what are the rules for falling damage? i can't find them anywhere, and i know i have seen them before.

They are on Page 164 of the New SR4 Anniversary Core Rulebook

and the older SR4 has it on page 154.

I think the SR3 icon indicates that the OP is asking for the SR3 rules, which can be found in Shadowrun Companion, Revised for Third Edition page 46:

Power = ½ meters fallen, subtract half (round down ) Impact armor, subtract Athletics (meters fallen).



Lars

i could have sworn it had no such icon when i initially posted...

ok, how many times did you half the power?
yould you give me an example with numbers please? ._.

I believe we'd be looking at the following:

Character has 2 Impact Armor and and Athletics skill of 3 for all the following examples.

Examples:
2 meter fall base = 4L (2 * 2)
For character 0L (base 4 - (2 / 2) - 3)

6 meter fall base = 12M (6 * 2)
For character 8M

20 meter fall base = 40S
For character 36S

22 meter fall base = 44D
For character 40D

soo . . TECHNICALLY, you don't even black out after having fallen from 20 meters? O.o
Because in SR3, Serious Wound is serious wound, allways the same number of boxes, even if that were 1000S Damage . .
it's just kinda impossible to roll successes with target numbers that high o.O
of course, only if you have not accumulated enough stun to black out . .

The one that gets me is the bit about how your initiative is automatically 30 when falling. What's up with that?

probably because you need to move a certain distance while falling, in the same time that others are acting i guess O.o

I don't understand your numbers at all.

2 impact armor subtracts 1 from the power of the fall. The base power is 0.5 * Distance.

2 meter fall base = 1L
For character 0L

6 meter fall base = 3M
For character 2M

20 meter fall base = 10S
For character 9S

22 meter fall base = 11D
For character 10D

You also make an Athletics test against a target number of the distance fallen, and each success reduces the power by 1.

Yes, it's weird. Short falls are unlikely to do any damage; I'd give them higher power and put them on the stun track. Falls of about six stories are required to kill. That's way too far! And if you're armored and athletic you might get up and walk away! So power needs to increase across the board and some way to determine whether a fall should stun or kill should be put in their as well. And realistically the surface you land on makes a big difference; you can roll off of a pile of cotton balls, but you'd have to be scraped off of a pile of cinderblocks and pried off of a pile of 30 cm bamboo spikes set in concrete.

The 30 initiative is to ensure that the character has a "falling" action three times per turn. It's also odd, though. You can't take any actions while falling no matter how long the fall is (what happened to dropping and gunning in a cinematic way?). The rate seems to be a flat 40 meters per IP, which isn't right—you should accelerate at the rate of gravity. In one combat turn you fall 120 meters.

Let's apply some basic real-world physics. Using 9.8 m/s^2 and a 3 seconds combat turn for three 1-second IPs, in the first IP you'll drop 5 meters, in the second you'll have fallen 20 meters, and by the third you'll have fallen 44 meters. That's only a third of the rate given by the table, and that's ignoring drag.

Conclusion: these falling rules are insane.

I was going by this post




And read it as every 1/2 meter fallen = 1, which looking back...I read it wrong. Sadly all this post said was subtract Athletics (meters fallen nothing about a test though do you reduce the number of meters fallen by the rank in athletics? Example Athletics 3 makes a 10 meter fall = a 7 meter fall?)

Wish I was home where I could read my books and figure it out.