Realistic FALL DAMAGE is Worse for D&D 5e

[@BobWorldBuilder]

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[@BigFootTheRealOne]

In the game of thrones rpg. If you roll 21 on on up to 8d6, you completely negate fall damage.

[@alistairbolden6340]

You are missing something very important bob. The 50% of people who do survive a fall from 50ft do not just get up and walk away. Everyone of them end up with several broken bones and unable to walk or move. Most require medical treatment or would die. There is no human in the world who could fall 50ft onto stone and walk away no matter how tough or strong they are. If you weight a lot the chances of you breaking bones from a shallow fall as low as 3ft goes up a lot, IE the larger and tougher you are the more damage you should take from a fall. Then you have armor and equiptment making the fall even worse, very few people who fall IRL do so with daggers, bombs and a backpack full of loot. TLDR Bob you are wrong. You only looked at the 50% rate instead of considering our mordern medical system allowing people to survive many things a player in a dnd world not. For example a 10ft fall could do nothing if you land well on a good surface, or it could kill you if you land on your head. If you land on one hand or one foot you are looking at a good chance of broken bones and that chance is higher the more you weight. Your also forgetting that HP is not the life force or really even damage a player can take. Its a fake value that prepresents your luck more than anything els. If a body builder (lvl 20 half orc fighter) was really stabbed in the throat he would die just the same as your adverage commoner would. When a player in dnd loses hp they are not really being hit. If they were they would be taking injuries like in several other systems, in Dnd your character only gets seriously hit when he fails his deathsave. Before that its all just minor cuts, and bruses. Any kind of attack landing well on you = death in Dnd since you are either perfectly fine or dead with nothing inbetween. How dnd deals with injuries and characters taking damage is honestly the worst part of the system, its designed for a video game more than pen and paper roleplay. Look to systems like WHFRP for much better ways of dealing with HP and being hit.

[@zimmejoc]

If force is just mass times acceleration, given air resistance, you reach a terminal velocity while falling and no amount of falling further will change your impact velocity (because your acceleration at that point is zero) so the damage cap does jive with physics. I'm not a skydiver, but I would think you need more than 200 feet of free falling to reach terminal velocity though. The formulas to calculate all this are readily available, but I need to get back to work. :(

[@simonishana5035]

I didn't fact check this ... but Google sais: Because terminal velocity depends on drag and an object's cross-section, there is no one speed for terminal velocity. In general, a person falling through the air on Earth reaches terminal velocity after about 12 seconds, which covers about 450 meters or 1500 feet.

[@grymhild]

In general, a person falling through the air on Earth reaches terminal velocity after about 12 seconds, which covers about 450 meters or 1500 feet. A skydiver in the belly-to-earth position reaches a terminal velocity of about 195 km/hr (54 m/s or 121 mph).

[@justforplaylists]

@@simonishana5035 Also from Google, it looks like the highest cliffs in the world are much higher than that.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Right, I still advocate for a cap at the end of the video, but I set my cap higher than 200'

[@MrJerks93]

@@grymhild Considering it takes almost exactly 2 rounds to reach maximum velocity the cap really could be higher and set at 50d6 for 1 complete round of falling and 100d6 at the end of 2 rounds. Clearly that's probably excessive, but 20d6 seems a little soft.

[@backonlazer791]

Technically speaking 60 feet being lethal for a commoner 50% of the time should be 2d6, since being knocked to 0 HP only knocks them unconscious at the DMs discretion (who can decide that monsters, which includes commoners, are outright killed after falling to 0 HP), while 8 damage is surely lethal.

[@ThriftySteve]

Underrated comment

[@donovanmarks1865]

I was trying to come up with a formula assuming commoners have 3d6 Constitution. If you exclude those who roll 14 or higher as likely to be the adventurers, about 50% of those remaining ultimately die to 4 damage, with about 20% having the 12-13 con to stay conscious. Up it to 5 damage and about 50% of all commoners ultimately die. If none of your test commoners have 14 or higher con, the numbers don't change dramatically for 6 or 7 (60% die), then 8 or 9 (70% die). At 10 damage, all of your subjects (79% of all rolled con) would die. Long story short, my gut says 1 damage per 10' fallen.

[@backonlazer791]

@@donovanmarks1865 I guess you could think of it that way, although I will point out that you're not supposed to roll stats for monsters. You're free to do so if you want to but as far as I'm aware no rule suggests such for a good reason. If you spend your time rolling stats for every NPC the party comes across, you would most likely spend more time on doing that than playing the game.

[@NateArnoldVideos]

I was going to say the same thing until I saw your comment

[@donovanmarks1865]

@@backonlazer791 yeah, I'm overthinking it. If all commoners have 4 HP, and the DM rolls death saves for them, about half (~40%) will die from 4 to 7 damage and 100% will die from 8 or more.

[@TTRPGSarvis]

It's based on fantasy, and trope law is that falling never kills anyone important.

[@TankTaur]

...except the villain at the end of a Disney movie.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Yep, this goes on the board with things like: nothing good happens in cryosleep

[@digitaljanus]

In 7th Sea, a Three Musketeers/Pirates of the Caribbean-esque swashbuckling fantasy RPG setting, you can fall from any height and take no damage as long as you land on something "soft". "Soft" can include a cart with a pile of hay in the back, the awning of a ground-level storefront, or a body of water at the bottom of a high rocky cliff. Whatever falls heroes in swashbuckling movies can survive, your PC can survive.

[@scottreigle1756]

@@BobWorldBuilder And helicopters in movies always explode.

[@Gakuloid]

Guess my last character wasn't important then! They died from fall damage lol

[@jaredlarter6018]

My personal rule that I have used for falling is 'the bigger they are, the harder they fall'. For each creature size over medium, increase the dice size; for each size under, decrease. It makes it slightly more realistic for the Druid wildshaped into a cat to survive a fall, while really rewarding the players for knocking a dragon out of the sky.

[@Lurklen]

That's a good idea!

[@Marabcd315]

does it go the other way with small races being a d4 and tiny races being a coinflip?

[@Lurklen]

@@Marabcd315 I mean, it should. From some heights creatures small enough would take no damage at all. It still bugs me that cats get no bonus or ability to falling from heights in 5e.

[@jaredlarter6018]

@@Marabcd315 Small races are a d4, and Tiny creatures are 1 or 0 at the DM's discretion.

[@seguaye]

that’s actually realistic: an ant is basically immune to fall damage, and an elephant would almost certainly die if it fell one story

[@grymhild]

In general, a person falling through the air on Earth reaches terminal velocity after about 12 seconds, which covers about 450 meters or 1500 feet. A skydiver in the belly-to-earth position reaches a terminal velocity of about 195 km/hr (54 m/s or 121 mph).

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Thank you for your research!

[@spacecavy]

This reminds me of this hilariously awful situation in which our party was being attacked by a mob of mind-controlled commoners in a town. We didn't want to fight them because they had 4HP and they were not in control of their actions, so we climbed on a little 1-story building to get away from them. They started climbing after us, and, forgetting fall damage rules, the ranger decided to pry his fingers off the edge of the roof like Scar and Mufasa and lightly plop him back down onto the ground. The DM rolls and is like, "Ohhh. yeah. He's dead." It was so awkward lol.

