Falling onto Trees

[BrockNicholson]

I understand the basic formula to calculate falling damage. My question is how would one model falling onto trees or other spear like objects?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by BrockNicholson

I understand the basic formula to calculate falling damage. My question is how would one model falling onto trees or other spear like objects?

Spearlike objects would do impaling damage if you fall onto their points.

Trees usually would not be spear-like objects to a human...

[BrockNicholson]

So you think taking the typical damage formula and using impaling instead of crushing accounts for the damage caused? That makes a lot of sense, I don't know why I didn't think of it myself. I suppose I was overcomplicating the scenario. Thanks.

And yeah, trees are not normally spear like to humans, but to a particularly unlucky vampire parts of a tree would be spear like. :)

Hopefully my players think to check their plane for traps before they take off.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by BrockNicholson

And yeah, trees are not normally spear like to humans, but to a particularly unlucky vampire parts of a tree would be spear like. :)

Well, they'd be equally spear-like (or not spear-like) for anybody. The thing about falling into a tree is that trees are mostly not composed of rigid bits pointing straight up at you. There's a lot more in the way of leaves and thin springy or easily snapped branches pointing every which way, breaking your fall by absorbing energy as you go and not hurting you so much. I'd probably count falling into trees as falling onto a soft surface, but rolling some dice against the possibility of hitting a solid and maybe even up-pointing branch and getting that nasty impaling or at least crushing damage, which would be ever so bad for the living and the undead alike.

[lexington]

Originally Posted by BrockNicholson

So you think taking the typical damage formula and using impaling instead of crushing accounts for the damage caused? That makes a lot of sense, I don't know why I didn't think of it myself. I suppose I was overcomplicating the scenario. Thanks.

I believe damage is halved.

[BrockNicholson]

I was thinking of giving the players a chance to roll against acrobatics to intentionally avoid sharp bits, and making a second 12 or higher roll gets you impaled for those that don't have acrobatics or fail their attempt. Does that seem like a fair chance or should I raise the threshold for impalement?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by BrockNicholson

I was thinking of giving the players a chance to roll against acrobatics to intentionally avoid sharp bits, and making a second 12 or higher roll gets you impaled for those that don't have acrobatics or fail their attempt. Does that seem like a fair chance or should I raise the threshold for impalement?

While I have no statistics on the likelyhood of impalement by falling into trees, my impulse would be that that's way too high. Very little of a tree resembles an upward-pointing spear.

[Dunadin777]

Sounds like a good opportunity to make a random results chart. Off the top of my head, maybe:

16-18 take falling impaling damage, full
12-15 take falling crushing damage, full
8-11 take falling crushing damage, halved
1-6 hit a branch and stop. Full falling damage, 2d yards up in tree.

Or something appropriate to your specific situation.

[Bruno]

I've seen enough rather horrific 911-ER-type documentaries to have seen a really disturbing number of people impaled on branches while up in a tree trimming things or chasing cats.

The thing is that while most of the tree isn't really sticking straight up, you stop falling straight down once you start bouncing off the branches, and it turns into this pachinko-ball type thing. . . and broken or cut branch ends are lurking everywhere.

I'd call it pi+ rather than imp though - it's sort of blunt-ended so while the
"penatrator" may be very long, you may end up with just one hell of a focused bruise instead of a puncture.

Or roll 2d6, on a 5- it comes up imp otherwise cr? It's certainly random.


Also, some trees are far more up-and-down than others. :/

[Polydamas]

There are people who have survived falls at terminal velocity because they hit trees which broke the impact (and often soft ground or snow), and people who fall onto a tree and are impaled, so I think it would be hard to have a fixed rule whether the tree changes the damage type to something worse or reduces the damage.

Dungeon Fantasy 2 explicitly has falls onto spikes do imp damage rather than cr.