How to: Falling Damage Immunity

[dmjalund]

i still think limited Damage Negation

otherwis4e you might bounce from knockback rules

[unclevlad]

5 hours ago, dmjalund said:

i still think limited Damage Negation

otherwis4e you might bounce from knockback rules

 

If you kill the velocity right before landing, there's no damage to be taken.

 

KB is a byproduct, too.  Generally, KB happens because the force vector, on impact, is parallel to the ground.  There's nothing stopping you in that direction.  Therefore:  you get moved.  In a fall, when you hit the ground, you do 30d6 to the ground...and the ground does 30d6 to you.  The impact vector points straight up...but first things first, has to deal with the fact that you started with a velocity of 60m down, so that's far larger.  The trick is that you've got to have your body aligned, so the push UP from the ground can be properly handled.  Watch a gymnast's landing, from a vault, or from the high bar...sometimes floor exercise.  They have to dissipate the force of landing.  If they're a little off in their alignment...they move forward, take the step, and get a lower score for whatever they were doing.  If they're REALLY out of alignment, Bad Things can happen.

 

 

[Hugh Neilson]

How often will it matter? This, to me, is a big part of setting an appropriate cost. In most games, falling at terminal velocity and going **splat** is not a common occurrence. If this is, in essence, just a flavour power, then it should be costed appropriately. That may well mean tossing out the usual "limitations cap out at -2" guidance.

 

How often will the characters who did not pay for this ability hit the ground at terminal velocity and take 30d6 damage?  Why should immunity to falling damage be more expensive than the ability to traverse the depths of space and the heart of the sun with no damage?

 

We often cite the limitation with no real limit to the ability saving no points.  An ability that carries minimal benefit in-game should carry a commensurate minimal cost.

Edited April 5, 2023 by Hugh Neilson

[unclevlad]

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

How often will it matter? This, to me, is a big part of setting an appropriate cost. In most games, falling at terminal velocity and going **splat** is not a common occurrence. If this is, in essence, just a flavour power, then it should be costed appropriately. That may well mean tossing out the usual "limitations cap out at -2" guidance.

 

But there's diminishing returns at play.  15d6 Damage Negation would start at 75 points.  A -6 limitation for Only for Falling Damage would still mean it costs 11.

 

At some point, trying to assign a limitation value is futile.  Granted:  it might well be asserting that the approach is poor, but if you're going with a fiat declaration of the value of the limitation, at some point...define a new power that does what you want.  You're completely making up a new power, in essence, anyway.

 

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

How often will the characters who did not pay for this ability hit the ground at terminal velocity and take 30d6 damage?  Why should immunity to falling damage be more expensive than the ability to traverse the depths of space and the heart of the sun with no damage?

 

We often cite the limitation with no real limit to the ability saving no points.  An ability that carries minimal benefit in-game should carry a commensurate minimal cost.

 

2 points.  #1:  being able to go into the heart of the sun is a trick that, as best I can recall, ONLY got pulled off by Silver Age Superman, when he was beyond ridiculously powerful.  I read about solar physics from time to time.  Temperatures in the millions of degrees.  Material densities?  Getting into the convective zone, IIRC, it's 150...8 times more dense than gold or tungsten.  The energy output is simply not on a scale we can relate to.

 

Space is easier, as we've shown that relatively simple equipment allows activity in space.

 

#2:  those are generally voluntary choices.  Falling isn't.  Falling is a risk one must consider...maybe not a common one, but it is a risk one may well encounter.  Plus, terminal velocity falls are extreme.  Serious damage occurs long before then, at least for normals.  I don't have a problem with a super falling 20 stories not taking BODY damage...but he should feel it, unless he's a serious brick, or has some way to reduce it quite a bit.  I think it's a mistake to treat the terminal velo fall as some sort of special case, and overall, falling damage isn't that unusual.

[Hugh Neilson]

7 hours ago, unclevlad said:

At some point, trying to assign a limitation value is futile.  Granted:  it might well be asserting that the approach is poor, but if you're going with a fiat declaration of the value of the limitation, at some point...define a new power that does what you want.  You're completely making up a new power, in essence, anyway.

 

If we look at Life Support versus Defenses, we have already accepted a substantial discount for, in effect, "only versus environmental forms of damage from this SFX".  Setting a price commensurate with the utility is the objective.

 

7 hours ago, unclevlad said:

2 points.  #1:  being able to go into the heart of the sun is a trick that, as best I can recall, ONLY got pulled off by Silver Age Superman, when he was beyond ridiculously powerful.  I read about solar physics from time to time.  Temperatures in the millions of degrees.  Material densities?  Getting into the convective zone, IIRC, it's 150...8 times more dense than gold or tungsten.  The energy output is simply not on a scale we can relate to.

 

Heralds of Galactus. One of the Futurians lived there.  Pretty sure Green Lanterns have pulled it off. There are not often reasons to go there, of course.

