Alternate Falling Damage

[Rusvul]

Falling damage has bothered me for a while now. I am okay with characters in my game being superhuman badasses, but someone being able to regularly survive a fall from terminal velocity without applicable spells or class features screws with my suspension of disbelief.

As per standard rules (1d6 damage per 10 feet fallen), falling is fairly lethal at low levels--perhaps even too lethal--but at high levels all but the most extreme falls are inconsequential. Beyond the gameplay implications, this model is is thoroughly unrealistic. This doesn't in and of itself discount it from being a good model; however I think at least some attempt to represent the real world through abstraction is desirable. This system doesn't even do that.

The Gygaxian rules (1d6 damage per 10 feet fallen per 10 feet fallen) are more lethal, making falling a reasonable threat throughout all tiers of the game, but they also fail to apply to characters of different levels with any kind of consistency. If the standard rules are arguably too lethal for low level characters, the Gygaxian rules most certainly are. It is also unrealistic; while geometric scaling of damage to account for acceleration makes sense in theory, it doesn't line up with how survivable falls are in real life.

I've made a rough draft of a different system, based around a chart--look up how far you fell to determine what effects you suffer. It's somewhat more complicated than the other rules, and perhaps not the most 5e thing ever, but I'm alright with that. The chart is as follows:

10 feet: You take no damage on a successful Dexterity (Acrobatics) check, or 1d6 damage on a failed one.

20 feet: You take 1d6 damage on a successful Dexterity (Acrobatics) check, or 2d6 damage on a failed one. If you fail the check, you also suffer one or more lingering injuries.

30 feet: 2d6 damage on a successful Dexterity (Acrobatics) check, or 3d6 damage on a failed one. Either way, you suffer one or more lingering injuries.

40 feet: 3d6 damage on a successful Dexterity (Acrobatics) check, or 5d6 damage on a failed one. Either way, you suffer one or more lingering injuries.

50 feet: Make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw. You have advantage on this saving throw if your Dexterity (Acrobatics) check was successful. On a successful saving throw, you take 5d6 damage. On a failed saving throw, you take 7d6d6 damage. You are reduced to 0 hit points (if the damage is not sufficient to do so already) and begin dying with one failed death saving throw. In any case, you suffer one or more lingering injuries.

100+ feet: Make a DC 20 Constitution saving throw. You have disadvantage on this saving throw if you failed your Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. On a success, you take 10d6 damage. You are reduced to 0 hit points (if the damage is not sufficient to do so already) and begin dying with one failed death saving throw. In addition, you suffer one or more lingering injuries. On a failed Constitution saving throw, you die.

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The idea with lingering injuries is that you compare the damage you took from your fall to a table. 2d6 damage will probably get you a sprained ankle or something, maybe a broken leg at worst. 5d6 falling damage, on the other hand, is likely to entail several broken bones and a concussion at the least.

The benefits to this approach are that, while higher level characters are more likely to survive more dangerous falls, they'll still break their legs like anyone else. This deters PCs from jumping off of 50' ledges just because they're 12th level and they can take the hit. It also doesn't rely too heavily on damage dice being the thing to kill PCs, which makes it more broadly applicable.

Still, it is quite lethal for low level PCs and NPCs. Ideally, a commoner would be seriously injured at a 30' fall and probably dead at a 50'-60' fall. (According to this (https://largepolyhedroncollider.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/the-realities-of-falling-giving-gravity-the-respect-it-deserves/) article, anyway.) I'm not sure how to reconcile that with PCs with HP totals orders of magnitude higher than a commoner's single 1d8 hit die. If anyone has any ideas on how to make that work, criticisms of this system in general, or completely different (and quite possibly better) ideas for how to model falling, I'd be glad to hear them.

[SkipSandwich]

Maybe falls could deal a% of the target's max hp plus a small flat amount. Something like "per 10ft fallen, take 1 + (2d6% of your max hp, rounded to the nearest whole#) hit points of damage, to a maximum of 10 + 20d6% of your max hp for a fall of 100+ft.

To take the above example, an 8hp commoner would take 3 + 0~2 hp damage from a 30ft fall, and 5 + 1~5 damage from a 50ft fall.

EDIT: an alternative that would be easier to calculate would be something like 2 hp per hit die for every 10ft fallen.

A 1d8 commoner would take 6 points of damage from a 30ft fall and 10 points from a 50ft fall. A 10th level barbarian would take 60 and 100 hit points of damage respectively.

[just a pupu]

I was looking for alternate falling damage for some time know and finally found this! I will probably change few things but this was very helpful. Thanks buddy :)

[Asmotherion]

I'm comfortable as it is.

We just need to face the fact that mundane people are not beyond 1 level, so even if they were to survive a 10 foot fall, it would not be without severe injury. The few people that can, are about level 2. Because we are using a System, not only of "Gritty Realism" but of even "Grittier Realism", lost HP recovers on an even slower rate; You can short rest on a 8 hour span, and Long rest every Week, but spending an HD recovers only 1 hit point. Constitution Damage may also result in permanent loss of hit points after the fall, as well as a bad recovery may have you permanently loose Hit Die (Broken Bones, or even more permanent problems). The level cap for a human in our real world is probably level 3. After that, there is an exp bar that is too high for anyone to cross in our lifetimes.

Thus, we'll never get enough HP to fall from the sky (without a parachute), take 20d6 damage and live to tell the tale :P