Falling in any TTRPG is a real hazard adventurers face. If your Dungeon Master likes adding elevation to their battle maps, you need to be careful or your character might find themselves plummeting straight into death saves…
…Or, mild bruising, in some cases.
In this article, you’re going to find out what fall damage is in 5e, how to calculate it, and a few other helpful tips to either present real danger to your players or remember how to keep your character alive.
- What is Fall Damage?
- How to Calculate Fall Damage
- How Do You Negate Fall Damage?
- Fall Damage Alternatives
- A Game Master’s Experience with Fall Damage in 5e
- Fall Damage FAQ
First off, let’s start with what fall damage is in Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition.
What is Fall Damage?
A creature takes 1d6 fall damage in D&D 5e for every 10 feet they fall up to a maximum 200 feet for up to 20d6 damage. For example, a creature that falls 30 feet takes 3d6 fall damage. A falling creature then lands prone unless they are immune to fall damage.
Let’s start off with how the Player’s Handbook describes fall damage on page 183:
"A fall from a great height is on of the most common hazards facing an adventurer.
At the end of a fall, a creature takes 1d6 bludgeoning damages for every 10 feet it fell, to a maximum of 20d6. The creature lands prone, unless it avoids taking damage from the fall."
And…that’s about it.
Fall damage in 5e is how much damage you take…from falling. It’s as simple as that.
How to Calculate Fall Damage in 5e
To determine fall damage in 5e, you use 1d6 for every 10 feet fallen. The maximum amount about of fall damage you can take in 5e is 20d6 or 120 damage for falling 200 feet or more.
Here’s the amount of damage a creature takes depending on how far they fall:
- 0 to 9 feet: no damage
- 10 to 19 feet: 1d6 damage
- 20 to 29 feet: 2d6 damage
- 30 to 39 feet: 3d6 damage
- 40 to 49 feet: 4d6 damage
- 50 to 59 feet: 5d6 damage
- 60 to 69 feet: 6d6 damage
- 70 to 79 feet: 7d6 damage
- 80 to 89 feet: 8d6 damage
- 90 to 99 feet: 9d6 damage
- 100 to 109 feet: 10d6 damage
- 110 to 119 feet: 11d6 damage
- 120 to 129 feet: 12d6 damage
- 130 to 139 feet: 13d6 damage
- 140 to 149 feet: 14d6 damage
- 150 to 159 feet: 15d6 damage
- 160 to 169 feet: 16d6 damage
- 170 to 179 feet: 17d6 damage
- 180 to 189 feet: 18d6 damage
- 190 to 199 feet: 19d6 damage
- 200+ feet: 20d6 damage
As you can see, calculating 5e’s fall damage is easy.
- Know how far you’re falling
- Roll one six-sided die for every 10 feet fell
- Add it all up
- Factor in any resistances or vulnerabilities
- Subtract from your Current Hit Points
It’s important to know the maximum for fall damage is 20d6. This means the absolute most fall damage you can take in D&D 5e (at least rules-as-written) is 120 points.
Now, there are ways to either reduce or negate fall damage altogether. So, let’s go over how to prevent your character’s squishy body from splattering over the ground.
How Do You Negate Fall Damage?
There are a few ways to reduce or negate fall damage in 5e.
Strictly from the rules, you’ll probably need magic to help. Spells like Feather Fall and Levitate prevent fall damage. Both of these are low-level spells. So, even though they’re kind of niche in terms of their uses, you’ll be glad your caster has them when you’re plummeting to your death.
Monks also get their Slow Fall feature at 4th level which reduces the amount of fall damage you take.
Also, any features that grant resistance to bludgeoning reduce how much fall damage you take. But remember: it can’t be resistance to bludgeoning damage from weapon attacks. If the feature explicitly states that you resist damage from a weapon attack, it doesn’t apply to fall damage because falling isn’t a weapons.
…Well, not in the strictest sense, I guess.
Fall Damage & the Acrobatics Skill
This is a bit of a house rule. But, I’ve seen a few people use some variation of it. So, I’m including it.
If you don’t like the finality of fall damage let your players make a Dexterity saving throw or roll a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to reduce the damage.
A lot of traps or damage sources allow saves to prevent or reduce damage. So, it wouldn’t be outside of the theme of DnD 5e to allow some sort of save against fall damage. Whether you elect to prevent all damage or reduce it by half is up to you.
Personally, I’d say just reduce it by half rather than prevent all fall damage. But, you do you.
