For fall damage I don't roll sometimes I just say " Well you are pretty much a human who knows how to swing a sword and that was a 150 ft fall so your dead."
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So a 4-5th level Sorceror without Feather Fall? Wonder if a lesson was learned?
BTW, you did fine, dead as a door nail, no tears, no regrets. And if the Party has the Character revived, maybe a subtle, "puny god" reference to the Cleric... ;-)
also, Death Ward is a 4th level spell that could solve the problem in the way the players had expected.
Again, in terms of RAW, yes.
In terms of in-character RP, I still highly question whether it makes in-character sense, unless it is some character who is RPed like the Alien from the Alien movies, that anyone would take a 300 foot drop, even knowing there is a Death Ward in effect. The alternative is to deliberately take a blow that does the equivalent of, in a single shot, taking you from 25 all the way to 1 hp -- which still sounds rather crippling to me.
So, in character, you get Death Warded, and you jump, and you are alive at the bottom with two broken legs, a handful of shattered ribs, and a concussion. Who is going to take that deal vs. just finding a way to safely climb down with some rope?
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
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also, Death Ward is a 4th level spell that could solve the problem in the way the players had expected.
Again, in terms of RAW, yes.
In terms of in-character RP, I still highly question whether it makes in-character sense, unless it is some character who is RPed like the Alien from the Alien movies, that anyone would take a 300 foot drop, even knowing there is a Death Ward in effect. The alternative is to deliberately take a blow that does the equivalent of, in a single shot, taking you from 25 all the way to 1 hp -- which still sounds rather crippling to me.
So, in character, you get Death Warded, and you jump, and you are alive at the bottom with two broken legs, a handful of shattered ribs, and a concussion. Who is going to take that deal vs. just finding a way to safely climb down with some rope?
I wouldn't have done it that way either. I am just saying the players tried to use spare the dying to produce the effect of Death Ward. Therefore the player has no case against the DM.
As the DM you control when things happen, the character doesn't do something when they say it only when you haved narrated it (unless you recon) so player says "I jump" you can still say "are you sure, would you like a reminder of how instant death works?
Mmm... thought he was going to have him land on the cleric
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“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Pulling a 'gotcha' on players who don't know the rules is like some weird kind of reverse-metagaming. These characters have lived in the game world their whole lives. They know the limitations of their bodies and their spells. Sometimes you absolutely have to stop players and explain that their characters, who have a baseline competence in their field of expertise, know that what the player is trying to do will not work. This instance would definitely fall in that category.
So lets make this short and easy, sorcerer on top of 300 foot cliff with 5 hit points left from battle jumps off of cliff after Cleric at bottom uses sending to tell him he can use spare the dying to save him and then heal. I try to be nice, roll 2 d6 and pick the lower one (2) and use the fall damage (1d6 for every 10 feet). Grand total 60 points of damage, Cleric tries to spare the dying I say "Nope" The way I see it 55 over is insta death. The Cleric and Mage argue that he is at 0 hit points, I explain that 55 is WAY over. I even explain that any damage over your con total is insta death. Meaning he would have had to have only taken 14 over to have survived. Basically after 3 minutes I finally call DM final and we need to move on.
That being said this is me asking the GMs of the forums did I make the right call or did I make a mistake based on the rules.
You could offer a retcon if you want.
I don't think anyone is at fault.
Whether the players knew about maximum HP or not is immaterial. The sorcerer still died. The players just looked at the StD description "You touch a living creature that has 0 hit points. The creature becomes stable. ..." and thought, that will be OK. (I think the spell description could also have been written adding some safety net riders or references).
As a DM the players make choices and face consequences, and a 300-foot drop will dish out a large measure of consequence - 94.73 mph (152.46 km/h) of consequence, all onto a hard, unyielding surface.
The cleric should have known that StD only works on bodies that then have the potential to heal themselves which wouldn't be the case with the mangled remains of the sorcerer.
If the players are happy to say, yes our characters would/should have known better, just retcon. The character is back at the top of the cliff but, having had an experience of life flashing before the eyes, thinks better about jumping. (It might be funny if they then seriously failed an athletics check climbing down).
