What is up with falling?

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: What is up with falling?

 

I prefer the plain old 1d6/1" fallen. This corresponds exactly to the kinetic energy at impact. And it can max out at a specified terminal velocity.

 

Also, "natural armor" doesn't help much in a fall anyway. A rhino, a tortoise, and an armadillo may have thick hide or a shell, but their internal organs are just as squishy as yours and mine.

 

To survive a fall you need one or more - of the following:

- To cushion your fall, i.e., to slow down the decceleration from intantaneous to a longer fraction of a second. This can be done with a soft pad to land on, or your legs if you're upright, or padded armor. A fall from the top of the Empire State Building would require impossibly strong legs or very very very thick padding. A football helmet or plush carpeting wouldn't do it.

- Especially resiliant internal organs - normally not available to humans or earth animals. Perhaps Density Increase might help depending on SFX. Ironclad's physiology might be able to take it.

- To reduce your kinetic energy, which can be done in two ways slowing your fall (parachute, scaping against the wall, updraft) or by reducing your mass. Shrinking might help. An ant might survive the fall because it won't build up much kinetic energy, plus even small air currents are likely to slow its fall.

 

I like the AVLD idea.

[Gary]

Re: What is up with falling?

 

I prefer the plain old 1d6/1" fallen. This corresponds exactly to the kinetic energy at impact. And it can max out at a specified terminal velocity.

 

That works for D&D, but not for champions. 30 times the kinetic energy is not the equivalent of 30d6 damage vs 1d6 damage!

 

The problem is that falls are instantly lethal to virtually every normal person, even an 8 PD 20 Body bodybuilder type. Thus terminal velocity needs to top out at roughly 30d6 to have the right feel. But then you get silliness such as terminal velocity's 30 DC doing more damage than the main gun of a tank or being run over by that tank.

[Guest Champsguy]

Re: What is up with falling?

 

I do this: if you take more D6 of damage than you have PD, it converts to killing. Thus, you can fall 2" and take 2D6. This lets our boy Brent here drunkenly fall out of the back of a pickup without snapping his leg. But when Brent falls off a building and takes 10D6, he actually takes 3D6+1. That's about 12 Body that he takes instead of 8.

 

Oh yeah, skydivers wear helmets to protect them if their chute only partially opens, or something like that.

[JMHammer]

Re: What is up with falling?

 

CrosshairCollie said:

So, if armor doesn't help in a fall, why do skydivers wear helmets?

We wear helmets so that other flying things that might hit us in the head don't cause problems. They also help protect the brain if you fall and hit your head after you've hit the ground. If your chute doesn't open, you don't try to hit headfirst.

 

...LOL...

 

Sorry, I blew some ice tea out of my nose there and had to mop my keyboard.

 

Almost off topic but worth noting: For purposes of game mechanics, even something with the Real Armor Limitation will protect against the type of damage with which it is specifically designed to deal. Unless it's just a piece of crap, like those magnet bracelets being sold to ward off the flu.

 

John H

[Legendsmiths]

Re: What is up with falling?

 

Real Armor does very much help in a fall. What it doesn't help is with any amount of torquing or the internal trauma.

 

Here's how we run it:

 

If you have time to orient yourself you can make a DEX roll at -3, or an Acrobatics roll. This will allow you to make impact using your legs. They may be shattered, but they are a shock absorber and will keep your internal organs from turning to mush. If the roll is failed, falling damage is AP. If it succeeds, the BODY damage is AP versus the legs, unless you have breakfall, in which case it is not AP.

 

Breakfall will allow you to reduce the damage.

 

Hard surface is +1d6N

Jagged surface is +1 DC and damage is killing

Soft surface is -1d6N

Water is -2d6N.

[JMHammer]

Re: What is up with falling?

 

mudpyr8,

 

What you suggest is internally consistent, but if you want to know what skydivers are taught to do in the event of a catastrophic equipment failure:

 

After you've exhausted all hope of getting some fabric into the air to slow your descent, go into full spread-eagle position to reduce your velocity as much as possible. When impact becomes inevitable and imminent, remain face-down to the impact surface and cross your arms under your face. If the impact surface is deep water, change aspect to feet-down and cross your arms over your face.

