The Ultimate DM-Guide to: Fall Damage 5e

The adventuring party approaches a cliff or a deep hole in the ground. They fight on top of a mountain or sit on the back of a giant eagle. In all these situations the chances of falling down are genuine. Fall Damage in Dungeons and Dragons has its own rules that aren’t all too easy to understand. How is Fall Damage calculated? How can we fix the problems with Fall Damage? In this guide, by dungeon-heaven.com we will talk about “Fall Damage 5e”.

Overview

  1. Rules As Written
  2. Fall Damage 5e Calculation
  3. How Far Can You Fall without taking damage
  4. How Fast Do You Fall?
  5. Flying And Falling
  6. Additional Options For Fall Damage 5e
    1. Tips for Dungeon Masters
    2. Massive Damage
    3. Injuries
    4. No Cap On Damage
    5. Falling Into Water
      1. Athletics Diving
      2. Ignore 20
      3. Half Damage
  7. Ways To Negate Falling Damage
    1. Be A Monk
    2. Fly
    3. Cat’s Grace
    4. Barbarian Rage
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Rules As Written

The Dungeon Master’s Guide introduces fall damage as follows:

A fall from a great height is one of the most common hazards facing an adventurer. 

At the end of a fall, a creature takes 1d6 bludgeoning damage for every 10 feet it fell, 

to a maximum of 20d6. The creature lands prone unless it avoids taking damage 

from the fall.

In Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, several optional are introduced. We will get to them later.

Fall Damage 5e Calculation

  • 1d6 for every 10 feet that a creature fell
  • Maximum is capped at 20d6
  • Fall Damage is considered to be bludgeoning damage

The basic calculation is:

1d6 for every 10 feet that a creature fell

For a 120 ft. drop, this would mean 12d6 damage. The maximum is capped at 20d6 or 120 points of damage. This means a 200 ft. fall. Everything above still only deals 20d6 points of damage. If you want to you can consider falling damage as bludgeoning damage. If a PC or an NPC has resistance to this type of damage they are resistant to falling damage. Let’s say the party approaches a 30 ft. deep trap with spikes on the ground. The spikes wouldn’t deal bludgeoning damage. They deal piercing damage. As a DM you can add piercing or slashing (e.g. wires) damage.

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How Far Can You Fall Without Taking Damage?

  • Damage is dealt as soon as the creature hits the ground
  • Up to 10 ft. no fall damage at all
  • For a fall of 10 ft. or slightly above make a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check.

As soon as a player hits the ground the damage gets subtracted. Not every fall warrants rolling the hit dice. Adventurers can fall up to 10 ft. without taking damage as the damage is calculated every 10 ft. For jumps from around 10 ft. we have a nice tip for you Dungeon Masters. For a fall of 10 ft. or slightly above the players make a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check with a low DC of 10 or maybe 12. If the player makes the safe, he or she is fine. If not the player takes 1d6 damage. This way you can keep it realistic.

How Fast Do You Fall?

  • As soon as a creature falls it has a constant falling speed
  • According to Xanathar’s Guide to Everything: 500 ft. per round
  • According to Chris Perkins: 580 ft. per round

In reality, the terminal velocity is around 120 mph (~ 193 km/h). However, it takes time to build up this speed while falling. In D&D we think of the falling speed as a constant. So as soon as a creature falls it has the same falling speed.

In Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, it is said that the falling speed of any creature is 500 ft. per round. This means a falling speed of 83.3 ft. per second. If a creature tries to save itself from falling, consider the height of the drop. Imagine a player dropping 400 ft. and they want to save themselves by casting Wind Walk. The spell takes 1 minute to cast. There is just not enough time. They hit the ground and take 20d6 damage.

Dungeons and Dragons Senior Story Editor Chris Perkins suggested on Twitter that the falling speed should be 580 ft. This would mean a drop speed 96.7 ft. per second. We don’t really know why he made this proposal. If you want to you can go with any version you like. Just make sure to stick to one variant.

If a character falls 500 ft. or above, give the party a round to do something. Maybe the wizard casts Featherfall. Maybe the Druid wild shapes into a Giant Eagle and catches his or her falling ally. Or maybe the Monk is fast enough to catch his or her falling friend.

