Fall damage

[Heavy_Crossbow]

So I recently ran a session of Assault on Blacktooth Ridge (you can check out the adventure log in the Crusades section). In one area, the floor breaks and the unlucky player tumbles down a thirty foot drop, sustaining...6D6 damage!? Usually fall damage has been along the lines of 1D6 per 10ft of fall. That's the rule from 3.0/3.5 that I've just kept over from the transfer.

Now is there some different rule in C&C? If so, what is it? And it just strikes me as kind of dumb that in a 1st to 2nd level module there's a trap that can easily kill any character of 1st to 2nd level. I mean, it's going to be dealing about 21 damage on average, which means only the extremely lucky or the extremely tough are going to survive. Even if you save, you only take half damage: still enough to kill most 1st level players, and certainly enough to reduce any others to 0 or below.

Don't get me wrong. I think that AoBTR is a great module. If I didn't think so, I wouldn't still be running it. But that little fall-trap thingy would have annihilated a character if I hadn't nerfed it a bit (to a mere 2D6).
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[Andrew DS]

Double post.
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[Andrew DS]

It works like this - the first ten feet does 1d6 damage. The second does 2d6. The third 3d6. These are then added together to give the combined damage dice total of the fall. In this case it's 6d6.

I agree that it does sound a bit lethal for the module level though. Perhaps you could shorten the fall by 20', thus reducing the damage to 1d6?
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[Maliki]

I keep it to d6 damage per 10' so IMC it would have been 3d6 damage.
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[serleran]

The Rules As Written make it geometrically cumulative, which makes falls a bad thing -- some like it, others don't. Me, I don't really do a "damage" thing for a fall. I have a save based on distance -- if you make the save, you live; if not, you don't. The save does get exponentially more difficult.
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[Treebore]

I like how deadly falling is, so I keep it the way it is in C&C. 30 foot falls kill people. Surviving it is largely due to luck.

Anyways, scale it. If its the mage that falls and you know he will die have a mass of spiderwebs appear, catching him, but now he is threatened by a spider swarm unless his buddies save him in time.

Whenever you run into something in C&C it is "by the book" to change things to a way you like. If that is instantly changing the module encounter to something more survivable, or changing it to 3E rules, that is what you do and its the right thing.

In this particular module different areas are for different levels. I ran this module 2 years ago or so, and am currently playing through it and we are close to finished, maybe even finished because I think we killed the thing that wails last night.

When you get to these areas the party should be third level. We are a group of 5 third level characters and we are doing well. We lucked out, no one has lost levels, several of us have been paralyzed, but we saved each other, but we have all survived and won the day. It helps that my Paladin as an AC 23 (Plate Mail, +1 Shield, +2 DEX bonus, and +2 from protection from evil), so I have literally been able to be the anchor for our groups offensive tactics. I have been hit, I have come close to dying, I have been paralyzed, but with good luck and good party tactics, I survived, and survived long enough to help my party members do their thing as well.

So is this part of the module dangerous? Heck yeah! We definitely could have had losses, even a TPK or two.

This module will take good team work and a bit of luck to win through, but thats they way we like it.

As for this particular fall, yes, its deadly. Its meant to be, but you are allowed, no, encouraged, to change it to whatever your comfortable with. Or you could go with it and roll 7 damage like our CK did. Luck.
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[Omote]

Want to reduce the fall damage in C&C? Keep the rules as they are BTB, and add: Make a DEX save to take only half damage from the fall. From there, you could increase the CL for the save +1 for every 10' fallen, or some such other ruling.

-O
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[Troll Lord]

Heavy_Crossbow wrote:
Now is there some different rule in C&C? If so, what is it? And it just strikes me as kind of dumb that in a 1st to 2nd level module there's a trap that can easily kill any character of 1st to 2nd level. I mean, it's going to be dealing about 21 damage on average, which means only the extremely lucky or the extremely tough are going to survive. Even if you save, you only take half damage: still enough to kill most 1st level players, and certainly enough to reduce any others to 0 or below.

Welcome to long, long, long list of my dead characters in Davis' *#^)@*& world!
Several of our players actually don't like Davis' running a game because its too hard.

When I run, which I usually do, I always give them chances to make saves, grabbing ahold, slowing, halving damage. Omote has the perfect solution to it.

Steve
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[Omote]

Troll Lord wrote:
[Omote has the perfect solution to it.

Steve

Ooooh, don't make me put that in my signature!
-O
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[Maliki]

Omote wrote:
Want to reduce the fall damage in C&C? Keep the rules as they are BTB, and add: Make a DEX save to take only half damage from the fall. From there, you could increase the CL for the save +1 for every 10' fallen, or some such other ruling.

-O

I like this idea.
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[Lord Dynel]

Yeah, the idea of a Dex save is pretty good. Keep the RAW and add a Dex save should do just fine. Alternatively, if you wanted to, you could give the characters a choice between making a Dex save or a Con save - either they're nimble enough to take less damage, or they're just plain tough enough. That's what I'd done with my game - give players the choice of saves in that instance (only).

[Fiffergrund]

Here's my trap philosophy:

Traps have several possible uses.

- Delay

- Detain

- Cripple

- Kill

If a trap isn't meant for one of those uses, it's not worth having.

