, you're tilting the balance of the game away from survivability, and more toward sudden, immediate death from a bad roll or two, and all to fix a corner case of "falling out in the open away from any walls"... when really, even that corner case could still plausibly be explained away anyway.
(It'll shift the game balance in other, potentially unexpected ways as well. Just for example, under these rules, a low level battlefield control spell like "Create Pit" becomes a lot more powerful than it ever was before. Not only in terms of the initial fall, but also in terms of how dangerous it is to try to escape it before the duration ends.)
If you want to reduce overall player survivability (especially at low levels) in the service of making those kind of falling-when-out-in-the-open-field descriptions more plausible to you, that's your call as a GM. But I know it's a change that personally, I would not enjoy playing at all. I have absolutely zero problem with the idea that, among the traits we would consider "superhuman" (which are going to show up eventually) some show up earlier than others, and are in fact relatively common among denizens of that world.
Quote:
I need a solution that makes the dozens of level 4-5 NPCs out there not be superheros when the plot and their activities are such that they have no business being superheroes.
The feats they can do might mean that they'd be considered superheroes in our world, yes, but why would you say that they would be considered superheroes in their world... when they've only achieved barely 1/4th of their species' full potential?
There may not be many people in our world who have the physical characteristics of a level 5 person, but if you look at it in terms of "how many people in our world live up to just a fourth of what they could have achieved?", then the modules throwing level 5 mooks at you with a fair frequency becomes a lot more justifiable when the statistical distribution of how many people achieve what level of ability is seen in that light.
Quote:
A level 5 character is still far superior to a level 1, and a little stronger than a level 4. A level 5 character is more likely to survive falls than a level 1. The reason I am gearing things for level 5 is because I am more concerned about characters at levels 4-5 than I am for levels 1-3 for falling damage. Even with the low RAW falling damage, throwing huge falls at level 1-3 characters is pretty rude IMO, and you don't see much of it in published adventures.
This calibration you describe here seems to me even more of problem. Given a choice between:
A) "Falls are unrealistically too damaging to my level 1 character, and about statistically right for my level 4-5 character (if said level 5 character was considered the definition of an average human with respect to falling damage)"
or
B) "Falls are about right for my level 1 character, and by the time I get to level 4-5, I'm already starting to get a foretaste of the superhuman status (in this particular respect) that I am already moving inexorably toward."
... the "B" choice seems to me far and away the better one. Doesn't it make more sense that level 4-5 character would be starting to be somewhat superhuman with their HP gains, versus saying instead that they're ordinary, and your level 1 character is instead subhuman?
Just saying "well, you probably won't see many falls in published adventures" isn't really much of a dodge either. Heck, there's plenty of situations where the PCs might want to initiate a height-based situation, through a climb check to reach a high-up location, thus coming up with an alternate route or whatnot. But if they're afraid of the damage due to knowing that their characters are still subhuman with respect to falling damage, that'll artificially constrain their creativity and willingness to try such strategies.
At least, they'll be artificially constrained until they finally, after much struggle, manage to surpass being subhuman and achieve the level of average, everyday humanity once they hit level 4-5.
You are forgetting the fact that beyond 10-15 feet, it no longer matters whether the fall was intentional or not because you then have time to react and if you have any reflexes training at all that makes a huge difference. All those high HP per level classes are physical based classes where reflexes will be trained to a high degree.
Besides, if a level 2 can survive 30' falls more then half the time then you shouldn't be reduceing that chance just because your level 4-6 seem too powerful to you.
A rough solution is you could multiply the damage by the level of the one who is falling, which makes the falling damage equally dangerous to all levels without saying that farmer joe dies instantly from falling off his roof with little to no chance for survival.
Monsters will throw farmers off cliffs just to see if they survive.
Adventurers are there to slay them for their evil.
Captain America was given a Super Soldier Serum that changed him from a NPC into a super soldier with super human reflexes. He gained Super Strength from a villians poison that would have killed a farmer outright.
He doesn't think 5 level people are quite superhuman, and though such is attainable for real people, it is far beyond the norm. Try watchhing youtube and lookup amazing humans or something similar. Look at how awesome those people are then realize they are only level 3s and 4s. Then realize that 50% of normal people survive falling 48'. Obviously falling isn't as big an issue as people think it is.
As I said, there are limits to how balanced it can be. If I wanted to ensure that a level 5 character died 50% of the time, I’d have to push the damage up even further. The chart I created is better than the RAW in terms of modeling level 6 being a superhuman threshold, and preventing low level characters from being inexplicably superhuman. There isn’t a way to make level 5 and level 1 be balanced the same, AND allow levels to have increases. I don’t want a fall to be the same for a level 5 and a level 1, because that would actually be so unbalanced, it would ruin things even for me, and I am a “realism over balance” guy.
Let’s do some use cases, my system against the RAW, and see what the real story is here. I’m not going to give the exact percentage for survivability by actually calculating each potential stabilization roll, because that is just WAY too much additional work, but the initial stabilization roll for the first round after incurring the damage should tell the story pretty well.
What I have below may not be accurate down to every single HP calculated, but its close enough at least. I’m not saying it IS wrong, I’m just saying that this is a general illustration, and this post is quite long, and I have no proofreaders. This should illuminate the actual effect of my changes against real characters though.
Fall from 50 feet
RAW Average Damage: 17.5
House Rule Average Damage: 35
Level 1 Commoner, basic array, 12 Con
HP 4, Negative HP 12
RAW: Average fall will kill outright
House: Average fall will kill outright
Conclusion: Though the new system will OVER kill on average, dead is dead, so even though the house rule kills them more easily, there is no difference to a Level 1 Commoner that really affects gameplay in any significant way. There is no reason to factor in the stabilization saves because average damage is enough to kill outright. This character’s survivability is neither harmed nor helped by the house rules.
Level 1 Warrior, heroic array, 14 Con
HP 7, Negative HP 14
RAW: This character is already superhuman, though only just barely. 17 damage will leave the character with -10 hp. Since the character is not yet dead, stabilization saves are in effect. The first stabilization save would be DC 20. On the first roll, to lose only 1 hp, and still have 3 more chances, there is still a 15% chance he will stabilize. You have to do the math yourself to see how that 15% interacts with the 50% chance he should die from the damage, but it clearly brings the likelihood of survival above 50% by a not-insignificant margin.
House: Average fall will kill outright.
Conclusion: Yes, a less than average fall will also kill outright in the house rule, but you cannot balance level 1 and level 5 equally. This character is already superhuman in the RAW anyway as well, though only barely. This character’s believability is improved in the house rules. A Level 1 Wizard PC with 14 Con would only have 8 hp, and be comparable to this warrior.
Level 1 Barbarian PC, 20 Point buy, 16 Con
(I’m not factoring in raging to muddy the waters with what happens the moment you go unconcious)
HP 15, Negative HP 16
RAW: This character is already quite superhuman. The average fall will leave this character with -2 hp. While that is bad news in combat, survivability for that first roll to only be at -3 out of 16 negative HP for stabilization is only DC 12, and this character has a 55% chance to stabilize… and then 15 other rolls to go each with only a slight reduction in % chance.