[@jasonreed7522]

1 story is about 14ft, realistically a house would have shorter ceilings than comercial buildings so the eve should be more like 10, as long as he's still climbing i wouldn't have rolled, but thats just me.

[@samfowler2073]

Did anyone else open this video, expecting Bob to be testing this the same way he did the movement speed?

[@MrJerks93]

The last Bob video.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Yeah I hope that no one feels deceived bc it should be obvious that I can't actually test that (safely)

[@Alister222222]

@@BobWorldBuilder Welll.... you *could* put an accelerometer in a crash test dummy and drop it from varying heights. That should be a pretty safe way of testing the forces involved.

[@Charles-mv7sv]

This video was a let down for sure, could have used watermelons or apples.

[@ConnorSinclairCavin]

@@BobWorldBuilder but where is the proof on that? X-P jk

[@Knightishful]

I really like the Pathfinder 2e rules for fall damage! After 5 feet you take bludgeoning damage equal to half the distance you fell. The cap is 1,500 feet or 750 bludgeoning damage. You can also treat the fall as 20-30 feet shorter if you fall on something like water or snow (you only treat it 30 feet shorter if you intentionally dove in). A short fall isn't enough to kill you, but a long fall quickly becomes deadly.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Dang that's a good rule!

[@dalefunk2709]

that means a fall of 10ft will kill every commoner...thats crap

[@davereilly8361]

If you describe things differently it can help. HP isn’t actually you getting hacked to bits. It could represent your energy level. Each time you block a hit, swing your sword, or pull on cosmic forces to unleash magical effects you’re burning through your energy. Once you’re out of energy that’s when you start taking non-superficial shots to your body. I did away with negative hit points in one of my games, and replaced it with con damage. So when your energy was depleted, you took shots to your actual body. Those con points take a lot longer to recover, and because of the lower con mod you have less energy for head points moving forward. In that game crits didn’t do extra damage, but the damage went straight to con, so crits were really scary.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Yeah I know some games use two pools: one for energy, one for 'meat points' but I'd have to try it for myself

[@davereilly8361]

Give it a go, the hits to con thing is really gritty without having to add too many rule changes

[@digitaljanus]

The Palladium system had both Hit Points (you actually getting hacked to bits) and Structural Damage Capacity/SDC, your endurance and luck and bruise damage that gets depleted before HP, and is a lot easier to recover. Your idea is a bit like that combined with Traveller's damage system (where all physical damage reduces physical attributes--wear good armour!). A houserule we sometimes used to make things deadlier in Palladium was to have SDC only work against blunt weapons, unarmed attacks, falls, explosions, etc., while blades and bullets went straight to Hit Points.

[@ravencorvus7903]

Was gonna mention this. Hp is not just damage, but also stamina or even luck. So losing hp from falling could be you get lucky and grab some branches along the way etc. There are several ways to flavour a character surviving a fall.

[@otakukaku]

That reminds me of the D20 Star Wars that WOTC put out in 2000 and 2002. Your 'hit points' was your Con stats, not the modifer, the straight Constitution. It would not change as you leveled up unless your Con changed as well. However, every class earned Vitality as they leveled. As they explained, you rarely saw the main characters get hurt in the movies. A lot of near-miss blaster hits, parries, dodges, etc., but extremely few injuries. Those few times were when the 'characters' Vitality had been exhausted and took 'hit point damage'. Honestly? D20 did a lot of things with the D20 system that I adored at the time. For example, it was the classes themselves that provided AC bonuses that scaled as you leveled up. For example, a Soldier would get more AC bonuses than a Fringer, Noble, Scout, Tech Specialist, or Scoundrel. Meanwhile, (in the 2002 Revised Edition) Armor gave DR bonuses instead of AC bonuses. Plus I loved the work they did to make Force Users balanced compared non-Force Users, making them customizable to fit your character concept, and avoiding the "I cast Force Push" mentality. You needed Feats to unlock certain subsets of Force abilities which were SKILLS that you leveled up like any other skill. Then, each Force ability had a Vitality cost, so players had to be extremely strategic in their Force usages in order to avoid draining themselves too much. I only got to play it for a short amount of time, but I still have fond memories of the system. I think I may still have the books... *wanders off to look*

[@grymhild]

I would rather separate actual physical wounds from fatigue, skill, luck, fate etc.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Yeah, one thing I really like about DCC is Luck being its own stat

[@tegxi]

this gives me an idea. what if falling applied levels of exhaustion? like 1d6 damage for every 10 feet fallen and like make a DC 15 con save, on a fail you take a level of exhaustion for every 50 feet fallen (max 500 feet), on a success you take half that.

[@seankrake4776]

@@tegxi if you fall 500ft there shouldn’t be any chance of survival. I like the idea of exhaustion. My take would be to make certain heights give you certain levels of brokenness. Most people falling 10 feet are going to break a leg or foot. People falling 40 feet are going to break several bones. So halve their movement, give disadvantage to attacks, skill checks, saving throws, and attackers probably gain advantage since you’d be hobbling or crawling. The health points themselves weren’t the thing that would kill you, now you’d be immobile, and vulnerable. Make a real penalty for bad luck or choices

[@colbyboucher6391]

This is why I play Mythras. (One of the reasons). Getting stabbed actually hurts, but armor actually prevents damage, shields actually work and you can burn Luck to avoid it. (DCC is pretty rad too like Bob said).

[@disorganizedchaos4246]

@@tegxi tegzi spotted :0

[@Merlinstergandaldore]

1st Ed Dungeoneer's Survival Guide made an adjustment to falling damage that might suit 5e - an accelerated damage system. 1d6 to start, then you ADD d6 for each 10 feet of additional height. 1d6 at 10 ft, 3d6 at 20, 6d6, at 30, 10d6 at 40, 15d6 at 50. Monstrously deadly in 1st edition, but even 5e players might think twice about scoffing at a deadly fall.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Yeah! I actually saw in a forum, that apparently Gygax intended that in the AD&D 1e DMG as well, but an editor thought the way he phrased it was a redundancy

[@MrR2TheZ]

Being able to roll more dice is always a noble endeavor. In the interest of sharing ideas, my house rule has been more to de-incentivize falling on purpose. Keep the 1d6 per 10 feet of falling, and then for every 6 rolled, there's a save against breaking a limb (depending on how they fell and what the character braces for).

[@BobWorldBuilder]

This is a good medium!

[@danieltaber4924]

I think the main problem is that D&D doesn't have any injuries other than meatpoints. If there were a Wounds system rather than HP, you could break your legs much more realistically.

[@zebesttfd]

This makes sense if you want more realism and there definitely are systems out there where you can do this. But 5e mostly focuses on streamlining the "menial" stuff as much as possible.

[@valentinoa8354]

There is a table for lasting injuries in the DMG I believe. You're basically supposed to get one if you drop to 0 hp

[@RockyTorres43]

There is an optional rule in the DMG called lingering injuries. Includes things like losing a leg and broken ribs.

[@loconius]

@@RockyTorres43 And for a fall, i would roll a d4 on that table... guaranteeing a limb injury!

