Falling Damage
There’s a reason that this comic features a Fighter-shaped hole in the ground. No matter how good you think your game system is at simulating reality, at some point the numbers are going to result in cartoon physics. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Once you accept that your system is an imperfect representation of the real world, figuring out the in-game rationale makes for some interesting worldbuilding.
Take the example in today’s comic. Falling off a 200 foot cliff in d20 System results in 20d6 damage. That’s a maximum of 120 damage and an average of 70. If we assume a Con score of 14 and average rolls on the hit die, a 10th level fighter survives that fall most of the time, and a 16th level Fighter survives it all of the time. Interestingly, that 20d6 damage represents terminal velocity, meaning that our 16th level fighter can survive falling from an arbitrary height. Now I don’t care how good you are at decapitating goblins. No matter how many XP you’ve acquired in your journeys no human should survive orbital reentry, especially not 100% of the time. Therefore, we’ve got to invent some explanation for how this nonsense actually works.
So here’s my headcanon. What if character levels make you more than human? Maybe your big fat pool of hit points represents some kind of “heroic essence” that allows you to achieve superheroic feats of endurance. And if that’s the case, I imagine that there’s a club somewhere in the multiverse composed of high-level Fighters, Barbarians, and similarly resilient beefcakes. They journey to the highest peaks in the most scenic locales across the planes—the Axis in Golarion’s Boneyard, the Spire in Planescape’s Outlands, or even the comparatively humble Stardock in Fritz Lieber’s Nehwon—and take turns proving their metal by jumping from the summit. They each bring their own cleric to heal them up at the bottom of the cliff. Maybe they even have a few loaner clerics for newcomers.
“Gee fellas, that sounds swell! Can I join?”
“Well Timmy, you’re only seventh level. That means we’ll have to start small. Now why don’t you begin training by jumping off that bell tower?”
I may have to write up a high-level adventure for this hypothetical band of daredevils one day, but in the meantime I want to hear from the rest of you guys. When the rules of your favorite system fail to reflect reality, how do you deal with it? What kind of headcanon do you use to justify characters who parry lightning, break Usain Bolt’s sprint times without trying, or survive falling at terminal velocity?
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Lol
That makes me think of The Ballad of Mike Haggar on youtube.
I heard somewhere that once a player reaches 7th level, he starts leaving the world of the norm.
When you think about it, that health pool means you could also live through a firing squad, a dragon, romantic envolvement with a succubus, etc…
So yeah I would say they are becoming something more than human (or elf) as they level.
We do have a standing rule that while we know that our character can survive the fall, it would be meta gaming for them to know without a in-game reason too…
Now that I think of it, their equipment is even more powerful… I mean that one little word “attended” makes any item flat out immune to fall damage…
Well that one’s easy to explain! You know how players love their loot. In freefall, the PC will instinctively curl his body around his precious gear, shielding it from harm.
So what I’m hearing is that fighters become some kind of backwards-logic non-euclidean object to protect their armor.
They’re like fourth dimensional armor-dillos!
One sec. I need to google this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ce9J-J30B3o
:'(
It’s just…it’s just so beautiful. I think I may have my next character concept. Besides which, that mess has Two Steps from Hell in the background, so you know it’s got to be good.
Isn’t this sort of the idea that lead to the creation of E6? Once you get past low-levels, you are no longer a human being, not even an exceptional one – you become a hero of legends, capable of shrugging off things no regular person could survive. Solution (provided you consider being a superhuman a problem in the first place)? Stay in Neverland and never go into mid-levels.
I love the idea of E6. But for me, it’s not about “I’m a superhero and that’s the wrong flavor.” I think the game actually plays best at mid levels, and E6 represents a way to maintain that d20 System sweetspot.
The way I like to explain this inhuman phenomenon is simply: A heroes spirit. It is from that they draw their strength, and with every trial they face, it grows stronger, allowing them to accomplish even greater feats. Now, if you were to cut away bits and pieces of their source of power, the obvious happens… They are under the effect of negative levels. Death, too, would impose some damage to the soul, only the strongest of revivals being able to handle such a delicate procedure.
