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Just as a way to get an idea for what sort of falling I'm talking about here, I'm talking about falls from upwards of a mile or two in height. While the setting does have ways to avoid this (magical precuations, a few primitive parachutes, etc.), I would like to make a plummet from the side of a flying ship a real nailbiter. At level 12, a fighter with a +2 constitution will survive such a fall over 50% of the time (even with the death from massive damage varient). Under this varient, the odds decrease greatly, but an extremely tough character can survive.

I've also put rules in to throw things in favor of characters trying to avoid falling, as they can grab onto the side of a ship, disk, or treebranch and stop their decent before it even starts. There also also numerous, relatively cheap magic items called charms of falling which "soak" a certain distance of the fall (much like the monk's slow fall ability).

And on a societal level, the people might in general be used to being high (as children will often dare one another to hang off the edge of a disk or do similar stupid stunts), but taking the Plunge is something very frightening. In our own society, people hold fears about shark attacks, even if they are more likely to be killed by a flying champaign cork than they are to be killed by a shark. Taking the Plunge is the end of almost all stories these people have heard: the hero throws his evil foe off the edge and sends him tumbling down to take the Plunge, ending his threat once and for all. The only thing that ever seems certain to these people is that the Plunge is the end. There is no surviving such a fall. If someone does survive, it is the stuff of legends. An average of 73 damage and a DC 15 fortitude save won't even kill an unconcious level 20 wizard over 50% of the time. That really won't cut it when taking the Plunge in this setting is usually the last thing you ever do.

And on a realistic level, the percentage of people who survive falls from great heights (such as from an airplane) is so small that in a game where basically the lowest percentage that matters is from 1 to 5%, then survival rates become mathmatically insignificant.

Besides, who's to say terminal velocity even exists in this setting?

Quote:

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Frightening though it may be, and rightly so, I don’t think that a death by fear is necessarily appropriate.

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I'm not really making the fear the cause of death. The fear is just a flavor of the setting, and in order to reflect it in the mechanics, taking falls from several miles in height needs to be more deadly. I could just remove the cap from falling damage, though I'm not entirely sold on that (might increase the damage dice by one for every 50 feet beyond 200 or something).

Still, picking other peoples' brains is proving helpful.

Raidi, thanks for the input. But I am for now focusing on making this a Fortitude save as I noted in the original rule. HP cap removal is a maybe at best.

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