[@BobWorldBuilder]

This is one of those things that exists in the DMG, but relatively few people remember it exists, and way fewer actually use it haha

[@punishedwhispers1218]

Falling damage is in fact, *too deadly*, people dont know you can drop up to 3x your height and be fine, as in, not taking damage at all. Also the jump spell just makes you take damage...I think 3rd has the best falling rules. If you jump down, you ignore an amount of the fall based on how good you are at jumping/tumbling, because you are deliberately dropping instead of getting knocked off.

[@slithas]

My House rule for fall damage: you take 10% of your total hp in damage for every 10ft you fall, reduced by an Acrobatics check for landing and surfaces (ie. -40% jumping into water), halving it for small and doubling for large. Keeps damage scaled and always a problem for big drops, no jumping off the tower and then walking away without issue

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

That kind has a problem in grid maps since each block/hex is 5ft. As well as Jump in general. 5e has no rules about it all... Plus, the Eldritch Knight has Misty Step and the new monkey race in Spelljammer has Glide. That being said... Just following RAW... I would cast Misty Step, Feather Fall, or the monkey's Glide to do the most basic of Jumping in a grid map. Mainly because a 5ft canyon can deal 1d6 of fall damage in a grid map because it requires a 10ft jump (2 blocks/hex) in order to both horizontally jump over 5ft and land at the other side. Note: Fall Damage, RAW, works in any direction. You will take 1d6 per 10ft if you jump upwards to a ledge. ... I hope this same issue doesn't occur in OneDnD...

[@williamcanavan3318]

I think the issue I have a hard time resolving around falling damage is that with other forms of damage, I can rationalize near misses, cuts, scratches, scrapes scorches, singes, and bruises, but you can't "roll with a punch" when it comes to falling onto a flat surface. To me, that's like a Critical hit with a blunt weapon the size of your entire body. But I like your idea of moving the cap to 50d6.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

That's a great point. I guess the justification would be how the character landed, or even what they landed on a-la Jackie Chan falling through 5 awnings and landing on the world's cushiest trashbags in an alley

[@phelps6205]

They absolutely fall on their face and get fucked up, but these are super human, imagine spider man landing on his face after a 200 feet drop, he could probably walk it of.

[@Lycaon1765]

I think it is possible to literally lessen a fall's impact by rolling. Take with a huge barrel of salt though, cuz I read this wisdom in an unrelated fantasy book.

[@NoNoNah306]

There is an entire discipline in martial arts called Ukemi, which is literally just learning how to fall and lessen the impact when you're thrown etc. You could consider it the most useful piece of self preservation in martial arts because you're much more likely to fall over than get into a fist fight. Some people have even credited learning Ukemi with saving them in motorcycle crashes. That said you can't really Ukemi a fall off a building.

[@indef2def]

@@Lycaon1765 I mean, I've seen plenty of real parkour, where people apparently avoid damage from 20' or so drops that would seriously injure most of us. But this doesn't scale linearly at all.

[@VeryPlushy]

I think part of the issue is how Hit Points are approached by most tables, maybe due to the way the Health Pool is treated in video games. In games, you can get clawed, shot, bleed kegs of blood... And then you either take a little breather or use a medkit and you're fine (magical Long Rest anyone?). For tabletop roleplaying, I think it makes more sense to consider Hit Points as "your luck running out", basically all those previous time the Owlbear claws at you, either your armor absorbs most of it or you get some scratches, in a movie scene you would be fighting for your life but not getting maimed. And THEN, if you're clawed to 0 HP, that's when the big blow actually connects, and we see the real injury occur, as your luck runs out and your character falls down. Similarly, healing spells are as much about healing actual wounds, than your stamina and fighting spirit. That's how I GM it at least and I like the cinematic and verisimilitude feeling :)

[@zacharylona]

I really like this. I run hp as stamina to continue on, but your approach makes the players feel a bit more special. I'll consider using this moving forwards. Thank you!

[@better8655]

That doesn't vibe that well with most interpretations of barbarian though. They are THE berserker. They TAKE that hit, and swing back harder. Diving into a melee with no regard for their safety cleaving skulls.

[@JustLilyTbh]

I like to think of it like luck running out as well. But I like to think of hitpoints going down as you dodging out of the way, or jumping or whatever, and it taking away a little bit of your stamina, little bit of your energy each time. Until the moment where you drop to 0 hitpoints, and the hit finally connects, dropping you unconscious (or sometimes straight up dead).

[@Sparda11222]

Here's the thing. Some people want realism in the game, but completely ignore/forget the fact that they are playing freaking comic book heroes. When did Hulk ever die from a fall? Or any "above street level" hero? Am I to believe that my lvl 12 character can take a DISINTEGRATION ray (that can turn a 10ft thick wall of adamantine into dust) to the chest and be fine, but when falling off that wizard tower because he got pushed by a Bigby's Hand with no chance of opposing it, he should be flat out dead because REALISM. Come on.. Imagine your character dying from a fall (at any level above 7 - here you reach super human standards) and then please consider how that would make you feel. How exactly would you accept that death. How fucking underwhelming and useless would it feel. You probably won't take it well.. I know I wouldn't. What a shitty story .. Has anyone ever considered that gravity on Abeir-Toril or whatever planet or plane your campaign takes place in/on might have a very different gravity than that of our Earth? Have that for realism. And this entire discussion is completely nullified by one simple level one spell (Feather Fall).. again giving even more advantages to casters, as if they need it.

[@niklasneef1061]

some games dont have comic book heroes i want to play a dark campain so you can die at any time.

[@Sparda11222]

​@@niklasneef1061 The term I used, "comic book heroes" was to underline the ridiculous power levels the characters attain. Didn't mean to say that campaigns are not supposed to be serious. All the campaigns I play with my DM are just grueling, dark, serious to a fault and really hard. I lost a character during a long rest, while he was sleeping. Didn't even get to wake up. Banshee wail + failed save => unconscious => executed by specters => have a nice day. We need a long rest almost after every encounter and we are lucky to find the respite, most of the times. We adore spells like Rope Trick and Hut. Goodberry is banned. We carry 50 rations at level 14. Trust me, shit ain't easy :D

[@niklasneef1061]

@@Sparda11222 i gues youre right maby specific injuries from falling are a good idea. Like a injured leck so your movement speed is lower. What do you think.

[@niklasneef1061]

also

[@niklasneef1061]

writing accident

[@PonyusTheWolfdude]

I was a bit worried this would be a "I will now fall 60 ft to try this out" kind of video.

[@basildaoust2821]

Hey Bob, I vented at you but then you changed directions and covered what I wanted to say so well done.

[@benvoliothefirst]

Basil, I like that you were able to admit your mistake. Here's an internet cookie.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

I appreciate the change of heart haha

[@BloodDracolich]

This kind of reminds me of one the let's player HCBailey's quips about about arguably one of the most common characteristics about anime and JRPG protagonists, their apparent ability to survive falls of infinite height. A great KZbinr by the way; I highly recommend checking out his channel if you're really into let's plays, especially retro JRPGs.

[@johnathanrhoades7751]

In one round, you fall 500 feet (50d6) on your second round, you've fallen an additional 1000 feet (100d6) and reached terminal velocity. So I cap my fall damage at 100d6.