House: This character would be killed outright by an average fall.
Conclusion: Level 1 Barbarians are not only PCs, but the system has to be balanced for PCs too. Yes, usually you don’t have 20 point buy for NPCs, but even reducing the Con score to the heroic array, this doesn’t change the story very much. A Barbarian might be supposed to be superheroic at later levels, but I say that doesn’t mean he should already be superheroic at level 1. Even in superhero movies, the characters have to learn to use their powers and hone their skills. You shouldn’t be doing superhero deeds at level 1, IMO, so the house rule makes things more believable.
Level 3 Commoner, basic array, 12 Con
HP 13, Negative HP 12
RAW: Character is superhuman. You should easily be able to extrapolate from the more thorough assessment in the previous examples to see how that is the case.
House: Average fall will kill outright
Conclusion: In the RAW, this character is superhuman, and in the House rule, this character is still killed outright by an average fall. The house rule makes this character more believable given the likelihood of such characters to fall from this height.
Level 3 Warrior, heroic array, 14 Con
HP 22, Negative HP 14
RAW: This character is already VERY superhuman. They won’t even be put at negative hp by an average fall.
House: This character is just barely superhuman, to a level that really isn’t even worth mentioning (1 hp above death).
Conclusion: This character is very superhuman in the RAW, in my opinion, disgustingly so. This isn’t even a PC class. A Level 3 Warrior is a guard for crying out loud. The house rule makes this much better. A Level 3 wizard PC with 14 Con, someone who is bookish and whose power comes from being able to cast spells, would be slightly weaker than this character at this level with average rolls, but still quite comparable. A Level 3 Wizard PC with 10 Con, someone really fitting the bookish archetype, would be even more likely to die from 50 feet, which makes sense to me.
Level 3 Barbarian PC, 20 Point buy, 16 Con
(I’m not factoring in raging to muddy the waters with what happens the moment you go unconcious)
HP 35, Negative HP 16
RAW: This character is massively superhuman. Even a maximum damage fall from 50 feet can’t put this character even at 0 hp!
House: This character would be disabled by a 50 foot fall on average.
Conclusion: Barbarians are supposed to be the toughest of the toughest of people, so just barely making it to disabled for an average fall from here makes some sense, but shrugging it off in the RAW is dumb. House rule makes this better.
Level 5 Commoner, basic array, 12 Con
HP 22, Negative HP 12
RAW: This character is VERY superhuman.
House: Average fall will kill outright.
Conclusion: Need I say any more? House rule all the way.
Level 5 Warrior, heroic array, 14 Con
HP 37, Negative HP 14
RAW: This character is massively superhuman. They won’t even be put at negative hp by an average fall.
House: This character is still a little superhuman, but eh, nothing is perfect, and it is still in the realm of believability.
Conclusion: This character is very superhuman in the RAW, in my opinion, disturbingly so. This isn’t even a PC class. A Level 5 Warrior is a vault guard or prison warden for crying out loud. The house rule makes this much better. Again, a level 5 PC Wizard is roughly comparable. The house rule wins again.
Level 5 Barbarian PC, 20 Point buy, 16 Con
(I’m not factoring in raging to muddy the waters with what happens the moment you go unconscious)
HP 55, Negative HP 16
RAW: This character is without any doubt, superhuman by a wide margin.
House: This character would shrug off a 50 foot fall average, but still have a chance of dying to a bad fall.
Conclusion: Barbarians are supposed to be the toughest of the toughest of people, so just barely making it to disabled for an average fall from here makes some sense, but shrugging it off in the RAW is dumb. House rule makes this better. If we are factoring in rage here, this character is shrugging off most falls this height with ease.
WAY TL;DR
The overall conclusion is that my house rule is actually geared for more perfect accuracy to Level 3 than it is to level 5, but still helps to pull level 5 characters into the realm of better believability. So, characters DO get stronger as they level, and struggle toward superhero powers. It doesn’t fundamentally change anything for Level 1 Commoners, they are likely dead in RAW as well. All the guards, bandits, prison wardens, cultists, and low level spellcasters you come across though will be placed into a much more believable category of “non-superhuman” or “barely superhuman” from levels 1-5 with my house rule. The use cases should prove that. The numbers may not be exactly perfect, but they are close enough to tell the story.
If you do not want level 1-5 characters to be superhuman, fall damage needs to be doubled for “short” falls. The rest of the system is complex to model actual acceleration, and allow higher falls to be made by high level characters more “realistically” as well.
I don’t think I can say any more about this… everything I’ve already said should suffice.
First off on the first commoner example most anything less then average damge will not kill outright but with house rule it will. You need to look at the range of possibilities.
Second that first level commoner should be able to get a 50% survival rate so I don't see how increaseing damage is more realistic.
Third if you want higher levels to be better able to survive falls while still making them significant then multiply damage by half their level, min 1. Leaves commoners better able to survive the world (which makes it beleivable that they might actually be able to become high level someday just like PCs) and yet doesn't ever leave falls as insignificant because of level.
First off on the first commoner example most anything less then average damge will not kill outright but with house rule it will. You need to look at the range of possibilities.
Second that first level commoner should be able to get a 50% survival rate so I don't see how increaseing damage is more realistic.
Third if you want higher levels to be better able to survive falls while still making them significant then multiply damage by half their level, min 1. Leaves commoners better able to survive the world (which makes it beleivable that they might actually be able to become high level someday just like PCs) and yet doesn't ever leave falls as insignificant because of level.
You just don't seem to understand. You cannot balance level 1 Commoners and Level 5 PCs the same. That isn't possible in a system with hp increases per level.
Your suggestion to make the damage based on level makes it so high level characters never are superheroic. Remember that the premise is to have low level characters not be superhuman, but allow high level characters to be. If you multiply the damage by half the level as you suggest, and leave the rest of the RAW system alone, you end up with a level 20 character taking an average fall damage of 700 damage for a 200 foot fall!
I can't think of a way, personally, that you can balance level 1 Commoners and level 5 PCs, as well as level 5-20 characters, and have it all be equal. I don't even want it to be equal.
What you are saying is that only level 1 Commoners are normal humans. So the LD50 should be geared for HP for a level 1 Commoner. What I'm saying is that level 1 Commoners are not the only normal humans. Level 5 characters might be "exceptional" humans, as you put it, but still "normal" as opposed to "superhuman".
If a level 1 Commoner only dies 50% of the time from a 50 foot fall, then a level 1 Warrior is already slightly superhuman, and a level 2 character can already be very superhuman. I don't want level 2 characters to be superhuman.
You are assuming that the majority of NPCs are level 1 Commoners. Perhaps the GM guide says that is what is supposed to be the demographics for the world, but that's not what actually occurs in game. I am trying to write rules for what ACTUALLY HAPPENS. Look at modules and adventures and at the list of characters in the NPC gallery. Think about what characters get into the circumstance where they would fall 50 feet. See many level 1 Commoners there? No? OK, but we do see lots of level 3-5 NPC bad guys (and good/neutral guys). Those people are not just superhuman, but CRAZILY superhuman in the RAW falling rules. They aren't just "exceptional", they are completely beyond what humans really are.
