Fall Damage

Fall damage is inflicted on players that fall from a great height, and are not protected by parachutes, landing pods, or other means of arresting descent. Fall damage varies by game engine.

Vehicles
In many games, lucky players can avoid taking fall damage by holding the button and landing in a friendly or empty vehicle.

Refractor era
Players and ground vehicles can also receive fall damage from sliding uncontrollably down a slope.

Should the player land in an area with adjoining slopes, they may sometimes be kept inside the parachute, unable to move away.

Battlefield 2142
The SAB-1b Shock Absorber Boot unlock allows players to take reduced damage from falls, while also reducing stamina lost from jumping.

In rare cases, players may sometimes exit from air transports without using a landing pod, and freefall—if they aren't struck by the transport they just jumped out of and are teamkilled in the process.

Battlewalkers can pass over barriers that would stop other ground vehicles, such as the safety railings on the bridge at Suez Canal.

Battlefield: Bad Company
Players earn the "Darwin's Parachute" trophy/achievement upon discovering that parachutes were not added to the game.

Battlefield 3
Starting with this game, deploying a parachute takes time. The player may take damage or die if they don't parachute early enough.

Landing in water from a high drop (such as the Hotel at Gulf of Oman) will now kill a player.

Improved map and terrain design has mostly eliminated slope hazards.

Fall damage for infantry tends to be inconsistent, sometimes sparing players from high drops, and other times killing players from short drops that should not have caused any fall damage.

Ground vehicles take considerably less fall damage than before, though there is now the hazard of a vehicle being trapped with wheels/treads off the ground.

Curious players have discovered that ground vehicles may often survive falls that should reasonably destroy the vehicle. For instance, Humvee drivers can drive off the helipad at Damavand Peak, and will take no damage if they land on cargo containers or semi trucks. The EOD Bot has been observed to be especially resilient.

The AMTRAC apparently takes no fall damage, and will humorously bounce off the water if launched high enough. Other water-capable vehicles such as the LAV-25 and GAZ-3937 Vodnik may also have this property.