 

7 hours ago, unclevlad said:

#2:  those are generally voluntary choices.  Falling isn't.  Falling is a risk one must consider...maybe not a common one, but it is a risk one may well encounter.  Plus, terminal velocity falls are extreme.  Serious damage occurs long before then, at least for normals.  I don't have a problem with a super falling 20 stories not taking BODY damage...but he should feel it, unless he's a serious brick, or has some way to reduce it quite a bit.  I think it's a mistake to treat the terminal velo fall as some sort of special case, and overall, falling damage isn't that unusual.

 

This depends on the game in question. I don't find it comes up all that often.  Looking to a different game system, we see "feather Fall" as a pretty low-powered spell to prevent falling damage.  As a subset of "physical damage", how common is "falling"?  I'm pretty sure drowning is a risk one must consider, and one which should not be truivially dismissed.  Immunity to drowning isn't very expensive.

 

Would you rather be immune to falling damage or have +20 PD? Which is more likely to have a significant impact in the game.  How about 10 PD?  5 PD?  These are pretty low-cost alternatives that, over the course of a campaign, are probably going to have a lot more benefit than immunity to damage from falling.

[Duke Bushido]

10 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 That may well mean tossing out the usual "limitations cap out at -2" guidance.

 

Wow.  I totally missed that.  Thank you, Hugh.

 

However, I have been ignoring that idea for over forty years now; I trust folks will forgive me for continuing to ignore it.  Crater takes a -4 on his PD "only for falling damage" for precisely the reason you mention:  it's extremely rare to come,up in games.  Even though he is seeking it out (professional stuntman-  now that he understands his power), it is still not significantly useful in any other way: if he gets hit by a bus for _half_ the damage or punched in a fight for _one tenth_ the damage, it's useless.  I stand by the -4.  If he wasnt actively renting himself out to film fall stunts, I might even go to -5.

 

It's just not that useful.  It's like a super-powers version of a minor cantrip.  What does anyone here chsrge for their version of featherfall, anyway?  Consider it to be featherfall with the old +1/4 "Fast" Advantage from the original Fantasy HERO.  Balance that out with a nice "character falls" or "lands prone" or something if you want.

 

Done.

 

Honestly, I had considered that very sort of thing years ago when I came up with the character; I opted for the PD specifically because I wanted the damage effects of the "move through," which a fast levitation did not yield.

 

 

 

 

[Hugh Neilson]

12 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 I stand by the -4.  If he wasnt actively renting himself out to film fall stunts, I might even go to -5.

 

It's just not that useful. 

 

Just snipped the part of a great post I want to comment on.  An Everyman skill of PS: Stuntman would cover renting himself out for film stunts regardless of his immunity to falling damage, so that would not influence my pricing decision. If he wants to be wealthy due to his greater ability to do stunt work, that's an SFX for Wealth.  If the Wealth does nothing/little in game, it should be free/low cost as well.

[Grailknight]

On 4/4/2023 at 12:19 PM, LoneWolf said:

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.  
 

 

Sorry for splitting my replies but life was calling at the time.

 

The turn mode does not cancel velocity, but it does completely alter the vector. And no, going down is not a special case in any way other than velocity. If No Turn Mode can let a speedster navigate a stairwell, then it can let a flyer do a down to up U-turn. The Noncombat Acceleration/Deceleration is what I forgot because that'll let you stop and then land in a very short space.

[Duke Bushido]

2 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Just snipped the part of a great post I want to comment on. 

 

 

 

Thanks, Hugh;  that is mightly kind of you.

 

2 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

An Everyman skill of PS: Stuntman would cover renting himself out for film stunts regardless of his immunity to falling damage, so that would not influence my pricing decision.

 

Excellent observation, and I 2ish I had considered stunt work as SFX for wealth.

 

He is a periodically recurring character.  About every other story arc, he pops up, and volunteers himself to help-- mostly it's a publicity grab; he is attempting to continue the buzz started when he foiled a kdinapping by dropping off a skyscraper and tearing a large hole through the hood of the kidnapper's vehicle.   Since then, he has kept a higher-that-normal profile (for a stuntman) as "Hollywood's superhero").

 

This is the "seeking out falling hazards) that led me to bump him from -5 to -4: two or three times a year, he does it under uncontrolled conditions on purpose.

 

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Damage Negation would work as well, just enough to be able to soak any leftover damage.  Probably be kind of expensive for what you get, though.

[LoneWolf]

Unless you are continuing to use the flight after you land you don’t need the no turn mode.  You simply decelerate to end up with 0 velocity when you land.  Using no turn mode ends up more a bouncing ball that a fall.  If you are flying up don’t forget that every m up uses 2m of flight.  