If you want level 2 characters to be superhumans, just say so. But don't be so insulting as to say that they aren't by RAW. They are, period.
I'm going to have my 20th level character swan dive 500ft in to a sidewalk and then start making concrete angels.
That does not even register compared to the insane stuff a lv20 character can do.
I have said it before:
Lv1-3: somewhat able to relate to real life
Lv4-8: main characters of action movies
Lv9-13: comic-book superheroes
Lv14+: high tier superheroes/living gods from myths
I'm going to have my 20th level character swan dive 500ft in to a sidewalk and then start making concrete angels.
That does not even register compared to the insane stuff a lv20 character can do.
I have said it before:
Lv1-3: somewhat able to relate to real life
Lv4-8: main characters of action movies
Lv9-13: comic-book superheroes
Lv14+: high tier superheroes/living gods from myths
After level 3, you are no longer "human" imho.
I disagree with that kamelguru.
Hit points represent what you can withstand or avoid. It's hard imagining avoiding being crushed on the concrete after a 500-foot fall; therefore you must have withstood the shock. Only, the later is just as hard to disbelieve...
Even at 20th level, it takes a significant amount of magic to uproot a mature oak, or lift a full-size boat, or run faster than the speed of sound. You can't jump over a three-story building, be light-footed enough to walk on water or punch a building down. These IMO, are comparable to surviving a 500-foot fall, make a pretty concrete-angle and get-up dusting your clothes.
All of the above should be possible given the right spell, but without a significant amount of magic, I find them all a bit far-fetched. 20d6 is quite survivable, even for a fragile wizard, for a 20th level character without no magic whatsoever.
A third-level Rogue with 14 CON (Heroic array) has 23 HP. When you factor in the effects of bleeding out, they have less than a 50% chance of surviving your 50-foot fall. And this is a dexterous, nimble type of character, not a platemail-clad brute. It's not until you get to fourth-level (i.e. an action movie hero rather than a normal person) that the Rogue even becomes average compared to ordinary people in our world.
That Rogue at first level, with 10 HP? 98.4% chance of death. For what should be an LD50 fall.
Yes, most superheroes come into their full power over time and are stronger when the story ends than when it began, but most superheroes also don't start out far below average. The original Iron Man suit had flaws, but wearing it didn't make Tony Stark far weaker than an average person. Unless we're counting ten-year-old Bruce Wayne, Batman doesn't start out weaker than random thugs. Superheroes need to grow to reach their full potential, not to pass the "is no better than a random civilian" bar.
Even at 20th level, it takes a significant amount of magic to uproot a mature oak, or lift a full-size boat, or run faster than the speed of sound. You can't jump over a three-story building, be light-footed enough to walk on water or punch a building down. These IMO, are comparable to surviving a 500-foot fall, make a pretty concrete-angle and get-up dusting your clothes.
All of the above should be possible given the right spell, but without a significant amount of magic, I find them all a bit far-fetched. 20d6 is quite survivable, even for a fragile wizard, for a 20th level character without no magic whatsoever.
There was a Balance (now Acrobatics) DC for walking on water back in one of the 3.5 books, I forget which.
And punching a building down is quite possible if you can load enough damage that breaks through stone's hardness onto a single attack and hit a structurally-vital point on the building (IE Make an Engineering check before you strike). Granted it's more likely to be done by a raging barbarian with a heavily-enchanted gauntlet or cestus, but it could still be done.
By curiosity, did you calculate death at 0 hp or death at -14 hp?
Death at -14 HP; 98.43% chance of 24 or more damage on a 10d6. And that's only counting instant deaths, not deaths from bleeding out; when you take bleed-out deaths into account, the calculation is a bit messier but the upshot is basically that you're just about guaranteed to die.
It's pretty disingenuous to only look at what an "average" fall does when you're talking about survival rates, because it paints a 51% chance of death as identical to a 99% chance of death.
But the problem isn't the falling damage, which is actually in proportion with all of the other damage in the game.
The "problem" is that characters have enough HP to routinely survive any number of deadly threats, including some that are much more deadly than a "mere" 100 ft fall. Like an explosive ball of fire erupting around you. Or a axe the size of a buick.
Characters can survive these deadly threats because at its simplest Pathfinder is a game where characters survive a series of deadly threats.
One shouldn't just pick one thing off the long list of things that don't make sense and make that thing work "realistically" while ignoring all of the others. They all fail to make sense because that is the basic assumption of the game.
If you want realism, consider changing the way HP is generated.
By curiosity, did you calculate death at 0 hp or death at -14 hp?
Death at -14 HP; 98.43% chance of 24 or more damage on a 10d6. And that's only counting instant deaths, not deaths from bleeding out; when you take bleed-out deaths into account, the calculation is a bit messier but the upshot is basically that you're just about guaranteed to die.
It's pretty disingenuous to only look at what an "average" fall does when you're talking about survival rates, because it paints a 51% chance of death as identical to a 99% chance of death.
... ??? What?
50% of rolls will do the average or more damage. You are double-dipping your logic. A character with 23 hp and 14 Con can withstand 37 total damage before dying. If the damage coming in is 35 ON AVERAGE, how does that equate to a 99% chance to die? How did 50% chance to roll 35 or more suddenly magically equate to 99% chance to roll 35 or more?
It doesn't.
10d6 has an average of 35 damage, or (roughly speaking) a 50% chance of doing 35 or more damage or a 50% chance of doing 35 or less damage. Even if that character took an average fall, they would still not be killed outright. Sure they might still die from bleeding out, but that would still only put them at the average result! That's what LD50 means.
There is still the chance that they would roll less than 35. I have no idea what you are talking about trying to turn 50% into 99%.
@Evil Lincoln
The fireball could have lots of random ways to describe it applied to it. It isn't necessarily a solid, unerring orb of flame. The axe can still miss actually cutting your skin or crushing your skull, no matter how big it is. The earth cannot miss you when you fall to it. Falling is uniquely qualified as being non-sensical to describe as "avoided". Doing the unlikely is one thing, but not hitting the earth when falling is not possible unless you actually cast a spell, which HP doesn't allow you to do, spells do.
I don't want to change HP for characters over level 5 either. Fall damage is, as far as I can tell so far, the worst offender by FAR. It was originally designed by the people who came up with the original HP system as well to be much more unforgiving, and accidentally changed and never corrected at editing anyway.
Edit: @Roberta Yang
I'm going to take another shot at what you said before, and actually do those stabilization rolls you said would be just too messy. The way you put it made it very easy to assert that you were saying that the fall would be 99% likely to kill you, very cleverly worded, but the claim is just false.
If you take 24 damage, what you say is 98% likely, you would then need to take a DC 11 Constitution check with a +2 to your Con for this character. You only need to roll an 9 or higher, giving you a 55% chance to stabilize. If you fail that, you lose 1 hp and get the next chance at 10/20, giving you a 50% chance to stabilize there... you would have to fail 13 stabilization rolls, each with only a 5% less chance of succeeding than the last... and you call that 99% chance to die? WTF.
