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How does the game determine how much damage you take? Is there a formula out there that determines how many hearts of damage you take per blocks fallen?

Raven Dreamer
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Kevin Yap
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4 Answers4

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Fall damage is calculated by calculating the distance fallen (in blocks).

Specifically, Falling Damage =(x-3)/2; where x=number of blocks fallen.

This means that you can safely drop 3 blocks at once without taking damage. Jumping gives 1½ blocks worth of upward momentum, so if you jump off another block, you can only fall one and a half blocks safely.

Ladders, water, and other blocks can mitigate this. Ladders can by cancelling your momentum (and resetting your fall distance) and water because it's water, and generally stops falling damage in any video game that fails to model surface tension!

More information available here.

Community
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Raven Dreamer
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    Things I learned in Half-Life: falling into 3 inches of water after falling 100 feet is perfectly safe. – Nick T Nov 04 '10 at 12:47
  • Could you theoretically fall for miles and then quickly place a ladder under/in front of you, just before you hit the ground? – Keaanu Nov 04 '10 at 13:14
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    @Keaanu Yes, if you have the reflexes of a jungle cat with ninja training. – sjohnston Nov 04 '10 at 14:24
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    @Keaanu: and if the micraft world was actually miles tall (its 128 meters from bedrock to max build height) – RCIX Nov 04 '10 at 23:17
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    Just make sure you don't fall onto the ladder. :P (I'm pretty sure that still kills you after a fall . . .) – Kevin Yap Nov 05 '10 at 00:33
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    @sjohnston There used to be a trick in WoW, if you were a druid, you could shift into bear as you fell and if you targeted and charged an enemy after you got low enough to charge, but before you hit the ground, you'd take no damage (and surprise the holy hell out of someone). To do it right, you had maybe a second, at the very outside. – Satanicpuppy Nov 08 '10 at 21:40
  • At least with the Halloween update you take falling damage when you decelerate to ladder speed. It's a little crazy dying in mid-air from a fall. – Loren Pechtel Nov 12 '10 at 01:07
  • @Satan: It's called a RAWR-bomb; works with both cat and bear Feral Charge. Works pretty well if there isn't much lag. – Nick T Dec 15 '10 at 21:21
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    In just cause 2, you die after falling from too high, but it's alright to jump out of an airplane > reach terminal velocity > shoot your grappling hook towards the ground to pull yourself downwards even faster than you did before > survive! Just as long as you use your grappling hook to bump into something it's all good. – Pieter888 May 27 '11 at 09:41
  • Grapling hook does wonders in Terraria too! @Pieter888 – mazunki Apr 18 '20 at 23:25
3

You can make fall safety nets doing that. Say you dig a large shaft and want to get down quickly and safely. you can put a water source block 3 meters/blocks above the ground and put a sign right below it. The floating water will lower, but not reset your speed. So make sure you place enough waterblocks between you and the ground. (3 blocks slows you down enough for practically any height).

Mathijs Henquet
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0

Damage you take = distance fallen(in blocks)-3
Source: Minecraft Wiki

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Anonymous
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0

The formula for fall damage is (x-3), but at blocks 17, 20, 23, 25, etc., you will take 1 or more less fall damage because of that last tick not counting.

The maximum fall you can survive is 23.435239 blocks.

galacticninja
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Leonardo Bolborici
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