Fall Damage Alternatives & House Rules
Now, one complaint I often see in regards to fall damage in 5e is the lack of realism.
Not to mention the lack of consistency in the rules themselves. The most dice you can roll for fall damage is 20d6…but a character falls way faster than that at 500 feet/round. So, why wouldn’t you roll up to 50d6? Or, even 58d6 (if you listen to Chris Perkins)?
There are loads of alternatives to fall damage in 5e.
For one, you can use the optional Massive Damage rule on page 273 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Basically, it’s a table of horrible things that happen to you if you take damage equal to or greater than half of your hit point maximum.
Now, I don’t really like this rule normally. But, it can add a bit more oomph if you want falls to present more danger to your players.
Personally, I like the idea of making it a max of 50d6 (for up to 500 feet fallen) and a Dexterity saving throw to reduce it to half. Also, for falls greater than, say, 30 feet, the Massive Damage table can come into play. Realistically, 20 foot falls are deadly to normal humans (as such, the Commoners in the Monster Manual). But, I feel like 30 feet is a good starting point to let your player characters survive short-ish falls and be the heroes they want to be.
Another fun option is the Fixing Falling Damage house rule by Eventyr. In a nutshell, their rule basis the effect of a fall on a character’s Constitution score. Not the modifier, the actual score. Which, on its own, I can appreciate since Ability Scores are only ever given love for their corresponding modifiers.
And, I have one last one, it’s both a bit more and a bit less forgiving than Eventyr’s method.
Hipsters & Dragons’ Revising Fall Damage post expands on the damage while incorporating a save. I took inspiration from this method for my own house rule because I’m a weenie and don’t like seeing my players fail. Basically, H&D implements a Hard Fall rule with a Dexterity (Acrobatics) save, maxes out the fall damage to 50d6, and sets a limit as to how far a character can fall and still make a save.
It’s brutal. But, if that’s what you’re looking for, I’ve recommend trying it in your game.
Just make sure you let your players know what fall damage rules you’ll use in your DnD 5e game.
A Game Master’s Experience with Fall Damage in 5e
Falling is a fantastic and easy-to-introduce hazard for pretty much and D&D game. There’s little any creature can do to negate or reduce the damage taken as a result of falling, so it’s a fairly prevalent danger throughout a campaign.
Look, creating engaging and unique combat encounters is difficult. Especially if you’ve run a lot of TTRPGs. Incorporating the threat of falling or falling hazards is an easy way to add a little something to your combats.
Yes, the impact of fall damage (pun intended) falls off (also intended) as the player characters level up. But, even then, taking 10d6 damage from a 100 foot cliff is 1) still a considerable amount of damage for mid- to high-level characters and 2) scary to the players. There’s an element of psychology to fall damage in 5e for the players. Sure, they might understand a 100 foot drop isn’t that big of a deal, mechanically, for their character, but they’ll probably still avoid it because it’s scary to them.
Also, players are extremely risk-averse, so they’ll want to not fall if they can help it.
This all said, I have 2 particular stories I want to share to inspire (or warn off) both players and GMs about fall damage.
First up, as a player, our GM had us fighting around this 20-is foot pit. I was playing a Circle of Spores Druid and, luckily, had thorn whip as one of my cantrips. Of course, since thorn whip can pull target creatures, I used it to yank one of the creatures we were fighting into the pit.
Next, as a Game Master, my players were investigating disappearances caused by a spider creature. This led them to an abandoned, 4-story manor over a dried out lake which bottomed out about 20 more feet below the first floor. The final confrontation was between a drow mage who flew around the manor (I’m sure you can see where this is going). This mage fell once from about 80 feet in the air all the way down to the lakebed because she failed her concentration saving throw. Luckily, that didn’t kill her…but the second, 20 foot fall did. After casting fly for a second time, she failed her concentration save again while hovering over the roof of the manor.
Bear in mind, the players were, I think 5th- or 6th-level at this point. They were also contending with the shadow demon the drow mage summoned, so their attention was split.
Now, I didn’t expect a drow mage to fail a concentration save twice, but there’s a lesson in that experience; fall damage can be dangerous even beyond the early levels. Both Game Masters and players should see how they can use their surroundings if there is an option to deal a little bit of extra damage by causing a creature or object to fall onto a creature.
As a Game Master, include some combat encounters next to a short cliff or on the rooves of 2-story houses. Even putting a battle in a dockside warehouse with crates piled up so the players (or their enemies) can pull or push the crates on top of each other.