A pit trap can be any of the above categories. The applicable category depends on the depth of the pit, if there are spikes, etc.

If a pit-digger wants to kill whoever falls in it, it hardly makes sense to dig a more shallow pit. In this case, I'd ask what the pit-digger was trying to accomplish and adjudicate the depth and falling damage accordingly.

So what if the pit is lethal for 1st and 2nd level characters? So are swords, clubs, claws and maces. If characters take steps to protect themselves from weapons, they ought to take steps to avoid falling into pits, yes?

The vast majority of traps should be lethal. One usually does not go through the hard work of setting up traps only to inconvenience intruders.
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[mordrene]

Fiff, I agree.

also I think the fall damage should be as is in the ph. for example if damage is a d6 per 10 feet, a 10 level fighter could easially survive a 100 ft fall with only 9d6 damage. where more diacouraging is the 45d6 damage as per the rules. makes the fighter think diferently sense he cant run around like superman, fall 100 ft and shake it off.

[gideon_thorne]

Heavy_Crossbow wrote:
which means only the extremely lucky or the extremely tough are going to survive.

Well, honestly, thats kinda the point. Even low level adventures ought to be dangerous, otherwise where is the challenge?

This only brings home the fact that any party ought to include at least one thief. ^_^
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[moriarty777]

You know... falling damage 'as-written' is the way I've always done it when I first started playing D&D. I've shocked a few players when it came to do falling damage too!

M
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[Jonathan of White Haven]

gideon_thorne wrote:
Well, honestly, thats kinda the point. Even low level adventures ought to be dangerous, otherwise where is the challenge?

This only brings home the fact that any party ought to include at least one thief. ^_^

Or perhaps two--the second one being the backup if the first one happens to trigger the lethal pit trap.

"Noddy was a good chap, but he couldn't find a trap to save his own life..."
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[gideon_thorne]

Jonathan of White Haven wrote:
Or perhaps two--the second one being the backup if the first one happens to trigger the lethal pit trap.

"Noddy was a good chap, but he couldn't find a trap to save his own life..."

Thats what Dwarves are for. Trap detectors. *toss....BOOM!*
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Peter Bradley

[serleran]

And illusionist-barbarians.
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Serl's Corner

[Jonathan of White Haven]

gideon_thorne wrote:
Thats what Dwarves are for. Trap detectors. *toss....BOOM!*

Gnomes, too.
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[Heavy_Crossbow]

Wow. Brutal. I guess this just seems alien to me, falling being deadly. Ironically, the player who ran the knight who fell here was a friend as a young child. To see if he was spiderman or not (we were four, okay?), we invented an ingenious scientific method, where he would hang on to the fourth floor apartment window above the concrete parking lot and try to crawl on the wall. Long story short, he fell and didn't suffer any injuries. It seems that fall-related death or injuries is largely based around luck. It seems that you can fall and be alright, you can fall and break an arm or a leg, or you can fall and be unlucky enough to die.

I liked an idea proposed earlier based on a "save or die" mechanic. Save, you live. The farther you fall, the harder it is. And you could even include a margin of failure damage result, like if you only failed it by a little tiny bit, or if you barely succeeded, you broke a bone. I prefer to have my players die in more...dignified ways. Unless they irritate me. Luckily, this player hasn't. Yet.

To each his own, I guess.
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[anonymous]

I think the harm that is incurred from falling should be entirely divorced from the Hit Points mechanic. Why does being good at fighting monsters mean you can survive a 50' drop? And why are fighters better than thieves at surviving when thieves do all the climbing?

[Lord Dynel]

Tenser's Floating Disk wrote:
I think the harm that is incurred from falling should be entirely divorced from the Hit Points mechanic. Why does being good at fighting monsters mean you can survive a 50' drop? And why are fighters better than thieves at surviving when thieves do all the climbing?

Yeah, I agree.

I wonder if a percentage of hit points would be better?

10' fall = 25% of hit points on a failed Dex save, 10% on a successful save

20' fall = 50% of hit points on a failed Dex save, 25% on a successful save

30' fall = 75% of hit points on a failed Dex save, 50% on a successful save*

40' fall = 100% of hit points on a failed Dex save, 75% on a successful save*

50' or more fall = Instant death on a failed Dex save, 100% damage on a successful save*

(round up on all fractions)

* - regardless of whether the Dex save is successful or not, a Con save must be made to avoid death from a shock to the system (This part could be optional).

I don't know how this would work. This doesn't divorce the fall from hit points, but it might have a more "fair" result (so now, both the 3rd level wizard and the 11th level fighter can die from a 40' fall). I might playtest this and check this, though. If anyone has any opinions on this, let me know!

[Relaxo]

Lord Dynel wrote:
Yeah, I agree.

That's an idea that does make sense... maybe rolling the class Hit Dice would be simpler, though. (so wizard = 1d4s damage, barbarians 1d12, etc).

This could open up new abilities like, reduce fall, take damage as a wizard for falling damage instead of using the monk falling ability.

hm.....

[Treebore]

Heavy_Crossbow wrote:
To each his own, I guess.

Thats actually the whole point of C&C. Do it the way you like best. The only thing you come close to having to follow "by the book" is the SIEGE mechanic.
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