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Falling
Creatures that fall take 1d6 points of damage per 10 feet fallen, to a maximum of 20d6. Creatures that take lethal damage from a fall land in a prone position.
If a character deliberately jumps instead of merely slipping or falling, the damage is the same but the first 1d6 is nonlethal damage. A DC 15 Acrobatics check allows the character to avoid any damage from the first 10 feet fallen and converts any damage from the second 10 feet to nonlethal damage. Thus, a character who slips from a ledge 30 feet up takes 3d6 damage. If the same character deliberately jumps, he takes 1d6 points of nonlethal damage and 2d6 points of lethal damage. And if the character leaps down with a successful Acrobatics check, he takes only 1d6 points of nonlethal damage and 1d6 points of lethal damage from the plunge.
Falls onto yielding surfaces (soft ground, mud) also convert the first 1d6 of damage to nonlethal damage. This reduction is cumulative with reduced damage due to deliberate jumps and the Acrobatics skill.
A character cannot cast a spell while falling, unless the fall is greater than 500 feet or the spell is an immediate action, such as feather fall. Casting a spell while falling requires a concentration check with a DC equal to 20 + the spell's level. Casting teleport or a similar spell while falling does not end your momentum, it just changes your location, meaning that you still take falling damage, even if you arrive atop a solid surface.
Falling into Water: Falls into water are handled somewhat differently. If the water is at least 10 feet deep, the first 20 feet of falling do no damage. The next 20 feet do nonlethal damage (1d3 per 10-foot increment). Beyond that, falling damage is lethal damage (1d6 per additional 10-foot increment).
Characters who deliberately dive into water take no damage on a successful DC 15 Swim check or DC 15 Acrobatics check, so long as the water is at least 10 feet deep for every 30 feet fallen. The DC of the check, however, increases by 5 for every 50 feet of the dive.
I would agree with Ssalarn on that but only half way...
If you want reality, a skydiver falling "spread eagle", falls an average of 120 mph...thats breaks down to 176 ft a second...so in a "round" of six seconds thats 1056 ft a round...normal spell is "standard" action, so lets say it takes 1/2 a round to do, that means you have to fall at least 528 ft in 3 seconds or else you would make contact before you could finish your action
Using the above math I say you fall at 1000ft a round
Pathfinder made it more simple by cutting that 28ft off and saying 500, but I take their rule to mean a standard action spell, since they are much more common than full round spells
I KNOW this is a game and not reality, but in this case their measurement of 500ft isn't that far off from reality so I think that justifies my opinion enough not to have a game nazi attack me
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You start at zero velocity with respect to the ground.
You accelerate under gravity until you reach terminal velocity.
According to wiki you reach 90% of terminal velocity in 8 seconds - in skydiver pose - without drag you would reach 100% of terminal velocity in 6 seconds.
Therefore in the first round you fall roughly 500ft (576ft without drag).
After round one you are close to terminal velocity and aren't noticably accelerating - just falling at nearly constant speed of 122mph or 54m/s. Therefore you fall around 1000ft per round in subsequent rounds.
Note this assumes skydiver pose - maximising your surface area. If you tombstone then you will reach over 1500ft per round by round three.
Does it come up much in your games where folks fall for more than one round? I only recall it coming up twice in decades of gaming (when not using feather fall)
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Sinking speed came up a couple of weeks ago
Basically you don't sink unless you are wearing or carrying denser than water items, generally metal.
If your total weight is about 20% metal then you sink around 60ft round
if your total weight is about 40% metal then you sink about 120ft round
etc.
I actually bothered to work this out using an Excel s/s and then rounded and simplified it.
Assumptions:
gravity acceleration is 10 m/s^2
Assume that in one second you accelerate from 0 to 10 m/s so the distance fallen in the first second is half of this, i.e. 5 m/s or roughly 15 feet.
