You're right. I didn't even think to check Tasha's because I was sure there was nothing there. Egg on my face, I suppose! Either way, I prefer this version of the rule, as it actually has gradation for different heights. Well spotted though! Appreciate the reminder to double check everything.
The problem with falling into water is that after a certain distance, hitting water is like hitting concrete. The water cannot physically get out of your way quick enough if you hit it while going too fast. So half damage could apply for some falls, but for those of great distances it should still be full damage, even into water. Heck, the FAA even did studies on free fall survival statistics for people falling into water. This included both planned and unplanned falls and how someones orientation affected possible injuries.
@@JMcMillen The distance is pretty close to terminal velocity, and "hard as concrete" is a bit of a misnomer. Water is as dense and compressable as concrete but even when you are in those distances where you fall faster than surface tension breaks it's more like falling onto a normal dirt and grass lawn. The real danger to why if you're falling from a height you should avoid water, is being in water with broken legs. You are very likely to sink and drown. With all that considered, falling as if you fell from a shorter height seems about right. Eventually damage caps, or damage exceeding health will equal it out
the funny thing is falling 500ft under a gravity of 9,81 m/s² take 5.6s. So almost the 6 seconds of a turn. So the first round of falling is simply skipped
For water I do the same damage as if you hit the ground BUT - If you chose to fall, you can reduce the damage by half. - an athletics or acrobatics check of 12 or better reduces the damage by 2D, 18 or better by 4D. I imagine Hay piles or pillows can be assumed to be as water but depending on the size of the pile I would make the roll at disadvantage. Personally, depending on the damage done I'll impose a penalty. 1-10 = temporary sprain. 5' reduction in speed until short rest 11-19 = bad bruise. 1/2 speed and disadvantage on physical rolls 20-29 = Break. I break a random limb for a week or 2 30-39 = break a limb and unconscious for 2d4 rounds 40-49 = suffer all previous conditions plus roll 3 death saves. Each one you fail puts you unconscious for 1 hour. 50+ roll 6 death saves if you make 3 before you fail 3, suffer all previous conditions. If you fail 3 before you make 3, you die.
I had this one character that I built to take damage so others wouldn't have to. Hill Dwarf Cleric/Fighter with the Tough feat. We rolled for HP. I ended up with 210 hit points, but that was the final total at level 20. But then I had that legendary weapon Blackrazor. With Blackrazor if you landed the killing blow you gained that creature's hp in temp hp. We were fighting Giants at the time. So I would regularly end up rocking like 130 normal hp with something like 137-180 is temp hp. I could fall from Orbit but still get up dust myself off by the RAW falling rules.
So The 5e Xanathar's guide people probably looked this up: To fall 500 feet on earth will take approximately 5.57 seconds. This is solved using the acceleration of gravity on earth (32.1 ft./s^2) and the kinematic equation for distance.(If a 5E still uses the 6 second round) I'm not a fan of 5e.
I find two rules indirectly related to falling very strange: 1) Commoners (The average person) have 1d8 (or 4) hit points, meaning that 1 in 3 people who fall 10 feet will instantly die. However, the average Knight has 52 hit points, so they can't die from falling less than 90 feet if they tried. 2) The Attack action can be used to shove a creature off a cliff, who would then fall and take damage. Now, some creatures (such as a Spirit Troll, which is incorporeal and can walk through walls) have immunity to bludgeoning damage from nonmagical attacks, but because the damage was from the falling itself and not the attack, they can still be killed nonmagically.
I think it is silly for people to get hung up on the word "attack". If a creature has resistance or immunity to piercing, slashing and/or bludgeoning, it should not matter how much the rock hitting their face "wanted" to kill them. 'Head hitting a rock in a fall' should be treated the same as 'head hit by giant-thrown rock'. But I also find 5e's resistance system silly. A creature with fire resistance can burn to death in any place that deals any amount of environmental fire damage (no matter how small), because half of 2 is still them burning alive.
@@alberthord9527 Absolutely. The 5e/DNDNext playtests made it pretty clear that DM judgement is supposed to always be in play. They made a very conscious effort to not write rules to handle these specific edge cases - because the complication isn't worth it.
They don't die, they're knocked unconscious. And people die from 10 foot falls pretty often - especially if the fall is unexpected. Landing on your head or back from 10 feet is I also feel like I say this a lot - but rules like these are designed for involving the PCs. They're not designed to simulate the world - the game is explicitly not simulationist.
Another 2 homebrew things that may be added to that is that if a fall has been initiated not on that person's turn, they start that turn only 30 feet down, then subsequently falling that extra 500 feet at the end of that character's turn, that would allow for allies to cast their reaction spells on them or to get a few more pot shots on that person if the attacker can see over the edge to target them. Additionally, if a creature that can fly but is willingly choosing to fall or has fallen but still has the capability to fly, such as in a dive could choose to expend movement equal to their fly speed to pull out of the dive, but then must also on that turn use their bonus action to take the dash action to move their full fly speed, even if class features wouldn't usually allow such to move in a straight line in any direction, this both allowing falling characters that can fly to pull out of a fall, choose to descend quicker than a controlled descent but at some costs, and allowing for the person to dive and make an attack before the momentum transferred taking them out off that dive brings them away, or go that dashed distance before using their action. with that applying to non-magical, magical flight I would say to expend the movement equal to your fly speed to magically arrest the fall with no damage taken.
12:35 If you have to go down 30 feet into normal ground & have prepared the Mold Earth cantrip (plus time to prepare), you can crouch down first & target the ground 5 feet in front of your landing point (if not lose earth already, the "make difficult terrain" option can losen it), moving it to reduce the distance of falling to 25 feet. | Then you can try to "hold" your body with your arms, then your hands (likely Athletics [STR] check), to reduce the distance between feet/hooves to the losen earth mound to just 20 feet. -> The actual fall may be voluntary or not depending of the previous check. | Regardless, all damage is non-lethal (unless the DM says you fell "sideways" & missed the mound... maybe a Nat1 or failing for 5 or more). -> If both checks are 15 or more, you take no damage & can then also continue moving (no prone condition), having used only 5 feet of movement. | The OneDnD-UA7 spell Jump implicitly sugests that you automatically succeed with a 30 effective "Thumble" skill check (fall damage reduced by 15 points) from an up&down height of 30 feet [max damage of 12]; hence negating it.
Well, I suppose you'd keep getting turns until you hit something, or stopped your fall, right? Fair question, and proof positive that you can't consider every situation!
