Falling damage

[Samromancer]

From straight SDC beings falling or SDC beings in MDC armor...I can't seem to find it.

Didn't I see this in one of the books? If so, what page?

Thanks guys!

[Mack]

RUE, p356: one point of HP / SDC for every 20ft of fall when in body armor.

Which is actually pretty generous in my opinion. I thought it would be more than that.

[Mack]

RUE, p356: one point of HP / SDC for every 20ft of fall when in body armor.

Which is actually pretty generous in my opinion. I thought it would be more than that.

My big beef with the falling damage in Palladium is theres no limit. the way its written a juicer could fall 2000ft. and and then get up and ingauge in combat. I can't remember how far you have to drop to reach terminal vilocity, but they should put it in the game. After all at a certain point your brain cant survive a instant stop.

Human terminal velocity is reached at about 1900ft of altitude, and is about 120mph.

So if you go by the height, that's 95 points of HP / SDC. And there's an 79% chance of being stunned for 1D6 melees.
If you go by the High Speed Crash rule, that's only about 4D4 SDC, with a 65% chance of being stunned.

Yea, it's a wee bit silly.

[Shorty Lickens]

RUE, p356: one point of HP / SDC for every 20ft of fall when in body armor.

Which is actually pretty generous in my opinion. I thought it would be more than that.

My big beef with the falling damage in Palladium is theres no limit. the way its written a juicer could fall 2000ft. and and then get up and ingauge in combat. I can't remember how far you have to drop to reach terminal vilocity, but they should put it in the game. After all at a certain point your brain cant survive a instant stop.

The super hi-tech world of Rifts technology is supposed to protect your brain, assuming you are in EBA or Power Armor of course.

And Terminal Velocity is different for every object in the world. The average human stops accelerating at 120 miles per hour, BUT, they would not survive a 2000 foot drop in any case. The EBA or Power Armor protects them, but then they'd have a different Terminal Velocity, so they would still take some serious damage inside their cushioned coccoon.
And yes Juicers can survive a 2000 foot drop but they're supposed to. They're superhumans.

[Balabanto]

In my game nothing is immune to falling damage. It's 1d6 SDC/MDC per 10 feet fallen with no limit. Falling off of things is bad. Having your spells end in midair is bad. I don't care what kind of supernatural creature you are. Gravity is more powerful than you.

[Overlord Rikonius]

In the old Rifts Main Book it was one point of damage for every 10 feet, which is what I usually go by. I also usually use Kevin's common sense rules which he discusses every now and then. Just because your character has the SDC to survive something overtly traumatic (like throwing oneself on a grenade) does not necessarily mean he will. A character falling 2,000 feet (even a Juicer) is dead!

As to those who argue that people survive 2,000 foot falls all the time - check yourself there. A very small number of people have survived those sorts of falls...and it is a very rare occurance. A 20 foot fall can be fatal.

I say let the dice decide. A 2000' fall, using the armor rule mentioned above is 100 SDC damage. Pretty severe damage for most.
If you're an unarmored SDC guy falling that far, that's 200D6 SDC. 200-1200 damage. Average damamge of 700. You could conceivably survive it if you had a lot of SDC and rolled low on the damage.

Now you may wanna house rule some bleeding rules (similar to how gunshots are often treated), like say 1 point of blood loss damage per minute for every 25 falling damage or something like that so the guy in the PA "only" took 100 SDC, but he's losing 4 SDC/HP a minute until someone uses medical skills on his to stop the bleeding, a lot of which is probably internal (I just pulled these numbers out of thin air, you can use whatever numbers you think is right).
Also you way want to have them roll for how they land, make a house rule chart, whatever part they land on takes the brunt of the damage. So depending on how they land, their main body or head takes it and more likely kills them or a limb or two takes it, and they're likely crippled, but alive.

[Killer Cyborg]

In my game nothing is immune to falling damage. It's 1d6 SDC/MDC per 10 feet fallen with no limit. Falling off of things is bad. Having your spells end in midair is bad. I don't care what kind of supernatural creature you are. Gravity is more powerful than you.

This is how I have always played it too. But supposedly a strong laser can shoot through the earth because, after all, it's just SDC....

Um... even if the Earth was MDC, a strong laser enough could shoot through it. That's not a matter of it being MDC or SDC.

As for falling damage, it simply makes no sense to have it inflict MD at the same ratio as SDC.
A 10' fall suddenly does the same damage as 10+ sticks of dynamite?
I don't buy it.

[Elthbert]

Wait a second. People can't survive a 2000 ft drop? But it happens all the time in movies! Ah, man! Hollywood lied to me again.