[@pandoraeeris7860]

I fell from 15 ft. into sand once. I landed on my feet, but my feet flew out from under me and I hit the ground on my butt/tailbone. I couldn't even move for 15 minutes straight, and I had an extremely sore back (very hard to walk even) for several days, maybe even up to a week, afterwards. If I had actually landed on something harder, like concrete, I probably would have been less injured, since my feet wouldn't have flown out from under me (at worst I might have fallen to my knees or something and scraped them). The biggest issue with D&D falling damage is the hp system. It doesn't really reflect the nature of injury. People can 'survive' a fall from any height, with luck. Even once terminal velocity is reached, and this is the maximum possible speed you can ever reach (I think this is why fall damage is capped in D&D - this essentially emulates terminal velocity), there is only so much damage the ground can do to you when you hit it. Depending on exactly how you land, it IS possible to survive. I suppose this is also reflected in the randomness of rolling for damage, in that if you were to roll 20d6 (terminal velocity), and roll all 1's (astronomically unlikely) then you'd only take 20 damage, which is survivable by some classes at level 2 (and most classes at level 3). But regardless of the number of hp you lose, in D&D if it doesn't kill you, you just stand up and brush it off. You could be on the brink of death, and you're completely fine until something deals that last hp of damage to you. This system is designed for ease of play, not realism. But it's not the amount of damage done by falling that I have an issue with in terms of realism, it's the lack of any kind of injury table for it. To add to this, specifically regarding the fall damage vis a vis commoners vs. leveled players, I think that the increasing amounts of fall damage is supposed to compensate for the fact that characters gain more hp as they level, but falling should be dangerous/deadly no matter what level you are. This is because the hp system is an abstraction. When you get "hit", you aren't really taking bodily structural damage with every hit. In D&D, hp are more like a combination of endurance plus your ability to "roll with the punches", which essentially makes every single hit you take a "glancing blow" until the final hit that drops you. There are no injury or wound rules, just a health bar, so you don't suffer any deleterious effects (except those caused by specific abilities, which is what those abilities are supposed to be emulating...stuff like being knocked prone, or stunned/dazed, etc.) Perhaps what D&D's falling damage really needs is to also give characters that fall a 'condition' for a number of turns, or even a number of days, rolled randomly on a table. Since fall damage in physics doesn't take into consideration this abstraction of "combat ability" and isn't really designed to do the same thing (fighting against creatures who are wearing you down with each hit), there is something lost in translation. Fall damage, like drowning, is supposed to be one of those things that fundamentally works differently than combat damage, but since it hasn't received much attention it's just not a very complex system and doesn't take into consideration any nuances at all. For example, what would the effect of falling in armor be? Would it be worse or better? What if you were wearing soft armor, such as hide or leather? Would it absorb any of the impact? Helmets? In any case, I'm mostly fine with the way fall damage works in D&D, because it's deadly enough to seriously discourage players from ignoring it, and sometimes they can even take advantage of it (by knocking enemies down from a height). I learned this in Baldur's Gate 3, which makes heavy use of cliffs and verticality - knocking enemies off of cliffs is amazing and can really increase your damage output, but sometimes they'll do it to you too, so you have to be really careful. As a game mechanic, I really like it.

[@rodrick6538]

I was under the impression that Gygax meant 1d6 cumulative damage per 10’ fallen. So, 1d6 for 10’, 3d6 for 20’ (1d6 for the first 10, 2d6 for the next 10). That seems way more “realistic” to me. And would make falling way more lethal.

[@mattreigada3745]

This has been a point of contention with a past DM and myself. At the finale of a campaign after slaying the BBEG on a floating island two miles in the sky, my character jumped off the island to make it back to town because statistically I had enough HP to tank 20d6 and I wanted to make it back quickly. The DM was furious with this and said I died because that fall would realistically kill me, but my counter argument was “and getting pinned to the ground by a red dragon and sprayed with fire in the face shouldn’t kill me?” The entire HP system is non-simulationist and shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

[@unwithering5313]

I think it's dumb that people complain about tankiness being bad due to being unrealistic but never bat an eye about the other unrealistic things classes and monsters can do.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Exactly!

[@mattreigada3745]

@The Mystery Gamer exact same argument applies to taking a red dragon's breath weapon to the face. Or literally any environmental effect in the game (for the most part).

[@mattreigada3745]

@The Mystery Gamer that it's two miles doesn't much matter, a human will reach terminal velocity within a few thousand feet. Everything after that is redundant. Also there is nothing suggesting anything about just throwing a shield up to survive a dragon's breath. An unconscious character on the ground with the dragon spraying down on them point-blank will take the same damage they would if they simply failed the save, and the barbarian is the class with single survivability and will still have no problem just tanking the damage even if their DEX is 8 and they have no shield. There are other systems that make use of "wounds" instead of HP, and you don't get more "wounds" when you level. If you want to play the game as a simulation then run a different system or stop character progression at or before level 3. Nitpicking that people are playing by the rules of the system you selected is just lazy. If what a 13th level character can survive seems unrealistic then congrats, that's the point. By level 13 you're supposed to feel otherworldly and bordering on mythical, even if you're just a fighter.

[@mattreigada3745]

@The Mystery Gamer that they will auto fail is irrelevant. You made the point that HP represents strenuous and active endurance such as blocking an attack with a shield. That is clearly not the case, as you take the same damage when completely incapable of strenuous and active endurance as you would when conscious yet clumsy. Not sure where you got the idea that they aren't "superheroes" but yes, once you're over 10th lvl heroes are definitely intended to be super. Epic levels in the 20's are where character literally (not figuratively) become gods. What Hercules can survive isn't supposed to be comparable to what a real person can survive.

[@astrid2432]

PF2E has a good solution: if you fall more as 5feet, you take half of the fall dmg, so by 6feet, you take 3dmg. it gets up to 1500 feet, aka 750dmg, everything above would result to the same amount of dmg. you land prone, if you take dmg and in the first round, you fall 500feet and in the second and further rounds you fall 1500feet their are reaction who decrease the dmg, like grab a edge or fall into snow

[@BobWorldBuilder]

I think that's a great rule!

[@steegen101]

Your house rule based on Xanathar's 500 ft per round makes great sense and I like it! I looked up terminal velocity just because of the fantastically drastic proportions to which DnD can go, and very loosely? Someone falling 1500 ft in 12 seconds has reached terminal velocity. One round is 6 seconds, so I would extrapolate that if a character falls 750 feet or more, they have a good chance of dying. Maybe stealing elements from your house rule and from this gives me a solid balance of "75d6 max damage, but if falling 1500ft or more, it's instant unconsciousness?"

[@frog8220]

"But I did a little research" are words that are scary when said by Bob...

[@BobWorldBuilder]

This time it was from the safety of my computer lol

[@alexploded6248]

I just searched Only Crits up, spun the wheel and got a free adventure!!! Definately going to use this.

[@hatempire]

"I do not want an entire system rules for falling" - GURPS has entered the chat

[@shotokanslugger9291]

We were in Barovia, my tabaxi monk was on the back of a ghost dragon, the dragon was 100 feet up in the air (I had a curse on my character, if I go below 1 hp, a ghost wolf would kill me outright) so the dragon goes incorporeal, I fall 100 feet (thank goodness for slow fall) I walk away with taking only 4 damage

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

As a Warforged Eldritch Knight... I can reach 200ft to 300ft in one jump + a controlled mount, if I wanted to. Then cast Feather Fall to ignore fall damage for 10 turns/1 minute. I have two options... Yoshi Jump or jump on my own then mount my stead... A Griffin is preferable to do this properly. Or the Paladin's Summoned Stead.

