How to: Falling Damage Immunity

[C.R.Ryan]

42 minutes ago, IndianaJoe3 said:

 

You don't need Megascale. You only need to teleport to a Fixed Location (1 mm over the surface you are about to hit), Triggered by the impending impact.

Eh, like I said, I think the Leaping would be more my speed these days. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

If one was to use Life Support in the theory that its environmental damage like heat or drowning, then it would have to have some kind of scale.  Like 2 points per 10m distance of safety, then 10 points is "any distance", something like that.  Whether it makes sense or not is irrelevant, it would be a rule to cover this kind of construct: Vampire Grrl can fall any distance without it causing her harm, but she gets beat up by attacks.  Its like being able to withstand any amount of environmental heat extreme, but having only so much ED to defend against a fire attack.

[unclevlad]

Ehhh...many things in LS don't have a scale, they're yes/no.  So I can't agree with "have to have" a scale.  Yes/no:  expanded and self-contained breathing, all 5 safe environments.  Extended breathing, eating, sleeping, and longevity also don't really have 'scales' so much as partial transitions from the baseline to the full power like "doesn't need sleep at all."  Most of those aren't what I'd call scales.  Immunities?  Oy.  No such thing as scale there.   I just dropped everything down to "all common" or "all terrestrial."  "All common" covers diseases you can self-treat, or for which highly effective treatments exist.  It wouldn't cover, say, ebola.  For poisons...snake bites, booze, death's head mushrooms.  Might NOT cover something like large doses of poison dart frog toxin, or some of the other high-end natural venoms/toxins.  Would not cover plutonium, polonium, or the like.  Non-terrestrial would be extremely rare...for an example, go back to the movie and book, The Andromeda Strain.

 

Most aspects in LS relate to ignoring gradual effects.  You don't freeze to death or suffer heat stroke in a few seconds.  Diseases don't kill that fast.  The damage from the fall is instantaneous, so IMO it simply doesn't fit the notion of LS. 

[MrAgdesh]

On 2/6/2023 at 4:36 AM, Christopher R Taylor said:

I'm not sure its worth 120 points to be able to survive terminal velocity unless it also protects you from, you know, being punched as well.  If its just "I fall safely no matter how far" that's really not worth a lot of points.

How about 30 points?

 

Survive any Fall: Desolidification , Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Trigger (Activating the Trigger is an Action that takes no time, Trigger resets automatically, immediately after it activates, Character does not control activation of personal Trigger; When hitting solid ground after a fall; +3/4) (90 Active Points); Limited Power: Power loses almost all of its effectiveness (Only to avoid fall damage ; -2) 

Total Powers Cost   30

[Grailknight]

3 hours ago, MrAgdesh said:

How about 30 points?

 

Survive any Fall: Desolidification , Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Trigger (Activating the Trigger is an Action that takes no time, Trigger resets automatically, immediately after it activates, Character does not control activation of personal Trigger; When hitting solid ground after a fall; +3/4) (90 Active Points); Limited Power: Power loses almost all of its effectiveness (Only to avoid fall damage ; -2) 

Total Powers Cost   30

 

Sounds like a good way to bury yourself deep in the ground with no way to get back up. Desolidification does not stop the fall and will turn off when/if you slow to a stop if it doesn't keep triggering and keep you falling.

 

Edited March 30, 2023 by Grailknight

[Christopher R Taylor]

We're getting way beyond game mechanics here but it seems to me that if you are entirely immaterial you would cease being affected by gravity

[Tech]

11 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

We're getting way beyond game mechanics here but it seems to me that if you are entirely immaterial you would cease being affected by gravity

 

 Can't resist: so, you're saying that using the idea of Desolid is immaterial?  *ba bumpt ish*

 

That said, I wouldn't use Desolid; I've always used superleap/leap to negate falling damage. It also within the power concept; if you're falling and your legs are really tied up, desolid won't work nor will superleap/leap.

Edited March 30, 2023 by Tech

[LoneWolf]

Actually looking at the clip the building is only a 4 story building at best.  That is not high enough to reach critical velocity.  If the character has 20m of vertical leaping they can just use that to eliminate the damage from the fall.  If I memory serves me the vampires in the movie made some pretty high leaps.  That means they had bought up leaping.   Assuming they had at least a 10m vertical leap the most they would take from the fall is 5d6 normal damage.  Any vampire in the movie can probably shrug off that damage, especially one focused on combat.  

 

Figuring out how to survive critical velocity may be an interesting idea but has nothing to do with what is shown in the clip.  
 