If this is an actual problem in the game, you can try to solve it with game world logic. Somewhere in the DMG (I don't have one with me atm) it states that elemental planes are actually physically adjacent to each other, so if you are falling for long enough, you might just fall "into" another plane
Maybe because I have jumped off cliffs and i'm a klutz I am more lenient on water jumps. You'd have to almost critically fail to hurt your self at 30ish feet. As long as its not a belly flop or something it might sting but there wouldn't be any real damage. Big damn heroes I'm fine with 100 foot jumps into water with no real problem. I think dex saves can be used here for some of it. If a griffon gets shoved off a cliff, a dex save is given so they go into flight mode instead of just fall. For something like that the DC would be harder on shorter falls as they have less time to recover. But in theory I don't mind the rules covering something like the rogue making a dex save using a object interact to pull a grappling hook and toss it with a rope to arrest their fall. Unrealistic sure, but everything players do post level 5 is. The rigidity of turn based actions is what is stopping people from doing something even basic grab the friends arm as they fall actions not verisimilitude. Side note I still always want to type reflex save instead of dex save.
Well, yeah, not really. Counterspell counteracts the casting of the spell, not the effect. And the casting is usually done with an action or a bonus action, both of which are far from instantaneous. Heck, evern if you counterspell a counterspell, you still are not countering the effect, but the casting process, which takes a reaction. To further prove my point, consider the fact that the Dispell Magic can't be used as a Counterspell, which would be contradictory if you could actually affect an instantaneous effect
On the other end of the spectrum for optional rulings about falling, based on numbers from the World Air Sports Federation about skydiving terminal velocity, it takes about 12 seconds and 1500 feet for a human in a belly-to-earth position to reach a terminal velocity of about 120 mph. Mechanics wise, this lines up pretty well with a 500 foot fall by the end of the first 6 seconds and 1000 feet at the end of every subsequent round, with up to a maximum damage on impact of 150d6, one for every 10 feet traveled before reaching terminal velocity. If you want to make huge falls lethal, I like using this system (and using a digital tool to roll the dice) while making sure that people who are about to fall have opportunities to do something about it, given that falls of this height stop dealing survivable damage with these rules unless you're a level 20 raging barbarian.
I like Gygax's original ruling for fall damage-- an additional d6 of damage per 10 feet fallen cumulatively (max 20d6). So, you hit 20d6 after falling 50 ft. Another issue I have with falling in 5e is that you fall straight down, ignoring any vertical momentum. Eldritch Smite on the White Dragon flying perpendicularly to you? It falls straight down, instead of at an angle based on the direction off its flight.
@twilightgardenspresentatio6384 It's not about beating its wings or not. Because a round's events occur during the same six seconds for everyone, a dragon flying in any direction doesn't have 0 momentum when its turn ends. An aircraft that loses power mid-flight doesn't fall straight down-- it falls at an angle towards the direction it was flying, due to inertia.
I do fall damage as 1 damage per foot fallen. They can make an Acrobatics Check, and reduce the damage taken by the result of the Check. It's worked pretty well for my table so far. Lots of fun moments, and makes paying attention to cliffs more important.
One issue with falling damage since 3rd edition is that it's still the same damage that it's been since 1st edition. But back then, most characters stopped getting full hit dice when they leveled up past level 9, so hit point totals for higher level characters aren't close to being as high as they are now. This is especially exacerbated by also not getting a Con bonus when you stop getting full hit dice. But don't get me wrong, I actually like that old rule. Because while your 16 level fighter stopped getting d10+con after level 9, and now only gets +3 per level, that 16HD Balrog sure didn't get capped. It's one of the things that made those powerful creatures a bit more dangerous.
That's a very interesting spot of nuance that I didn't even consider! I think if you're going for a superheroic fantasy game, it can make some sense for certain classes and builds to near-guarantee surviving any fall, but it all depends on the style of game. 20d6 is one of those things (like alignment, I guess), that's just along for the ride in modern editions.
I have a system where the creature falls a certain number of feet at the end of every combatant's turn, which increases until they hit terminal velocity, which allows for people to react to falling instead of "someone pushed you, and now you're a pancake". A simulationist approach to falling. An obscene and probably unnecessary amount of research went into this, including survivability falling from different heights and onto different surfaces (people have survived falling 20k ft for example). It adjusts according to number of people in combat, but it breaks down into just 5 rules. I treat damage differently in my setting, so it doesn't line up with the core rules, but its easily adjustable: Once you begin falling: 1. You immediately fall 10ft. At the end of every combatant's turn thereafter, you fall 20ft farther than the previous turn. (10ft, 30ft, 50ft, etc) 2. You take 2d8 damage for each turn you've fallen before hitting a surface. When landing, make a dex save against a DC of 10 plus the number of turns you have fallen, taking half damage on a success. If you take more than 10 damage, you fall prone. 3. You reach terminal velocity at the end of two full rounds, and the fall distance and damage no longer increase. 4. If you fall a distance of 10ft or less, you do not take damage or fall prone. 5. If something breaks your fall, you resist the damage (even if you've already made the saving throw). *If there are 10 or more combatants at the time of falling, reduce damage to 2d6, and the incremental fall distance is 10ft instead of 20ft. *If there are 6 or fewer combatants increase damage to 3d8, and incremental fall distance is 30ft instead of 20ft.
The number one framework for reading rules of any sort is "specific beats general", it has been affirmed as a principle in D&D 5e; it's also important for DMs and players to acknowledge that reality (i.e. scientific, engineering, and medical principles) is always in force where the rules don't explicitly state otherwise. As much as 5e falling scaling (it's not far from the physical earth-like reality) etc isn't too bad based on reality, you've definitely ran into one of the [surprisingly many] areas where 5e has been simplified or ignored environmental interactions in silly ways - the lack of "sinking" rules is an adjacent issue... 😬
My falling damage rule is intended to make it a genuine threat to non flyers. 1. The damage cannot be resisted or ignored unless a rule specifies falling damage e.g. slow fall. 2. The damage dice varies by creature size (d1 for tiny, d4 for small, d6 for medium, d8 for large etc.). 3. The damage scales in a triangular sequence e.g. 10ft is 1dx, 20ft is 3dx, 30ft is 6dx etc. 4. The falling creature may make an acrobatics check as a reaction and deduct the result from the damage they would take. 5. If they take damage from the fall, they land prone. I find that this makes long drops technically survivable in the extremes but suitably dangerous for non-pros or bigger creatures. Falls from 100ft+ in the real world are typically thought of as non-survivable but in this system, a medium creature is facing 55d6 (193 on average) damage which is genuinely survivable for some characters. Sometimes I'll add a max dx cap depending on the players and whether they want this severity of falling.
