How does falling work?

By zombieneighbours, in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

Posted at

zombieneighbours said:

I am capable of it. I can house rule the system to produce effects i am comfortable with. But the fact that I, a GM with twenty odd years gaming experience can patch a flaw in the ruleset to my own satisfaction, does not stop that flaw existing.

More over, if you use the tools the system gives you as it suggests you should, you get results which are markedly out wack with what it claims it should produce. You get 'fatal falls' which can't kill a PC(well...maybe an elf) and will most of the time only slightly inconveniance them..

The enviromental Damage systems work well for threats which slowly work away you, such as drowning and smoke inholation, but they are lousy at dealing with threats that deal sudden and potentially damage, such as falls.

Does it lower my enjoyment? Not especially, but thats neither here nor their with regards to it being a flawed system for adudicating fall damage.

I think where we differ in views can be summed up with the implied question in the scenario you describe: "Why would a fatal fall be anything less than fatal?"

See, you are looking for the rules to handle that. You fall from x height and take y damage which should kill you.

I on the other hand, look at that scenario and say that the character should just die. No roll. Fatal falls are fatal. Why should rules get involved.

If you look at 3ed with the viewpoint of "Rules first, Common Sense second" then yes you can end up with strange results. Some games are designed to work that way. This game is not one of them. They assume that it's the GM's job to make sure that everything makes sense before referring to the rules.

The difference is really in viewpoint. I say that everything can be handled through a GM call. You call that house-ruling, but what I'm talking about is something else. I'm not going back and changing the rules, I'm interpreting them. That interpretation may be different for different scenarios. It's based on what is going on at the moment. That's different from a house rule, which alters the rule itself and is a permanent, non-negotiable change.

Neither are better, but WHFP supports one much better than the other.

Posted at

Doc, the Weasel said:

zombieneighbours said:

I think where we differ in views can be summed up with the implied question in the scenario you describe: "Why would a fatal fall be anything less than fatal?"

See, you are looking for the rules to handle that. You fall from x height and take y damage which should kill you.

I on the other hand, look at that scenario and say that the character should just die. No roll. Fatal falls are fatal. Why should rules get involved.

If you look at 3ed with the viewpoint of "Rules first, Common Sense second" then yes you can end up with strange results. Some games are designed to work that way. This game is not one of them. They assume that it's the GM's job to make sure that everything makes sense before referring to the rules.

The difference is really in viewpoint. I say that everything can be handled through a GM call. You call that house-ruling, but what I'm talking about is something else. I'm not going back and changing the rules, I'm interpreting them. That interpretation may be different for different scenarios. It's based on what is going on at the moment. That's different from a house rule, which alters the rule itself and is a permanent, non-negotiable change.

Neither are better, but WHFP supports one much better than the other.

No, i am not looking for an 'You fall from x height and take y damage which should kill you' rule, i am entirely happy with a system that believably fills a range of catagories of fall, from minor, through catastrophic, distance does not have to play a part at all.

I have no problem with games where the part of the referees role is to alter or find novel applications of the rules to produce interesting challanges. But examples of such games usually provide a frame work of examples. 3E does not do that, it provides a system, and the system does not do what it says it does, with regards to falling. You actually have to step outside of the tool set which the system provides for making a challange more or less difficult(ie challange & fate dice) approach to the system to produce an effect that matchs with the narrrative role of certain challanges. That is an alteration to specific rules, as well as the frame work of the rule set. It sits well within the realm of the house rule(especially as it would be permanent, and non-negortiable at my table, though mitigation/increase of the threat itself would be).

Posted at

zombieneighbours said:

I already added misfortune dice, five of the bloody things, and when every single challange dice comes up double challenge and every misfortune comes up challange, you still cant kill a starting human with toughness 3 with a single lethal fall.

I am capable of house ruling, and i will do, when planning an adventure, but it's still a valid point that the system deals badly and somewhat unclearly with falls.

If environmental damage is not lethal enough for you, I would suggest using the wound cards, with the severity of the critical drawn indicating the number of wounds suffered (as per henchmen system), in addition to the critical itself. If you use this system a handful of challenge dice has the potential to become extremely lethal indeed, particularly if double banes or Chaos stars indicate that you draw two cards, challenges or single banes one.

I would also add misfortune dice according to what they're landing on (none for feather bed, several for foot-long spikes) and allow the character an Athletics test to represent them grabbing something to slow their fall and a Coordination test to land on their feet, with successes removing a challenge dice.

Personally I like using this system as the critical wound cards are quite 'flavoursome' in providing injuries for characters that are neither generic wounds nor critical in the Dark Heresy sense (oh dear, I seem to have left my right arm on that jagged rock)...

Naturally, YMMV