It's an action-adventure RPG. The falling-damage rules don't apply for PCs--at least they shouldn't. There is always a vine for them to grab hold of, a broken jet pack that miraculously starts working at the last minute, or an unexplained area of reverse gravity (hey, this is Rifts Earth we're talking about; stranger things have happened) before they hit the ground and become so much ketchup stain. This is all assuming your PC didn't fall off that cliff because he decided to sleep with Emperor Prosek's daughter AFTER teaching her to become a mage and calling the Emperor a big doody head in front of all his generals on the night he was unveiling his own nude stone sculpture of himself (and then, just to add insult to injury, breaking off the genitalia).

People have on occasion survived 2000 foot or even farther drops. bur ir isn't common , of course neither are juicers.

[Elthbert]

In my game nothing is immune to falling damage. It's 1d6 SDC/MDC per 10 feet fallen with no limit. Falling off of things is bad. Having your spells end in midair is bad. I don't care what kind of supernatural creature you are. Gravity is more powerful than you.

This is how I have always played it too. But supposedly a strong laser can shoot through the earth because, after all, it's just SDC....

No, Dirt is SDC, the Earth is a mega damage structure. My players know that line by heart. I mean look at the billions of MDC done to her in the RObotech timeline and she kept on ticking, the once you reach a certian pressure rock becomes MDC

[Killer Cyborg]

In my game nothing is immune to falling damage. It's 1d6 SDC/MDC per 10 feet fallen with no limit. Falling off of things is bad. Having your spells end in midair is bad. I don't care what kind of supernatural creature you are. Gravity is more powerful than you.

This is how I have always played it too. But supposedly a strong laser can shoot through the earth because, after all, it's just SDC....

Um... even if the Earth was MDC, a strong laser enough could shoot through it. That's not a matter of it being MDC or SDC.

As for falling damage, it simply makes no sense to have it inflict MD at the same ratio as SDC.
A 10' fall suddenly does the same damage as 10+ sticks of dynamite?
I don't buy it.

They're not saying that though. They're arguing that at a certain height, it should be 10 sticks of dynamite.

Look at the bolded portion.

[Killer Cyborg]

mega damage should be inflicted before SDC damage exceeds 100, even if the MDC could take it.

I don't really see why falling damage would be different from any other kind of damage.

[Killer Cyborg]

mega damage should be inflicted before SDC damage exceeds 100, even if the MDC could take it.

I don't really see why falling damage would be different from any other kind of damage.

Because there is no way to mitigate it. Armor really doesnt do anything for you. I have been learning how to fall properly without getting hurt my whole life and I can tell you with 100% certainty that if I fell out of an airplane I would die...

EBA is padded to the same extent as a high-speed crash suit from N&S, only probably more high-tech since there's less bulk.
Magic armor protects you magically.

The problem, realism-wise, would come in with stuff like MDC leather armor, where it's neither high-tech nor magic... but realistically, that stuff wouldn't protect you from railgun bursts either.
Yet it does in the game.

Which is really my point- how is falling into the ground more likely to hurt you through armor than a few pounds of metal hurtling at you at hypersonic speeds?
Or a rock bigger than you are, chucked at you by a giant?
Or the fist of a 20' tall robot or monster?
Or the explosive force of a grenade that is the rough equivalent of 30 sticks of dynamite?

Why would the kinetic impact of a fall be any more significant than any of that?

Moreover, we're not just talking about armor, are we? We're talking about MDC creatures.
They're bullet-proof. They can shrug off a stick of dynamite with no problem. They can laugh at a modern hand grenade. The strongest man in the world can try to run them through with a spear, or chop off their head with an ax, and it just bounces off.
So why would falling 10' hurt them? Or a 100' fall? Or any other fall that inflicts less than 100 SDC worth of damage?
It doesn't make any sense, physics-wise.
A stick of dynamite has a heck of a lot more force than even a 100' fall does, and it doesn't even scratch mega-damage.

[Killer Cyborg]

Well, then I guess now you have opened the door for a whole new group of paratroopers. Just load a bunch of skelebots into an aircraft and drop them from any height. They can land anywhere and from any height and be 100% combat capable!

Actually, I just remembered that I had this conversation before, or one very close to it.
Here's what I came up with before:
viewtopic.php?p=1383754#p1383754

Dragons are MDC creatures.
Falls generally don't hurt them significantly.

My best estimate is that MDC creatures take about 1 M.D. per 100 foot that they fall.

The only known passage describing MDC creatures and falling damage is in Xiticix Invasion, p. 16.
It rules that MDC creatures that fall off of one of the Xiticix bridges takes 1 MD per every three stories (8-14', usually 10') that they fall.
Of course, this isn't a normal fall; it does more damage, presumably because of the spiky resin that covers the ground at the base of the towers.
The damage for a normal SDC character falling is 1d6 MD per 10', but if a normal SDC being falls off of one of these bridges, they take 3d6 SDC damage per story that they fall.
Which is 3x the normal amount of damage.
Which indicates that the 1 MD/3 story rule for MD beings is likely to be 3x their normal falling damage.
Which means that that distance should triple if you're just falling onto normal ground, to a ratio of 1 MD/9 story.
Which easily rounds off to 100, since a story is likely to be about 10'-12' high.