[unclevlad]

7 hours ago, Grailknight said:

 

Sounds like a good way to bury yourself deep in the ground with no way to get back up. Desolidification does not stop the fall and will turn off when/if you slow to a stop if it doesn't keep triggering and keep you falling.

 

 

6 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

We're getting way beyond game mechanics here but it seems to me that if you are entirely immaterial you would cease being affected by gravity

 

Grail's correct, I believe, by RAW, but arguably that could be fixed by adding Instant...which'd make it a bit cheaper anyway.

 

But both of these are getting into a degree of GM interpretation, with a power that has no real-world connections.  Thus, it's wide open to interpretation.

 

Plus, this is a 90 active point power!!!!  Just as a guideline?  If the solution to something like this, which is really almost a power trick in many ways, comes out at 90 active...the approach is probably wrong.

 

To LW:  4 stories?  That's 12 meters, tops.  We're talking Breakfall at only -3, and it's a lot closer to a 1 segment fall (10 meters total distance, and only 10m current velo) than a 2 segment fall.  A voluntary leap can be presumed to be prepared to land, so (6E2 141) would only need 10m of vertical leap to ignore the fall altogether.  I'm with Tech:  this is the approach that's simplest and most natural, and in general also most applicable.  Most of the time, those big cinematic leaps aren't made from *that* high up.  The table on 6E2 141 says 30m velocity --> a 60 meter fall.  That's roughly 20 stories up.  That's pretty darn Up There.  Also note that if it's a 100m fall, ergo 40m velo on impact, if you've got 30m vertical, you knock the landing impact down to 10m, or 5d6.  IF the GM allows...and with the right character and right moment, I would...then toss in the Breakfall.  And at worst?  Anyone who's got 30m of vertical leap is likely to ignore 5d6...MAYBE take a few STUN, but eek, who cares.  

[Christopher R Taylor]

I think this falls under one of those "The power works the way you intend it to, as long as you're not being exploitative" situations

[MrAgdesh]

10 hours ago, Grailknight said:

 

Sounds like a good way to bury yourself deep in the ground with no way to get back up. Desolidification does not stop the fall and will turn off when/if you slow to a stop if it doesn't keep triggering and keep you falling.

 

The desoldification is “only to avoid the fall damage”, not to be insubstantial, hence the -2 limitation. You are only “insubstantial” to the impact damage when you hit the floor.

 

If somebody launched an attack against you at the moment of impact, you’d still have to resolve that against your regular defences. 

 

 

Edited March 31, 2023 by MrAgdesh
Clarification example

[Duke Bushido]

Right; understood it immediately.  It is identical to the 4e era wave of "Desolidification as immunity to damage X" builds that were so popular at one time.

 

 

Edited March 31, 2023 by Duke Bushido

[LoneWolf]

One big problem with desolidification as a defense is that it prevents you from attacking or requires you to add the affects solid advantage to your attacks.   This would prevent you from dropping down and attacking.  

 

Another way to do this would be to buy gliding.  Since you can dive for twice your normal flight all you need to purchase is 30m of gliding to handle terminal velocity.  30m of flight with the limitations, gliding (-1), no noncombat (-1/4), and limited horizontal movement (-1/2) costs 11 points.  This would allow you to land in any hex directly bellow where you could jump to.  So, if you have a 4m jump you could land in any hex directly below a hex within 4m of where you start.  This also means you automatically land on your feat without having to make any kind of roll.   
 

[MrAgdesh]

2 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

One big problem with desolidification as a defense is that it prevents you from attacking or requires you to add the affects solid advantage to your attacks.   This would prevent you from dropping down and attacking.  

 

The Trigger is “on impact” so you could attack away merrily whilst descending. 
 

It’s also only to avoid the damage *to you* so the way I see it is that you’ll crack pavements/leave an indentation etc. 

 

[MrAgdesh]

3 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

Another way to do this would be to buy gliding.  Since you can dive for twice your normal flight all you need to purchase is 30m of gliding to handle terminal velocity.  30m of flight with the limitations, gliding (-1), no noncombat (-1/4), and limited horizontal movement (-1/2) costs 11 points.  This would allow you to land in any hex directly bellow where you could jump to.  So, if you have a 4m jump you could land in any hex directly below a hex within 4m of where you start.  This also means you automatically land on your feat without having to make any kind of roll.   
 

Maybe you don't land on your feet? Maybe you just go 'splat' pick yourself up, and dust yourself off.

