Making falling damage more lethal

[BraselC5048]

Falling damage in GURPS seems to be a little low. I actually ran a group of 10 test cases, and at 15 yards and using the bleeding rules, and the fatality rate, after a 15 minute ride to the hospital, was roughly 50% - pretty much spot on.

Of course, that's for Mr. Average, with HT 10 and 10 HP. And all of them died from the bleeding. Throw in characters with HT 12 or above, and possibly Very Fit, and the risks from bleeding go down. A lot. And terminal velocity falls aren't nearly deadly enough, only 12d, or average 42 damage. Even Mr. Average has a 12.5% chance to be alive after that.

So simply put, I'm trying to find a way to put a little more splat in falling damage, so that there's more damage on impact, and the fall itself actually can kill you, rather then just the bleeding. And making terminal velocity falls actually terminal. Other then just saying "your dead." Anybody have some ideas of an elegant way to modify the stock falling damage system?

[Nereidalbel]

Were you checking hit locations on those falls? And doubling damage for hard surfaces, such as concrete? Landing on your head or hitting concrete WILL kill you. As for falling on softer surfaces, people actually do survive that from time to time.

[Anthony]

GURPS is prone to 'cinematic realism'; while fatality under real conditions is often extremely variable (which may be what death checks are supposed to represent), this has a lot more to do with randomness in the actual injury that was suffered than with randomness in response.

[BraselC5048]

Was thinking for a while, came up with this, working from a modified version of Madlock's houserules:

Up to 3 yards, no change.
for every yard after to that, add 5% to falling damage, up to 13 yards (so 13 yards or higher would be 50% more). Add 20% on top of that if the surface is very hard and won't give at all - concrete, asphalt, brick or cobblestone pavement, dry, hard-packed dirt or soil, gravel (good luck avoiding a ton of 0 HP cuts!) and the like. Subtract 20% if the surface is somewhat soft -loose sand, sandy beach, mud, etc.

Finally, when rolling hit locations from a fall, roll 3 times. Excess damage from each location is not lost, rather it goes to the next location rolled, and if any remains after having rolled all 3, it goes to the torso as generalized injury. If torso or groin is rolled, treat any damage past 1xHP as excess damage as above. If a limb or extremity is crippled, roll 1d: on a 5 or 6, all limbs or extremities of that type are crippled. On the plus side, only torso or generalized injury counts for Bleeding - this balances out the higher initial damage above.



Modified version of Madlock's houserules, offical in my games:


Roll whenever you jump down, and it's high enough to matter. On a success, you land on you feet (or on higher jumps and falls, end up on your feet at the end), on a failure, you suffer damage as if you landed on a soft surface if the surface is hard, and no damage if the surface is soft. You may substitute jumping or Acrobatics for DX.

If you didn't intentionally jump down, just roll falling damage, unless you have points in Acrobatics, in which case you can still roll on the table below, but at -2. (This is instead of a breakfall, which often will be a better choice!)

If for some reason you have a running high jump big enough to get to a point on the falling velocity table where more then one height has the same velocity, except for 10-11 yards (this most likely means 13-14 yards), treat them as the same for the rules below. This might get you an extra yard.

If you go past the end of the table and still somehow have a chance of success, it's at -5 for each additional yard/second of velocity, and there is no such thing as a critical success, you inhuman freak. (So if failure or critical failure is on a 3 or more, you automatically get that.)

Halve all distances if you're not free to roll on landing for some reason, and must (or decide to) land in a crouch (although on lower drops you'll likely do this anyway, as would anybody without Acrobatics or high levels of Jumping).

Finally, if you want to use Acrobatics instead of Swimming for a high dive into water, just use half the velocity as a penalty (rounded up). Use the actual velocity, not the penalty from the speed/range table.

Note that the damages quoted below are before the adjustments above.

-> No roll required for a distance equal to your personal maximum (no extra effort) running high jump distance (40 in. for an average person without encumbrance)

-> +1 yard over your personal high jump distance:
DX +/-0 (average person with a 50% probability to succeed, i.e. not fall to the ground and suffer injury if a hard surface, and a 1.9% probability (i.e. critical failure) to hurt yourself for 1d on a hard surface)

+2 yard over your personal high jump distance:
DX -1 (average person with a 37.5% probability to succeed, i.e. not fall to the ground and suffer injury if a hard surface, and a 1.9% probability (i.e. critical failure) to hurt yourself for 2d on a hard surface)

+3 yards over your personal high jump distance:
DX -2 (average person with a 25.9% probability to succeed, i.e. not fall to the ground and suffer injury if a hard surface, and a 1.9% probability (i.e. critical failure) to hurt yourself for 2d on a hard surface)

+4 yards over your personal high jump distance:
DX -4 (average person with a 9.3% probability to succeed, i.e. not fall to the ground and suffer injury if a hard surface, and a 4.6% probability (i.e. critical failure) to hurt yourself for 2d on a hard surface)