You were well within the rules. If anything, you were being merciful by rolling two dice and having him pick the lower. 60 points of damage to a player with 5/25 HP would instantly kill them. Heck, even if they were at full health, the fall would have killed them.
That being said, I do think you should have been more clear with the rules. From the players' perspective, they had an idea on how the rules worked, and you had a different idea. When they acted on their interpretation, you stole victory from them. This, of course, is not the case. You were more faithful to the written rules, but that doesn't change the feeling. In your case, I think the best course of action would've been to explain how instant death works, and to explain the rules on fall damage. Adding a note on how your characters would never willingly jump off of a cliff under the promise of being revived by a 4th level Cleric wouldn't hurt. Then ask them if they're sure they want to jump.
Yes the character died. Was instantly killed by 25 of 55 extra damage the fall dealt. He was reduced to pulp. Nothing more than a red puddle. No arguing there. But I do think you could've more clearly explained the rules to your players before they committed to the jump.
I legit think he dies from taking more than his max hp in negatives from a single source of damage.
That said, I don't think it's safe to assume no character, in character, would assume they could "survive" a leap off a 100 m cliff. They are detizens in a world of magic. The cleric in game knows he can cast spare the dying and he knows what the spell does. It's not unreasonable to think that he could save another player with a spell.
Lastly, while you might have been technically right, I don't know if you were spiritually right. That is to say, as recently said in a Matt Colville video: err on the side of your players. While you have unlimited power to prove them wrong, they have rather limited power to argue that they're right. So, if they do something out of the mistaken understanding of how the rules work, then you should give them the benefit of the doubt. Even only if in this case.
The problem was it was more then half a second between him sending it and him jumping. I had less time to process what he said. Also, maybe I was being a little irritated with this cleric and the use of his spare the dying. Like there was a quest where they had to bring a witness in alive who got scared and ran, so they used lethal damage to stop her and then spared the dying. It wasn't creative and at this point I felt like they were meta gaming a situation no one would do
What do you mean you didn't have time? If you are the DM, you have all the time you need. The world waits on you.
I think if a player makes a decision that is obviously based on a misunderstanding of the rules, the DM should inform the player before they go through with it and the player should be allowed to take it back.
As for the case with the witness: Next time inform the cleric that NPCs (like monsters) don't necessarily do death saving throws. They typically insta-die unless the DM feels mercyful and allows death saving throws for that NPC..
As the rules are written it could be okay but the higher you are the faster your velocity becomes. I suppose you could have a sliding scale of dice, it would not just be simply 20d6 though. I’m sure the more physics minded of you could figure that out, but would probably be like 100 times that 20d6 for damage from 300 feet.
As the rules are written it could be okay but the higher you are the faster your velocity becomes. I suppose you could have a sliding scale of dice, it would not just be simply 20d6 though. I’m sure the more physics minded of you could figure that out, but would probably be like 100 times that 20d6 for damage from 300 feet.
Well, from a purely physics based perspective, your velocity eventually becomes constant due to the frictional forces produced by air resistance (aka, you reach terminal velocity). That being said, according to a quick google search it takes about 12 seconds for a person to reach terminal velocity. So, its unlikely this value would be reached unless you are falling for more than 2 rounds.
All in all, its too much fine tuning to try and incorporate physics into the game and better just to stick to the given rules, even if it does have some weird implications if taken at face value. +1d6 for every 10 ft you fall does a good enough job of emulating something hurting more because you fell farther and therefor faster.
Stupid is as stupid does. Unless the players are like age 10 or something then it’s absolutely not the dm’s job to molly coddle them.
”oh look, I am all battered and bruised and almost bled to death, barely conscious. Let’s jump off the top of a 300ft cliff because I can’t be bothered to try to climb down”.
If it was never going to work you should have told them beforehand.
You have perfect knowledge of the game and the world, players do not.
If the players knew beforehand the chance of success (instadeath unless I roll a 1 on dmg) and they still decide to go ahead with it, then it's on them.