 

The rules for gravity state you can add 1m of velocity for every 1m of your flight when moving down.  This means that to achieve critical velocity (60m) you only need to purchase 30m. Buying it this way means the character is not actually falling he is using his own movement with the special effect that he is falling.  This allows him to use normal movement rules including acceleration and deceleration.  So when he “falls” in game terms he is flying down.  When he gets near the ground he decelerates so that he ends up with a velocity of 0.  He does not need to worry about changing the vector or anything else because he simply moved his movement.  By using gliding instead of flight cuts the cost down significantly and means that he does not have to pay any END for it.  No non-combat makes sense because the character does not need it and will never use the non-combat move.  Normal  gliding would allow him a lot of horizontal movement so putting a limitation to restrict it also makes sense.  That works out to be 11 points for 30m of gliding.  If you want to have the character, use a breakfall roll simply add requires a skill roll which brings it down to 9 points. 

[Hugh Neilson]

7 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Excellent observation, and I 2ish I had considered stunt work as SFX for wealth.

 

He is a periodically recurring character.  About every other story arc, he pops up, and volunteers himself to help-- mostly it's a publicity grab; he is attempting to continue the buzz started when he foiled a kdinapping by dropping off a skyscraper and tearing a large hole through the hood of the kidnapper's vehicle.   Since then, he has kept a higher-that-normal profile (for a stuntman) as "Hollywood's superhero").

 

This is the "seeking out falling hazards) that led me to bump him from -5 to -4: two or three times a year, he does it under uncontrolled conditions on purpose.

 

For an NPC, my simplistic answer is "If I got the costing wrong, so what?"  He was going to be invulnerable to falling damage anyway.  I price it out to get a sense of point totals, but if I need another 2 points, he has some xp and if he's got 2 left over, then he's got 2 point less xp or he's a 198 point base instead of 200. 

 

I'm not going to charge an Ice Monster that will  only appear in arctic wastes more for Life Support: Extreme Cold than the PC who is in the Arctic now, the Sahara in the next arc and underwater in Atlantis after that, but I'd worry more about a fair cost for the PC than the Ice Monster NPC.

[Duke Bushido]

Agreed.  But after a couple of decades, "eyeballing" a build become second nature, and you just kind of... _do it_, just in case...

[krraatumi]

Well, there is 100% Damage Reduction available through Advance Player's Guide page 87. Sure, its costly (80 normal, 120 resistant), and doesn't actually get a reduction based on special effects, but does the job quite well. 

[Grailknight]

Welp, was making a character, and this flashed in my mind so giving it one last shot in Hero Designer.

 

Flight 30m, Position Shift, Combat Acceleration/Deceleration (+1/4), No Gravity Penalty (+1/2) (61 Active Points); Limited Power; Power loses almost all of its effectiveness (Only to avoid falling damage; -2), Instant (-1/2)

 

61 Active Points and 17 Real Points. A tad expensive and it requires an action by the faller. No Conscious Control could be added to negate that though.

Edited April 11, 2023 by Grailknight

[MrAgdesh]

If you build an immunity to falling, I can see an argument for that also providing an immunity to damage from being thrown (Strength or TK) and knockback damage. 

 

Unless your SFX is some kind of geomagnetic/geomantic reason. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

I agree, it makes sense if you can absorb the shock of a fall, you can absorb the shock of knockback.  Even if its just flip and slide on your feet/knees

[unclevlad]

If you want to make it more broadly useful, fine...the value of the Limited Power limitation changes.  A LOT, because facing KB damage is now considerably more common.

[krraatumi]

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.   teatv

download apk
 

[unclevlad]

I was rebuilding a notional character...HTH fighter, with teleport for his movement...using some expansions I'm playing with.

 

What I finally noticed?

 

Teleport adder:  No Relative Velocity.  6E1, p. 302:

 

Quote

Teleportation with this Adder allows a character to Teleport into a moving vehicle, or to the ground while falling, without suffering any damage.

 

BINGO!  Throw in a custom limitation to tailor it to falling only, and you're good.  Not complicated.  No distortion of the rules, just a pretty normal need to define a situational limitation.  It's easy to apply, unlike things like "flight only to slow down from falling" that suggest the fall takes far longer...you stop on a dime.  If you don't want there to be a short *blink* to say you teleport?  Fine, that's SFX.

[Hugh Neilson]

13 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

I was rebuilding a notional character...HTH fighter, with teleport for his movement...using some expansions I'm playing with.

 

What I finally noticed?

 

Teleport adder:  No Relative Velocity.  6E1, p. 302:

 

 

BINGO!  Throw in a custom limitation to tailor it to falling only, and you're good.  Not complicated.  No distortion of the rules, just a pretty normal need to define a situational limitation.  It's easy to apply, unlike things like "flight only to slow down from falling" that suggest the fall takes far longer...you stop on a dime.  If you don't want there to be a short *blink* to say you teleport?  Fine, that's SFX.

 

Even if you want it completely undetectable, it's inexpensive enough for IPE. 

[unclevlad]

I like that.  Especially with a big honkin' limitation because it's only useful in such narrow situations.  That makes a mild advantage VERY cheap.