The Perpetual Dilemma Of Falling Damage

Most of the writing I'm doing for the game right now focuses on specific situations that may arise over the course of a campaign: i.e., chases, disease, encumbrance, etc.  All of it will be considered optional rules, offered for the BM as suggestions.

In that vein, I've decided to bring back the falling damage rules as they were apparently meant to be: with a geometric progression of damage dice, rather than a linear one.  Here's the text for the section on "Climbing & Falling": 

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Climbing sheer surfaces requires a Tough Trickster lore check. “Sheer surface” is defined as any surface without clear hand-holds or other protrusions.  Some species receive bonuses to their climb checks, detailed in their species description, and of course any character with levels in Trickster lore will have a great advantage here.

Any creature who flies under her own power and suffers an attack while airborne that inflicts 50 percent or more of her total maximum HP should make a Challenging Trauma save, or fall to the ground.

There are two ways a BM can model the physical consequences of falling.  One method should be chosen and used consistently.

Characters and creatures suffer compounded damage from falling, 1d5 [1d6] for each 10 feet.  In other words, falling 10 feet inflicts 1d5 [1d6] damage, while falling 20 feet inflicts 1d5 [1d6] + 2d5 [2d6], falling 30 feet inflicts 1d5 [1d6] + 2d5 [2d6] + 3d5 [3d6], and so on.  This geometric progression continues to a maximum of 21d5 [21d6], which represents terminal velocity.

Alternately, the BM can choose a particular height as a threshold, and rule that any character who falls that distance or greater and hits the ground needs to make a Trauma save or be instantly killed. A successful save means she suffers 1d5 [1d6] damage per 10 ft. fallen (in a linear progression), to a maximum of 20d5 [20d6] for falls of 200 ft. or more.

This second method can assign Threat Levels to the Trauma save based on every 10 feet fallen, like so:

Table 4.2:  Falling Distance and Trauma Save Threat Levels 

Distance Fallen                                 Threat Level 

10 ft.                                                   Easy 

20 ft.                                                   Average 

30 ft.                                                   Tough 

40 ft.                                                   Challenging 

50 ft.                                                   Formidable 

60 ft.                                                   Heroic 

70 ft. +                                                Epic

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Falling damage is a difficult thing to model in an RPG, because the real-life situation seems so arbitrary.  Sometimes, people die simply while tripping over a curb and landing the wrong way, while someone else survives a fall from thousands of feet after their parachute doesn't open.

Still, the consequences of falling in the real world are terrifying for most people to contemplate, and the same should be true of characters in a fantasy world.  So these suggested rules are meant to address that.  Sure, they're arbitrary, but then, aren't all rules?

Scaling, Size Category, & Hit Points

In the Great & Small Quick Start rules as they're currently written, each species of animal receives a fixed number of hit points per level, modified by the roll of their niche dice.  I derived the hit point values through more or less straight conversion of the animal stats (or stats of a similar creature) from the Basic/Expert rules, the Rules Cyclopedia, or some other basic edition resource or retroclone.  I gave each animal maximum possible hit points at 0-level, followed by an average value of their listed Hit Die type each consecutive level thereafter.

Tying hit point progression to species in this manner is just an iteration of the race-as-class concept from basic editions, in which dwarf, elf, and halfling were classes unto themselves.  But the method produces inconsistent results, giving divergent hp progressions to species of roughly equal profile (such as rabbits and small cats).  Some players may find this approach illogical and unsatisfactory.

Therefore, I've been toying with the idea of tying hit point progression to Size Category rather than species or niche.  In this scheme, rather than receiving a fixed amount of hp + niche die result per level, all characters roll for hit points per level on a die type tied to their Size.

Size determines type of die rolled for hit points per level according to the following table:

Hit Dice Per Level By Size Category (Zocchi Dice Progression)
Fine: 1 hp
Diminutive: 1d2
Tiny: 1d3
Small: 1d5
Medium: 1d7
Large: 1d10
Huge: 1d12
Gargantuan: 1d14
Colossal: 1d16

Hit Dice Per Level By Size Category (Standard Dice Progression)
Fine: 1d2
Diminutive: 1d3
Tiny: 1d4
Small: 1d6
Medium: 1d8
Large: 1d10
Huge: 1d12
Gargantuan: 2d8
Colossal: 1d20