[RPG] Can Death Ward save you from death due to damage from falling

dnd-5efallingspells

I am curious about ways of using Death Ward and wondered what happens if you cast Death Ward on yourself and then throw yourself off a great height.

For example, would it be possible to cast Death Ward and jump off a very high cliff (enough to kill the PC), fall and hit the ground, where the outcome is that she/he ends up with 1 HP instead of being dead?

This question provides an answer to dying as a result of a spell like Disintegrate, "Is there a difference between “When you are reduced to 0 hit points” and “when you would be reduced to 0 hit points”?", but, I would like a specific answer to how Death Ward interacts with damage done from falling from a great height.

Best Answer

Yep, this works

This is pretty simple and straight forward...when you fall:

A fall from a great height is one of the most common hazards facing an adventurer. 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.

You just take bludgeoning damage on impact. Nothing fancy about it--it's no different than getting hurt by a trap or by someone hitting you with a mace.

Death Ward simply says

The first time the target would drop to 0 hit points as a result of taking damage, the target instead drops to 1 hit point, and the spell ends.

So, you took damage from the fall. The damage was great enough that you would have 0 HP. Death Ward activates, and you have 1 HP.

The snarl that comes up in the difference between "are reduced" and "would be reduced" only (potentially) matters for effects that do something special when you hit 0HP (like Disintegrate turning you to dust). Falling damage doesn't do anything special to you when you hit 0HP...it just damages you like any other ordinary source of damage.