Terminal velocity is 375 m/s
There is no wind resistance so acceleration is uniform
Then convert to feet, round numbers, and fudge a bit - the end result looks like this:
Round - Distance Fallen (ft)
1 - 500
2 - 2250
3 - 5000
4 - 9000
5 - 14000
6 - 20000
7 - 27000
+ 7000 ft per round thereafter
your terminal velocity there is directly contradicting what ZomB wrote... any reason why?
this is what Wiki says:
Based on wind resistance, for example, the terminal velocity of a skydiver in a belly-to-earth (i.e. face down) free-fall position is about 195 km/h (122 mph or 54 m/s).[2] This velocity is the asymptotic limiting value of the acceleration process, because the effective forces on the body balance each other more and more closely as the terminal velocity is approached. In this example, a speed of 50% of terminal velocity is reached after only about 3 seconds, while it takes 8 seconds to reach 90%, 15 seconds to reach 99% and so on.
Higher speeds can be attained if the skydiver pulls in his or her limbs (see also freeflying). In this case, the terminal velocity increases to about 320 km/h (200 mph or 90 m/s),[2] which is almost the terminal velocity of the Peregrine Falcon diving down on its prey.[3] The same terminal velocity is reached for a typical .30-06 bullet dropping downwards—when it is returning to earth having been fired upwards, or dropped from a tower—according to a 1920 U.S. Army Ordnance study.[4]
It goes on to describe the higher speeds attained by that Austrain guy who sky-dived from near-space where the atmosphere is much less dense and so he was able to reach Mach 1.25, but I think that's outside the scope of the general rule or the OP's question about the general rule.
Ah, good point. I did get the terminal velocity from the Austrian guy's jump now I come to think of it.
Still, now it's got me wondering whether an Air Elemental and the like would be better off falling rather than running to reach top speed?
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We always just used an acceleration of 30 feet per second per second. 30 1st sec,90 2nd sec,180 3rd sec,300 4th,450 5th,630 6th ( total distance fallen for each secdond.) in one round or 6 seconds. Its rounding and not exact but works well enough for gaming. I never had anybody fall more than 200 feet or so so it never really was an issue.
If I remember right it was broken down by seconds for 2nd edition rules, can't remember why tho.
This topic needs to get a FAQ/Errata. Please hit the FAQ button on top.
Some other related topics for falling and sinking also need to get flagged for FAQ:
Falling and order of events/movement limitations per turn/round
Sinking Speed
I'm gonna bump this. This is actually a very good question.
For my Ravenloft game I bumped the height of the drawbridge from 1,000' to 5,000', so PCs would have more time to scream.
For those fun moments when someone slips somewhere in the castle this is what I use for each second of falling.
1st second = 30' total.
2nd second = +65', 95' total.
3rd second = +95', 190' total.
4th second = +130', 320' total.
5th second = +160', 480' total.
6th second = +180', 660' total.
I consider terminal velocity reached towards the end of the 6th second at ~122 mph or ~180'/second.
Each additional second falling is now +180'.
So each round falling is measured;
1st round = 660'.
2nd round = +1,080', 1,740' total.
3rd round = +1,080', 2,820' total.
4th round = +1,080', 3,900' total.
5th round = +1,080', 4,980' total.
Then, since the base of the clifts are not perfectly smooth, I subtract 2d6 x 10' from the 5,000' height to determine the actual landing spot where the screaming stops.
For those who want to dive they accelerate up to ~300'/second or ~205 mph.
That works out to;
6th second = +190', 670' total.
7th second = +225', 895' total.
8th second = +290', 1,185' total.
9th second = +300', 1,485' total.
10th+ seconds = +300'/second.
I don't think anyone has ever used this to dive after anyone yet, they usually just try to grab the faller with a REF save then listen for the screaming to stop.
A few times PCs have fallen while flying OVER the castle up to about 1,500', but never ABOVE and OVER the clifts. So no one has fallen over 5 seconds yet.
Hope this helps any who need it.