Now necromancy, necromancy does rather sinister things to one’s soul, it can manipulate it, binding it to a dead body to play it like a puppet, tainting the soul, rendering it unsuitable for use in resurrection, lest something dreadful happens, or outright destroy it.
So it’s safe to say that a heroes greatest asset is their greatest weakness.
I like to think of this as the “this hand of mine glows with an awesome power” explanation.
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/shining-finger-sword
And eventually your hero/spirit is summoned by some lower level yahoo spellcaster and compelled to do his bidding; the games goes on…
Now that’s a great quest hook. Some low-level mook has summoned and bound the paladin’s fighting spirit, and is now forcing it to do terrible things. How does the party get it back without damaging it permanently?
It’s also the basic concept behind Fate/stay night, which Jim was referencing.
Thinking like this is what ruined 3rd ed and its permutations.
How so?
I honestly don’t even bother. If I had to pick a reason it’d either be “Magic?” or “You know how those aberration things are from outside of time and space and have to break our reality a bit just to get in? Right, so… how many beholders have we fought? If this is average how healthy do you think our reality really is right now? Yeah. Exactly.” or “We know for a fact that the gods made our reality. We also know for a fact that they’re all kind of weirdos who apparently care about what we’re up to. I doubt it’s because they really wanted to have farming as a spectator sport.”
I believe “a wizard did it” is the classic choice. “The gods did it” and “mysterious forces from beyond time and space” seem to work just as well.
Most of the time I prefer to run with that kind of explanation. But sometimes rationalizing the irrational can be kind of rewarding too, you know?
Part of why I like systems like Exalted. No pretense of human limitation, you’re a demigod, go be awesome.
Pictured here: an exalt.
I love the classic Pulp Fiction conversation between the two assassins, roughly quoted:
“It’s a sign, an omen. I gotta get out of this business”
“Nah, man. Shit like this happens all the time.”
*About 1 in 20 times.
With enough hp, some dr, and some rope, a group warlocks can fly to the moon on eldritch blast and featherfall.
I guess they took the Kerbal patron.
It’s the rule of narrative for me. A sufficiently strong hero or villain just won’t die from a fall. If you can’t recover the body, you might as well just cast Feather Fall on them.
I do love some dynamic entry, though. I played a Barb/Rogue (5e) based on the Orkz of WH40k, and enjoyed making suicidal leaps, falls, and plunging attacks because they would only scratch me even if I failed, but Choppa-From-Above is a pretty surefire method of making the enemy Surprised.
I trained white mice to do dynamic entry. This was because my mythic wizard was, for some reason, under the impression that you had to cast feather fall on living creatures rather than, say, a handful of rocks. Anywho, the strategy was to take my bucket o’ skydiving mice, fly over the baddies, and dump ’em. As I recall, they did something on the order of 227.5 force damage.
Explanation: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/mythic/mythic-magic/augmented-spells#TOC-Feather-Fall
That’s evil, insane, and genius. =)
is that meant to say “proving their mettle” or “proving they’re metal”? Or both? Because they both fit in this instance. \m/
Huh. That was an interesting etymological journey. Apparently it’s an alternate spelling of “metal” expressly used for figurative language. Good to know.
mid 16th century: specialized spelling (used for figurative senses) of metal.
To be honest in real life there has been people who survived free fallout without a parachute.
https://zidbits.com/2010/12/can-you-survive-a-freefall-without-a-parachute/
Their names are Butch and Sundance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IbStIb9XXw
missing this here: http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0806.html
Meanwhile Thief is up at the top of the cliff like: https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/aint-no-mountain-low-enough
In Pathfinder there’s an item called “boots off the cat” that reduces all falling damage rolls to 1. Meaning damaging caps at 20. Most barbarians can survive this at second level. Discovered it during a game where we were movie monsters. I was Frankenstein and Dracula flew me around and dropped me on people.
That is some heartwarming teamwork right there. Who were you guys fighting? Angry villagers? The church? Van Helsing?
If we remember that at lv 20 heroes can become actual Gods, it’s easy to assume that at some point of adventuring they stop being “puny humans” anymore.
Super-strong dudes, gods, and the word “puny.” Confirmed Hulk is a 20th level D&D character.