Keeping the Beast Distracted, Who Jumps?, Rules Discussion: Falling Damage
Subject: Re: The underground trail; what do you mean we go down the hole one at a time?!
Gritting his teeth against the pain, Garyth silently curses the priest. His heart nearly stops when he sees both Mission and Farron go down, and he runs forward to help Farron to his feet. Hustling the wizard to the hole, he glances down, judging the distance. It's deep, but maybe not so deep that jumping down would kill him. Almost as if in response to the thought, Garyth feels one of his broken ribs shift. If it's a choice between jumping or being food, he'll jump.
[Garyth will wait until Mission and Farron have started down the hole. At that point he'll climb down if he has time, or will jump (and make the appropriate Jump check to reduce damage) if the croc has finished with the hippogriff.]
From: Ty
Subject: The underground trail; of crocodiles and hippogriffs
[Initiative Sa'id 20, Tichenor 17, Garyth 14, Cadfael 13, Rennik 12, Mission 12, Swamp dragon 5, Farron 4, hippogriff 4]
Sa'id gets within five feet of the floor, and seeing the tense faces ringing the hole above him, decides to go ahead and drop the remaining distance. He is able to land without harming himself, though he does go sprawling onto his backside.
The wolf, looking fairly disgruntled by all the recent manhandling, dances away from the stricken monk, and continues darting in and out at the crocodile, using its speed and agility to distract the beast. Though, clearly, the wolf has greater than normal cunning. It never allows itself to get within range of the massive crocodile's jaws.
Garyth's eyes go wide when he sees the normally invincible seeming monk clamped in the dragon's jaws and shaken like a rag doll. But of even greater concern is the devastating injury to Farron's legs. Garyth rushes to his side as he struggles to get up, and helps him to move over to the hole.
Cadfael continues down the rope at his careful pace, while Sa'id curses at him in a foreign tongue from below.
Rennik sees that the top of the rope is now open, and yells to Mission to grab Tichenor while Garyth helps Farron. Mission is able to pick the wolf up one more time, then grabs the rope with one hand and slides down. His feet strike the top of Cadfael's head about 15 feet above the ground, and the cleric goes tumbling off the rope [Climb check failed]. Cadfael lands heavily on his back, and the wind is knocked out of him [damage 5]. Mission drops lightly to his feet after the priest falls, and puts Tichenor on the ground next to him. Meanwhile, Rennik looses another barrage of arrows to keep the dragon busy. [Attacks 15, 18, 23; miss, miss, hit; damage 6] Once again, a single arrow strikes home, though this time it lodges in the croc's flaring nostril and seems to do more than just annoy it.
The swamp dragon has larger foes to worry about than the halfling though. It contorts its body, and snaps at the hippogriff still perched on its broad back. [Attack 30; hit; damage 22; grapple attempt 38 vs 9, grappled] The dragon grips the hippogriff in its massive jaws, and begins shaking the creature apart. From the sounds of crunching bone, the summoned monster will not last long.
The hippogriff continues to rake the dragon even while clenched in its jaws. [Hippogriff full attack 10, 18, 16; all miss] But the creature is unable to get any leverage while being shaken about, and all of its attacks strike the crocodile's armor without effect.
[Garyth, Rennik, and Farron are all at the rope. At most, two can go down the rope in one round. So, either someone waits, or someone jumps.]
From: Karl
Subject: Re: The underground trail; of crocodiles and hippogriffs
Farron, with Garyth assisting, struggles toward the hole, each step causing sharp stabbing pain to shoot though his hips and up his back. Dully under the pain he can feel the crunch and grind of dislocated and broken bones. He pats once on his side, checking for blood, but the additional shooting pain that causes makes him not want to check again. Luckily his hand comes away free of blood, but that doesn't help the thought that he's probably bleeding inside. He wonders absently if someone will think to bring his pack.
(Farron will stay with Garyth and do as he says in terms of going down the rope first or not. He isn't going to jump unless the swamp dragon comes for him again. Either way he's dead, but by jumping he might deprive the foul thing of a free meal.)
From: Mike
Subject: Re: The underground trail; of crocodiles and hippogriffs
The hippogriff is fading fast; in a few moments the swamp dragon will be on them. Farron is in no condition to be jumping, and Rennik's small size would likely make the fall worse for him. By the time all of this has occured to Garyth, though, he is already motioning for Farron and Rennik to get down the hole. "Go!" he shouts. "Hurry!"
If any of the party's gear is in reach, he'll kick it down the hole. Otherwise he'll take the rear, climbing down next turn if there's time, jumping if not.
OOC: Ty, I noticed that your email address seems to have changed. Do you want me to change the list to reflect that, or should I keep the other one in there?
