Can an Acrobatics skill check reduce falling damage?

Question

In older versions of D&D, there were rules for reducing falling damage by making a Tumble/Acrobatics skill check.

Does this type of rule exist in D&D 5e? If not, is there a common accepted version to incorporate this back into the ruleset? Thanks.

Answer 1

Neither the section on falling, nor the section on acrobatics make a reference to reducing falling damage in this way in 5e. Therefore it's pretty safe to assume (given the presence of such a mechanic in previous versions) that it's not something the designers wanted to include for 5e.

That said, there are other ways provided to prevent falling damage, namely Feather Fall, which can be cast as a reaction. Basically, there's no reason a first level caster would not prepare this one.

Miniman also points out that the closest analogue to the old rule may be the Monk's Slow Fall ability starting at 4th level which provides the ability to reduce falling damage by 5x your monk level. If you were looking for a house rule, a reduced version of this might be a good place to start.

Answer 2

No, there is no such rule. However, the Bard's College of Satire from this Unearthed Arcana does have a level 3 class feature, Tumbling Fool, with the following description:

At 3rd level, you master a variety of acrobatic techniques that allow you to evade danger. As a bonus action, you can tumble. When you tumble, you gain the following benefits for the rest of your turn:

• You gain the benefits of taking the Dash and Disengage actions.

• You gain a climbing speed equal to your current speed.

• You take half damage from falling.

So a Satire Bard could tumble as a bonus action to halve any fall damage until the end of their turn.

Answer 3

Fifth edition is quite loose about how the different skills can be used. As such, whether for example acrobatics can be used to reduce falling damage depends on the circumstances and game master adjudication, much like everything else in the game.

As such:

1. Is there a credible way of making the fall less deadly?
2. If yes, does the way benefit from the character being acrobatic?
3. If yes, how difficult would it be?
4. If there was a "no"-answer, acrobatics is not useful here. If the answers are "yes", use the answer to the third question to set the difficulty class of the roll.

In particular, acrobatics might be rolled to make acrobatic stunts such as dives and rolls (as per the skill description). In many situations these could credibly reduce falling damage. The rest is up to the game master.

Answer 4

I understand this is a very old post, but I think you can still use an acrobatics check for the fall. Just to see if the character was able to survive standing up after the fall or go prone after the fall.