Realistic Falling Damage

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I've come to the conclusion that "realistic" falling damage is too complicated for me to care about in most cases in game.

You can pretty much leave out the word 'falling' from that sentence.

[BrockNicholson]

As GM, I would handle a person in significant armor falling by saying, "You have fallen to your death." I think when it is completely clear that something is not survivable, there is no need to slow down the game to figure out exactly how dead the character is and why.


This, of course, does not apply to games where there may be a need, magic or superscience perhaps, to figure out exactly how dead the character is and why.

[Bruno]

The big problem is characters who may be unnatural and thus unnaturally resistant to death by falling. Or otherwise exceptional.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

As a child, I fell from around two stories flat onto my chest and "only" had the wind knocked out of me for 1/2 hour. After staying calm and waiting, I recovered perfectly fine in that time.
In basic training, my brother sleep walked out a second story window feet first. He still has pins where they had to fix his messed up bones.

But I would consider that landing in such a way as to concentrate injury to one body part. That of course can endanger life in ways that taking the shock spread out onto the entire body wouldn't. OR allow survival using said parts as "crumple zones" to absorb damage that would ensure death if taken by the entire body.
The point at which it changes from one to the other is horribly variable.

It is variable

The problem with limiting falling damage to one location is the impact does travel through the body.

There a weird basal skull fracture you can get with you fall upright landing on your feet, the impact travels up the long bones of the legs and spine driving the supper vertebrae through the base of skull (which is thin).

IIRC The potential sign is watery blood from the nose and ears etc.

The thing is it tends to happen when legs and back are aligned,

Parachutists used to get it IIRC. But basically fold at the knees and fall to the side is not just about saving your legs

[Flyndaran]

Then I guess he was a tad "lucky" to fall slightly off alignment. One foot suffered worse damage than the other one.
Specific animal species' physiology can have some unusual vulnerabilities.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Then I guess he was a tad "lucky" to fall slightly off alignment. One foot suffered worse damage than the other one.

Sorry I didn't mean to give the impression that it was an automatic thing, (it is one of those "it has to happen just right" things) just basically agreeing with your point it's a very variable thing. It sounds ridiculous but people have been known to give themselves slighter versions of that injury when sitting down too hard!

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Specific animal species' physiology can have some unusual vulnerabilities.

True and we are weird in the fact that we are more upright than most, with the skull resting on top of vertebrae.

[Flyndaran]

Bowling ball perched on a straw.
There are so many ways to improve our form by just copying a few features from other species. But no one consulted me.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Bowling ball perched on a straw. .

heh (I'll remember that next decapitation thread ;-))

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

There are so many ways to improve our form by just copying a few features from other species. But no one consulted me.

If we'd just stayed in the trees it would be all good (although IIRC there was some theory about brain development and the shift in alignment of the brain stem / spine)

[Humabout]

But basically fold at the knees and fall to the side is not just about saving your legs

Its primarily about rolling with the impact. You keep your ankles together to lessen the likelihood of breaking them. But really, a plf is about translating impact into a roll to make it less splat-y, because even if the downward aspect of the landing is only that of roughly jumping off the roof of a house, you are also moving forward pretty fast - about 20 mph. A successful flare mitigates that, but you dont use a plf if you land properly.

[Flyndaran]

Like a confused defense when on fire...
you drop, roll, and stop rather than stop, drop, and roll.

I fell so many times as kid, trips and second story plummets, but was lucky to never suffer anything major.
We had a single concrete step in front of the back door. Every single day I would run out, trip, and face plant. Every single day.
My parents wondered if I was retarded while my grandparents considered that I might have been abused from my constant bruises. Nope, just clumsy and forgetful as heck.