It's not as unreasonable as 1d6 MD per 10', but it's not as easy on MDC beings as the roughly 1 MD per 300' that they'd normally take.
And it's the closest thing to canon that we have on this subject.

[Lenwen]

The super hi-tech world of Rifts technology is supposed to protect your brain.

Actually there is no PA in the known megaverse with the "Ability" to "Protect" you're brain from sudden stops in velocity.

PA protects you're squishy body from certain types of damage.. but not sudden stops in Velocity for the Brain.

How can something you wear on the outside of you're body .. stop an injury .. that happens inside you're body ?

It can not.

[Killer Cyborg]

mega damage should be inflicted before SDC damage exceeds 100, even if the MDC could take it.

I don't really see why falling damage would be different from any other kind of damage.

It's just not good rping, IMO. How can a dragon leap off a cliff, fall 1000 ft, and only suffer 10 MD?

How can a creature that is on average 5x more durable than a bank vault door (only less rigid) leap off a cliff, fall 1,000', and only suffer the force equal to 40 sticks of dynamite?
Because that's all the damage such a fall would inflict.

Be very careful any time you find yourself using the words "only" and "Mega-Damage."

[Killer Cyborg]

How can something you wear on the outside of you're body .. stop an injury .. that happens inside you're body ?

Through a science that is beyond our understanding.

[mobuttu]

Also bear in mind that a fall from beyond 1000 feet will do damage directly to HP (pg. 287 RUE).

[Lenwen]

How can something you wear on the outside of you're body .. stop an injury .. that happens inside you're body ?

Through a science that is beyond our understanding.

That would be true .. but considering its rifts earth tech were talking about .. and more pointedly .. its Body Armor that we are in fact talking about ..

That is a science that is nto beyond our understanding ..

[Killer Cyborg]

How can something you wear on the outside of you're body .. stop an injury .. that happens inside you're body ?

Through a science that is beyond our understanding.

That would be true .. but considering its rifts earth tech were talking about .. and more pointedly .. its Body Armor that we are in fact talking about ..

That is a science that is nto beyond our understanding ..

a) How do you fig?
b) Okay, then- explain how it works.

[Natasha]

If it's not some kind of nanotech it's some more severe form of handwavium, I guess.

[Lenwen]

How can something you wear on the outside of you're body .. stop an injury .. that happens inside you're body ?

Through a science that is beyond our understanding.

That would be true .. but considering its rifts earth tech were talking about .. and more pointedly .. its Body Armor that we are in fact talking about ..

That is a science that is nto beyond our understanding ..

a) How do you fig?
b) Okay, then- explain how it works.

Which Items ?

Armors ?

Powered = Nuclear Powered Armors .

Nuthing to explain.

You put the armors on .. an turn it on ..

Tadaa !!!

[Sir Blayse]

I'm guessing no one here ever succeeded in making a padded container for an egg and then dropping it off of a building. It is a simple idea, I'm pretty sure in the future that might be improved to save a life. It might not stop you from taking all damage, but would be better than unprotected fall. You would probably still have a chance of broken bones and bleeding- probably a concussion as well.

As for MDC creatures, that appear to take about 1/100 th of normal damage, so that make work. The are stronger than anything on earth we can compare them to.

[Lenwen]

I'm guessing no one here ever succeeded in making a padded container for an egg and then dropping it off of a building.

All that does is make the shell not crack .. but the yoke on the inside of the egg actually DOES break from the ball shape and everything ...

Much like the brain inside of the head does when it reaches terminal velocity and suddenly stops .

[Killer Cyborg]

How can something you wear on the outside of you're body .. stop an injury .. that happens inside you're body ?

Through a science that is beyond our understanding.

That would be true .. but considering its rifts earth tech were talking about .. and more pointedly .. its Body Armor that we are in fact talking about ..

That is a science that is nto beyond our understanding ..

a) How do you fig?
b) Okay, then- explain how it works.

Which Items ?

Armors ?

Powered = Nuclear Powered Armors .

Nuthing to explain.

You put the armors on .. an turn it on ..

Tadaa !!!

So... nothing, then.

[Killer Cyborg]

I'm guessing no one here ever succeeded in making a padded container for an egg and then dropping it off of a building.

I did that in high school, using paper!
My construct was the best, but the teacher gave me a low grade because I used notebook paper instead of newspaper (even though he never actually said we had to use newspaper).

[Natasha]

I'm guessing no one here ever succeeded in making a padded container for an egg and then dropping it off of a building.

I did that in high school, using paper!
My construct was the best, but the teacher gave me a low grade because I used notebook paper instead of newspaper (even though he never actually said we had to use newspaper).

You should have known.