Try reading my post again; the 99% death rate applies to the first-level Rogue (who needs 24 damage to die), not the third-level one. The third-level one (37 to die) still has over a 50% death rate once you factor in bleeding out.
The comment about only focusing on average damage is based on stuff like this:
setzer9999 wrote:
Level 1 Commoner, basic array, 12 Con
HP 4, Negative HP 12
RAW: Average fall will kill outright
House: Average fall will kill outright
Conclusion: Though the new system will OVER kill on average, dead is dead, so even though the house rule kills them more easily, there is no difference to a Level 1 Commoner that really affects gameplay in any significant way. There is no reason to factor in the stabilization saves because average damage is enough to kill outright. This character’s survivability is neither harmed nor helped by the house rules.
See, you say the house rules don't affect survivability in any way. But that's clearly false. In the original rules, the Commoner has better than a 30% chance to survive the initial fall. Once you factor in bleed-out effects, that number starts to shrink, but it's still nowhere near a 99% death rate. The commoner's odds of survival aren't spectacular, but they actually do have a reasonable chance of avoiding death.
With your house rule? You'd need to throw more than twenty thousand of these commoners off the fifty-foot cliff before you'd find a single one who wouldn't be instantly killed on impact... and even then they'd probably bleed out a moment later. Such a commoner is pretty much guaranteed death.
You claim that overkill doesn't matter because the average damage is lethal either way. But average damage isn't the only thing that matters; a 55% death rate kills "on average", but you'd hardly say that's a guaranteed death. The commoner normally has quite a reasonable chance of survival, and you've pretty much denied them that save completely - and you're claiming it didn't even make a difference.
If you only look at average damage, you'll see a 51% survival rate and a 99% survival rate as "they're both lethal, obviously they're exactly the same".
You also have a weird idea of superhuman if you claim that the 14 CON Warrior having a slightly better than 50% chance of survival (which he actually doesn't if you do the numbers, but never mind that) makes him superhuman. But that's not true at all. LD50 means your average person has a 50% survival rate, but not everyone is an average person. Some people are below-average; toss a frail 80-year-old with brittle bones off a 50-foot cliff, and you'll find they have a much higher than 50% chance of dying. Which means that a 20-year-old athlete in peak physical condition will conversely have a slightly better than 50% chance of survival. And guess what? A trained military soldier (Warrior) with a sturdier-than-average body (14 CON is well above average) will be just such a person. But for some reason you look at a 51% survival rate and think, "Welp, they must be Superman now, my immersion is ruined!"
tl;dr: You are abusing numbers. Stop abusing numbers.
Try reading my post again; the 99% death rate applies to the first-level Rogue (who needs 24 damage to die), not the third-level one. The third-level one (37 to die) still has over a 50% death rate once you factor in bleeding out.
The comment about only focusing on average damage is based on stuff like this:
setzer9999 wrote:
Level 1 Commoner, basic array, 12 Con
HP 4, Negative HP 12
RAW: Average fall will kill outright
House: Average fall will kill outright
Conclusion: Though the new system will OVER kill on average, dead is dead, so even though the house rule kills them more easily, there is no difference to a Level 1 Commoner that really affects gameplay in any significant way. There is no reason to factor in the stabilization saves because average damage is enough to kill outright. This character’s survivability is neither harmed nor helped by the house rules.
See, you say the house rules don't affect survivability in any way. But that's clearly false. In the original rules, the Commoner has better than a 30% chance to survive the initial fall. Once you factor in bleed-out effects, that number starts to shrink, but it's still nowhere near a 99% death rate. The commoner's odds of survival aren't spectacular, but they actually do have a reasonable chance of avoiding death.
With your house rule? You'd need to throw more than twenty thousand of these commoners off the fifty-foot cliff before you'd find a single one who wouldn't be instantly killed on impact... and even then they'd probably bleed out a moment later. Such a commoner is pretty much guaranteed death.
You claim that overkill doesn't matter because the average damage is lethal either way. But average damage isn't the only thing that matters; a 55% death rate kills "on average", but you'd hardly say that's a guaranteed death. The commoner normally has quite a reasonable chance of survival, and you've pretty much denied them that save completely - and you're claiming it didn't even make a difference.
...
Look at the pot calling the kettle black... stop abusing numbers yourself.
If you have stabilization rolls, your odds of surviving INCREASE not decrease. Every stabilization roll gives you additional % chance to survive. If you are taken to disabled status on an average roll, and then get 13 stabilization rolls, your odds of surviving the fall are VASTLY higher than 50%... do you seriously not get that?
I am aware that commoners would die. That's why they are commoners. The LD50 cannot be geared for level 1 commoners and level 5 barbarians... and it can't even be geared for level 1 commoners and level 3 warriors the same way. If the system has hp given out per level in any fashion, you can't make the % equal.
Commoners are commoners in part BECAUSE they are fodder. Or they are fodder because they are commoners. Whichever direction you want to take the sentence. Who cares that commoners are dying from a 50 foot fall again? And what game is throwing 20,000 commoners off of a cliff and actually calculating falls with rolls? Have fun doing that.
Even in real life, the numbers reported for falls are likely over-reported for people who are more likely to survive the falls. No, I don't have anything to back that up, but it stands to reason. How many couch potatoes, slave laborers, professors, baristas, janitors, and housewives etc. do you think are falling 50 feet? The people who are doing the falling are people who would be up at such heights with the chance TO fall... so, your rock climbers, iron workers, daredevils, mountain bikers, criminals, and the like... people who might be more physically fit and attuned to survive a fall.
The fact that a commoner falls off of a 50 foot cliff and dies doesn't bother me at all. The fact that a level 3 guard falls off of a cliff and isn't even staggered does bother me.
The fact that a commoner falls off of a 50 foot cliff and dies doesn't bother me at all. The fact that a level 3 guard falls off of a cliff and isn't even staggered does bother me.
Well the fact that my level 1 Rogue PC Adventurer would have a less than a 2% chance of surviving a fall that even a normal, average human should have a 50% chance of surviving bothers me much, much, much more than what might or might not happen to that random level 3 guard NPC.
We realize that a uniform damage roll system cannot be the exact same lethality percentage across all levels 1-5 with scaling HP. We realize that whatever level you calibrate the "realism window" to, the levels outside that will be "unrealistic".
Your system still has the exact same problem as RAW in that respect. All you've really done is swap some of those "outside the window" levels of unrealistic toughness for "outside the window" levels of unrealistic fragility by shifting the "realism window" forward a few levels.
This new form of unrealism is not any kind of improvement whatsoever. It's still unrealistic. It's just that in your system, it's unrealistic in ways that mean our characters are unrealistically dying more often.
...yay?
setzer9999 wrote:
How many couch potatoes, slave laborers, professors, baristas, janitors, and housewives etc. do you think are falling 50 feet?
How many couch potatoes, slave laborers, professors, baristas, janitors, and housewives etc. do you think try to commit suicide in a year?
Certainly seems a much more sensible and precisely-quantifiable sample set to me than backtracking the steps of rock climbers and mountain bikers into the wilderness and trying to guesstimate where exactly they fell from based on their recollections...
