questions about combat

[Hamakto]

How about something even simpler here:

Damage is calculated as:

10' 1d6
20' 3d6
30' 6d6
40' 10d6
50' 15d6... etc...

If you drop under 1/2 your hp's, you roll a critical on the 'falling damage table'.

With a modifier to the roll of +2 for every 10' fallen.

This takes into account the more tired/wounded a character is the higher chance of something going wrong from the fall. You can then further adjust the roll up and down based on extraneous circumstances (i.e. wing it)

It could work out something like this:

3rd level character has 18hp. He jumps down 20' and takes 10 damage. His now is under half of his full hp. So he rolls on the falling critical table: d20+6 -5 (controlled jump).

(note: edited the line from d20+3 to d20+6 to fix the formula)

Note, under this rule damage is not reduced by taking a controlled 20' jump. Your body still takes the abuse from falling. The difference is that the chance of something extra serious happening is lower. (RL example: try jumping down from the roof of your house with 100lbs of armor, weapons and other non-balanced gear). It is still going to hurt/stress the body.

This table would have relatively minor critical results for rolls 1-10ish... but get progressively more difficult as it reaches (or passes) a 20.

At 50' in depth the average damage is: 52hp. With the projected lower number of HP, that will almost guarantee drop someone under 50% of their health... if not outright kill them. Even if they survived, they would take a roll on the critical table of d20+10... which guarantees a moderate critical result with a average roll of 20 as the normal result. Which may end killing them anyway.

[Hamakto]

This can be extended to many different things:

Massive damage is not a save or die. It is now an automatic critical roll on the attack or effect that did the damage.

[smathis]

This can be extended to many different things:

Massive damage is not a save or die. It is now an automatic critical roll on the attack or effect that did the damage.

I think that's an interesting approach, Andy. It's another table and I heard some grumblings about tables on the Death & Dying in DCC RPG thread. And the tables I pitched hardly qualified as such.

In the end, I avoided adding tables to the rules in that because I didn't know what DCC had or didn't have. I wouldn't mind if DCC included a Falling Damage table. And I like the idea of the automatic critical roll. Suddenly the damage roll becomes significant in a whole new way. What would you do with the damage from the attack though?

Also worth noting is I shared your thoughts on Massive Damage and took out the "die" part in the rules I'd compiled. Only a roll of "1" results in straight up death. Great minds and all. I also lowered the threshold so it would have more of an impact. The 50 hp threshold of vanilla 3.5 was so high it rarely saw play, IME.

I would hope DCC does those things too (lower MDT and make Massive Damage not insta-lethal). But this is all sight-unseen so it's a bit like Blindfighting a shadow for me.

[jmucchiello]

Falling 30 feet should not kill someone. Break some bones, sure. But not "dead 100%, guaranteed". Now, falling 30 feet in Platemail, That's a different kettle of fish.

[mshensley]

Falling 30 feet should not kill someone. Break some bones, sure. But not "dead 100%, guaranteed". Now, falling 30 feet in Platemail, That's a different kettle of fish.

I found the stats somewhere online - it's usually fatal if you hit a hard surface from that height. Broken skull, broken neck, ruptured spleen, ribs poke thru lungs, etc. It's really quite nasty. Even if it doesn't kill you, the odds of walking away from it is almost nil.

[smathis]

Falling 30 feet should not kill someone. Break some bones, sure. But not "dead 100%, guaranteed". Now, falling 30 feet in Platemail, That's a different kettle of fish.

I found the stats somewhere online - it's usually fatal if you hit a hard surface from that height. Broken skull, broken neck, ruptured spleen, ribs poke thru lungs, etc. It's really quite nasty. Even if it doesn't kill you, the odds of walking away from it is almost nil.

Hmm... 30' drop. Um... Not looking to test that out anytime soon. But if anyone's willing to, please let me know how it works out.

Hard to say if falling 30' should be insta-lethal. But my problem with the falling rules is that someone of high enough level could fall 100', get up and run off like Kate Beckinsale in Underworld.

That's what doesn't make sense to me. Not if they fall and die from 30' or not.

[Stainless]

Just to stir the pot

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jan/3 ... p-scotland

[finarvyn]

Falling 30 feet should not kill someone. Break some bones, sure. But not "dead 100%, guaranteed". Now, falling 30 feet in Platemail, That's a different kettle of fish.

I found the stats somewhere online - it's usually fatal if you hit a hard surface from that height. Broken skull, broken neck, ruptured spleen, ribs poke thru lungs, etc. It's really quite nasty. Even if it doesn't kill you, the odds of walking away from it is almost nil.

Hey, if you run into that website again would you please post a link? In the real world I'm a physics teacher and one of our projects is an analysis of a movie scene and kids are always looking for a "would it kill them" kind of source to quote. I'd love to find something leget that has that kind of data!

[goodmangames]

Finding even more lethal ways to kill off PCs is, fortunately, not something the game needs at the moment. But I do like the geometric falling progression. It definitely makes falling more dangerous. And reading accounts of people who have fallen 33,000 feet (!!) and suffered only various broken bones makes me think that perhaps a critical hit table should be combined with falling damage - sure, if the DM rolls all 1's maybe you do survive, but something gets broken as well...

[mshensley]

Hey, if you run into that website again would you please post a link? In the real world I'm a physics teacher and one of our projects is an analysis of a movie scene and kids are always looking for a "would it kill them" kind of source to quote. I'd love to find something leget that has that kind of data!

I can't find what I was looking at before but I did find this-

http://www.ohp-inc.com/images/Day_04_IS ... andout.pdf

Which shows this-

LD50 = Lethal Distance
50% = 11 Feet

[Stainless]

It's an interesting topic (although heading off on a tangent from the OP). There's lots of info here;

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2000-116/ ... 0-116b.pdf

Page 17 has an interesting distribution which is quite asymmetric, but keep in mind the sample space is quite small. So clearly you can die from falling less than 6 feet. In fact, some people have been know to die from simply tripping up.

Also this from a UK sight;

http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/causinj/falls.htm

Typically more than 70% of fatal fall injuries are from a height of more than two metres compared with 23% of major fall injuries and just 10% of over-3-day fall injuries.

Which suggests to me, that once you get above 6 feet, you better be damn careful.

[smathis]

Sounds to me like falling should be a crit table, then. With the roll possibly modified by the height of the fall. Seems too unpredictable to fit into a neat X damage per Y feet formula.

[Hamakto]

Sounds to me like falling should be a crit table, then. With the roll possibly modified by the height of the fall. Seems too unpredictable to fit into a neat X damage per Y feet formula.

I can agree with this. Just make falling damage a roll against a table modified by distance fell.

Yes, it is another table. But I do like the idea...

[Machpants]

Yup sounds good to me too.