From a physics perspective terminal velocity is about 120mph, 200ft you will be doing about 70mph but after falling 50ft you will be doing over 35mph. To keep this simple damage is applied linearly, so a cap at 200ft in not unreasonable (your damage is 4 times the damage you take from a fall of 50 ft and termian velocity is a little over 3 times your velocity after 50ft)
Where the DnD world is very different than ours is how a bit of training can make you able to withstand much greater falls. IRL while an athlete may have the dex and constritution to be more likely to to survive a fall of a gicven height than someone untrained the impact will be quite small. In D&D a commoner is quite likely to die from a fall of 10ft and almost certain to die from a fall of 30ft but a trained fighter (Gladiator) would be very unlikely to die from a fall in which he reaches close to terminal velocity (over 200ft)
For fall damage I don't roll sometimes I just say " Well you are pretty much a human who knows how to swing a sword and that was a 150 ft fall so your dead."
Murder Hobo Help (a great place for new dm's to get help with murderhobos and a great place to share how you've delt with murderhobos)
also, Death Ward is a 4th level spell that could solve the problem in the way the players had expected.
Jesus Saves!... Everyone else takes damage.
So a 4-5th level Sorceror without Feather Fall? Wonder if a lesson was learned?
BTW, you did fine, dead as a door nail, no tears, no regrets. And if the Party has the Character revived, maybe a subtle, "puny god" reference to the Cleric... ;-)
Again, in terms of RAW, yes.
In terms of in-character RP, I still highly question whether it makes in-character sense, unless it is some character who is RPed like the Alien from the Alien movies, that anyone would take a 300 foot drop, even knowing there is a Death Ward in effect. The alternative is to deliberately take a blow that does the equivalent of, in a single shot, taking you from 25 all the way to 1 hp -- which still sounds rather crippling to me.
So, in character, you get Death Warded, and you jump, and you are alive at the bottom with two broken legs, a handful of shattered ribs, and a concussion. Who is going to take that deal vs. just finding a way to safely climb down with some rope?
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I wouldn't have done it that way either. I am just saying the players tried to use spare the dying to produce the effect of Death Ward. Therefore the player has no case against the DM.
Jesus Saves!... Everyone else takes damage.
That isn’t creative …it’s stupid ….it’s really really stupid. You did exactly what you should have done killing him outright, unquestionably.
As the DM you control when things happen, the character doesn't do something when they say it only when you haved narrated it (unless you recon) so player says "I jump" you can still say "are you sure, would you like a reminder of how instant death works?
Mmm... thought he was going to have him land on the cleric
“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
Pulling a 'gotcha' on players who don't know the rules is like some weird kind of reverse-metagaming. These characters have lived in the game world their whole lives. They know the limitations of their bodies and their spells. Sometimes you absolutely have to stop players and explain that their characters, who have a baseline competence in their field of expertise, know that what the player is trying to do will not work. This instance would definitely fall in that category.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
You could offer a retcon if you want.
I don't think anyone is at fault.
Whether the players knew about maximum HP or not is immaterial. The sorcerer still died. The players just looked at the StD description "You touch a living creature that has 0 hit points. The creature becomes stable. ..." and thought, that will be OK. (I think the spell description could also have been written adding some safety net riders or references).
As a DM the players make choices and face consequences, and a 300-foot drop will dish out a large measure of consequence - 94.73 mph (152.46 km/h) of consequence, all onto a hard, unyielding surface.
The cleric should have known that StD only works on bodies that then have the potential to heal themselves which wouldn't be the case with the mangled remains of the sorcerer.
If the players are happy to say, yes our characters would/should have known better, just retcon. The character is back at the top of the cliff but, having had an experience of life flashing before the eyes, thinks better about jumping. (It might be funny if they then seriously failed an athletics check climbing down).
You were well within the rules. If anything, you were being merciful by rolling two dice and having him pick the lower. 60 points of damage to a player with 5/25 HP would instantly kill them. Heck, even if they were at full health, the fall would have killed them.