[@NaskaRudd]

I like Pathfinder 2s fall damage rules where you take damage equal to half the distance you fall Fall 20 feet? 10 damage 50 feet? 25 damage Just keeps things so simple and moving along fast

[@dutch6857]

World record highest survived fall is 33,333 ft. (I know, the symmetry of that number made me blink too). She spent months in hospital, but made an almost complete recovery except a permanent limp.

[@eldrago19]

The root issue is basically D&D's levelling system is inherently unrealistic and therefore produces unrealistic results in most circumstances.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Bingo!

[@digitaljanus]

By design!

[@abyssimus]

Yeah... I really think the PHB should do a better job in describing the scale of their levels, such as "a level 1 character is already a historically noteworthy individual, even if they're not famous in their time. A level 5 character is going to accomplish things that would only be accepted in adventure stories, not believed in history books. A level 10 character is a legendary and world-changing figure (such as the founder of an empire or major religious movement). A level 15 character will be remembered by anyone with a positive modifier to History (trained or not) but also have most of their deeds dismissed as fanciful legend. A level 20 character will be remembered as a godlike figure, even if they never became one." Clerics getting Divine Intervention at level 10 sets it as a pretty solid baseline to compare it to historical figured claimed to have similarly direct relationships with their deities and from there their secular counterparts. The text on p. 15 just... pushes too low and doesn't carry across the sense of how powerful they really are.

[@ANDELE3025]

Not within its own context. A 2-9 hp athlete being killed by stabbed in the gut or falling head first down a set of stairs from 2d6 damage is realistic in the same way that a rifle bullet (or crossbow bolt) wont really do any harm to the front plate of a Panzer 1 (level 10+ dwarven defender or bear totem barbarian).

[@mazz9487]

WOTC released a UA some years back where along with hit points, PC's have a vitality equal to their Constitution score. If vitality is reduced to 0, the PC's hit points are also reduced to 0; you lose 1 vitality for every 10 points of damage you receive.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

That's a bad design... Imagine 5 NPCs who can impose Vitality Damage against 1 PC. Your con is 5 at max, so unless there's an equation to get 20 on a refresh from a short/long rest. I can see why this UA rule didn't pass. This isn't World of Darkness... This is DnD... So the design intention isn't the same.

[@mazz9487]

@@absolstoryoffiction6615, which is why it's playtest material. It eschews superhuman durability in favor of more careful, "realistic" gameplay. I, personally, wouldn't use it as is; but it is a good starting point if you want to try something for a grittier campaign.

[@antona5923]

My Homebrew Falling Damage: 2^(Feet fallen/10) x d4 + lvl. Heavy Armor: x1.5 Light Armor: x0.75

[@antona5923]

I think that comparing lethality and going unconcious is wrong since I myself see going unconcious as being knocked out of the fight with a possibly mortal wound rather than certain death. A human can die from many different degrees of injuries from mild to severe when left untended. Therefore going unconcious should be compared to taking about enough damage so that you break a leg in real life instead!

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

@@antona5923 You can die while walking, in real life... It happens...

[@pewpewpandas9203]

Fun physics fact: a linear relationship between height of a fall and damage taken as a result of said fall is accurate to the real world as gravitational potential energy of a body increases linearly with height. The max cap is also realistic as we can assume that your D&D world has an atmosphere, so anything falling would have a terminal velocity due to air resistance.

[@armphidiic2609]

I'm in agreement here. Realism is all well and good but we're throwing (and taking) fireballs to the face, so let's accept that realism is not a goal. All damage would need elaborate systems if we wanted to be more realistic; getting hit with a sword on your unprotected head is a lot worse that if you're wearing a helmet or getting hit on your metal breastplate. But I've played systems that got into that minutiae and having five different rolls to resolve getting hit once is not fun.

[@Deadknight67]

Maybe it could be that you take as written 1d6 per 10 feet and if the number of damage dice taken is = or greater than your number of hit dice (or character level) you roll a constitution saving throw DC 10 + 1 per Damage dice taken (and you can decide what's the effect from injuries to death). And I would raise the max dice too, although a cap is actually realistic because past a certain distance your falling speed doesn't increase anymore. We have a falling speed cap.

[@goodguyjosh3142]

The reason it maxes out at 20d6 is to make it less abusable by the players for killing epic monsters, also this hypothetical rule makes monks even worse.

[@PeterSFam]

The fall damage rule in the 1st edition of Advance Dungeons & Dragons was clarified by Gary Gygax it was meant to be cumulative (or to put in math terms factoral, so the formula would be n!d6 with n being number of 10ft increments) . So for a fall of 30 feet its not meant to be 3d6 but 6d6, 10ft 1d6 +20ft 2d6 +30 ft 3d6. Yes lower average hp of 1e characters meant the max of 20d6 (assuming avg dice rolls giving a total 70 points of damage give or take) would kill most characters.

[@Red-Feather-1]

This! I was waiting for someone to make this point. Bob can't know everything, so it good when the grognards and D&D historians round out his references to past versions.

[@Alixir_of_Life999]

Maximum of 20d6 is about right. Falling objects reach max speed (and maximum air resistance) surprisingly fast and stop accelerating. I also usually rule that tiny creatures are capped at 5d6 and anything smaller than a mouse is immune

[@grymhild]

Height 500' / 152m Mass 160 lbs / 73kg Speed at impact: 179 ft/s 122 mph / 54.58 m/s or 196.50 km/h Time until impact: 5.57 seconds Energy at impact: 108740.80 joules Max 20d6, Average 70 hitpoints of damage Take a nap, you're fine :(

[@SavageGreywolf]

The thing that makes fall damage 'unrealistic' isn't the cap. It's the d6. Also there's people that have survived plane crashes in freefall. Vesna Vulovic survived a fall from a plane that exploded in mid-air.

[@CWayneMartin]

Was playing Curse of Strahd and 2 of my players jumped out of a window of a certain specific tower. Window was about 100ft up. They both went into a rage and took marginal damage for level 6 characters

[@CosmicAggressor]

I have been under the impression that surviving most falls tends to be a matter of heads or tails. Litterally. If you land on your head you will likley snap your kneck after as little as a couple feet below your feet.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Luck score would come in handy for this!

[@DavidHill-im2zg]

I didn't know the base rule but that's interesting. I think I'd be tempted to homebrew it as one leveling hit dice of damage for every ten feet up to 20 hit dice and then subtract 6 off the total to prevent player deaths on a 10 foot fall at level 1.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

5e kind of doesn't have rules about jumping and falling. In a grid map... A 5ft gap will deal 1d6 damage because you need 10ft to both jump over the gap and to land. Unlike the theater of the mind where technicalities isn't the case.

[@indef2def]

Every Evil Dungeon Architect now knows about the trap door that drops you 200' onto a small ledge with a pressure plate that will cause you to be pushed off the ledge to fall another 200', a few times.

[@madaxe606]

Hit Points aren’t supposed to be ‘meat points’. That Owlbear attacks that does ‘damage’ isn’t necessarily a laceration that breaks the skin - it could be the PC throwing themselves backwards to avoid being disemboweled.

