Falling Damage

Need something more realistic than the old 1d6-Blunt-Impact-per-ten-feet falling damage rules? Then try this for size!

Determine the distance in feet fallen by the character, and consult the table below for the Blunt Impact suffered:

 FALL     VELOCITY    BLUNT    
(FEET)     (Km/h)     IMPACT   
    1'+           5       1d3  
    5'+          10       1d6  
   12'+          15       2d6  
   20'+          20       3d6  
   30'+          25       4d6  
   45'+          30       5d6  
   65'+          35       6d6  
   85'+          40       7d6  
  105'+          45       8d6  
  130'+          50       9d6  
  155'+          55      10d6  
  185'+          60      11d6  
  220'+          65      12d6  
  255'+          70      13d6  
  295'+          75      14d6  
  335'+          80      15d6  
  375'+          85      16d6  
  420'+          90      17d6  
  470'+          95      18d6  
  520'+         100      19d6  
  570'+         105      20d6  
  630'+         110      21d6  
  685'+         115      22d6  
  745'+         120      23d6  
  810'+         125      24d6  
  875'+         130      25d6  
  945'+         135      26d6  
 1015'+         140      27d6  
 1090'+         145      28d6  
 1165'+         150      29d6  
 1245'+         155      30d6  
 1330'+         160      31d6  
 1415'+         165      32d6  
 1500'+         170      33d6  
 1590'+         175      34d6  
 1680'+         180      35d6  
 1775'+         185      36d6  
 1875'+         190      37d6

Assume that in most situations, a falling character will reach terminal velocity at 190 km/h.

Impact is suffered to 1d3 reasonable body locations, with the first location suffering full Impact, the second taking half Impact (round down), and the third location receiving one quarter Impact (round down).

Acrobatics skill may be attempted to land on one's feet; a Marginal Success implies only one foot suffers Impact (reduce the actual distance fallen by 5'), and a Critical Success indicates that Impact is distributed between both feet (reduce the actual distance fallen by 10', and each foot suffers only 75% of full Impact). Kind GMs may allow Jumping skill to be used instead of Acrobatics, at some sort of suitable penalty.

Armour provides only limited protection, because the character is actually falling on to his/her armour. For the sake of simplicity, every 6 Blunt protection reduces the Impact by one die (e.g. from 4d6 to 3d6). Therefore, 5 or less AP has no effect on Impact. If you want to be really strict about it, only soft, non-metallic armour provides protection, although all armour can help to reduce any height modifiers (see below).

Different surfaces will modify the effective distance fallen:

Rocky ground: +15'
Hard ground: +10'
Medium ground: +0'
Soft ground: -15'
Deep mud: -30'
Deep water: -50'

If a character falls on another character, both people will suffer the same Impact, which might be about 75% of the full amount.

It is sometimes useful to determine how far a character has fallen after n seconds. Below is a table showing how many feet a character falls after a given time:

 TIME TAKEN    DISTANCE FALLEN          TIME TAKEN    DISTANCE FALLEN    
 1 second          16 feet              7 seconds         647 feet       
 2 seconds         62 feet              8 seconds         814 feet       
 3 seconds         136 feet             9 seconds         991 feet       
 4 seconds         234 feet             10 seconds       1176 feet       
 5 seconds         354 feet             11 seconds       1366 feet       
 6 seconds         493 feet             12 seconds       1554 feet

Note that a man falling from a height of 1880 feet would take about 13 to 14 seconds to hit the ground. He would probably have reached terminal velocity immediately before impact.

Bill Gant, 1995
bgant@cougar.multiline.com.au