 

At least it gives you something to do while you're waiting to die...

 

John H

[Sean Waters]

Re: What is up with falling?

 

I do this: if you take more D6 of damage than you have PD, it converts to killing. Thus, you can fall 2" and take 2D6. This lets our boy Brent here drunkenly fall out of the back of a pickup without snapping his leg. But when Brent falls off a building and takes 10D6, he actually takes 3D6+1. That's about 12 Body that he takes instead of 8.

 

Oh yeah, skydivers wear helmets to protect them if their chute only partially opens, or something like that.

 

What a good idea: and normal PD won't help, but I might make it 2xPD or PD+4 otherwise people would be punching holes in each other all the time. It also means that if a super hits a normal they have to be real careful...

[Sean Waters]

Re: What is up with falling?

 

I suppose if you are worried that you are not killing enough normals by throwing them off buildings (Hey, Jed, lookee - anuther 'un just hobbled away...maybe the pile's gettin' too big 'n' cushnin the fall!), you could apply the impairment rules to normals: half BODY, before or after area multiplier, to head, chest, stomach or vitals and you can consider them dead. Maybe that is why they wear helmets - they've read Champions and know the head has a x2 BODY multiplier...

[zornwil]

Re: What is up with falling?

 

mudpyr8,

 

What you suggest is internally consistent, but if you want to know what skydivers are taught to do in the event of a catastrophic equipment failure:

 

After you've exhausted all hope of getting some fabric into the air to slow your descent, go into full spread-eagle position to reduce your velocity as much as possible. When impact becomes inevitable and imminent, remain face-down to the impact surface and cross your arms under your face. If the impact surface is deep water, change aspect to feet-down and cross your arms over your face.

 

At least it gives you something to do while you're waiting to die...

 

John H

Every once in a great while you hear of a parachutist who survives a failed parachute even though they are at a clearly fatal heighth. I imagine that would be the last clinging hope driving one to go ahead and try out the position, and I guess maybe this is how these very rare cases have survived. The only such case I specifically remember the person even bounced a great distance into the air, I believe they hit somewhat soft grass.

[Sean Waters]

Re: What is up with falling?

 

Every once in a great while you hear of a parachutist who survives a failed parachute even though they are at a clearly fatal heighth. I imagine that would be the last clinging hope driving one to go ahead and try out the position' date=' and I guess maybe this is how these very rare cases have survived. The only such case I specifically remember the person even bounced a great distance into the air, I believe they hit somewhat soft grass.[/quote']

 

...or someone with superstrength caught them...or they threw ones on their breakfall roll...

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: What is up with falling?

 

That works for D&D' date=' but not for champions. 30 times the kinetic energy is [b']not[/b] the equivalent of 30d6 damage vs 1d6 damage!

That's funny. I thought it works better for HERO than for deendee. In the latter, you get another die of hit points every level, but in HERO, your BODY goes up relatively slowly. I remember being in old deendee games where people deliberately would fall knowing they could take it. Want to escape from the tower? Just jump out the window! I had a halfling thief (with a fairly high Constitution) who was grabbed and carried off by some flying monster (I don't rememberwhat kind). I just stabbed it until it let go. Sure, I took some damage from the fall, but not nearly enough to kill me.

 

When making rules for environmental effects (like falling damage), I say it's best to start with realism - make it as realistic as possible. Then, using reality as a baseline, adjust for genre, heroicness, superheroicness, and game balance. And it seems to me that kinetic energy directly corresponding to damage makes the most sense and is the most realistic. I think only a true super-human (not Batmanm, not Daredevil, probably not even Spiderman) should be able to survive a 60-meter free-fall onto a hard surface.

 

And why wouldn't it work for Champions? IIRC, it worked just fine for 4th edition Champions. What will happen if distance=kinetic energy=damage in 5th ed. Champs? Will the Champions Universe blow up?