I actually disagree on how you say fall rule from Xanathar and feather fall interact, as feather fall is a reaction spell, you should be able to apply it retroactively, as otherwise it wouldn't make sense. Similar to how the shield spell works. As for 500ft. per second it is actually pretty logical. I made some calculation in regard to speed and 500ft is almost exactly how far a human weighing around 170lb would travel in real world after falling for 6 seconds (aka. 1 turn). It's when the fall takes longer than 1 turn 500 ft. per turn loses its sense, as human terminal velocity is around 1100ft. per 6 seconds. (184ft./s)
I think my issue was that it does technically specify that the target must be 'falling', which leads to the confusion, in my mind. Once the target is falling, then it could be ruled that falling rules apply. In any case, as a (hopefully) same GM, I'd of course rule that feather fall works. I am no mathematician or physicist, so cannot speak on the correct speed for a fall. Appreciate the clarity and expertise, and wish I could pin more than one comment!
@@Grungeon_Master Think of the situation this way: Although the creature travels distance instantly, reaction also takes effect instantly when the triggering event happens. So Fall starts at 500ft above ground. At that moment you can cast spell, since the trigger happened within your range, so it is still possible to cast Feather Fall according to RAW. Though what's funny according to this rule you couldn't cast feather fall on a creature that is falling if you're below said creature but you're further than 60ft. away. Since the creature travels that distance instantly, it effectively teleports by up to 500ft. downwards when you start falling.
@@nerine4188 I'd disagree. It says "you instantly descend up to 500 feet". Now you can argue that the word instantly means that you cross that distance in zero actual time, but to descend you would still have to cross the entire distance, not merely teleport from one end to the other. You could think of it as the rest of the world being effectively paused while you fall. Although I would also argue that the word "instantly" is describing things in terms of gameplay, not in world reality, but I don't think it's really important anyway. The fact of the matter is you do have to cross the distance falling, even if you're doing it in some weird, instantaneous movement. So you are still "falling" across the entire distance even if the actual moment takes zero time, and that means the end points aren't actually special. Your actual fall is a line and if any point of that line is in range of someone who can cast Featherfall at the moment you fall, then they can use their reaction to cast it because the very top point of the fall is exactly the same as any other point on the line of your fall.
3e and earlier edditions had lots of useful rules 5e forgot about, this is the reason why i prefer pathfinder and the reason why people don't want to play earlier edditions because "More Rules = Brain Hurt"
Yes, "instantly" is poorly worded. For Feather Fall: D&D works on a system of 'one rule, many exceptions'. For an easy, sane, house rule; make "Falling" a condition. Rounds are a way to rationally address the actions of all participants in fast-paced combats, but they are a mechanic. The actions of all participants in any given round all take place over only 6 seconds and are happening almost simultaneously. As such, let a character react to falling down. A creature that would be caused to fall gains the "Falling" condition. At the end of each of that creature's turns, that creature descends 500 ft. If the creature impacts a solid surface, they take 1d6 damage per 10 ft fallen (max 20d6). A creature jumping downward deliberately can make a Jump (Athletic or other skill appropriate to the system) check. For every 10 of the result, treat the fall as 10 ft shorter. A creature trained in Acrobatics (or system equivalent) can use a reaction to make a check, reducing the damage by half the check. The jumping and Acrobatics options can be used together. If falling into water the creature takes only half damage and can make a DC 15 Swim (or system equivalent) check to negate the damage entirely. If falling onto another surface, the DM can adjudicate any reduction in damage. If the creature manages to grab a ledge (or similar) along the way, they take only half damage for the fall to the ledge. This allows characters to use their fantastic abilities to execute exciting, cinematic actions. Feather Fall is still worth having, just because a lot of people have few options when plummeting through the void. I do not remember whether it was RAW of HR, but in our 4e games, a character being forced into hazardous terrain was allowed a saving throw to be prone 1 sq outside the danger. As a DM, I had characters who passed this save against falling end up catching and dangling from the edge. My players approved (even when it was the enemy who caught themselves).
Using half damages is best and consistent. Allow stacking. Keeps things simple. Deliberately fall? Half damage. Fall into not hard ground? Half damage. Acrobatics DC 15? Half damage. Flying? Half damage. So an Aarokocra with Acrobatics who deliberately fell 200ft off an airship into water but for some reason didnt fly right away would take... Full = 20d6 Deliberate: 10d6 Acrobatics 15: 5d6 Water: 2d6 Flying: 1d6 1d6 damage. Heroic as all get out but rarely will all those things come into play. Under the many different rules this vid copped, thjnfs are too varied. Non-lethal, subtracting flying speed, subtracting half aerobatics? Nah. Just make it half damage and keep it clean.
Sure. This is a very interesting way of doing things, and is certainly easier than the myriad rules I presented. Not 100% sure if it achieves the desired result in every case, as a deliberate 500ft fall onto stone probably shouldn't leave a level 10 wizard with 0 con still standing over 50% of the time. Either way, your homebrew is a good rule of thumb. Hope you enjoyed some of the strange ol' rules regarless (I'm a big fan of the ever-increasing diving DC).
@The Grungeon Master considering LD50 (50% fatality rate) for human falls is about 50ft and fatality rate is 90% from a fall of 85ft, if we're looking for verisimilitude we should be upping damage a LOT. Since we'd have to nearly restructure the entire way falling damage works, move outside of verisimilitude and simply make things as easy as possible. Does 8d6 kill 90% of people in Faerun, Greyhawk, etc.? Depending on how many heroes above level 7 they have... maybe? Great, I'm now going to base demographics of towns off of falling damage. Got a hamlet of 50 people? 5 of them are retired heroes of level 7 and above who are trying to live out their lives in quiet. Oh, and 25 of them are at level 2 or above. Every hamlet is a retirement home for adventurers. Also, there's a 50ft cliff they all jump off of to celebrate the day the town was founded.