[@arichaast8585]

The massive damage rule is great too because a medium size needs to make a dc check of 50 or high to survive

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

It depends... This is why a Goblin can crit kill lv1 PCs easily. And why that changed in OneDnD.

[@goyasolidar]

My own homebrew rules escalate falling damage dice every 50 feet (i.e., use d6's at 10 to 50 feet; d8's at 60 to 100 feet; d10's at 110 to 150 feet; and d12's at 160 to 200 feet).

[@DrVesuvius70]

A houserule I've seen and used is to increase the dice type rolled depending on the fall distance, so for up to 100' you roll d6s as normal, but for 100-199ft you roll d8s, 200-300ft you roll d10s etc.... it makes those ridiculous, thousand foot falls scary again. Another, simpler and fully RAW option is to just say that Falling damage is subject to the optional Massive Damage rules from the DMG, which says if a creature takes half or more of their max HP in a single blow, they have to make a DC15 Con save or roll on the System Shock table, which can leave them Unconscious, Stunned or otherwise disadvantaged. As a GM, for me the problem isn't simply that falls can't kill PCs, it's that the RAW completely robs a lot of challenges of any stakes or tension. That rickety old rope bridge over the gorge is meaningless, and the battle atop the ruined magical tower piercing the clouds is a lot less wondrous when your players tell you they could swan dive off the top, take the damage from a superhero landing and walk away whistling as if nothing had happened.

[@Mat23]

I use to use the max 20d6 rule. Now I use a rule I made that increases damage dice by greater the height. So it still caps at 20 dice, but the dice used to roll go up to a d8 if it’s over 200ft, and up to 500 ft. Then d10’s for over 500ft to 1000 ft, and then d12’s if over 1000ft etc. My players really like it. But it’s never used as a restriction, just for fun, so they can also use it on enemies. And this was a great video, I did not know that they just used the OG falling rules. 😊

[@BlueFrenzy]

As you said, I believe part of the problem is regarding how much HP the PC's have. Overall damage grows logarithmically, but HP keeps growing linearly. I believe many of the balancing problems of high level campaigns is due to this. But I played ad&d and having a cap of hit dice after certain level doesn't feel very rewarding. I'd like to see something a bit more spread out (like, IDK, one hit die when increasing an ASI?). But that's probably a different game.

[@dexasmoru8333]

i like the warhammer fantasy and 40k way of doing leveling. You just get xp and spend it on what you want. You want hp, buy hp. you want attack power, buy attack power.

[@Warriormon87]

4d6 isn't always lethal. Because 4 damage only drops them to 0. They can still make death saving throws, which they have a slightly better than 50% chance of surviving. For it to be always lethal, it would need to deal twice the max hp of a commoner: aka 8 hp. Which means... 8d6.

[@aqacefan]

That would be one lucky commoner, at a 1:1296 chance of all 4d6 coming up 1. The average roll on 4d6 is 14, more than enough to kill a 4hp commoner outright.

[@justinstone4633]

I go with the Rules but let them roll a Dex save to land on their feet if falling less than 15 feet which halves the damage, full Dam and prone if failed. For higher than 15 ft it's full damage but if they survive they get a -1 dex penalty and disadvantage on dex saves until their next long rest.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

Kind of unnecessary when you fully test it. There are better options and 5e isn't written well in this regard. Even Grid Maps have it worst since each box is 5ft so a 5ft hole will deal 1d6 damage, RAW, for a 20 str Barbarian with the Athletics Feat.

[@justinstone4633]

@@absolstoryoffiction6615 well the dex penalty is more to stop my players from jumping off high things often thinking they will be fine or take a short rest/heal @the bottom, "sorry dude your character broke his ankle."

[@matthewparker9276]

For everyone commenting on humans reaching terminal velocity after 1500 feet. Ignoring air resistance (i.e. this is an over estimation), after falling 1500 feet you would be falling 12-13 times faster than after falling 10 feet. So a fall of 1500 feet should be 12d6 fall damage, not 20d6.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

I like this take! Maybe this means it should be a bigger die?

[@zacharylona]

12d6 averages to 42, whereas 20d6 averages to 70. If we play with math, we can use twelve d10s or d12s and that works out about right (66 and 78 average, respectively). *However,* this makes falling exceptionally and unrealistically lethal for low level players and low CR creatures. Yes, real people can trip and fall on flat ground and die, but a 10' fall would be lethal on average to all commoners then.

[@BlackShardStudio]

It was d10 in 4e. Granted, that system had higher HP overall, but I think the increased lethality makes sense for 5e. Personally, I would do 1d10 for every 10 feet *after* the first 10, and add a DEX or CON save for any falls greater than 40 ft (at disadvantage if greater than 150 ft) to modify the results. Under 10 is double damage. For any result under 15, also roll 1d6 levels of exhaustion to represent massive injury (note that this alone can make it instantly lethal), at 25 or higher take half damage. This allows heroes to be heroes but adds significant danger and tension when falling from a great height.

[@JureDoon]

Keep in mind that the kinetic energy of an object is velocity squared, not a straight line (i.e. 10x speed = 100x energy). Edit: and another note on deceleration, the shorter amount of time it takes, the more severe the force of the impact. This means higher speeds have a double whammy of both higher energy and shorter impact times.

[@the_cheese_goddess]

Consider using kinetic energy rather than just speed? As kinetic energy (ignoring air resistance) is linearly proportional to height? Idk if it is what directly affects how hurt someone gets though.

[@panwall1327]

What I need is a clear rule for is what happens when you land on another creature. This way, a dragoon type build is consistent depending on whatever game. I like to borrow "Descent into Avernus's" crash damage rules (it's very similar to fall damage), but that's the type of thing that needs to be in the DMG.

[@amanda121905]

My bard Jareth recently fell 1200' and landed in a death drop, and came out with 4 hp and a really bruised ego. I did crit my acrobatics check though.

[@mystopian]

Am currently trialing a homebrew rule set on falling that hopefully bridges the gap, by allowing some level of superheroness and some sense when considering really great heights.

[@sputnik90]

One small thing that doesn't change the main conclusion of your video- Lethality aka Death should be represented as 2x character HP (ie massive damage), so a commoner would die 50% of the time from roughly 2d6 or 20ft

[@kid14346]

THAT RIGHT THERE IS THE THING! How people have familiarity with some stuff so they complain about it! Like people constantly complain about a swordsman swinging like 6 times, but sure the mage opening portals is fine...

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Hahah, next video: how long does it take to open a portal through time and space??

[@kid14346]

@@BobWorldBuilder study materials: Avengers Endgame Amphibia Minecraft

[@AlexPBenton]

I think this just shows the inherent weirdness of scaling health. If anything, health should scale only half as much, and players should start halfway to their max potential. That way a commoner will always be sorta relative to the party, but you can still min max your hp for a tank build

[@unwithering5313]

The campaign I used to play must have been an outlier?

[@kaskando]

Another super useful video! I am super curious as to how far you need to fall until you reach terminal velocity. I always imagined that was why there was a damage cap

[@kaskando]

Oh I just looked it up and it says 1500ft! So maybe for a realistic approach, the damage cap should be at 1500ft!

