House Rule for Falling Damage?

[etherio]

Any of you out there find the rules for falling damage awkward at times? I feel that superheroic characters who aren't "invulnerable" in the comic book sense, but have high enough PD to take a punch without getting hospitalized, are too resistant to taking BODY from falling what would seem like dangerous heights. Heck, even a character with high normal-scale PD can take a pretty mean drop without getting seriously injured.

 

I've seen suggestions that falling damage be treated as killing damage, but that seems a bit too lethal and dismissive of the "toughness" of a given character. For a while, we've used a house rule I borrowed from someone's website. It calls for reducing the effective PD of a falling character by 1 for each 1" fallen, unless he has an appropriate type of defense. That seemed okay at first, but I've come to feel like it's granting too much based on special-effect. I'd like a more concrete and objective game mechanic.

 

Here's my new proposed house rule. I'd like constructive criticism or your own house rules, if you don't mind sharing:

 

Treat falling damage as Normal (unless of course one is falling onto spikes or what have you), Armor Piercing damage. Hardened on one's normal PD therefore serves as the counter for characters who want to be "invulnerable" to falling damage in the classic comic book sense.

[Guest Champsguy]

Re: House Rule for Falling Damage?

 

The way I do it (though it's never actually come up in my games) is to make falling damage killing if the # of dice exceeds their PD.

 

Thus, Seeker (PD 15) falls from the roof of a fairly tall building and takes 13D6. He'll be hurt, and probably unconscious, but not hurt too badly. A week later he falls from a skyscraper and takes 18D6. Seeker is now in trouble, because that's 3 more D6 than he has PD (things like Combat Luck would not apply here unless you bounced off an awning or something). So instead of taking 18D6, he takes 6D6 killing.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: House Rule for Falling Damage?

 

In games where we decided we wanted that level of reality, we'd roll for Hit Locations as to what part of the body the falling character "landed" on. This allows for the range of possible results you see in real life, from instant lethality to people walking away from exceptionally long falls.

 

One change that we did make was to reverse the damage multipliers for maximum and minimum damage on the chart, increasing the odds of taking x2 BODY damage.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: House Rule for Falling Damage?

 

I don't worry about it much, mostly because I look at it like ... "Man. He goes toe to toe with Ironclad, wrestles with Ripper, exchanges shots with Grond ... then he falls off a tall building and the pavement punches his ticket? Man, what a wanker way to die."

 

I don't think falling should be lethal to supers, because, well ... it's just not a dramatic, interesting way to die (IMHO). Your campaign may vary, of course ... but darn it, if I'm going to mangle a superhero, I want to do it with a supervillain, not gravity.

 

Okay, I could just use Gravitar. But you get the point!

[Dust Raven]

Re: House Rule for Falling Damage?

 

Excellent point Crosshair. Falling to your death is not heroic at all. Of course, neither is getting killed at all, unless the hero chooses death to save someone else.

 

I really only see this as a problem for characters who jump off of tall buildings because they know they'll survive, even though it's not realstic. If that happens alot, I'd just convert falling damage of over a certain height to Killing, regardless of the actual hight, the DC involved or the character's Defenses.

[lemming]

Re: House Rule for Falling Damage?

 

CrosshairCollie answered it well enough. Though I like Champsguy little rule.

 

Heck, we made it less dangerous since we let breakfall work and just had the minuses from velocity (max -15 unless DI was involved)

[lemming]

Re: House Rule for Falling Damage?

 

Excellent point Crosshair. Falling to your death is not heroic at all. Of course, neither is getting killed at all, unless the hero chooses death to save someone else.

 

I really only see this as a problem for characters who jump off of tall buildings because they know they'll survive, even though it's not realstic. If that happens alot, I'd just convert falling damage of over a certain height to Killing, regardless of the actual hight, the DC involved or the character's Defenses.

Heck. If they jump off like that, there's probably a spiked fence waiting for them.

 

If they jump off looking for awnings, etc to break their fall, that's ok.

[Vorsch]

Re: House Rule for Falling Damage?

 

I use a Damage system for both move Thrus/bys, throwing and falling which is linked to velocity of character.

 

2d6 at 5m/s or 10mph

+2d6 per x2 velocity

add mass, generally +2d6 for 100kg +1d6 per doubling ( same as DI ).

 

As a bonus you even get realist throwing distances for free.

 

Champions was built for table top maps and it shows.

[etherio]

Re: House Rule for Falling Damage?

 

I don't worry about it much, mostly because I look at it like ... "Man. He goes toe to toe with Ironclad, wrestles with Ripper, exchanges shots with Grond ... then he falls off a tall building and the pavement punches his ticket? Man, what a wanker way to die."

 

I don't think falling should be lethal to supers, because, well ... it's just not a dramatic, interesting way to die (IMHO). Your campaign may vary, of course ... but darn it, if I'm going to mangle a superhero, I want to do it with a supervillain, not gravity.

 

Okay, I could just use Gravitar. But you get the point!

 

I agree that, in a "realistic" sense, if a MA can live through a punch from a strong Brick, he shouldn't get splattered by a decently high fall. However, in comics, guys who aren't Bricks tend not to ever get hit by Bricks; the author controls the action. And when they do, they tend to get messed up. In comics, though, a genre convention is saving your buddy from falling to his doom. I'd like to preserve that.

[Sean Waters]

Re: House Rule for Falling Damage?

 

The difference between getting hit by a punch and getting hit by the ground is the effect on your internal organs: a punch doesn't move them much at all if you are externally tough and take no KB.

 

A fall on the other hand...all your internal organs are travelling at 120mph and then stop dead. That is an immense amount of strain on even a supercharacter.

 

If you don't want charcaters taking much damage from falling, kewl. If you do, make half of it NND (but damage reduction would still apply, which I always see as being equally tough all the way through, not just crunchy on the outside).