I have a thought about those Xanathar rules, and I can't decide if I'm just being obtuse, or if I'm on to something. The line: "subtract the creature's current flying speed from the distance it fell before calculating falling damage." Sticks out to me. This, to me, suggests that a flying creature should never hit the ground, so long as they can act, and have a fly speed. They should always "subtract the distance ", by their fly speed. And you wouldn't subtract the *distance* from the top, because they already fell that, you'd reduce it from the end, I.E. the total. So they would never hit whatever the total would have been, unless they had no speed for some reason, because you've now subtracted how far they fell by their speed and the result of subtracting will provide you a new total *distance* . Am I crazy? If they had said "reduce the damage." then it would make more sense, but by saying "subtract the distance, before calculating damage" it suggests that it's to prevent the damage from occurring. So a flying creature with a 60 foot fly speed, on the edge of a 300 foot cliff, who gets shoved off the cliff, would fall the distance (300) minus 60 (240) before calculating the damage, putting them still in the air, 60 feet above the ground, but really far away from the cliff top. Resulting in 0 falling damage. Is this a wild misreading of the rules? Am I crazy? I feel like it makes sense, and the alternative (a creature would fall 300 feet, but take the falling damage of falling 240 feet, which would be 20d6 either way) makes less sense. In the standard scenario, having a fly speed and falling a longer distance is of less benefit, when it should be the reverse, because over a longer distance you'd have more opportunity to gain control of your fall and begin flying. In the standard interpretation, if that same 60ft fly speed creature fell only 10 feet they'd take no damage. Same result for everything up to 61 feet. As they flap their heart out and stop themselves from hitting the ground. But with up to 500 feet more room, they have less of a shot of taking control. But in reality the reverse is true. If a little bird falls off its perch in its cage, it will have so little space to react it will often hit the bottom. But if it fell off the top of the house or out of a tree, it would likely take flight before hitting the ground, or at the least break its fall. Again, am I just having a total mental malfunction? (It is very hot where I live right now lol). All of this becomes irrelevant if they have no fly speed, and currently this perspective would mean so long as they are conscious and have a speed above 0 they would never take fall damage, which doesn't make sense either. As for the rest of the video. I change the dice to d10's after 20 feet, as falls greater than that are much more likely to be lethal, and D&D characters are very strong in weird ways (very weak in others). I also don't have a cap for falling damage. Is that realistic? Not really, though it could be argued that the level of durability from the average d&d character isn't realistic, so if you want the actual result of falling several thousand feet to feel as threatening as it should be, you have to juke the numbers a bit. And that 20d6 sounds really impressive, until you realize the average is 70, and while that's going to obliterate the average peasant, a mid level PC could shrug it off, and a Barbarian might just bounce right on up. I like the acrobatics stuff, makes sense to me. And the DC's sound right. Putting together a grouping of these rules in a handy PDF or the like would be useful.
The (4e) wiki does say the reduction of fall distance by fly speed is purely for the purpose of calculating damage. They still fall the full amount. Not specified why but I would say maybe it's wind resistance lowering the impact velocity of the fall? Larger flying speed assumes larger wings (more drag) = less damage? Why they worded it like that? Probably because falling and fall damage are different headings and it might be simpler to ask: Calculate fall distance > calculate fall damage, than reference d6s/ d10s in a section that otherwise does not reference them Edits, too many edits: A flying character only falls when they are unable to fly (prone, flying speed zero, unable to move). They could jump off a building and choose to fly the moment before they hit the ground- not taking any fall damage. This seems a bit weird to me as you need at least a little bit of time to gather momentum to fly but it's probably to difficult to make simple ruling to cover all these edge cases Edit 2 electric boogaloo: Also for reference, the falling damage cap for 4e is 50d10 (500ft)
I house rule falling speed at 75ft a round. The 500ft every 6 seconds is based on terminal velocity in our world, which is somewhere near 1700ft. I look at this at a speed of about 1/3 of terminal velocity a round. Dnd's terminal velocity is at 200ft. This is nowhere near 1700 ft that the 500ft was based upon. So I rule falling speed at about 1/3 terminal velocity. 75ft a round.
As a very long time DM, I don't see the point of the vid - other than to quibble over the admitted semantics. Easy call is easy call. No need to over complicate the issue.
True. I feel like for experienced GM's, we do tend to have the experience to make those 'easy calls'. Perhaps this is more geared towards the newer DM's out there, who may be less confident making situational calls beyond the rules text. Appreciate the feedback, though.
I mean, if "you're the DM just call it" is the answer, then 99% of YT videos about D&D shouldn't exist. ;) By rule, jumping down from a height of 10 feet onto grass would kill an average person 50% of the time, and that's just silly because this is something every kid on a playground jumping off a swing has done dozens, if not hundreds of times, yet we all survived. So when a rule doesn't make sense, it's good to discuss it, and given that WOTC themselves has clarified the falling rules multiple times, it seems valid to discuss it.
@@MannonMartin The 'system' is just a set of guidelines designed to work together with minimum conflict. And any DM who isn't making 'on the fly' decisions multiple times per session is doing something terribly wrong. Falling 'rules' are so brief because they're one of the least used. Always have been. And they're 'vague' because too much detail adds unnecessary (and unwanted) complexity... not to mention amping up potential lethality, which few players welcome. The DM making situational calls has always been the preferred route... long before such a thing was called 'the rule if cool'.
@@paulfelix5849 Every DM is always making 'on the fly' decisions all of the time. The point is some DM's like to make nearly all decisions 'on the fly' and others prefer to be prepared with a system for most things for various reasons such as consistency, or just to free up mental resources for the other 5,000 things a DM has to do. If you don't want a more detailed system. Cool. If you do, also cool. Different DM's are gonna have different preferences. In your games the falling stuff might never come up. In some other DM's games it might be happening nearly every game. Personally I haven't put any homebrew in for this, because I think there's enough rules that I can work with it. Although if I were designing it I'd probably lean towards a bit more detail in the system, but not as much as suggested in the video. But that's my personal preference. Some DM's probably don't even use the rules in the actual book and rule all falling stuff completely off the cuff. There's nothing wrong with either approach IMO.
Tasha's does have rules for falling into water, as well as onto other creatures. But they just half the damage you take
You're right. I didn't even think to check Tasha's because I was sure there was nothing there. Egg on my face, I suppose!
Either way, I prefer this version of the rule, as it actually has gradation for different heights.
Well spotted though! Appreciate the reminder to double check everything.
The problem with falling into water is that after a certain distance, hitting water is like hitting concrete. The water cannot physically get out of your way quick enough if you hit it while going too fast. So half damage could apply for some falls, but for those of great distances it should still be full damage, even into water.
Heck, the FAA even did studies on free fall survival statistics for people falling into water. This included both planned and unplanned falls and how someones orientation affected possible injuries.
@@JMcMillen not to mention still water versus running water
@@JMcMillen The distance is pretty close to terminal velocity, and "hard as concrete" is a bit of a misnomer. Water is as dense and compressable as concrete but even when you are in those distances where you fall faster than surface tension breaks it's more like falling onto a normal dirt and grass lawn. The real danger to why if you're falling from a height you should avoid water, is being in water with broken legs. You are very likely to sink and drown.