[@shadowbear123]

I like the cap at 50d6 - though I personally allow a dex save for half damage if they use their reaction. Also, the damage is magical for the purposes of overcoming resistances and immunities so you can push werewolves off cliffs and they take fall damage. Could just make it force damage but I like barbarians being resistant to it (unlike WotC and trading out a lot of bludgeoning/piercing/slashing damage for force damage for some reason... I don't like that change)

[@indef2def]

"if they use their reaction" Hehe. "So, do you react to falling off the 500 foot cliff?" "Gah... hell... no... might... need... opportunity... attack..."

[@shadowbear123]

@@indef2def lmao It's more because things are happening *somewhat* simultaneously in a round - they already made a reaction before they started falling, they did that and were caught off guard by the sudden fall. They don't have time to right themselves before they hit the ground... if they're not falling more than 500ft, of course, then they can save their reaction to attempt to halve the incoming 50d6 damage

[@Hiddenronin]

I do it by making it accumulative. 10 feet - 1D6. 20 feet - 3D6 30 feet - 6D6 40 feet - 10D6 I do this up until about 1500 feet, at which point you're dead anyway.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

Given Elden Ring... Because 5e has no rules about Jumping and Falling... If your character can naturally and/or magically jump 30ft of their Move, then Fall Damage is not applied unless you exceed your Jump Calculation first, before your Move. So, even at 0ft Move, if your Jump Calculation still has 15ft left. Then you drop 15ft of a controlled fall. On the flip side... If your character gets hit by the Sentinel Feat, or any Forced Movement is applied to you. Without Flight, Hover, Glide, or Magical Flight. You will begin to take 1d6 per 10ft up to 20d6 max. Of course... During your turn, if you Bonus Action: Misty Step. Then you (1) Reset the Fall Damage accumulation, and (2) can land safely if you teleport (grid map) at least 1 block/gex (5ft) near the surface or medium+ sized creature if you're a medium sized PC... Note: Not all teleportation abilities are the same in function.

[@allenyates3469]

I really try to stress to my players how powerful shoving, pushing, and tripping is as an alternative to "I attack".

[@aaroninfante-levy3612]

Love your videos, Bob! Thank you for putting your ideas out there! For falling I use a two-pronged approach: (1) max damage is 50d6 (approximating terminal velocity from about 500 ft, and (b) I often allow special “falling reactions” for players to try and save themselves using that scene’s environment.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Thank you! Sounds like we have a very similar approach!

[@APerson-ws4cw]

I usually just raise the max damage to 200d6. A committed player can survive that at higher levels, but they need to invest to do that

[@kori228]

someone did the math on a video about Keyleth's goldfish, turns out terminal velocity would require way high drop. Keyleth was still accelerating when she hit the water.

[@Pally-Main]

saw the thumbnail and thought we were getting a Freaky Friday crossover episode with XP to Level 3

[@BobWorldBuilder]

I wish lol

[@mrdood92]

In regards to the maximum fall damage: When an object is falling it will eventually reach "terminal velocity" which is just a fancy way of saying max speed. So yeah having a maximum amount of damage you can take from falling makes sense in this regard. However a lot of other factors affect how survivable a long fall is. For example drag to weight ratio makes a lot of difference. A sky diver can increase/decrease their speed by up to 100 mph by changing positions to increase/decrease their drag. It's also important where a character lands. If they land on concrete chances are they would take a lot more damage than someone who landed in grass or snow. The last point I wanted to make is that when falling from a high height the further you fall your injuries will become worse exponentially not linearly. So in your example of 60 feet being fatal to 50% of people and 80 being fatal to almost everyone well that isn't reflective in the DND system either. An relatively easy formula for making it exponentially more injurious to fall further would maybe be something like this: Fall damage = 1d6 + (distance fallen/10)^2. This would mean if you fell 10 feet 1d6 damage. Pretty basic. All DND player characters would be fine. 20 feet and you'd take 4d6. Pretty bad but again most player characters would be OK. 50 feet fallen and you'd better start praying because your rolling 25 D6. Which means an average damage of ~75 with a max of 150. Even late game characters could die from this depending on their current and maximum health. This system is good, however it doesn't scale. So a 50 foot fall from a lower ranked character would be a death sentence but a max level character might be OK. In my opinion fall damage should be mitigated by skills and feats rather than just vast HP so I think a percentage is the best way to go however this isn't a common way to calculate things in DND. So falling from 10-40ft you roll a D20 and take away that percentage of your health. So if you roll a 20 and lose 20 percent of your health it wouldn't be devastating even if you were low level because you may only lose 2-3 health whereas a higher level player may be losing 20 or even more health. 50ft to 70 feet like in your example could be a D50 and lose that percentage and then maybe 70-200 could be a d100 and then over that could be 2 d100. meaning you would have a 50 percent chance to die from a fall of over 200 feet. It could also be refined further obviously but that is just something I thought up. Let me know what system you think is best? I personally like the current system because I'm used to it and it's easyyyy.

[@j.rinker4609]

I think you should get less damage from long falls onto somewhat yielding surfaces if drunk.

[@BlackShardStudio]

In my favorite 4E D&D podcast, Thursday Knights, PC Brandis survived an otherwise lethal fall by reducing the damage with... parry. "Brandis parries the world" was a group meme forever after.

[@Malbutorius]

Has anyone considered that D&D characters are flagrantly superhuman, and that normal people have survived several thousand foot falls before?

[@mercurae8242]

This. Even low HP PC classes like Wizard can go full super hero landing after jumping off a cliff once they hit higher levels (10 maybe?). It’ll hurt, but you can figure out maximum likely damage and that’s your “safe” fell height. At level 10, the average Wizard is guaranteed to survive from 60ft and has an LD50 of 130ft. Plus, you always have the 50/50 chance to survive your death saves. Which you get up until about 300 feet (again, this isn’t even the higher HP classes).

[@Gorbinex]

Yeah I don't think a fall damage calculation should take AC into account. Maybe armor type like a bonus if wearing light armor but if you wearing p ppl ate armor and fall 80 ft irl your gonna splat everytime the extra mass will increase the forces on you body way too much

[@BobWorldBuilder]

That's a great point!

[@tucstyle020]

Don't forget the player has the added protection of rolling death saves giving them just over 50% of sleeping off all fall damage that doesn't double their HP.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

True! Death saves are the real cushion beneath every falling adventurer haha

[@darcyw156]

My table uses ascending dice type for falling. 1d4 for 10', 2d6 for 20', 3d8 for 30', etc. So at 200' you are rolling 20 d 20's, and at 10' and 20' it isn't so bad. It kind of takes into account acceleration. Not perfectly, but it beats the static d6 rule. It also prevents my players from being nonchalant around heights. Also, I don't like math, so I just use electronic dice rollers for more than 8 dice. Thanks Bob for the video. Maybe next time cover how terrible for combat, attacks of opportunity are. Just planting that seed out there. Oh, and when did you hit 100k subs!!!! Way to go! Keep building!