 

What if someone attempted to catch you from your fall, not knowing that you were invulnerable? I'm approaching this from an angle of you doing full damage to whatever you hit but taking no damage yourself. Various types of movement powers reduce your velocity and allow you to safely land but I'm assuming that you should be at standard fall velocity at the moment of impact?

 

This being said, I just watched the OP's video post and that looks like ol' Kate is just gliding straight down to me. She doesn't hit the floor with any kind of momentum.

 

I wonder if she needs to be conscious for it to work, or is it part of her vamp schtick that she just floats down regardless? Haven't seen those films.

 

 

[LoneWolf]

Gliding gives you enough control that if someone is trying to catch you, you can simply avoid them.  Since you are moving you can actually use your velocity to damage something on the way down.  For example you could do a move through or move by on the way down.  You have to decelerate at the end of the move so you probably don’t have a lot of velocity when you hit the ground.   If you reach terminal velocity it will take about 12m to cancel the velocity.  

[unclevlad]

Yeah, if you want "soft landing" then Gliding is another approach...see the sidebar for Parachute, in the power examples for flight, 6E1 228.  How much you need is...kind of weird, as the acceleration from a freefall is per segment, whereas movement powers are defined per phase.

 

Kate's landing with *some* momentum, tho...she's absorbing it on the landing.  That's Breakfall, and if, as is being suggested, she's using something like Gliding to slow down, then her velo is low enough to mean there's only a minor penalty.  

 

Soft Landing:  20m Flight;  Gliding, Limited Maneuverability (10m down per 1m forward).  -1 1/2 total, so 8 points.    

 

I could probably accept that to give a soft enough landing that you don't take damage, with the proviso of calling for a Breakfall (or arguably Acrobatics) roll to land gracefully and stay upright.  Note that *technically* you need a 6 SPD to cancel out 20m of falling velo, because you only act every other segment.

 

Note, tho:  if you're using this for a LONG fall, it will take a much longer time to complete the fall.  That smooth glide with soft landing suggests something like a steady 10m per segment fall.

[Sean Waters]

The problem here is that falling damage is silly.  30d6?  Falling off a tall building is really going to do more damage than Grond pushing his strength with a haymaker?  I think not.  Hero lacks a consistent approach to damage, meaning that we have to come up with either cheap but tricksy solutions or really expensive ones to what is (or generally should be) a niche problem.  Superheroes (and non-superheroes, for that matter) often survive long falls in the subject matter, even if real people don't - but then a normal taking 15d6 damage or 30d6 damage is going to be just as dead.

 

The reason falling is very dangerous is not because of the impact of you on the ground but because of the impact of your internal organs on the inside of you when you hit the ground.  A light creature should take far less damage. so a character with shrinking should be able to reduce their effective falling velocity for damage purposes by the amount their KB is increased by (also the increased KB thing is silly because that isn't how momentum works, at least in atmosphere.  If you hit a fly it doesn't shoot 20m across the room.  Another time.  Creatures with no hit locations (i.e. no differentiated internal organs) should probably take less damage from falling.  There's an argument that Stretching should also protect you.

 

Then there's the question of HOW you are surviving a long fall.  If it is because you are really tough, then you shouldn't be taking a 'falling damage only' limitation: if someone throws a building at you you're going to be just as resistant.  Trouble is that if you can survive even one 30d6 punch we have a terrible case of power inflation.  If you are a teleporter, the 'no relative velocity' trick works well.  I'm not sure about using flight because it is not instantaneous: turning flight on or off does not instantaneously stop your current movement and buying enough increased acceleration/deceleration to get you to instantly stop is going to get expensive and silly.  Technically 'no turn mode' will allow you to change vertical movement to horizontal movement instantly, thus preventing contact with the ground, but it is not going to stop you moving.  Anyway, if you can fly, why fall at all?

 

Probably the most appropriate superpower is Leaping, but again the rules are silly.  You wouldn't actually accelerate after you have left the ground, but you would decelerate to your apex point and why do you need DOUBLE the vertical leaping to arrest your fall (you're already halving your Leap for going up): being able to leap 60m straight up should arrest a terminal velocity fall.  If you have 'no gravity effects', does that mean you only (only ! ha!) need 60m of leaping?

 

You don't need to be completely immune to falling damage to look good (it's unlikely you'll be taking falling damage every phase), you just need enough protection that you aren't going to pass out or be stunned or at least not go SPLAT!  So, let's not worry about total immunity, let's look at what we already have in the toolkit. 75% damage reduction changes 105 Stun and 30 Body into 26 Stun and 7 Body.  Probably a bit less as you will have other defences, presumably, so, for a superhero, maybe 20 Stun and 2 Body after all defences.  I'm not a fan of Damage Reduction though.  I don't think it is a power we would have in Hero as it is not really a defence but rather a situational stat multiplier.  We can talk about that elsewhere.

