If you are willing to let the math become a bit more complicated, you could factor in horizontal speed to calculate the diagonal path the creature actually would fall along.
At a height of 15ft, assuming acceleration from gravity to be the same as our Earth (roughly 32ft/sec²), then it would take 1.46 second for the creature to hit the ground.
If they were traveling at 40mph, which is about 58.6ft/sec, then the horizontal distance they would travel while falling would be 1.46sec x 58.6 ft/sec = 85.6 feet
With a vertical distance of 15ft , and a horizontal distance of 85.6ft, the diagonal distance would calculate out to about 86.9ft. So call the fall distance 87 feet and make the fall damage 8d6.
It's not exactly RAW, and a little cumbersome to calculate at the table on the fly, but it makes sense logically.
Alright so for your flying creature we have the following...
1 round is 6 seconds long
40 miles is 211200 feet
211200 ft per hour becomes 3520 ft per minute
3520 ft per minute becomes 352 ft per 6 seconds/1 round
(wtf flying creature do you have that's going this fast in dnd?)
For Falling Damage we have...
Fall damage caps out at 200 ft. Which comes out to almost 23 mph fall (22.7272~). (And also much slower than your creature's flying distance)
But fall distance caps at 500 ft per round.
Meaning that players fall at just shy of 57 mph (56.8181~)
That's approximately Terminal Velocity for a human being irl.
In Conclusion...
The rules specifically cut fall damage short of actual distance fallen, even just with straight vertical falling, not taking speed in to consideration.
D&D does not have players accelerate over time. Either on the ground moving, in the air flying, in the water swimming, or falling. You are instantly accelerated to your full speed.
Even taking that maximum speed in to account, the damage you take from a fall is capped intentionally short of the maximum distance you can travel.
Adding additional distance or speed to this situation not applying more damage is not an oversite or something left out of the rules but rather an intentional design decision.
D&D is a game, not a physics simulator. There is magic, there are creatures flying that would have no realistic way of keeping their body airborn. There are creatures so large that there is no conceivable way they could possibly physically exist, much less sustain themselves with the food they'd need. The movement in the game is not realistic. The breath holding is not realistic. The amount people can carry is not realistic. The damage you take from standing in lava is not realistic. Fully healing any damage you received during the day when you sleep is not realistic. It's a game. Not real life. You have to draw a line somewhere or you'll be spending your entire campaign doing math equations instead of playing the game.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
If you are willing to let the math become a bit more complicated, you could factor in horizontal speed to calculate the diagonal path the creature actually would fall along.
At a height of 15ft, assuming acceleration from gravity to be the same as our Earth (roughly 32ft/sec²), then it would take 1.46 second for the creature to hit the ground.
If they were traveling at 40mph, which is about 58.6ft/sec, then the horizontal distance they would travel while falling would be 1.46sec x 58.6 ft/sec = 85.6 feet
With a vertical distance of 15ft , and a horizontal distance of 85.6ft, the diagonal distance would calculate out to about 86.9ft. So call the fall distance 87 feet and make the fall damage 8d6.
It's not exactly RAW, and a little cumbersome to calculate at the table on the fly, but it makes sense logically.
Alright so for your flying creature we have the following...
1 round is 6 seconds long
40 miles is 211200 feet
211200 ft per hour becomes 3520 ft per minute
3520 ft per minute becomes 352 ft per 6 seconds/1 round
(wtf flying creature do you have that's going this fast in dnd?)
For Falling Damage we have...
Fall damage caps out at 200 ft. Which comes out to almost 23 mph fall (22.7272~). (And also much slower than your creature's flying distance)
But fall distance caps at 500 ft per round.
Meaning that players fall at just shy of 57 mph (56.8181~)
That's approximately Terminal Velocity for a human being irl.
In Conclusion...
The rules specifically cut fall damage short of actual distance fallen, even just with straight vertical falling, not taking speed in to consideration.
D&D does not have players accelerate over time. Either on the ground moving, in the air flying, in the water swimming, or falling. You are instantly accelerated to your full speed.
Even taking that maximum speed in to account, the damage you take from a fall is capped intentionally short of the maximum distance you can travel.
Adding additional distance or speed to this situation not applying more damage is not an oversite or something left out of the rules but rather an intentional design decision.
D&D is a game, not a physics simulator. There is magic, there are creatures flying that would have no realistic way of keeping their body airborn. There are creatures so large that there is no conceivable way they could possibly physically exist, much less sustain themselves with the food they'd need. The movement in the game is not realistic. The breath holding is not realistic. The amount people can carry is not realistic. The damage you take from standing in lava is not realistic. Fully healing any damage you received during the day when you sleep is not realistic. It's a game. Not real life. You have to draw a line somewhere or you'll be spending your entire campaign doing math equations instead of playing the game.