As a player, look for opportunities to use the environment your GM has you fighting in to your advantage. See if there’s any way to force an enemy creature to fall or to have something fall on top of them. I had an Arcane Archer player character use a bursting arrow on a fairly weak catwalk in a warehouse to cause an enemy to not only get hurt from the attack but also fall 20 feet for a little bit of extra damage. Things like that not only help you deal with enemy creatures more quickly an efficiently, it also helps in making your combat encounters a little more interesting than "I attack the creature."
5e Fall Damage FAQ
Here are a few frequently asked questions about fall damage in 5e.
If you have others, please leave a comment. I’ll help as best I can.
What is the Maximum Fall Damage?
Max fall damage in 5e is 120 hit points.
Rules as written, you roll a maximum of 20d6 (for up to 200 feet fallen). So, 20 times 6 equals 120 hit points of damage.
Now, the average fall damage is ’round abouts 70 points. So, deadly for lower levels and enough to hurt at later ones.
Is Fall Damage Bludgeoning?
Yes. Fall damage in 5e is considered bludgeoning damage.
As such, spells, features, and other abilities that affect bludgeoning damage also affect damage taken from falling.
But, it’s important to note, the wording of certain abilities is important.
For example, lycanthropes are immune to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from non-magical, non-silvered weapons. Since the bludgeoning damage taken from a long fall IS NOT FROM A WEAPON, lycanthropes still take fall damage normally.
Jeremy Crawford confirmed this on Twitter in 2015.
It’s little, semantic things like that to keep an eye out for.
Does Rage Reduce Fall Damage?
Yes. The Barbarian’s Rage feature reduces fall damage by half.
This is because the wording of Rage is vague enough to cover it.
"You have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage."
Since its a blanket statement without any modifiers (like the lycanthrope example above mentioning "from non-magical, non-silvered weapons"), Barbarian’s resist fall damage in 5e while they are raging.
If you want more, Mike Mearls, former Senior Manager for the Dungeons & Dragons research and design team, confirmed that Barbarian’s resist bludgeoning damage from falling on Twitter in 2017.
How Fast Do You Fall in 5e?
This wasn’t explained in the sourcebooks until Xanathar’s Guide to Everything came out. According to page 77:
"When you fall from a great height, you instantly descend up to 500 feet. If you’re still falling on your next turn, you descend up to 500 feet at the end of that turn. This process continues until the fall ends, either because you hit the ground or the fall is otherwise halted."
So, in short, in DnD 5e, you fall at a rate of about 500 feet per 6 seconds (1 round of combat). Or, 83.3 feet per second.
Since a round of combat takes 6 seconds (PHB, p. 189) and you fall once each turn, meaning it takes a full round to come back to your turn, we can roughly estimate the fall rate from the given information.
Alternatively, Chris Perkins suggested a character falls about 580 feet per 6 seconds, or roughly 97 feet/second. So, take whichever feels better for your game.
And, that about covers fall damage in 5e.
- Fall damage is an easy environmental hazard you can add to your game
- In the base rules, you take 1d6 bludgeoning damage for every 10 feet fallen, up to 20d6 (or 200 feet)
- There are a few ways to reduce or negate fall damage through spells and other class features
- If you’re looking for a more realistic take on fall damage, alternatives exist to make it a bit deadlier
But remember; the base rules work fine and don’t require a lot of work. If you don’t want to bother with throwing a frankly ludicrous amount of dice at your players or are just starting out DMing, stick with the rules as written. There’s nothing wrong with that.
What are your falling stories? Do you use an alternative to fall damage? If so, what are your house rules? Leave a comment and we can discuss the finer points of falling in 5e.
did have a dm that let a low level wererat survive a 100 ft drop because of his immunity. but only because there were man made spikes at the bottom of the pit
That’s actually a weirdly semantic issue.
On the one hand, yes, falling does non-magical damage. It’s easy to think that means all the lycanthropes can survive a drop from any height.
But, the wording on lycanthropes states "Damage Immunities bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical WEAPONS that aren’t silvered". Technically, the bludgeoning damage from falling doesn’t count as a weapon. So, Rules as Written, these creatures would still take fall damage.
Now, how would this work with man-made spikes? Personally, I’d still say since they aren’t wielded by a creature, they would qualify as a hazard and not a weapon. But, that situation is truly up to the DM so I think either way’s fair game.