[@sorafan26]

You're not accounting for negative hitpoints/instant death. If the system were fairer to npcs they'd have an effective 8hp, meaning on average it'd take a 30ft fall to kill most average farmer Freds. Also while you might liken PCs falling from great heights and living to real instances of people falling hundreds of feet and surviving, you have to realise that most if not all of those cases result in permanent life altering and decidedly ~incapcitating~ injuries, whereas your average 10th level goliath barbarian can eat maximum fall damage like its nothing, get back up, and keep fighting, and can do so reliably, being able to do this even multiple times a day. There should at the very least be a "your leg is broken" rule. That maybe halves speed if you fall too far.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

True, death saves are the ultimate cushion haha

[@rasimir6124]

As soon as i saw fall damage, i clicked as fast

[@Draegn]

Every ten feet there is a 10% chance of death. Roll that percentage + AC or higher or die. With GM discretion adjusted + or - for surface. If save is made take 10% of hp in damage every 10 feet + or - for type of surface at GM discretion.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Works great for realism, but not as well for 5e superheroes!

[@ricardo.sander]

Bob, congrats for the nerdiest reasrarch I've ever seen. I love this kind of video.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Haha my pleasure!

[@thecrashtestgenius1]

"Don't worry. Nobody dies in this story. They just get really big boo-boos." - Narrator, _George Of The Jungle_

[@epicsavagebros7400]

I like to imagine the fall damage is based on surviving with modern day technology. Also I forgot the rules for fall damage so when the party rogue jumped off a dragons back 500ft up she just died but was revived because level 12.

[@jeremysmith2791]

what about terminal velocity could that be why they cap it at 20d6?

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Yeah but as some folks pointed out in the comments, the cap would be more like 150d6 for 1500'

[@indef2def]

Yeah, but a huge percentage of the 50% who don't die from those falls in the real world, are massively crippled for the rest of their lives. They certainly don't shake it all off after a long rest. Outside of a couple OSR versions, permanent devastating injury doesn't exist in games, so game death should probably be taken as a stand-in for all of those. The chance of our world's most elite athletes being devastated by a 60' fall is probably more like 98% than 50%.

[@NoNoNah306]

I prefer a slightly more realistic game, so my fall damage rules are simple, if you suffer 50ft+ of unreduced fall damage then you have to roll on the System Shock table from the DMG. This may seem harsh but I also allow an Acrobatics check whenever you fall to reduce the damage by 10ft and not land prone DC 10 + (feet fallen/10), and I let people use their reaction to attempt things like grabbing the wall on the way down etc to stop the fall, if such things are available. So yeah if you fall 60 straight feet into the void you have a minimum 30% death rate, but how often does that happen? And it means no one just jumps off a building without thinking about it.

[@starshinewindlord2716]

i love it, makes it more about the height itself than what the damage is !

[@antjtw]

I've always ignored the cap, but I've never had a chance to implement maximum fall damage. Maybe one day...

[@BobWorldBuilder]

Cliffs, flying cities/islands, flying creatures, airships if you're into that--there are many ways to try it out! haha

[@FuzzyTrekkie]

My mind immediately went to that scene in Campaign 1 of Critical Role when Keyleth jumped off the cliff. I don't remember Mercer saying how high the cliff was but I do remember him having to go to an app on his phone because "there's too many dice to role" and he just mentions the 1d6 per ten feet. He doesn't mention the capping at 60. Which makes me think that in his game, he has a homebrew rule where there is no cap. I mean if you're dealing with high-level players that does make sense.

[@MrBaallard]

Interesting topic Bob. It seems the fundamental issue is how to keeps falls dangerous and suspenseful for higher level characters, especially when they starting to think they "are gods". A couple of ideas that came to mind while you were talking are below, modify to make better as you like: 1) Have the max height (aka damage cap) based on PC Tier level similar to how the DMG recommends trap damage based on tier level for example: (1-4) 20d6 (5-10) 30d6, (11-15) 40d6, (16-20) 50d6 or 25d12 etc, etc. 2a) Using an idea you gave in the video. For falls over 200ft add a landing DC check (maybe DEX based on the surface they are landing on). The check would have a critical success or a critical failure aspect to it (if we are homebrewing anyway). If a critical failure then double the damage dice (40d6) and a critical success quarter the damage(5d6), standard failure is full damage(20d6), and a standard success half damage(10d6). -Hopefully that would raise the stakes enough that high level character are at least worried about dying but also retain a change of pulling off an epic save. If a 20 or 1 isn't risky enough you could make the critical failure or success criteria be rolling a number like 5 above or below the DC level. So if the DC was 15, a 20+is critical success, 19-15 success, 14-9 fail, 9 and below a critical fail. Thanks looking forward to the next video

[@Hypericus2]

Great video. In terms of realistic damage, the big problem is actually the levelling of hit points and how easy it is to recover lost health. As a result, it's hard to provide any meaningful risk to players with the existing rules. Yes, we can do things some kind of wounds or status system, but that's just a way of bypassing hit points. Maybe add a wounds/status system and get rid of hit points altogether? Would love to hear your thoughts.

[@BobWorldBuilder]

I think that's the best way to solve this sort of problem, but for me, that's a level of homebrew that would warrant trying a different game system instead

[@nikkibrowning4546]

Had a paladin in a recent session get dropped from 160'. The cleric readied an action to heal and he used Lay on hands when he hit the ground. All told he was only minus a couple HP and ready to be teleported again next round.

[@NoalFarstrider]

Technically. A 6 foot fall can kill you if you fall on your neck... So a d 6 for 6 feet might be more realistic. But 10 feet is easier to count I get it...

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

Grid Maps are 5ft per block...

[@NoalFarstrider]

@@absolstoryoffiction6615 1D 10 for 10 feet seems Evil! Edit: But accurate.

[@Myrrden]

Let's be honest, keyleth had that coming! Out of all the animals she can transform into, she picks a goldfish and not a bird.

[@skylark7921]

When writing my book, I needed my protagonist to fall like a hundred feet and I was like “… no way she’d survive tho??” Turns out there was an instance of a climber falling even further than that onto solid rock and surviving. Granted, she had massive injuries, but she made a full recovery. The article attributed her survival and recovery to the fact that she landed feet-first. Her legs were pretty mangled, but since they took most of the impact (like the crumple zone of a car), her vital organs and most importantly her head and neck were mostly fine. So I def think it would make sense to adjust fall damage based on a dexterity save, since you could die from landing wrong at 40ft or survive by landing right at 100+ft

[@vinterbjork4128]

I would argue that the fall damage rules are realistic for one simple reason and that is because ”Hit points represent a combination of physical and mental durability, the will to live, and luck.”. Fall damage is less about how hard the ground would smack you from what height, and more about how you as a hero manages to survive that fall against all odds. And a commoner has about a coinflip chance not to get knocked out falling from the roof, and that is close enough realism in my book.

[@ScribeSorceress]

I normally skip ads but Bob’s voice is so soothing I could listen to him read the phone book.

[@JadeyCatgirl99]

You make the most a super important point here about scaling to creatures capable of fighting great foes. When it comes to fall damage, a lot of people forget that D&D characters are epic heroes. Just like Mr Incredible catching a train, a Raging Barbarian can safely land on the ground after a great fall, even though it will really hurt.

[@Fluffy-ys6rb]

I'm wondering whether the fall damage could be represented by an exponential graph or something, so it becomes super lethal at high heights and less lethal at low ones. e.g 10ft: 2^1D4 20ft: 2^1D6 30ft: 3^1D4 40ft: 3^1D6 50ft: 2^2D4 and etcetera also a Dex save could be done to maybe get to reroll the dice so that you don't risk the chance of dying from a 20ft drop.