With all that considered, falling as if you fell from a shorter height seems about right. Eventually damage caps, or damage exceeding health will equal it out
Wait, on what page is "common sense" in the player's guide for 'rules as written'? LOL
the funny thing is falling 500ft under a gravity of 9,81 m/s² take 5.6s. So almost the 6 seconds of a turn. So the first round of falling is simply skipped
I am defiantly going to steal these ideas.
Subscribed.
For water I do the same damage as if you hit the ground BUT
- If you chose to fall, you can reduce the damage by half.
- an athletics or acrobatics check of 12 or better reduces the damage by 2D, 18 or better by 4D.
I imagine Hay piles or pillows can be assumed to be as water but depending on the size of the pile I would make the roll at disadvantage.
Personally, depending on the damage done I'll impose a penalty.
1-10 = temporary sprain. 5' reduction in speed until short rest
11-19 = bad bruise. 1/2 speed and disadvantage on physical rolls
20-29 = Break. I break a random limb for a week or 2
30-39 = break a limb and unconscious for 2d4 rounds
40-49 = suffer all previous conditions plus roll 3 death saves. Each one you fail puts you unconscious for 1 hour.
50+ roll 6 death saves if you make 3 before you fail 3, suffer all previous conditions. If you fail 3 before you make 3, you die.
I had this one character that I built to take damage so others wouldn't have to. Hill Dwarf Cleric/Fighter with the Tough feat. We rolled for HP. I ended up with 210 hit points, but that was the final total at level 20. But then I had that legendary weapon Blackrazor. With Blackrazor if you landed the killing blow you gained that creature's hp in temp hp. We were fighting Giants at the time. So I would regularly end up rocking like 130 normal hp with something like 137-180 is temp hp.
I could fall from Orbit but still get up dust myself off by the RAW falling rules.
So The 5e Xanathar's guide people probably looked this up: To fall 500 feet on earth will take approximately 5.57 seconds. This is solved using the acceleration of gravity on earth (32.1 ft./s^2) and the kinematic equation for distance.(If a 5E still uses the 6 second round) I'm not a fan of 5e.
I find two rules indirectly related to falling very strange:
1) Commoners (The average person) have 1d8 (or 4) hit points, meaning that 1 in 3 people who fall 10 feet will instantly die. However, the average Knight has 52 hit points, so they can't die from falling less than 90 feet if they tried.
2) The Attack action can be used to shove a creature off a cliff, who would then fall and take damage. Now, some creatures (such as a Spirit Troll, which is incorporeal and can walk through walls) have immunity to bludgeoning damage from nonmagical attacks, but because the damage was from the falling itself and not the attack, they can still be killed nonmagically.
I think it is silly for people to get hung up on the word "attack". If a creature has resistance or immunity to piercing, slashing and/or bludgeoning, it should not matter how much the rock hitting their face "wanted" to kill them. 'Head hitting a rock in a fall' should be treated the same as 'head hit by giant-thrown rock'.
But I also find 5e's resistance system silly. A creature with fire resistance can burn to death in any place that deals any amount of environmental fire damage (no matter how small), because half of 2 is still them burning alive.
@@alberthord9527 Absolutely.
The 5e/DNDNext playtests made it pretty clear that DM judgement is supposed to always be in play. They made a very conscious effort to not write rules to handle these specific edge cases - because the complication isn't worth it.
They don't die, they're knocked unconscious.
And people die from 10 foot falls pretty often - especially if the fall is unexpected. Landing on your head or back from 10 feet is I also feel like I say this a lot - but rules like these are designed for involving the PCs. They're not designed to simulate the world - the game is explicitly not simulationist.
Another 2 homebrew things that may be added to that is that if a fall has been initiated not on that person's turn, they start that turn only 30 feet down, then subsequently falling that extra 500 feet at the end of that character's turn, that would allow for allies to cast their reaction spells on them or to get a few more pot shots on that person if the attacker can see over the edge to target them.
Additionally, if a creature that can fly but is willingly choosing to fall or has fallen but still has the capability to fly, such as in a dive could choose to expend movement equal to their fly speed to pull out of the dive, but then must also on that turn use their bonus action to take the dash action to move their full fly speed, even if class features wouldn't usually allow such to move in a straight line in any direction, this both allowing falling characters that can fly to pull out of a fall, choose to descend quicker than a controlled descent but at some costs, and allowing for the person to dive and make an attack before the momentum transferred taking them out off that dive brings them away, or go that dashed distance before using their action. with that applying to non-magical, magical flight I would say to expend the movement equal to your fly speed to magically arrest the fall with no damage taken.
12:35 If you have to go down 30 feet into normal ground & have prepared the Mold Earth cantrip (plus time to prepare), you can crouch down first & target the ground 5 feet in front of your landing point (if not lose earth already, the "make difficult terrain" option can losen it), moving it to reduce the distance of falling to 25 feet.
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Then you can try to "hold" your body with your arms, then your hands (likely Athletics [STR] check), to reduce the distance between feet/hooves to the losen earth mound to just 20 feet.
-> The actual fall may be voluntary or not depending of the previous check.
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Regardless, all damage is non-lethal (unless the DM says you fell "sideways" & missed the mound... maybe a Nat1 or failing for 5 or more).
-> If both checks are 15 or more, you take no damage & can then also continue moving (no prone condition), having used only 5 feet of movement.
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The OneDnD-UA7 spell Jump implicitly sugests that you automatically succeed with a 30 effective "Thumble" skill check (fall damage reduced by 15 points) from an up&down height of 30 feet [max damage of 12]; hence negating it.
What if you are in the elemental plane of air and you fall 5000', there is no ground.
Well, I suppose you'd keep getting turns until you hit something, or stopped your fall, right? Fair question, and proof positive that you can't consider every situation!
If this is an actual problem in the game, you can try to solve it with game world logic. Somewhere in the DMG (I don't have one with me atm) it states that elemental planes are actually physically adjacent to each other, so if you are falling for long enough, you might just fall "into" another plane
Maybe because I have jumped off cliffs and i'm a klutz I am more lenient on water jumps. You'd have to almost critically fail to hurt your self at 30ish feet. As long as its not a belly flop or something it might sting but there wouldn't be any real damage. Big damn heroes I'm fine with 100 foot jumps into water with no real problem. I think dex saves can be used here for some of it. If a griffon gets shoved off a cliff, a dex save is given so they go into flight mode instead of just fall. For something like that the DC would be harder on shorter falls as they have less time to recover. But in theory I don't mind the rules covering something like the rogue making a dex save using a object interact to pull a grappling hook and toss it with a rope to arrest their fall. Unrealistic sure, but everything players do post level 5 is. The rigidity of turn based actions is what is stopping people from doing something even basic grab the friends arm as they fall actions not verisimilitude. Side note I still always want to type reflex save instead of dex save.