+5 yards over your personal high jump distance:
DX -6 (average person with a 1.9% probability to succeed, i.e. not fall to the ground and suffer injury if a hard surface, and a 16.2% probability (i.e. critical failure) to hurt yourself for 2d on a hard surface)

+6 yards over your personal high jump distance:
DX -8 (average person with a 1.9% probability to succeed, i.e. not fall to the ground and suffer injury if a hard surface, and a 37.5% probability (i.e. critical failure) to hurt yourself for 2d on a hard surface)

+7 yards over your personal high jump distance:
DX -10 (average person with a 1.9% probability to succeed, i.e. not fall to the ground and suffer injury if a hard surface, and a 62.5% probability (i.e. critical failure) to hurt yourself for 3d on a hard surface)

+8 yards over your personal high jump distance:
DX -12 (average person with a 1.9% probability to succeed, i.e. not fall to the ground and suffer injury if a hard surface, and a 83.8.5% probability (i.e. critical failure) to hurt yourself for 3d on a hard surface)

+9 yards over your personal high jump distance:
DX -14 (average person with a 1.9% probability to succeed, i.e. not fall to the ground and suffer injury if a hard surface, and a 95.4% probability (i.e. critical failure) to hurt yourself for 3d on a hard surface)

+10 yards over your personal high jump distance:
DX -16 (average person with a 1.9% probability to succeed, i.e. not fall to the ground and suffer injury if a hard surface, and a 98.1.5% probability (i.e. critical failure) to hurt yourself for 3d on a hard surface)
I've actually seen (video) of this done, and passing the roll, too. (It was what would be considered "somewhat soft" above, it looked muddy.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by BraselC5048

Falling damage in GURPS seems to be a little low. I actually ran a group of 10 test cases, and at 15 yards and using the bleeding rules, and the fatality rate, after a 15 minute ride to the hospital, was roughly 50% - pretty much spot on.

Of course, that's for Mr. Average, with HT 10 and 10 HP. And all of them died from the bleeding. Throw in characters with HT 12 or above, and possibly Very Fit, and the risks from bleeding go down. A lot. And terminal velocity falls aren't nearly deadly enough, only 12d, or average 42 damage. Even Mr. Average has a 12.5% chance to be alive after that.

Falling damage are a little low, that is right. For a 10 HP character, on ordinary soil (which is considered as hard surface), a 15 yard fall does 4d crushing (14 points of damage, on the average). So, unless being very unlucky, he won't die immediately.

But I don't know if it has to be improved.

Indeed, the rules for climbing are quite harsh: the least failure means a fall. So, killing characters too much would make climbing rolls like D&D saving throws: "You climb this cliff? Are you sure? OK. Make your roll or die."

Suppose that one character tries to climb a 200 feet cliff without rope. Something that we see over and over in movies... In GURPS, this is a -3 climb. And since the vertical stone wall climbing speed is 4 feet/minute, it means that the player will have to make 10 climbing rolls...

Just suppose that he is an expert climber (Climbing skill 14), his effective skill is only 11. So, his chance of failing and falling are almost 100% (about 99.1% if I don't make any error in my calculations).

Are you sure that you still want to improve falling damage?

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Gollum

Suppose that one character tries to climb a 200 feet cliff without rope. Something that we see over and over in movies... In GURPS, this is a -3 climb. And since the vertical stone wall climbing speed is 4 feet/minute, it means that the player will have to make 10 climbing rolls...

Just suppose that he is an expert climber (Climbing skill 14), his effective skill is only 11. So, his chance of failing and falling are almost 100% (about 99.1% if I don't make any error in my calculations).

Unless the character is actively suicidal, he would certainly use Take Extra Time rules to ensure that each Climbing roll is made at 16 or lower, at least once he's reached a dangerous height. That means he'd take more than a day to scale the cliff, but maybe he shouldn't be free climbing with just skill 14.

Climbing is a dangerous activity, with lethal consequences for failure, so skill 14 is the minimum necessary for someone who does it for real. And that's for a character who has safety equipment and a partner. People who want to free climb the most dangerous cliffs they can find should probably have higher skill.

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by BraselC5048

Falling damage in GURPS seems to be a little low. I actually ran a group of 10 test cases, and at 15 yards and using the bleeding rules, and the fatality rate, after a 15 minute ride to the hospital, was roughly 50% - pretty much spot on.

Of course, that's for Mr. Average, with HT 10 and 10 HP. And all of them died from the bleeding. Throw in characters with HT 12 or above, and possibly Very Fit, and the risks from bleeding go down. A lot. And terminal velocity falls aren't nearly deadly enough, only 12d, or average 42 damage. Even Mr. Average has a 12.5% chance to be alive after that.

