How to Set the Space Between the Footnote Line and First Footnote; then a Different Space Between the Footnotes

Question

Consider the code:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{lipsum}
%\setlength{\footnotesep}{15pt}
\begin{document}
A sentence.\footnote{\lipsum*[31]}
A sentence.\footnote{\lipsum*[31]}
\end{document}

which produces the footnotes:

When I rerun the code using \setlength{\footnotesep}{15pt}, I get

As you can see, the spacing between two consecutive footnotes is equivalent to the space between the footnote line and the first footnote.

But I would like to be able to separately adjust the space between (1) the footnote line and the first footnote, and (2) the space between the footnotes themselves.

QUESTION: Say that I would like to have a 10pt space for (1) and a 5pt space between consecutive footnotes. Is there a way to simply accomplish this?

Thank you.

Answer 1

Redefine the command \footnoterule to back up the excessive amount.

\let\ltxfootnoterule\footnoterule
\renewcommand\footnoterule{%
  \ltxfootnoterule
  \kern-5pt% back up
}

\documentclass{article}
\let\ltxfootnoterule\footnoterule
\renewcommand\footnoterule{%
  \ltxfootnoterule
  \kern-5pt% back up
}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\setlength{\footnotesep}{15pt}
\begin{document}
A sentence.\footnote{\lipsum*[31]}
A sentence.\footnote{\lipsum*[31]}
\end{document}