The 500 to fether fall argument doesn't even need to be made because counterspell can stop "instantaneous" spells
Exactly what I was thinking; reaction spells are extremely specific
Well, yeah, not really. Counterspell counteracts the casting of the spell, not the effect. And the casting is usually done with an action or a bonus action, both of which are far from instantaneous. Heck, evern if you counterspell a counterspell, you still are not countering the effect, but the casting process, which takes a reaction. To further prove my point, consider the fact that the Dispell Magic can't be used as a Counterspell, which would be contradictory if you could actually affect an instantaneous effect
If I remember right 3.5 had rules for falling into lava with all sorts of fun about being submerged in lava due to a fall.
On the other end of the spectrum for optional rulings about falling, based on numbers from the World Air Sports Federation about skydiving terminal velocity, it takes about 12 seconds and 1500 feet for a human in a belly-to-earth position to reach a terminal velocity of about 120 mph. Mechanics wise, this lines up pretty well with a 500 foot fall by the end of the first 6 seconds and 1000 feet at the end of every subsequent round, with up to a maximum damage on impact of 150d6, one for every 10 feet traveled before reaching terminal velocity. If you want to make huge falls lethal, I like using this system (and using a digital tool to roll the dice) while making sure that people who are about to fall have opportunities to do something about it, given that falls of this height stop dealing survivable damage with these rules unless you're a level 20 raging barbarian.
I like Gygax's original ruling for fall damage-- an additional d6 of damage per 10 feet fallen cumulatively (max 20d6). So, you hit 20d6 after falling 50 ft.
Another issue I have with falling in 5e is that you fall straight down, ignoring any vertical momentum. Eldritch Smite on the White Dragon flying perpendicularly to you? It falls straight down, instead of at an angle based on the direction off its flight.
As it would if it stopped beating and angling it’s open wings.
Considering its weight
@twilightgardenspresentatio6384 It's not about beating its wings or not. Because a round's events occur during the same six seconds for everyone, a dragon flying in any direction doesn't have 0 momentum when its turn ends. An aircraft that loses power mid-flight doesn't fall straight down-- it falls at an angle towards the direction it was flying, due to inertia.
Lots of good rules. I think they can be streamlined a little more to tidy things up.
I’m gonna split “falls” from “has fallen” and you can react in that instant
I've had a falling Warforged Psion since 3.5 (pushed into a bottomless pit)
I do fall damage as 1 damage per foot fallen. They can make an Acrobatics Check, and reduce the damage taken by the result of the Check. It's worked pretty well for my table so far. Lots of fun moments, and makes paying attention to cliffs more important.
does the distance fallen while jumping count?
One issue with falling damage since 3rd edition is that it's still the same damage that it's been since 1st edition. But back then, most characters stopped getting full hit dice when they leveled up past level 9, so hit point totals for higher level characters aren't close to being as high as they are now. This is especially exacerbated by also not getting a Con bonus when you stop getting full hit dice.
But don't get me wrong, I actually like that old rule. Because while your 16 level fighter stopped getting d10+con after level 9, and now only gets +3 per level, that 16HD Balrog sure didn't get capped. It's one of the things that made those powerful creatures a bit more dangerous.
That's a very interesting spot of nuance that I didn't even consider! I think if you're going for a superheroic fantasy game, it can make some sense for certain classes and builds to near-guarantee surviving any fall, but it all depends on the style of game.
20d6 is one of those things (like alignment, I guess), that's just along for the ride in modern editions.
I have a system where the creature falls a certain number of feet at the end of every combatant's turn, which increases until they hit terminal velocity, which allows for people to react to falling instead of "someone pushed you, and now you're a pancake". A simulationist approach to falling. An obscene and probably unnecessary amount of research went into this, including survivability falling from different heights and onto different surfaces (people have survived falling 20k ft for example). It adjusts according to number of people in combat, but it breaks down into just 5 rules. I treat damage differently in my setting, so it doesn't line up with the core rules, but its easily adjustable:
Once you begin falling:
1. You immediately fall 10ft. At the end of every combatant's turn thereafter, you fall 20ft farther than the previous turn. (10ft, 30ft, 50ft, etc)
2. You take 2d8 damage for each turn you've fallen before hitting a surface. When landing, make a dex save against a DC of 10 plus the number of turns you have fallen, taking half damage on a success. If you take more than 10 damage, you fall prone.
3. You reach terminal velocity at the end of two full rounds, and the fall distance and damage no longer increase.
4. If you fall a distance of 10ft or less, you do not take damage or fall prone.
5. If something breaks your fall, you resist the damage (even if you've already made the saving throw).
*If there are 10 or more combatants at the time of falling, reduce damage to 2d6, and the incremental fall distance is 10ft instead of 20ft.
*If there are 6 or fewer combatants increase damage to 3d8, and incremental fall distance is 30ft instead of 20ft.
The number one framework for reading rules of any sort is "specific beats general", it has been affirmed as a principle in D&D 5e; it's also important for DMs and players to acknowledge that reality (i.e. scientific, engineering, and medical principles) is always in force where the rules don't explicitly state otherwise. As much as 5e falling scaling (it's not far from the physical earth-like reality) etc isn't too bad based on reality, you've definitely ran into one of the [surprisingly many] areas where 5e has been simplified or ignored environmental interactions in silly ways - the lack of "sinking" rules is an adjacent issue... 😬
My falling damage rule is intended to make it a genuine threat to non flyers. 1. The damage cannot be resisted or ignored unless a rule specifies falling damage e.g. slow fall. 2. The damage dice varies by creature size (d1 for tiny, d4 for small, d6 for medium, d8 for large etc.). 3. The damage scales in a triangular sequence e.g. 10ft is 1dx, 20ft is 3dx, 30ft is 6dx etc. 4. The falling creature may make an acrobatics check as a reaction and deduct the result from the damage they would take. 5. If they take damage from the fall, they land prone.
I find that this makes long drops technically survivable in the extremes but suitably dangerous for non-pros or bigger creatures. Falls from 100ft+ in the real world are typically thought of as non-survivable but in this system, a medium creature is facing 55d6 (193 on average) damage which is genuinely survivable for some characters. Sometimes I'll add a max dx cap depending on the players and whether they want this severity of falling.