So simply put, I'm trying to find a way to put a little more splat in falling damage, so that there's more damage on impact, and the fall itself actually can kill you, rather then just the bleeding. And making terminal velocity falls actually terminal. Other then just saying "your dead." Anybody have some ideas of an elegant way to modify the stock falling damage system?

My impression is that rolling for damage is done to model the randomness of many damaging inducing hazards, e.g. gun shot wounds. If someone puts the gun right up against your body, it's surely more correct to assume the max damage is done, rather than roll for it.

Similar reasoning leads me to believe that falling damage should not be determined randomly. Maybe consider things like rolling the damage three times then taking the worst value of the three. Rolling twice as many dice as called for then only using the highest half. Or, simply assuming max damage, or some percentage of max damage that gives the fatality statistics your want.

For some of the above methods, appropriate skills could mitigate the damage by allowing for rolling only twice instead of three times, or taking n bad dice out of the dice pool before determining damage, or reducing the percentage of max damage somewhat.

[Anaraxes]

If anyone happens to have access, the full text of this article might be interesting.

From the abstract:

... 34/117 (29%) died. The mean ISS was 28.6 (median 17) and the mean height fallen 9.9m (3rd floor). In the group that died the mean height was 16.7m (5th floor). Height fallen was found to be a significant predictor of mortality (p < 0.001), as were injuries to the chest and/or head (p < 0.05). In patients with head and chest injuries, a 50% mortality rate was estimated to occur at falls from 10.5m, compared to 22.4m in those without injuries to head or chest.

Perhaps the article includes a table so we can see heights and injuries, not just the mean.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Unless the character is actively suicidal, he would certainly use Take Extra Time rules to ensure that each Climbing roll is made at 16 or lower, at least once he's reached a dangerous height. That means he'd take more than a day to scale the cliff, but maybe he shouldn't be free climbing with just skill 14.

Climbing is a dangerous activity, with lethal consequences for failure, so skill 14 is the minimum necessary for someone who does it for real. And that's for a character who has safety equipment and a partner. People who want to free climb the most dangerous cliffs they can find should probably have higher skill.

Just note that the rules do not describe a -3 climb as the "most dangerous cliff" a skilled climber can find but as an ordinary stone wall...

I perfectly know that 14 is the required level to be considered as a professional in a dangerous job, but that also means that it is not an amateur level. A character with that level of skill is supposed to be quite good.

Very highly skilled climbers (skill of 18 or more, in GURPS terms) climb much more dangerous surfaces. Alain Robert (the spider man), for instance, climbs the most difficult cliffs (level of difficulty of 7 or 8 with a difficulty level rated on a 1-9 scale) and famous buildings. In GURPS terms, the penalty would not be -3 but something like -7 or even worse... And some surfaces he climbs are higher than 600 feet (the Tour Montparnasse, the Empire State Building, the Willis Tower...). Even with an effective skill of 16+, that makes more than 30 climbing rolls and, so, only 54% chance of not falling...

Finally, side effect of GURPS climbing rules as written, if you take more time to climb a cliff, you have a bonus, sure, but you also have to make much more climbing rolls, which also lower your odds (one roll every 5 minutes)...

But no matter. The problem of this thread is not about climbing rules...

I just wanted to say that, in my humble opinion, GURPS rules are a whole. During a campaign, there is a high chance that the characters will have to make a climb without equipment and good preparation... So, if authors made falls much more dangerous, it would become too lethal.

And, last note, Alain Robert did fall. Twice. One of this fall was a 45 feet fall, on the head, due to a bad knot on his security rope. He still did survive and goes on climbing despite being handicapped (internal ear and balance problems). So, GURPS rules may be closer from the reality that we think.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

My impression is that rolling for damage is done to model the randomness of many damaging inducing hazards, e.g. gun shot wounds. If someone puts the gun right up against your body, it's surely more correct to assume the max damage is done, rather than roll for it.

Similar reasoning leads me to believe that falling damage should not be determined randomly. Maybe consider things like rolling the damage three times then taking the worst value of the three. Rolling twice as many dice as called for then only using the highest half. Or, simply assuming max damage, or some percentage of max damage that gives the fatality statistics your want.

For some of the above methods, appropriate skills could mitigate the damage by allowing for rolling only twice instead of three times, or taking n bad dice out of the dice pool before determining damage, or reducing the percentage of max damage somewhat.

I don't disagree with these house rules. I just want to add a note about a previous thread for those who didn't read it. The thread was about the falling hit location table from the third edition and the question was: why was it removed from the fourth edition?

After a quite long debate, someone came with real data about body parts which were more frequently hit during falls (I don't remember who, sorry). Then, we suddenly realize that the table was very close from GURPS ordinary hit location table! We all were amazed, but it was indisputable... Here again, GURPS may not be so far from reality...