Flying And Falling

  • A flying creature that is knocked prone or whose movement speed is reduced to zero begins to fall.
  • Exception for hovering
  • Optional rule: Subtract the flying speed from the falling height.

Sometimes your players are flying through the lands. They could have used Wildshape to change into an owl or cast a spell like fly. Maybe they have magic boots or a cape that allows them to fly.

Imagine a BBEG with a longbow who shoots at our heroes. What happens to them when they are flying? There is a general ruling here. If a creature is knocked prone or its movement speed is reduced to zero it begins to fall. This is also the case when a spell that allows the creature to fly is negated. There is an exception for hovering. Enemies like Flameskulls or Beholders keep on hovering even when they are knocked prone or their movement speed is reduced to zero.

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything introduced a new rule of ruling for the fall damage of a creature that has just been flying. The idea is that a flying creature has a higher chance of surviving a fall than a non-flying creature. Let’s say a creature that normally is able to fly is knocked prone or its movement speed is reduced to zero. We subtract the creature’s flying speed from the distance it falls before taking damage. E.g. a dragon is stunned and falls 100 ft. down on the ground. Its flying speed is 60 ft. So instead of taking 10d6 damage it only takes 4d6 damage (100 ft. – 60 ft. = 40 ft.). A normal dragon has a pretty good chance of surviving this fall.

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Additional Options For Fall Damage

Tips For Dungeon Masters

In this chapter, we gathered some ways for Dungeon Masters to perfect the Fall Damage rule according to their adventuring party’s experience and the level of difficulty of the campaign.

Massive Damage

  • Applies when taking damage of half of their Maximum hit points or above from a single source
  • Massive Damage effect kicks in after failing a DC 15 Constitution saving throw

The “Massive Damage” Approach is a hard rule for what was maybe just a mistake. The depends on the size of the fall. The rule triggers when a character takes half of their Maximum hit points of damage or more from a single source. The creature must make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw to avoid the Massive Damage effect to kick in. If they fail the saving throw a d10 roll determines which effect kicks in:

D10 Result Effect
1
The character is at 0 hit points and must begin making death saving throws.
2-3
The character is at 0 hit points but is stable.
4-5
The character is stunned until their next turn.
6-7
The character can’t take reactions and has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks until their next turn.
8+
The character can’t take reactions until their next turn.

Example:

Imagine your rogue trying to climb a cliff to sneak up on a campfire. It is deep in the night and the rest of the party is asleep. Our sneaky rogue makes a crucial mistake and falls down the cliff onto a sandbank. He has no chance of saving himself and must take the damage. He has 100 maximum hit points. The 200 ft. drop is determined by 20d6. The DM rolls a total Damage of 58. This is above half of his Maximum hit points. Now he must make a Constitution saving throw with a DC of 15. Our unlucky rogue also fails this one and must roll a D10. His unlucky streak continues and he rolls a 2. So our little rogue is lying on the sandbank at 0 hit points but stable. On the next morning, the rest of the party awakes and begins the search for their friend.

Note: The Massive Damage rule can be applied to any source of damage. It is not explicitly for fall damage.

Injuries

  • Caused by nasty falls
  • Can have lasting effects on a character
  • Should be used with care

A very nasty fall can cause serious damage to a creature or a character. Even more unlucky is an injury. The Dungeon Master’s Guide has a table with suggested Lingering Injuries. As a DM you can change the effects to whatever makes the most sense in the scenario.

A result like a broken rib will reduce the walking speed until the player recovers from it. Or maybe they have an internal injury. To decide whether they can still fight or not you could make them roll a DC 15 Constitution saving throw. If the PC succeeds he or she can push through the pain and can take action until they can heal.

Breaking an arm or a leg naturally decreases the character’s walking speed or ability to wield certain weapons or climb. Imagine a fighter with a broken arm trying to swing his sword. It just wouldn’t work. However, we could make a case for a raging barbarian. Maybe he or she doesn’t even notice that his or her arm is broken and keeps swinging a gigantic axe.

Keep in mind that lingering injuries can be very harsh. Maybe only use them when the adventuring party wants an extra hard, challenging, or brutal campaign.