As far as the justification for the "It's Magic!" argument, here is what I use.
Will and Fate.
A character that levels up has overcome challenges, they have a stronger will. This does not mean a stronger will save, or some conscious application of willpower. Merely that their will to survive is strong.
This will reaches out to those who control fate: gods, fiends, angels, even the fundamental forces of good, evil, death, life. These beings react, perhaps consciously, perhaps not, and an exchange takes place. The bandit who has killed and stolen falls from a cliff, his will to survive calls out, and the abyss itself stretches out a strand of fate-altering power, and the bandit walks away from the fall.
A cleric rushes into a burning building to save the children inside, and his will calls out, not only to his own god, but to those others who value life, who oppose flame, who dislike destruction.
Etc etc.
If you need a reason for why the outer planes grant such boons, perhaps its an investment. The idea that a higher level character is a more valuable soul is well established. Why wouldn't the forces of the multiverse invest in souls with potential, growing them and shaping them into tools and weapons for the wars of the afterlife?
Just out of curiosity, how do you see overnight healing? By the request of realism shouldn't your characters be spending days, if not weeks or months, in an infirmary after every encounter? Especially at lower levels when magical healing isn't that strong.
As for that, when it comes to realism, how do you explain magic at all? Where does the fireball come from? It's fire so something has to be combusted and actually burn for a prolonged period of time. Why isn't the wizard hurt by the fire? How come the wizard's end of a disintegrate ray doesn't hurt him while the other end does? How does a ray work at all, is it a laser? Then how does a Ray of Frost or a Ray of Sickening work? How does the caster manage to generate a laser with nothing but his hands and mind? Is a Wand of Scorching Ray an overpowered laser pen? How does a Fire Elemental work? Why isn't it extinguished when deprived of oxygen (if it isn't it's not a fire elemental at all but an elemental of some other chemical reaction). Etc, etc, etc...
All I'm trying to illustrate here is that realism and any fantasy world don't play nice. They can't, that's why it's called fantasy.
As far as the justification for the "It's Magic!" argument, here is what I use.
Will and Fate.
A character that levels up has overcome challenges, they have a stronger will. This does not mean a stronger will save, or some conscious application of willpower. Merely that their will to survive is strong.
This will reaches out to those who control fate: gods, fiends, angels, even the fundamental forces of good, evil, death, life. These beings react, perhaps consciously, perhaps not, and an exchange takes place. The bandit who has killed and stolen falls from a cliff, his will to survive calls out, and the abyss itself stretches out a strand of fate-altering power, and the bandit walks away from the fall.
A cleric rushes into a burning building to save the children inside, and his will calls out, not only to his own god, but to those others who value life, who oppose flame, who dislike destruction.
Etc etc.
If you need a reason for why the outer planes grant such boons, perhaps its an investment. The idea that a higher level character is a more valuable soul is well established. Why wouldn't the forces of the multiverse invest in souls with potential, growing them and shaping them into tools and weapons for the wars of the afterlife?
I don't have a problem with that at all... what I have a problem with is that every Joe Schmoe does this. Honestly, I don't think level 6 is even high enough for a character to do stuff like this. Look at the feats. You have to have at least 6 HD, 6 levels, just to knock someone's weapon away when you disarm them... yet you can survive impossible to survive things with routine ease at level 2.
It isn't just the PCs and the BBEGs that do this stuff. They say the demographics of the world are that everyone should be a level 1 commoner, but those don't really manifest in the game. Instead, you have level 1 expert/3 warrior, level 7 aristocrat, level 2 rouge/level 3 fighters, etc. running around ALL OVER the actual adventures and modules.
I honestly feel that with what feats are afforded by prerequisites, and by the types of characters portrayed in the official rules and modules/adventures by level, that you really shouldn't be superhuman until level 13 though. I don't consider a pirate captain to be a level 12 character, given how powerful a level 12 character is in the RAW, but that's what it is in the NPC gallery.
I want magic. I want superheroes. I just don't want level 2 and 3 characters being superheroes. Even level 6 being superheroic is too low for me, but I'd live with it if at least that was true... but it isn't. It's not just falling damage, that's just a classic one to pick on. All sorts of other damage sources cause the game to be out of sync with ITSELF, not with our reality. How can someone be such a mundane person, incapable of combat feats even I could achieve in a week of instruction, but yet be unable to die like a normal person?
That's all I want to solve for. Only a very select few characters should be able to be superhuman. I don't want every guard and cultist the game actually encounters to be a superhero. Yuck. But I also don't want a game where no one is a superhero. Also yuck. I used to think I hated 4E in part because of "minions", but now I kind of see where they were going with it... but its still too low.
Perhaps that's what I need after all... instead of changing everything, maybe I just need to add some version of "minionizing" characters that have no business being superhuman or supermagical... anyone have any thoughts on that instead? 1 hp is just not going to cut it, something else that "normalizes" the "normies" is in order though.
you could spike falling damage. 1d6 per 10 feet, but if a die comes up 6, you add another d6 to the damage. i haven't run the math on this, but that should make falls more lethal.
or, change falling damage to a Reflex save (DC = damage). Acrobatics may be substituted here. if you succeed, you take half damage. if you succeed by 5 or more, this is subdual damage instead. if you fail, full damage. if you fail by 5 or more, full damage and you suffer a long-term injury (broken leg, partial paralysis, etc).
In thinking about the problem in an entirely different way, I think I may have come up with something that will fix most if not all forms of hp/damage abuse. Good enough for myself, if for no one else. Instead of fixing damage sources, and not even fixing hp in general directly, just remove the problem entirely below the threshold where “superhero” capabilities are acceptable.
More background thoughts/direction people may not want to read:
Spoiler:
To put it another way, the problem really boils down to 3 things: rapidly inflating hp, and “direct damage” (damage that cannot be avoided, in the eyes of those playing), and characters that shouldn’t be superheroes having that inflated hp which lets them “avoid” that unavoidable damage. We have to remove the cause of the problem, only where it is a problem. So, we have to remove hp inflation only where unacceptable direct damage is encountered, but not elsewhere.
Also, a twist on the 3rd issue is that high level creatures with NPC class levels, such as high level aristocrats, shouldn’t be superheroes either, no matter where you set the bar. They have those levels to make them better aristocrats, not better skydivers or grant them the ability to go weeks without eating, stand around while on fire, etc. Non-magical creatures should also not become super “human” (or super-biological), so some creature types also are exempt from surpassing mortals.
The following rules are scalable, because you can set the value of “X” in the Exemption Threshold to any cap where you wish the bar for superhuman beings. Also, it is up to each GM to determine what constitutes “Direct Damage”. Wherever you set the bar, 1 HD beyond that is where normal mortality is left behind, and any HD beyond that are delving into the early stages of demi-godhood for humanoids, and legendary magical creatures for monsters. This is where you “break through” and grasp a small portion of the power of the gods.
The rules:
Direct Damage:
Direct damage is damage that, in the opinion of the GM, cannot be mitigated by mortal skill in any significant capacity. Only sheer luck or magical/divine power could avoid the damage with any reliability, or at all, and the creature’s body physically DOES take the brunt of it in all likelihood.
