Falling Damage and Water
Falling Damage
Class note,
A Monk can use Reaction to ignore fall damage by 5x their monk level
And if Raging, a Barbarian is able to half the bludgeoning damage.
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. This is the original rule for falling, and the most general rule to follow.
If a creature falls into the space of a second creature and neither of them is Tiny, the second creature must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or be impacted by the falling creature, and any damage resulting from the fall is divided evenly between them.
| Per Tashas, see link below.
they split the damage if the creature on the ground fails a DC 15 Dex save to avoid the falling critter
Water
Jeremy Crawford (prior to the release of Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything) confirms this and offers up a personal house rule in this tweet:
“There’s no official rule for falling into water. As DM, halving the falling damage is what I typically do.”
—
As of November 2020, there is now a falling rule in a supplemental book
In Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything (p 170) it says:
A creature that falls into water or another liquid can use its reaction to make a DC 15 Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to hit the surface head or feet first.
On a successful check, any damage resulting from the fall is halved.