 

Personally I think falling damage should be more like velocity/3 DCs, possibly Armour Piercing (which would mean that hardened defences are particularly effective against falling damage - something a super is more likely to have).  A terminal velocity fall would be velocity fall will do 20DCs damage: more than enough to kill all but the most outrageously lucky normal instantly, and enough to seriously shake most supers but not put them out of the fight. Using Breakfall, the roll shouldn't be distance dependent but should be (something like) reduce the damage by 1d6 if you make the roll and another 1d6 for each point you make it by.

 

 

[Grailknight]

1 hour ago, Sean Waters said:

 Technically 'no turn mode' will allow you to change vertical movement to horizontal movement instantly, thus preventing contact with the ground, but it is not going to stop you moving.  

 

Never thought of this before but it might be the best solution.  Way to think outside the box, Sean!

 

You'd technically need:

 

Flight 15m, Position Shift, No Turn Mode (+1/4) (25 Active Points); Limited Power, Power loses almost all of its effectiveness (Only to stop damage from falls; -2) 

Edited April 4, 2023 by Grailknight

[LoneWolf]

With flight and gliding you are using it in place of the normal falling movement.  This allows you to control how you fall.  By putting a few limitations on the power allows it to function the way it should.  The disadvantage of this is that it requires you to make a full move.  Any character with flight can fly straight down and be in total control of their movement.  

 

The rules for leaping do not say you have to double your vertical leap.  You can subtract your vertical leap from the velocity.  Since your vertical leap is half your horizontal leap you have to double your horizontal leap.  This also requires the character to make a move.

 

Gliding is probably the cheapest way to do this.   If the character has leaping already, they can use that to reduce the velocity of a fall.  I would not buy this as leaping but can see a character with some leaping using this to reduce falls of lesser distance.   The fall in the clip of the original post is only from a 4-story building.  A lot of characters with leaping have enough leap to handle that high of a fall. 

 

The 15m of flight is not going to be enough to counter your existing velocity.  The turn mode does not cancel existing velocity.  
 

[Christopher R Taylor]

15m is probably sufficient for the purpose, all you need to do is make the damage minimal or low enough your defenses take care of it.

[Sean Waters]

Flight does not allow you to stop instantly.   There's the acceleration (5m/m) thing.  Which is really unhelpful.

 

It isn't as simple as that though? Most 'brick' characters don't have gravity control. Damage avoidance shouldn't be metagamed, should it?

[Duke Bushido]

11 hours ago, Sean Waters said:

The problem here is that falling damage is silly.  30d6?  Falling off a tall building is really going to do more damage than Grond pushing his strength with a haymaker? 

 

 

Maybe.

 

Maybe Grond's not as tough as he acts....

 

 

 

so what is terminal velocity in your favorite version of HERO.

 

that ahould give you the move_through damage that the ground will do to you (of course, the geound will take half, but it's q big ground; it can take it).

 

 

yeah- that seems backwards, but it is how I would rule this instance.

 

 

[Grailknight]

I forgot to put Noncombat Acceleration on it.

[unclevlad]

If you as GM want to rewrite falling damage, be my guest.

 

However, assuming mass comes into play is against the rules...because the converse doesn't hold.  If you want to allow a lighter character to take less damage, then a heavier character should take more.  OK, so now you're giving a free, hidden benefit to Shrinking, and a hidden cost to Growth or DI.

 

Remember that the rules have to be PLAYED, they're not there to model reality...not that I agree with some of the assertions being made here today.  Shrinking doesn't help, IMO, because the rapid deceleration causes massive displacement of body parts...which, if anything, is made WORSE by being small.

 

Note that a normal with 10 BODY is NOT dead from 15d6 damage, by the rules.  Just dying.  They want a terminal velocity fall to be LETHAL if you can't offset some of it.  Forget the roll, you are gonna be DEAD...unless you're a super with a lot of defense, or anyone with some means of counteracting things.  Those don't change the base case.

 

I can maybe see keeping the DC totals intact, but throwing in AP.  So the max would be 24 d6, AP.  But is it worth it?  IMO, no.  Keep it simple.  Do you do AP for getting crushed by a rock avalanche?  Not typically;  AP is small and pointy, Penetrating tends to be massive, slow, and heavy.  Another case:  getting stomped by a Huge or Gigantic foot, which is an AoE attack...it's not AP.

 

There's just no rationale to make it AP.