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No Cap On Damage

  • Keep on counting the feet on a drop
  • No limitation on 20d6

This may be the easiest rule to imply. We do not cap the damage on 20d6 here. Imagine one of our adventurers falling into a 1.000 ft. hole. According to the Rules as Written, the character can survive this fall with the right amount of hit points. A high-level character, rage, maxed out Constitution ability score, or the Tough feat reduce this damage even further. A character could fall off a flying ship and still take only half of the maximum hit points. There is no actual threat here. They are like superheroes dropping from the sky and making a three-point landing. To keep it realistic and to keep an actual threat of falling we just can not cap the damage. A 1.000 ft. drop deals 100d6 bludgeoning damage instead of 20d6. A very good example of this rule in use comes from Vox Machina.

Falling Into Water

There is no official rule on how falling into water changes the fall at all. Theoretically, we can assume the Rules as written to apply here. This means falling into water does just as much damage as falling onto concrete.

However, we can make some fixes as falling into water clearly isn’t the same as falling onto concrete. This is for sure the case for a certain kind of height.

Athletics Diving

Real athletes can dive “safely” into the water from very far heights. Your players must make an Athletics check to see if they make it safely. The result of each check determines how much of the fall be ignored when calculating the damage. So a 10 or higher ignores 10 ft., a 20 or higher ignores 20 ft., and so on. Extremely good athletes can jump from 30 ft. into the water and ignore all the damage as they make their way down safely.

We recommend this approach for adventuring parties with a lot of athletic characters. This allows your players to play to their strengths. When your party only consists of wizards they would get angry with always failing this kind of check.

Ignore 20

This approach is really good for an easy and forgiving campaign. You automatically ignore the first 20 ft. worth of falling when falling into the water. This is kind of like “Athletics Diving” but kinder to you players.

Half Damage

The easy way out if you don’t want to calculate too much. This is an unofficial suggested fix by 5e designer Jeremy Crawford.

“There’s no official rule for falling into water. As DM, halving the falling damage is what I typically do.”

Ways To Negate Falling Damage 5e

In the core rules there is no way to reduce the fall damage by just making a check. Only the optional rules allow these. However, there are some ways to reduce or even negate the whole Fall Damage in Dungeons and Dragons 5e. We have already talked about some of them. Here is a list of the most common ways to reduce the impact of Fall Damage.

Be A Monk!

It is as easy as it sounds. Just choose Monk as your character’s class. A 4th level Monk gains the ability to slow fall. It reduces the amount of damage you take from falling by five times your Monk level. As you gain this ability at 4th level this means a minimum of 20. If you are not Multiclassing you can reach a Monk Level of maximal 20. This means a reduction of 100 damage points. So for sure, a Monk can fall 160 ft. (16d6 maxes out to 96 damage points)  without taking any damage. 96 damage points are just the sage point here. It is likely to be safe to jump from a greater height as the average can be lower. For example, if you don’t cap the damage a fall from 330 feet has an average of 99 damage points. If you cap the damage it is likely to be safe to jump from any height. Remember that this is the damage that is reduced. You can still tank the rest of the damage.

Fly

Yes flying is the most common way to avoid fall damage in Dungeons and Dragons. There are many ways to fly. Maybe a character has a natural flying speed. No spell or item is required then to fly. The creature is “immune” to the risk of falling. The Flying and Falling rules from above apply here. The spell Fly can be cast proactively in a potential to fall situation. Characters can’t cast Fly as a reaction. If players are above 500 ft. However, there is enough time to cast the spell. Players should cast the spell beforehand if they are in doubt.

Cat’s Grace

Bards, Clerics, Druids, Sorcerers, Artificers, and Paladins of the oath of the glory can learn the second level spell Enhance Ability. This spell allows 6 different modes of enhancing the ability of a willing creature. Each one grants advantage on checks of a different ability score. Cat’s Grace is so to say the Dexterity mode of the spell. It makes a target immune to falling damage from 20 ft. or less. However, it doesn’t stack with other effects. In battles like rooftop chasings, this can turn out to be extremely helpful.

Barbarian Rage

The Barbarian Rage is an excellent way to negotiate falling damage. A Barbarian that is currently raging has a resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. As fall damage is considered to be bludgeoning damage the Barbarian doesn’t take damage from the fall. The feature doesn’t say “… from weapons”. This is why it can be applied here.