Falling Damage (3.5e Variant Rule)
 | |||||||||
| |||||||||
 | |||||||||
|
Rate this article Discuss this article | |||||||||
Contents
Falling Damage
Introduction
The party stands at the brink of a 1,000 foot cliff. Two of them can fly via spells, and two have uses of Feather Fall, but the 9th-level barbarian just sneers. "See you pussies at the bottom," he says, and steps into space. Landing at the bottom, he rolls 20d6 and takes (on an average roll) slightly less than 70 damage. He easily makes his Massive Damage check, and walks away. According to D&D rules, he could fall from 30,000 feet, still take just that 70 damage and walk away...
In this variant, I try to adjust for actual physics just a little bit. Since you can drop a cat from 20 stories up and have it suffer only minor injuries, but dropping an elephant from that height will result in a sizable splash, the flat d6 per 10 feet fallen seems a bit inadequate. Instead, we modify fall damage based on creature size and make longer falls more difficult to survive.
Rule Mechanics
Whenever a creature falls and takes damage, roll the falling damage normally, then multiply the result by the amount shown on the chart below, using the appropriate size category for the creature. In cases where there is both lethal and non-lethal damage, apply the multiplier to the lethal damage and the non-lethal damage separately. Round up to the nearest whole number where necessary.
Fall Damage by Creature Size
| Size | Adjustment to Damage Roll |
|---|---|
| Diminuitive | x .1 |
| Tiny | x .25 |
| Small | x .75 |
| Medium | No adjustment |
| Large | x 1.5 |
| Huge | x 3 |
| Gargantuan | x 4.5 |
| Colossal | x 6 |
Falls greater than 150 feet:
In addition to the fall damage, the monster must make a Fortitude save, with the DC equal to 1/10th the distance fallen, or die from the massive sudden trauma to its entire body. For every size category larger than Medium, increase the DC by 4. For every size category smaller than Medium, decrease the DC by 2. If falling onto softer or yielding surfaces (soft/unpacked earth, mud, snow, water), decrease the DC by 2. Even constructs and monsters with no discernible anatomy must make this save. Creatures with Regeneration, however, still treat the falling damage as non-lethal and need not make the Fortitude save.
Examples
Graf the Goliath Fighter manages to bull-rush a behir (Huge Magical Beast) off the edge of a 250-foot cliff with rocks and boulders at the base of the cliff. The behir falls, taking 3 x (20d6) damage for being a huge creature. If it manages to survive this somehow, the behir then makes a DC 33 Fort save (25 for the distance, then +8 for the creature's size) to avoid death by massive blunt force trauma.
Karl the Kobold (Small Humanoid) is fighting on a rope bridge when he fails a balance check and falls 80 feet to the muddy gulch below. Normally Karl would take 8d6 damage, but Karl makes a successful tumble check, removing one of the d6s and converting the second d6 to non-lethal damage (in addition to the conversion of 1d6 to non-lethal damage due to the mud). So Karl takes takes .75 x (5d6) damage, and .75 x (2d6) non-lethal damage from the fall. Of course, Karl doesn't know that there are giant crocodiles in the mud as well, but that's hardly relevant to our case...
Back to Main Page → 3.5e Homebrew → Variant Rules
