How To Calculate Fall Damage In DND

Some may say that the most dangerous part of Dungeons & Dragons is the Dungeon Master, but an arguably more dangerous part is the player. Many campaigns have ended with good ideas going badly, bad ideas going well, or just straight-up bad ideas going bad.

Related

Dungeons & Dragons: Tips For Dungeon Masters To Balance Encounters

As a DM, you probably want your encounters to be challenging but not impossible. Here are some tips to ensure they’re balanced.

The stronger a player character gets and the more powerful gear and skills they gain, the more they transform into a walking glass case of nitroglycerin. One way that players tend to hurt themselves beyond recognition is by falling, but there are multiple factors to take into effect when you calculate fall damage.

Updated January 13, 2025 by Jack Filsinger: With the release of the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide, some additional guidance has been given on how to improvise damage, including fall damage. We’ve updated this guide to reflect those changes.

How To Define Fall Damage

Unlike a majority of video games, Dungeons & Dragons players take realism very seriously, save for all the fantastical elements that define it. Although there is a wide range of species, each with its strengths and weaknesses, most of them will still take plenty of damage from falling a long way to the ground.

Player characters and NPCs are eligible to receive fall damage once they fall further than ten feet. However, take into effect equipment, racial bonuses, class bonuses, passive skills, and active magic before you dish out the damage dice.

How To Calculate Fall Damage

Based on the current version of Dungeons & Dragons, characters will take fall damage in batches of ten feet. After falling the first ten feet, a character has a chance to receive 1d6 of fall damage. Every additional ten feet adds another d6, for a maximum of 20d6.

Depending on the type of ground (rocky, spiky, grassy, etc.), you can add or subtract damage at your discretion. If they fall past the 20d6 mark, you don’t add any additional damage dice, so this leads to the interesting scenario where a bulky character can fall thousands of feet and still only take a little over 100 points of damage.

For flying creatures, calculations are a bit different. If anything happens to the flyer to cause it to stop flying (being knocked prone, stunned by an attack, etc.) it starts falling from the distance it was when it was stopped.

When it comes to falling during combat, you can discuss how best to treat it. A general rule of thumb is to treat falling as instantaneous. As an example, imagine a battle where two players are fighting an orc archer positioned on a watch tower. One player launches a spell at the orc, causing him to lose his balance and fall.

The watch tower is 30 feet up (so the orc would take 3d6 fall damage), but the orc can hit the ground the moment he falls, or the group can discuss a scenario where player two tries to stop his descent somehow.

How To Improvise Fall Damage

Sometimes, in the heat of battle, it can be difficult to stop the flow of things to calculate fall damage. If you need to quickly improvise fall damage, the 2024 DM’s Guide offers guidance on how to come up with damage numbers on the spot.

There are two things to keep in mind here. Character level, and the level of consequence you want to impose on your players. See the below chart for reference.

What Affects Calculating Fall Damage?

There are a number of spells, items, and abilities that can affect fall damage. Essentially, anything that grants flight prevents fall damage (provided that creature is still actively flying), and anything that provides resistance or immunity to bludgeoning also prevents fall damage. A few of these sources are listed below.

Class Abilities

Spells

Items

Species Abilities

Next

Classic Puzzles Every Good DM Uses In Dungeons & Dragons

These classic D&D puzzles will bring humor, chaos, intrigue, and more to your tabletop campaigns.