That being said, I do think you should have been more clear with the rules. From the players' perspective, they had an idea on how the rules worked, and you had a different idea. When they acted on their interpretation, you stole victory from them. This, of course, is not the case. You were more faithful to the written rules, but that doesn't change the feeling. In your case, I think the best course of action would've been to explain how instant death works, and to explain the rules on fall damage. Adding a note on how your characters would never willingly jump off of a cliff under the promise of being revived by a 4th level Cleric wouldn't hurt. Then ask them if they're sure they want to jump.
Yes the character died. Was instantly killed by 25 of 55 extra damage the fall dealt. He was reduced to pulp. Nothing more than a red puddle. No arguing there. But I do think you could've more clearly explained the rules to your players before they committed to the jump.
I legit think he dies from taking more than his max hp in negatives from a single source of damage.
That said, I don't think it's safe to assume no character, in character, would assume they could "survive" a leap off a 100 m cliff. They are detizens in a world of magic. The cleric in game knows he can cast spare the dying and he knows what the spell does. It's not unreasonable to think that he could save another player with a spell.
Lastly, while you might have been technically right, I don't know if you were spiritually right. That is to say, as recently said in a Matt Colville video: err on the side of your players. While you have unlimited power to prove them wrong, they have rather limited power to argue that they're right. So, if they do something out of the mistaken understanding of how the rules work, then you should give them the benefit of the doubt. Even only if in this case.
What do you mean you didn't have time? If you are the DM, you have all the time you need. The world waits on you.
I think if a player makes a decision that is obviously based on a misunderstanding of the rules, the DM should inform the player before they go through with it and the player should be allowed to take it back.
As for the case with the witness: Next time inform the cleric that NPCs (like monsters) don't necessarily do death saving throws. They typically insta-die unless the DM feels mercyful and allows death saving throws for that NPC..
As the rules are written it could be okay but the higher you are the faster your velocity becomes. I suppose you could have a sliding scale of dice, it would not just be simply 20d6 though. I’m sure the more physics minded of you could figure that out, but would probably be like 100 times that 20d6 for damage from 300 feet.
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DM - Our Little Lives Kept In Equipoise: Curse of Strahd
DM - Misprize Thou Not These Shadows That Belong: The Lost Mines of Phandelver
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Well, from a purely physics based perspective, your velocity eventually becomes constant due to the frictional forces produced by air resistance (aka, you reach terminal velocity). That being said, according to a quick google search it takes about 12 seconds for a person to reach terminal velocity. So, its unlikely this value would be reached unless you are falling for more than 2 rounds.
All in all, its too much fine tuning to try and incorporate physics into the game and better just to stick to the given rules, even if it does have some weird implications if taken at face value. +1d6 for every 10 ft you fall does a good enough job of emulating something hurting more because you fell farther and therefor faster.
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Stupid is as stupid does. Unless the players are like age 10 or something then it’s absolutely not the dm’s job to molly coddle them.
”oh look, I am all battered and bruised and almost bled to death, barely conscious. Let’s jump off the top of a 300ft cliff because I can’t be bothered to try to climb down”.
If it was never going to work you should have told them beforehand.
You have perfect knowledge of the game and the world, players do not.
If the players knew beforehand the chance of success (instadeath unless I roll a 1 on dmg) and they still decide to go ahead with it, then it's on them.
From a physics perspective terminal velocity is about 120mph, 200ft you will be doing about 70mph but after falling 50ft you will be doing over 35mph. To keep this simple damage is applied linearly, so a cap at 200ft in not unreasonable (your damage is 4 times the damage you take from a fall of 50 ft and termian velocity is a little over 3 times your velocity after 50ft)
Where the DnD world is very different than ours is how a bit of training can make you able to withstand much greater falls. IRL while an athlete may have the dex and constritution to be more likely to to survive a fall of a gicven height than someone untrained the impact will be quite small. In D&D a commoner is quite likely to die from a fall of 10ft and almost certain to die from a fall of 30ft but a trained fighter (Gladiator) would be very unlikely to die from a fall in which he reaches close to terminal velocity (over 200ft)
The original post is from Mar 2020, even the players might be dead by now, what's the point of reviving this post?
Hahahaha best comment!
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