Talk:Hero's Epic Fall Damage (5e Variant Rule)

Ratings

	Ghostwheel dislikes this article and rated it 1 of 4.
	One of the system design philosophies of 5e is that things are streamlined and that they move along quickly and are fairly intuitive. Bringing things that require on the fly division, much less cube roots as this variant requires, don't have a place in 5e in my opinion. This variant is just too finagly and cumbersome to actually be used at most tables.

	Skyrock opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	D&D has in none of its editions attempted to realistically model the physics of falling trauma, or make terminal velocity an actual threat to high-level characters. There are plenty of other RPGs that have been designed with that in mind.

MAJOR UPDATE 6-13-2022

Simplified version. Removed all the scientific explanations and reasoning. To make it simpler for everyone to see how it is used in the game.

Also, shortened the terrain list and terrain check. Finally managed to get this down to its bare bones.

Nothing has numerically changed.

- Select - out!

p.s. Before trying to use this "in game" know the creature weights. This can be as simple as using the average weight of a creature sizes (adjusting for common sense).

This information can then be added to your sheets for reference "in game".

You will probably want to calculate the maximum initial damage based on the weight, which is 5 × Weight^1/2 and the height where this occurs, which is 125 × Weight^1/2 and also the multiplier, which is just the cube root of the weight.

Examples:
Tiny
Weight: 4.5 (x1)
Max Fall DC: 10 (265 feet)

Small
Weight: 34 (×3)
Max Fall DC: 29 (730 feet)

Medium
Weight: 280 (×6)
Max Fall DC: 83 (2,090 feet)

Large
Weight: 2,250 (×13)
Max Fall DC: 237 (6,000 feet)

Huge
Weight: 18,000 (×26)
Max Fall DC: 670 (17,000 feet)

Gargantuan
Weight: 141,000 (x52)
Max Fall DC: 1,877 (47,000 feet)

---

What RPGs are you talking about? Let's see how they compare.

If you are afraid of calculators, during a game you could record the cube root along with the weight on character/monster sheets.

For example: 50(4), 200(6), or 800(9)

Then multiply this by the table of height^1/3:

5 feet (×1)
10 feet (×2)
30 feet (×3)
60 feet (×4)
120 feet (×5)
220 feet (×6)
340 feet (×7)
500 feet (×8)
700 feet (×9)
1000 feet (×10)
1400 feet (×11)
1800 feet (×12)
2200 feet (×13)
2750 feet (×14)
and so on

because (h × w)^1/3 = h^1/3 × w^1/3

For example an 800 pound horse, 200 pound human, and a 50 pound kobold fall 80 feet, 200 feet, and 850 feet; they each have a Fall DF of 36

If you are nervous about multiplying in your head, use a calculator or assign a player to use the calculator, or make a table using excel, such as this one:

H/W	11	23	42	72	116	177	260	368	507
										682
2	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
16	5	7	8	10	12	14	16	18	20	22
64	8	11	13	16	19	22	25	28	31	35
144	11	14	18	21	25	29	33	37	41	46
256	16	18	22	26	30	35	40	45	50	55
400	16	20	25	30	35	41	47	52	58	64
576	16	23	28	34	40	46	53	59	66	73
900	16	23	31	40	47	54	61	69	76	84
1296	16	23	31	41	53	61	69	78	86	95
1764	16	23	31	41	53	65	77	86	96	106
2304	16	23	31	41	53	65	79	94	105	116
3136	16	23	31	41	53	65	79	94	111	128

but if possible, use a calculator

Response for ghostwheel

Thank you for the feedback and the edits.

There are portions of the rulebook that obviously require a calculator. Look at encumbrance and tell me it is not in the spirit of the game.

Should fall damage really be any different?

The calculator makes it quick and is more accurate. If you don't want to do the calculation we can put it in a table, but I don't think it is necessary. Most things are in tables because they would be too complex to calculate. Hero's Fall DC has the same formula for all heights and weights.

. . . .

I do understand what you are saying, we want things to be accurate and easy to perform, to use a method without interrupting the flow of the game, that is the goal.

To find weight, just roll on the character creation tables that randomly assign weights.

For monsters you can use the creature size, or I suggest making weight = height^3 in a pinch. Some monsters have known weights from earlier DND editions. You can find other sources online for the weight and the DM will need some general idea about the weight of things.

The DM will have to familiarize themself with the calculator. I wouldn't recommend downloading the calculator (eg RealCalc) and searching for the cube root function button during a game.

. . . .