Slowly Accumulated Direct Damage:
Damage sources that deal direct damage in the form of slowly accumulated damage, such as starvation, instead deal 1 point of Con damage per damage die, 1 point of Str and Dex damage per 2 damage dice. This damage and the number of damage dice this is based on is cumulative, and the same whether the standard damage is lethal or non-lethal.
If you are still sustaining the effects of slowly accumulated direct damage while trying to rest, you cannot naturally heal the through that rest.
Magic such as lesser restoration can sustain someone through such trials by relieving these damages.
Dealing Direct Damage:
Calculate all direct damage (other than slowly accumulated direct damage) as if based on that creature’s first HD worth of HP. If the creature would be killed due to this, the creature is killed. If the creature would be brought to 0 or negative hp due to this, bring the creature to 0 or that many negative hp. Otherwise, the creature receives the damage as normal to its current hp.
Exemption Threshold:
Creatures beyond X HD gained from PC class levels are no longer subject to direct damage.
HD gained from NPC class levels do not count toward the total needed to no longer be subject to direct damage. If a creature has NPC class levels, it must also have X HD PC class levels to no longer be subject to direct damage.
Creatures with racial hit dice stack their HD with any PC class levels they may have, and their racial hit dice count toward the total HD that count to make them no longer subject to direct damage (with the exception of the list below).
If a creature has ONLY racial hit dice from the following types, its racial hit dice do NOT count toward the total HD to make them no longer subject to direct damage (if it has another type in addition to one(s) on this list, it’s racial hit dice still count toward the total):
* With the exception of animal companions and familiars for a creature with PC class levels. The animal companion or familiar only counts as many of its own HD toward the total required to no longer be subject to this requirement as its master has eligible HD.
--------------------------------------------
If anyone has any criticisms, please gods let it not be to just say, whether eloquently or otherwise, “realism is stupid”, or "I don't like dying so easily in my games". If you can see any way to improve upon the above to make it work, please let me know. If you don’t like the entire idea of a system like this in any way, your comments will not help me make my house rules… and this is what this part of the forum is for.
I'm honestly not interested, in this thread, in arguing even one more post on the subject of IF there is a problem with damage in the RAW, only in discussing how to solve the problem as defined by me. You don't have to agree that it is a problem, but if you want to help me refine my idea, then at least pretend you agree, and base your observations on the assumption that there is a problem with damage in the RAW.
For the purposes of this thread, I will ignore any further posts that are not in keeping with this. If that means no one posts further, then so be it. I got into it a lot with some folks, but honestly, that isn't what this thread is meant to be about. I want a practical solution. That is all.
You could instead use the con score as the massive damage threshold.
It is presented in unearthed arcana and makes characters more likely to die from high damage sources and without the complexity of anything else in this thread (beyond rule 0 anyway)
Average of 17 damage? Hope you have a high con.
(I should double check the PF rules on massive damage but I doubt it's changed enough to make this idea worthless)
Edit: Wow it's classified as an optional rule in PF (though the norm is still 50 points) and you make a DC 15 fort save or die.
I suggest,
If you take damage higher then your con score you need to make a fort save DC 15, and an additional fort save for every 10 points of damage above your con score.
If you fail 1 save, you are disabled, fail 2 saves and you are at -3 hp and dying (Unless your con score is 3 or less, in which case you are dead), fail 3 saves and you die.
I think I will use this, except in my game it will be double your con score.
You could instead use the con score as the massive damage threshold.
It is presented in unearthed arcana and makes characters more likely to die from high damage sources and without the complexity of anything else in this thread (beyond rule 0 anyway)
Average of 17 damage? Hope you have a high con.
(I should double check the PF rules on massive damage but I doubt it's changed enough to make this idea worthless)
Edit: Wow it's classified as an optional rule in PF (though the norm is still 50 points) and you make a DC 15 fort save or die.
I suggest,
If you take damage higher then your con score you need to make a fort save DC 15, and an additional fort save for every 10 points of damage above your con score.
If you fail 1 save, you are disabled, fail 2 saves and you are at -3 hp and dying (Unless your con score is 3 or less, in which case you are dead), fail 3 saves and you die.
I think I will use this, except in my game it will be double your con score.
That is an interesting approach. What about "slowly" dying from "direct" damage over time, like starving or burning to death?
Would you track the Con damage from that source and add together all the total damage that source causes in Con damage? If that meets the threshold, then die? Its a flaw in my above system too, now that I think about it, but that would mean the average person would starve to death in just 12 days, but also take 72 seconds to burn to death... hmm.
I do like your suggestion's direction, but I'm not sure why the save would be a Reflex save. The premise is that the types of damage involved are beyond skill, so I would think it would be a Con save if there is a save.
If you double the Con score as the massive damage threshold, you would (just as an illustration of a set of numbers, not to argue falling damage itself any further) need to do 24 falling damage on a 50 foot fall for someone with 12 Con to kill them from it, but there is only a 6% chance of that. Of course, if you stick to just Con, then the opposite problem is that you have a 94% chance to do 12 or more damage as well, so its too brutal on the other end.
I would suggest, that if you are using a massive damage approach, that you use Con + half the HD value + 1 as the number (Con + PFS HD hp increase per level values). This brings the amount of damage required to kill someone with 12 Con and d6 to 16, which is a little low, but you can't have all HDs be equal. It puts someone with 12 Con and d10 at 18, perfect 50%, and someone with 12 Con and d12 at 19, just a little better than realistic. Now what to do about those pesky characters that have 16 Con, or Barbarians who rage with that to get to 20... throws things out of whack... hmm.
This approach keeps people from double-dipping in the Con score the way they do in my initial outline, so that if someone has a high con score, they only benefit from the negative hp additions, but not the first HD Con mod. This makes sense to me, because Con on the positive HP side, to me, is Con enhancing capabilities, and Con on the negative side is the body's actual resilience. Direct damage bypasses all capabilities enhancements.
I'm just not sure about the extra saves... you are already factoring in the "save" in terms of the randomness of the dice.
None of the above is the final say, or saying I have it quite right yet, just to be clear. I'm just still poking and prodding at this to refine it all.
Starving and burning to death sound about right, If I recall correctly about 2 weeks is the estimated time to starve to death so you are close there and in videos I've seen of people on fire usually end up in really bad shape in less then 30 seconds so I could easily believe death in 72 seconds (unless only your arm is burning or something like that)
Though some of those elemental damage things should stay the way they are, 3e did a good (if incomplete) job of mapping such things to reality and heat (not fire) damage and stuff is really quick to get over and thus being non-lethal at first makes perfect sense for those. I think perhaps have it heal like nonlethal once removed from source?
I also sperated what I am doing for my game for a reason, I don't mind slightly harder to kill PCs, particularly when I feel like killing PCs.
The threshold is a bit low but needing three saves offsets that a bit (also I hate hard lines and much prefer to scale such things)
17 damage, 12 con, poor save, has 30% chance to pass first save, on fail they are disabled, on success they simply take the HP damage. Or if you add an extra save every 5 damage then a fail results in a second save with 30% chance of success, fail both and be dying, fail one and be disabled, pass both and just take HP damage.