From: Scott
Subject: Re: The underground trail; of crocodiles and hippogriffs
Mission will keep one eye on the hole above, and one eye on Cadfael.
If any of the party jumps through, he'll attempt to jump at them and catch them in midair, and use slowfall to ease their way down.
OOC: Hey, it's a longshot, but my rolls have been pretty good so far. . .
Ty, is the hole big enough to let a swamp dragon through?
From: Ty
Subject: Re: The underground trail; of crocodiles and hippogriffs
Scott, there is zero chance of you pulling off that maneuver, just so you know. :)
And it doesn't look like that croc could squeeze through the hole. Nor, with a 25 foot drop on the other side, would he probably want to.
From: Scott
Subject: Re: The underground trail; of crocodiles and hippogriffs
Oh.
Shoot my hopes down, why don't you.
What if I rolled a 20?
Okay, so no jumping up in the air, ala Superman and catching Garyth-- but Mission WILL stare very hard at the hole and use his massive will to make the warrior's landing softer.
And he'll watch that yella-bellied godbotherer too.
From: Matt
Subject: Re: The underground trail; of crocodiles and hippogriffs
Rennik will hold Garyth back before the wounder soldier leans to make his jump.
"Friend Garyth, wait! You are wounded, and a bad landing from this height could cripple you. I am used to jumping from trees and softening my fall - it is a test of courage for Chorrdath children. I will be okay - you help the mage!"
(OOC: Rennik has a Jump of 8 and a Tumble of 5, which can reduce the fall damage down to a d6 with a successful roll... instead of the 3d6 it'd be for Garyth)
From: Dan
Subject: Re: The underground trail; of crocodiles and hippogriffs
OOC -- Cadfael casts Cure Serious Wounds on himself to cure 5 measly points of damage and spite the rest of the party. Ok, not really, but he seriously considers it :)
IC:
Mission's blow from above takes Cadfael by surprise and he falls heavily to the ground where he lands in an awkward heap.
Standing, he slowly and deliberately wipes blood from his mouth. Glaring at the monk he speaks thickly, clearly having bitten his tongue in the fall.
"2 days."
He then spins on his heel and retrieves his fallen pack. Ripping out the bedroll he tosses the rest aside and lays down to sleep.
From: Scott
Subject: Re: The underground trail; of crocodiles and hippogriffs
"Good idea," Mission says softly to Cadfael. "We can use your bedroll to bandage Garyth's and Farron's wounds. I'm glad to see you're thinking ahead. Go ahead and start tearing it into strips. I doubt any of us will get any rest at all these next two days, anyway."
From: Mike
Subject: Re: The underground trail; of crocodiles and hippogriffs
Garyth pauses for a moment. He should be the one to stay behind. The group needs Rennik's knowledge and skills more than they need one more strong arm. But the halfling is right, so he nods and helps Farron to the rope before descending himself.
OOC: Having ranks in Tumble would be useful. Garyth has 4 ranks in Jump for a total bonus of 7. Plus I thought it was 1d6 per 10 feet. That made more sense than 1d6 per 10 feet or fraction thereof, since I don't think 1d6 makes a lot of sense for a 5 foot fall. Either way, though, Rennik would do better. So go for yours. :)
From: Ty
Subject: Re: The underground trail; of crocodiles and hippogriffs
Yes, Mike is right. The total damage for the fall would be 2d6, or 1d6 if you can jump or tumble the first 10 feet. In the old rules, it was 1d6 for 10', and then a progression from there of 2d6 for the next 10, and 3d6 for the next 10, and so on. A 30' fall was 5d6 damage under those rules.
In the new rules, it would be a straight 3d6.
It took me a while to find the open source rules on falling damage.
From: Scott
Subject: Re: The underground trail; of crocodiles and hippogriffs
Yeah-- the Open Source for 3.5 kind of sucks in that the download seperates everything into different, seperate documents that are not easily searchable.
:feels Ty's pain:
From: Raja
Subject: Re: The underground trail; of crocodiles and hippogriffs
Ah, the joys of find-by-content indexing. ;)
IC:
Sa'id listens to Mission and Cadfael's exchange wordlessly. He feels numb. His fire had barely hurt the thing, whatever it was. Swamp dragon. If only the party had been closer together and his thoughts more collected when he awoke... a mass invisibility spell might have resolved the problem without a fuss. Now Garyth was probably dead... no. Peering up the hole, Sa'id sees the human standing at the edge. He breathes a sigh of relief.
He felt impotent, worthless. He could feel his mood darkening with each breath. If he could not drive off a mere jungle beast -- an overgrown jungle beast to be sure, but still a dumb animal -- how could he conceivably defeat as guileful and cunning a foe as Anileth guided by Kor Garesh? And Elise?
He shook his head. Hopeless. He was a lost cause.