I actually disagree on how you say fall rule from Xanathar and feather fall interact, as feather fall is a reaction spell, you should be able to apply it retroactively, as otherwise it wouldn't make sense. Similar to how the shield spell works.
As for 500ft. per second it is actually pretty logical. I made some calculation in regard to speed and 500ft is almost exactly how far a human weighing around 170lb would travel in real world after falling for 6 seconds (aka. 1 turn). It's when the fall takes longer than 1 turn 500 ft. per turn loses its sense, as human terminal velocity is around 1100ft. per 6 seconds. (184ft./s)
I think my issue was that it does technically specify that the target must be 'falling', which leads to the confusion, in my mind. Once the target is falling, then it could be ruled that falling rules apply.
In any case, as a (hopefully) same GM, I'd of course rule that feather fall works.
I am no mathematician or physicist, so cannot speak on the correct speed for a fall. Appreciate the clarity and expertise, and wish I could pin more than one comment!
@@Grungeon_Master Think of the situation this way: Although the creature travels distance instantly, reaction also takes effect instantly when the triggering event happens. So Fall starts at 500ft above ground. At that moment you can cast spell, since the trigger happened within your range, so it is still possible to cast Feather Fall according to RAW. Though what's funny according to this rule you couldn't cast feather fall on a creature that is falling if you're below said creature but you're further than 60ft. away. Since the creature travels that distance instantly, it effectively teleports by up to 500ft. downwards when you start falling.
@@Grungeon_Master If you are going to pin any comment, then @nerine4118 comment is the one to pin
@@nerine4188 I'd disagree. It says "you instantly descend up to 500 feet". Now you can argue that the word instantly means that you cross that distance in zero actual time, but to descend you would still have to cross the entire distance, not merely teleport from one end to the other. You could think of it as the rest of the world being effectively paused while you fall. Although I would also argue that the word "instantly" is describing things in terms of gameplay, not in world reality, but I don't think it's really important anyway. The fact of the matter is you do have to cross the distance falling, even if you're doing it in some weird, instantaneous movement. So you are still "falling" across the entire distance even if the actual moment takes zero time, and that means the end points aren't actually special. Your actual fall is a line and if any point of that line is in range of someone who can cast Featherfall at the moment you fall, then they can use their reaction to cast it because the very top point of the fall is exactly the same as any other point on the line of your fall.
3e and earlier edditions had lots of useful rules 5e forgot about, this is the reason why i prefer pathfinder and the reason why people don't want to play earlier edditions because "More Rules = Brain Hurt"
This is why DMs shouldn't follow every rule to the letter
You would be an excellent voice actor.
1d100 damage per 100ft. at initiative 20.
Yes, "instantly" is poorly worded.
For Feather Fall: D&D works on a system of 'one rule, many exceptions'.
For an easy, sane, house rule; make "Falling" a condition.
Rounds are a way to rationally address the actions of all participants in fast-paced combats, but they are a mechanic.
The actions of all participants in any given round all take place over only 6 seconds and are happening almost simultaneously.
As such, let a character react to falling down. A creature that would be caused to fall gains the "Falling" condition.
At the end of each of that creature's turns, that creature descends 500 ft.
If the creature impacts a solid surface, they take 1d6 damage per 10 ft fallen (max 20d6).
A creature jumping downward deliberately can make a Jump (Athletic or other skill appropriate to the system) check. For every 10 of the result, treat the fall as 10 ft shorter.
A creature trained in Acrobatics (or system equivalent) can use a reaction to make a check, reducing the damage by half the check.
The jumping and Acrobatics options can be used together.
If falling into water the creature takes only half damage and can make a DC 15 Swim (or system equivalent) check to negate the damage entirely.
If falling onto another surface, the DM can adjudicate any reduction in damage.
If the creature manages to grab a ledge (or similar) along the way, they take only half damage for the fall to the ledge.
This allows characters to use their fantastic abilities to execute exciting, cinematic actions.
Feather Fall is still worth having, just because a lot of people have few options when plummeting through the void.
I do not remember whether it was RAW of HR, but in our 4e games, a character being forced into hazardous terrain was allowed a saving throw to be prone 1 sq outside the danger.
As a DM, I had characters who passed this save against falling end up catching and dangling from the edge.
My players approved (even when it was the enemy who caught themselves).
Good.
Doesnt the wording imply that only a fall from above 500 ft is considered from great hight.
It might, but you don't have to fall from a "great" height to take damage
Using half damages is best and consistent. Allow stacking. Keeps things simple.
Deliberately fall? Half damage.
Fall into not hard ground? Half damage.
Acrobatics DC 15? Half damage.
Flying? Half damage.
So an Aarokocra with Acrobatics who deliberately fell 200ft off an airship into water but for some reason didnt fly right away would take...
Full = 20d6
Deliberate: 10d6
Acrobatics 15: 5d6
Water: 2d6
Flying: 1d6
1d6 damage. Heroic as all get out but rarely will all those things come into play.
Under the many different rules this vid copped, thjnfs are too varied. Non-lethal, subtracting flying speed, subtracting half aerobatics? Nah. Just make it half damage and keep it clean.
Sure. This is a very interesting way of doing things, and is certainly easier than the myriad rules I presented. Not 100% sure if it achieves the desired result in every case, as a deliberate 500ft fall onto stone probably shouldn't leave a level 10 wizard with 0 con still standing over 50% of the time.
Either way, your homebrew is a good rule of thumb. Hope you enjoyed some of the strange ol' rules regarless (I'm a big fan of the ever-increasing diving DC).
@The Grungeon Master considering LD50 (50% fatality rate) for human falls is about 50ft and fatality rate is 90% from a fall of 85ft, if we're looking for verisimilitude we should be upping damage a LOT. Since we'd have to nearly restructure the entire way falling damage works, move outside of verisimilitude and simply make things as easy as possible.
Does 8d6 kill 90% of people in Faerun, Greyhawk, etc.? Depending on how many heroes above level 7 they have... maybe?
Great, I'm now going to base demographics of towns off of falling damage. Got a hamlet of 50 people? 5 of them are retired heroes of level 7 and above who are trying to live out their lives in quiet. Oh, and 25 of them are at level 2 or above. Every hamlet is a retirement home for adventurers. Also, there's a 50ft cliff they all jump off of to celebrate the day the town was founded.