Am wondering if first fail should be dying instead of disabled hmmm.
So far I have only put light thought into this but I think I will start to actually heavily look at this for inclusion into Roads and Ruins.
I've worked on the model further, and converted it to a variant of wounds and vigor, where damage can be applied from various sources directly to wound points. Instead of keeping track of a different set of information in the form of 1 HD hp values, wound points and direct to wound point damage, along with changing the damage dice and progression for various forms of damage, should provide a much easier to use system at the table.
There are lots of rules here, but they actually in large part mirror the rules in the published rules. If someone is willing to read hundreds of published pages of rules, a few pages of house rules shouldn't be too much to ask, especially since these rules are superseding rules in the published rules on the same points. In my view, this system isn't a complete rewrite of the d20 pathfinder system, it's just shuffling around hp values and tacking on a few simple mechanics.
If someone cares to read it, I think they will find that its actually not that complicated to remember and use on the fly at the table, it just all needs to be written down to account for all the conditions at once when the system is conceived. The biggest amount of rework that would be required would be updating the wounds and vigor point values for creatures with at least 13 eligible HD to be super-biological. For creatures with less than that many eligible HD, its actually easier than wounds and vigor, because wounds just equal Con, and vigor just equals hp... easy.
High level creatures with eligible HD types will start to become superhuman or super-biological by adding to their wound points instead of vigor points for each additional HD. This, along with the revamped damage sources and the fact that stabilization check DCs are calculated with a subtraction from a high value instead of an addition to a medium value has the potential to make such creatures that MORE heroic against damage sources like high falls, especially if that creature focuses on a high Con score and/or having lots of wound points.
I also fully intend to address other aspects of the system with this, not just falling damage. Again, that is just a good marker for how the system is functioning, not the only issue at hand. I also haven't had the time yet to finish the section for regaining wounds and vigor points through rest, but will get to that as well.
If you read all this, I am looking for constructive criticism... the operative word being constructive.
The Rules:
Wounds and Vigor
Wound points:
A creature has a number of wound points equal its Constitution score. There is no such thing as a “wound threshold”.
Wound points represent the amount of physical punishment a creature can take before it dies. If a creature loses at least 1 wound point (excluding temporary wound points), that creature must make a stabilization check (see Injury and Death: Stabilization) each round until it succeeds.
When a creature reaches 0 or fewer wound points, it is dead.
Temporary hit points:
Temporary hit points are applied to wound points, and are lost first. Any effect that grants temporary hp grants 1 temporary wound point per die used. For effects that do not use dice to generate the amount of temporary hp gained, and for the constants added to those that do, for every 5 temporary hp the effect provides, the effect provides 1 temporary wound point (minimum 1).
For example, in the official RAW, the spell false life grants 1d10 + 1 per caster level (maximum 10) temporary hp. With these rules, it grants 1 + 1 per caster level temporary wound points. If a level 3 wizard cast this spell, it would provide 2 temporary wound points. If a level 6 wizard cast this spell, it would provide 3 temporary wound points.
Vigor Points:
Creatures with one or more full Hit Dice or levels gain vigor points. With each level gained or each Hit Die a creature has, it gains a number of vigor points based on its Hit Die type. Use the creature's Hit Dice to generate its vigor points, just like you would hit points, and add the creature's Constitution modifier per level as well. A creature gains maximum vigor points on its first Hit Die if it comes from a character class level. A creature who’s first full Hit Die comes from an NPC class or from their race rolls its Hit Dice to determine its starting vigor points. A creature with less than one Hit Die has no vigor points; it only has wound points.
Favored class bonuses, points gained through the Toughness feat, and any miscellaneous hit points not outlined in these rules a creature gains are applied to vigor points.
“Super-biological” Creatures:
Creatures with more than 12 HD granted by a PC class or 12 racial HD (with the exclusion of HD gained through the types on the list below) add what would have been their vigor points per level at 12 HD and below to their wound points instead. Eligible racial HD and PC class levels stack for purposes of this determination.
HD gained through NPC classes are not eligible to apply toward the total of 12 HD required for this privilege.
Creatures whose types contain ONLY types from this list do not count their HD as eligible. If a creature has a type or types from this list, but also has a type NOT on this list, then their HD are eligible:
* With the exception of animal companions for a creature with PC class levels. The animal companion only counts as many of its own HD toward the total required as its master has eligible HD.
Direct to Wound Point Damage:
Some damage is dealt directly to wound points.
If a source of damage indicates that it deals damage directly to wound points, the creature receiving this damage cannot apply the damage from that source to vigor points. Instead, wound points are damaged directly.
Unless the damage source has the ghost touch or similar property, incorporeal creatures do not take direct to wound point damage from corporeal sources of damage, instead taking damage normally by losing vigor points first.
Injury and Death
Stabilization:
A stabilization check is a Constitution saving throw DC 21 - the creature’s current wound points. If successful, the creature is considered stable, meaning it does not need to make any additional checks to become stable unless it incurs further wound point damage. If the creature fails this check, it takes 1 point of wound damage, is no longer stable, and is now wounded. If the creature fails the stabilization check by 10 or more, in addition to now being wounded and no longer stable, it also becomes unconscious.
Each day, a creature that has lost any wound points must make a stabilization check (even though stable) even without combat or if initiative is rolled during that time. For this daily check the creature only ceases to be stable and loses wound points if it fails the check by 5 or more. It is at the GM’s discretion when to make this check if the following is not possible or nonsensical, but typically this check is made when the creature wakes from a night’s rest (see Regaining Wound and Vigor Points).
Wounded
When a creature is wounded, it gains the staggered condition until it is no longer wounded. Creatures can never be naturally immune based on creature type traits to being wounded or staggered due to being wounded, but may gain this immunity through feats or magical effects. Furthermore, if a wounded creature takes any standard or move action on its turn, even if it was stable from a previous check, it must make an additional stabilization check for that round immediately after the results of its action.
Undead and other non-living creatures (such as constructs) cannot be knocked unconscious due to wound point loss, or for any other reason.
Environmental Dangers
Falling Damage:
Falling damage is 1d4 per step. Each step from 10 feet through 50 feet is 10 feet. Beyond 50 feet, each step’s maximum is the previous step’s value added to the total. The damage is capped at the 11th step (at 1601 feet and higher) at 11d4 damage.
The first 5 steps combined take 1 second to fall. Each step beyond the first 5 takes an additional 1 second to fall. Each 800 feet fallen after 1600 feet takes an additional 1 second to fall.
This is modeled after real falls, but has been greatly simplified in terms of acceleration or average time to reach terminal velocity. This progression is designed to mimic as closely as possible (much more closely than the official RAW) the damage at a given fall height reflected in deadliness data from real life, and still be relatively easy to remember and use at the table. Once you get used to it, this should be easy to remember as a pattern. This chart illustrates the progression:
Unless the entire fall damage source is converted to non-lethal damage, falling damage is dealt as direct to wound point damage. Falling damage can be mitigated in the same way as in the published rules where intentional falls are concerned, but use the appropriate steps and dice prescribed in this rule rather than the 1d6 per 10 feet values found in the published rules for all actual values calculated.
