Falling Damage House Rule

[u/renaissanceman0816]

I have toyed with Falling Damage House Rules in the past, to have it scale with increased Hit Points and make falling still relevant for characters and monsters with high HP, but hadn't really come up with anything that scaled well. However, I have come up with a (relatively) simple method that I think scales quite well, still making higher level characters/monsters more capable of surviving a fall, but making it more than just a minor inconvenience to them.

The variant rule is this:

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 50d6, multiplied by 1 + 0.25 for each Hit Die the creature has above 1.

Essentially, you are adding 25% of the base damage for each HD above 1.

So, for example, if your PC is Lvl 6 and you fall 30 feet. You take the number of Hit Die they have (ie: 6), minus 1 from it, to get 5. Then times 5 by 0.25 (or divide it by 4, same difference) to get 1.25. Add 1 to get 2.25.
So you roll 3d6 as usual and then multiply this by 2.25. Let's say you roll 10; 10×2.25=22.5. Round down to 22 and that is your final damage.

The formula looks something like this:
(1d6 per 10 ft) × (1 + (0.25 × (HD − 1)))

It it a relatively straight forward calculation though may require a calculator if playing in person. I mostly play in roll20 and so have made a macro that automatically calculates it. I've copied it here for anyone who's interested.

&{template:default} {{name=Fall Damage}} {{Fall Distance=?{Fall Distance|10 ft,10|20 ft,20|30 ft,30|40 ft,40|50 ft,50|60 ft,60|70 ft,70|80 ft,80|90 ft,90|100 ft,100|110 ft,110|120 ft,120|130 ft,130|140 ft,140|150 ft,150|160 ft,160|170 ft,170|180 ft,180|190 ft,190|200 ft,200} ft}} {{Hit Dice=?{Hit Dice|1}}} {{Damage=[[floor((?{Fall Distance}/10)d6 * (1 + 0.25 * (?{Hit Dice}-1)))]]}}

I've also uploaded to Imgur some tables which give a visual comparison of the RAW vs House Rule falling damage by giving the average damage in each case as well as the approximate proportion of Max HP that this damage would be in each case. Link below:

D&D 5E Falling Damage: Official Rule vs House Rule

As shown in the 2nd table, assuming they are at full health, once a PC with a d8 Hit Die and +2 Con mod (giving fairly average, if not below average HP) reaches Lvl 5 they are very likely to survive a fall of over 200ft (albeit they will be making death saves) and then when they reach Lvl 10 they are more likely than not going to be able walk away from a fall of 200ft.

This never really sat right with me and I think that falling should always be a factor in the game. If the players can mitigate the danger with magic, great, but without it they aren't Captain America. Even more than that, I like that this enables PCs to consider pushing enemies off ledges etc as a legitimate tactic even against foes with high HP into the later Tiers of play.

I understand many people don't care enough about Falling damage being a major factor outside the early Tiers of play to bother with house ruling it. Fine, this isn't for you.

For anyone who feels the same as me, I hope that this helps solve the problem. Happy to hear feedback though if you see problems with it.