The only way to know if a method is accurate is to check if it matches what happens when you fall in reality.

A world class acrobat can fall 12 feet during a performance and die. An average person can fall 100 feet and live, or 0 feet and go into a coma. These are not freak events, they are common and normal because falls are chaotic.

It is not possible to give a number for how much damage a fall produces. Accuracy in this case is closeness to a range and a frequency of all such events.

A horse can dive 60 feet without injury. A cat can fall 65 or more feet onto hard ground.

Other methods will fail this test of realism and they are going to be clunky, not explained by a single formula. You don't get accuracy by basing damage on height or even velocity. Hero's results will be in the realm of expectations based on a real situation.

> There are portions of the rulebook that obviously require a calculator. Look at encumbrance and tell me it is not in the spirit of the game.

I can do 15 x a number in my head pretty easily. Even without talking about the difficulty of it, you only need to do it once... if it ever comes up, since in many games people don't even remember encumbrance as long as players don't try to abuse how much they can carry. It's very different from having to whip out a calculator every time someone falls, and especially for math where you need to square cube things. A table would be much the same - I don't want to look up or even need to memorize a table whenever something happens.

> A world class acrobat can fall 12 feet during a performance and die. An average person can fall 100 feet and live, or 0 feet and go into a coma.

In that case, just have a % table with modifiers. Even that would be too much, but at least it would reflect "reality" more than the calculations needed to use this variant.

Regardless, you're never going to get "realistic" numbers, and in fact, you shouldn't try to. Because D&D is far from realistic, and trying to add realism to it is a futile endeavor even from the basic fact that hp exist and how they work (getting beaten to an inch of your life multiple times, then running a marathon no problem, for example).

I wouldn't advise anyone to use this variant, and would even tell them to stay away from it in its current iteration. --Ghostwheel (talk) 12:07, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Encumbrance doesn't change and won't need to be calculated during the game? Most people can't multiply by 15, and people never use calculators in DND?

If you want to use a table for this method instead of using a calculator, it is not as efficient but it is no different than the rest of 5E. You can't know any Spell DC without looking it up on a table. Why not have a table for Fall DC?

This is the same as a d10 terrain die with an 100 pound rock falling on your head or a bookcase.

The original fall system damage is based on reality, it was just a ball park estimate using a 150 pound dummy. The estimate goes haywire at around 200 feet and will start giving too much damage. Select Hero (talk) 14:06, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

> Encumbrance doesn't change and needs to be calculated during the game?

Yeah, encumbrance is 15 x your strength score. After you calculate it for the first time, apart from changes due to ASIs (+15 or +30, which can easily be done in your head) no further calculations need to be done.

> You can't know any Spell DC without looking it up on a table.

...Are you serious? It's 8 + your Proficiency bonus (you should know what it is) + your spellcasting ability modifier. It literally should take a glance at your stats to figure it out. And even more than that, it should be written on your spellcasting table. Since when do you need a table to figure out your DCs?

> The original fall system damage is based on reality, it was just a ball park estimate using a 150 pound dummy.

Could you cite a source of your this? I don't remember it saying anything about reality, seeing as a 50-foot fall will outright kill all commoners outright without any chance of survival, while you yourself have said that people have survived falls much farther than that.

I'll repeat the point again; trying to inject realism into D&D is a futile endeavor, and there's really no point to it. If you want to play an RPG that's "realistic", D&D for certain is not a good system to start with. --Ghostwheel (talk) 14:32, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

I don't see any virtue in keeping things unrealistic, or being sarcastic in your comments. Calling it finagly and cumbersome just tells me you refused to even try it.Select Hero (talk) 04:33, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Entirely Unrealistic

This variant entirely ignores terminal velocity of objects based on their mass, drag coefficient, projected area, the gravity of the plane you're in, and the density of the creature.

Entirely unrealistic, 2/10.

/s --Ghostwheel (talk) 11:44, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

I added terminal velocity, based on mass, drag coefficient, and projected area. Gravity will not impact terminal velocity beyond changing the weight of the object and density of the atmosphere. I think going further is too much detail and doesn't have enough impact on the game to bother with. Select Hero (talk) 14:04, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

I added "/s" because I was being facetious. As it is the system is too cumbersome. Adding it is redundant and doesn't matter. --Ghostwheel (talk) 14:17, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

That's fine. I had it laying around and it is extraordinarily simple.Select Hero (talk) 14:27, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Extraordinary simple, this system is... not. --Ghostwheel (talk) 14:32, 15 May 2022 (UTC)