In addition to the standard reductions possible for intentionally falling, falls from at least 101 feet can be mitigated by 1 additional step with an additional Acrobatics check, to account for slowing the fall with intentionally reducing aerodynamics.
Your stabilization check DC is akward and has no minimum (you can literally get a negative DC with a con score of 23 or higher), instead I would make it either 10 or 15 plus wound damage taken. This way you won't end up with ridiculous negative DCs and taking wound damage is something to avoid for everyone and not just the weaklings.
Your stabilization check DC is akward and has no minimum (you can literally get a negative DC with a con score of 23 or higher), instead I would make it either 10 or 15 plus wound damage taken. This way you won't end up with ridiculous negative DCs and taking wound damage is something to avoid for everyone and not just the weaklings.
I actually see a problem with the Con check for stabilization... thanks for brining it to my attention. The problem I'm seeing is a little different though.
If you add Con into the DC, the higher a creature's Con, not only do they have more wound points, but they also resist going unconscious better... which sounds OK on the surface, but its actually double-dipping a resource in a way that breaks the system. Creatures with insanely high Con mods would eventually get to where they couldn't become unconscious at all... but they already benefit from high Con making it already less likely that they'll reach the threshold for becoming unconscious.
So, I'm just going to make that a DC 21 check that has no modifier applied to it whatsoever. This way, any creature that reaches 10 wound points begins to have a chance to go unconscious. Creatures with high Con scores have a better chance to not go unconscious simply because they have a better chance to never reach 10 wound points or less in the first place.
The negative DC is intentional. If there are forms of damage that deal direct to wound point damage (there will be more than just falling damage), not having a negative DC possible for high Con creatures would end up being what would be on the ridiculous side. For example, you have a creature with a Con score of 20. This creature is massively tough. Almost no (I mean really really almost no) regular people would ever have a Con score like that without magic, 12 HD or otherwise.
For a creature like that, along comes a critical hit, or some form of environmental or other direct damage that does 2 direct wound point damage. It would be silly for there to be any chance that this creature should become wounded or unconscious in the face of a mere 2 damage. If you critted with a dagger against a dragon with 25 Con, and dealt 2 wound point damage, this shouldn't be enough to knock the creature out or stagger it. The DC for that creature with only 2 wound damage SHOULD be impossible to fail.
For creature's with more than 12 HD, including the illustrious PCs and their enemies and rivals who make it to such heights, I want to make sure that these creatures are well beyond the normal for biological creatures, especially the higher they go in levels, and especially the more they focus on Con score and hp increases. I want superheros, just later on.
For example, a level 16 Fighter with 16 Con who didn't even take Toughness or favored class increases would have 41 wound points. This character is working on being, if not already become, a demigod, and a demigod who focuses on the physical power of his body. A level 16 wizard with similar Con and bonuses wouldn't have the same type of physical resilience, but would use magic to protect himself. This Fighter SHOULD have a negative DC for much of his wound damage stabilization checks. Until that fighter has taken 31 wound damage, he shouldn't be able to go unconscious. He has to take 22 wound damage before he could actually become "wounded" at all...
Again, that is all intentional, but the Con mod to the DC was ruining it, so I'm taking it out.
But not modifying the DC at all is just as bad as what are talking about.
Example
1 and 2 use this
Con 12, lvl 2, fort save +3, WP 12
Hit for 1 then 3 wound dmg
--
3 and 4 use this
Con 16, lvl 16, fort save +12, WP 41
Hit for 1 then 30 WP dmg
Your first suggestion DC 21- current WP
1: 11 WP left roll fort +3 vs DC 10
2: 8 WP left roll fort +3 vs DC 13
This guy hits 50% CoS (chance of success) at 8 WP(4 dmg) and at 1 WP(11 dmg) has a 15% CoS
---
3: 40 WP left roll fort +12 vs DC -19
4: 10 WP left roll fort +12 vs DC 10
Even at 1 WP(40 dmg) this guy would still have a 55% CoS
My Suggestion, DC 10+WP damage
1: 11 WP left roll fort +3 vs DC 11
2: 8 WP left roll fort +3 vs DC 14
This guy hits 50% CoS at 9 WP(3 dmg) and at 1 WP(11 dmg) has 10% CoS
---
3: 40 WP left roll fort +12 vs DC 11
4: 10 WP left roll fort +12 vs DC 41
This guy hits a 50% CoS at 29 WP(12 dmg), 5% CoS at 19 WP (22 dmg), and at 1 WP(40 dmg) has minimal CoS.
Your second suggestion, static DC21
1: 11 WP left roll fort +3 vs DC 21
1: 8 WP left roll fort +3 vs DC 21
Straight 10% CoS.
---
3: 40 WP left roll fort +12 vs DC 21
4: 10 WP left roll fort +12 vs DC 21
Straight 55% CoS.
Your first suggestion made it too easy for mid lvl to survive and indeed not like to fall till death.
My suggestion made it a bit tougher for the low lvl and at mid lvl can take more dmg then low lvl but is more likely to collapse before death (which I see as being tough enough to survive lethal wounds)
Your second suggestion doesn't take anything into account at all and if you get to high lvl then no chance of collapse at all, and anything at low lvl will be unlikely to remain awake period.
My suggestion has the difficulty go up based on dmg so then con just decides how likely you are to collapse rather then die.
Your second suggestion has no scaling at all meaning your first WP hit is no different then your last regardless of ability to pass the save, and your ability to pass the save is directly your fort save which comes mainly from levels.
The biggest point is your later lvls are near immune with your last suggestion, mine the later lvls are more likely to survive then lower lvls but it's also tied to how hurt you are which makes damage significant enough that healing is always nice to have, and lower lvls are a touch less lethel, making it more likely the PCs will reach high lvls.
Of course I may be missing something as you made a comment about reaching 10 WP but I just don't see how that comes into play with your last suggestion.
Edit: nevermind I see what your saying, instead of have a fort save it is an unmodified D20 roll, which I can see the double dipping in your first suggestion (mine not so much)
But if a high con score comes into play once, it should still be the fort save rather then WP/VP.
Also the current massive damage threshold rules are already a precedent for the double-dipping as much as your first suggestion.
Now I understand better what you did the second I can see how you would always have at least a 5% CoS up till death, and thus not too bad, but I personally don't like something being unable to collapse or die out of pure high lvl and think you should adjust the deduction so even high lvl things run into the slight chance to collapse long before reaching 10WP.
Or you can leave the WP as equal to con score period no matter how many HD. An older dragon can have up 40 con score which still requires bringing it under half before it starts to have trouble staying awake, with having the WP increase at such high levels it becomes ridiculously long winded before you even have a chance and that's just if you can reliably inflict wound damage, and critical hits should still hurt a lot even at high levels.
Even a dragon falling wingless would likely be hurt from falling at terminal velocity. Sure has better chance to survive but it isn't always going to get up and shake it off. It might with some luck but it shouldn't be an assured thing.