@@vinspad3basing demographics on LD is actually low-key genious. Seriously, as stupid as it is, think about the implications
I have a thought about those Xanathar rules, and I can't decide if I'm just being obtuse, or if I'm on to something. The line: "subtract the creature's current flying speed from the distance it fell before calculating falling damage." Sticks out to me. This, to me, suggests that a flying creature should never hit the ground, so long as they can act, and have a fly speed. They should always "subtract the distance ", by their fly speed. And you wouldn't subtract the *distance* from the top, because they already fell that, you'd reduce it from the end, I.E. the total. So they would never hit whatever the total would have been, unless they had no speed for some reason, because you've now subtracted how far they fell by their speed and the result of subtracting will provide you a new total *distance* . Am I crazy?
If they had said "reduce the damage." then it would make more sense, but by saying "subtract the distance, before calculating damage" it suggests that it's to prevent the damage from occurring.
So a flying creature with a 60 foot fly speed, on the edge of a 300 foot cliff, who gets shoved off the cliff, would fall the distance (300) minus 60 (240) before calculating the damage, putting them still in the air, 60 feet above the ground, but really far away from the cliff top. Resulting in 0 falling damage. Is this a wild misreading of the rules? Am I crazy? I feel like it makes sense, and the alternative (a creature would fall 300 feet, but take the falling damage of falling 240 feet, which would be 20d6 either way) makes less sense. In the standard scenario, having a fly speed and falling a longer distance is of less benefit, when it should be the reverse, because over a longer distance you'd have more opportunity to gain control of your fall and begin flying. In the standard interpretation, if that same 60ft fly speed creature fell only 10 feet they'd take no damage. Same result for everything up to 61 feet. As they flap their heart out and stop themselves from hitting the ground. But with up to 500 feet more room, they have less of a shot of taking control.
But in reality the reverse is true. If a little bird falls off its perch in its cage, it will have so little space to react it will often hit the bottom. But if it fell off the top of the house or out of a tree, it would likely take flight before hitting the ground, or at the least break its fall.
Again, am I just having a total mental malfunction? (It is very hot where I live right now lol). All of this becomes irrelevant if they have no fly speed, and currently this perspective would mean so long as they are conscious and have a speed above 0 they would never take fall damage, which doesn't make sense either.
As for the rest of the video. I change the dice to d10's after 20 feet, as falls greater than that are much more likely to be lethal, and D&D characters are very strong in weird ways (very weak in others). I also don't have a cap for falling damage. Is that realistic? Not really, though it could be argued that the level of durability from the average d&d character isn't realistic, so if you want the actual result of falling several thousand feet to feel as threatening as it should be, you have to juke the numbers a bit. And that 20d6 sounds really impressive, until you realize the average is 70, and while that's going to obliterate the average peasant, a mid level PC could shrug it off, and a Barbarian might just bounce right on up.
I like the acrobatics stuff, makes sense to me. And the DC's sound right. Putting together a grouping of these rules in a handy PDF or the like would be useful.
The (4e) wiki does say the reduction of fall distance by fly speed is purely for the purpose of calculating damage. They still fall the full amount.
Not specified why but I would say maybe it's wind resistance lowering the impact velocity of the fall?
Larger flying speed assumes larger wings (more drag) = less damage?
Why they worded it like that? Probably because falling and fall damage are different headings and it might be simpler to ask:
Calculate fall distance > calculate fall damage, than reference d6s/ d10s in a section that otherwise does not reference them
Edits, too many edits:
A flying character only falls when they are unable to fly (prone, flying speed zero, unable to move). They could jump off a building and choose to fly the moment before they hit the ground- not taking any fall damage.
This seems a bit weird to me as you need at least a little bit of time to gather momentum to fly but it's probably to difficult to make simple ruling to cover all these edge cases
Edit 2 electric boogaloo:
Also for reference, the falling damage cap for 4e is 50d10 (500ft)
I house rule falling speed at 75ft a round. The 500ft every 6 seconds is based on terminal velocity in our world, which is somewhere near 1700ft. I look at this at a speed of about 1/3 of terminal velocity a round. Dnd's terminal velocity is at 200ft. This is nowhere near 1700 ft that the 500ft was based upon. So I rule falling speed at about 1/3 terminal velocity. 75ft a round.
Doesn't that negate a lot of feather fall's utility? Just curious if any player at your table uses that spell in this ruleset.
-Tom
At low levels, it does not negate the fall.
500 ft is really accurate.
At 0 starting velocity, and a height of 500 ft, a human being hits the ground at 5.575 seconds, at 180 ft/s.
Add in after hitting the ground, if you roll under the distance fell, you break 1 bone for every 20 feet fallen!
Bill Allen has an excellent homebrew for the increase of damage for increasing height. @BillAllanWorld
As a very long time DM, I don't see the point of the vid - other than to quibble over the admitted semantics. Easy call is easy call. No need to over complicate the issue.
True. I feel like for experienced GM's, we do tend to have the experience to make those 'easy calls'. Perhaps this is more geared towards the newer DM's out there, who may be less confident making situational calls beyond the rules text.
Appreciate the feedback, though.
@@Grungeon_Master Some prefer to have a system rather than making rulings on the fly as well.
I mean, if "you're the DM just call it" is the answer, then 99% of YT videos about D&D shouldn't exist. ;)
By rule, jumping down from a height of 10 feet onto grass would kill an average person 50% of the time, and that's just silly because this is something every kid on a playground jumping off a swing has done dozens, if not hundreds of times, yet we all survived. So when a rule doesn't make sense, it's good to discuss it, and given that WOTC themselves has clarified the falling rules multiple times, it seems valid to discuss it.
@@MannonMartin The 'system' is just a set of guidelines designed to work together with minimum conflict. And any DM who isn't making 'on the fly' decisions multiple times per session is doing something terribly wrong.
Falling 'rules' are so brief because they're one of the least used. Always have been. And they're 'vague' because too much detail adds unnecessary (and unwanted) complexity... not to mention amping up potential lethality, which few players welcome. The DM making situational calls has always been the preferred route... long before such a thing was called 'the rule if cool'.
@@paulfelix5849 Every DM is always making 'on the fly' decisions all of the time. The point is some DM's like to make nearly all decisions 'on the fly' and others prefer to be prepared with a system for most things for various reasons such as consistency, or just to free up mental resources for the other 5,000 things a DM has to do. If you don't want a more detailed system. Cool. If you do, also cool. Different DM's are gonna have different preferences. In your games the falling stuff might never come up. In some other DM's games it might be happening nearly every game. Personally I haven't put any homebrew in for this, because I think there's enough rules that I can work with it. Although if I were designing it I'd probably lean towards a bit more detail in the system, but not as much as suggested in the video. But that's my personal preference. Some DM's probably don't even use the rules in the actual book and rule all falling stuff completely off the cuff. There's nothing wrong with either approach IMO.