So one player decided to use creation at 9th level and make a 25 feet cube of osmium, the densest material on Earth, and make their familiar fly above the BBEG and make a 16-tonne cube fall onto the BBEG, how much damage will this theoretically do?
There aren’t rules for large heavy objects falling onto creatures (other than fall damage is distributed between the two) In this instance, you’re free to assign a damage that feels right based off of the weight of the object and how far it falls.
But here’s the thing: I highly doubt that a familiar could carry that 16-tonne cube into the sky. Heck, a flock of familiars couldn’t. You’d need a couple dragons to lift it an inch off of the ground.
There aren’t rules for large heavy objects falling onto creatures (other than fall damage is distributed between the two) In this instance, you’re free to assign a damage that feels right based off of the weight of the object and how far it falls.
But here’s the thing: I highly doubt that a familiar could carry that 16-tonne cube into the sky. Heck, a flock of familiars couldn’t. You’d need a couple dragons to lift it an inch off of the ground.
It’s probably casting the creation spell through their familiar.
First off, there’s a 1 minute casting time. What was the BBEG doing for that minute?
Second, “the object must be of a form and material that you have seen before.”
Has the character seen a 25’ cube of osmium?
You could read the spell description as two separate things, like they must have seen a 25’ cube, and they must have seen osmium, but not necessarily a cube that size made of osmium. Even then, have they ever seen osmium in any amount? Or, honestly, a 25’ cube of anything?
It’s the rarest precious metal on earth — obviously they’re not playing on earth, so that would have an impact on its rarity. But, it wasn’t identified until 1803. I’m skeptical that even a character who can cast 9th level spells is aware of its existence, let alone has seen it. This really gets to the difference between player knowledge and character knowledge.
Finally, I don’t read the size scaling up quite like that. Base spell is a five foot cube, up a level, and I read it as 2, 5-foot cubes (5x5x10) That is not the same as 1, 10-foot cube (10x10x10). So at 9th level, you’d get 5, 5-foot cubes (5x5x25) but that is not near a 25’ cube (25x25x25). That, I concede, is a reading that is open to interpretation, but I’m pretty sure I’m right.
Now that I’ve ruined your fun. All that said, if you’re going to allow it, I agree with pantagruel. 1d6 per 10’ of fall. It makes it simple, and removes the cheesiness of the player picking something silly — it doesn’t matter if it’s osmium or stone or wood, or how much of it there is, it does the same damage.
I agree with Xalthu's comments. It is an interesting idea but there are issues with it. "The object must be of a form and material that you have seen before."
In terms of the size, the exact text is: "When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th level or higher, the cube increases by 5 feet for each slot level above 5th."
Since it says "the cube increases by 5'" .. I would tend to interpret this as 10x10, 15x15 and so on because otherwise it isn't a cube.
Creation can't be cast by a familiar since it only works with touch spells and Creation does not have a range of touch. "Finally, when you cast a spell with a range of touch, your familiar can deliver the spell as if it had cast the spell."
This gives the spell a maximum range of 30'. DM call as to whether that would be the edge of the created item or the center of it.
In terms of what effect an object has when it falls on someone - this is up to the DM. Typical falling damage is 1d6/10'. For one creature falling on another, the damage might be split. However, when it is a large object falling - the situation is entirely in the hands of the DM. Can the creature under the object dodge out of the way? Can it be hit only a glancing blow? Much like the witch under the house in the Wizard of Oz ... if a big heavy object actually crushes a creature they might not survive the encounter but in D&D this is entirely a DM call based on the circumstances.
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Anyway, in your present case, if I was running it - there are too many reasons why trying to drop a 25' cube of Osmium on a Bad Guy using Creation and a familiar isn't going to work based on how the spells are written and character knowledge even though it sounds sort of cool. I tend to run a game world that is pretty consistent in terms of how things work so wild and crazy options have to usually conform with what is possible.
I agree with Xalthu's comments. It is an interesting idea but there are issues with it. "The object must be of a form and material that you have seen before."
In terms of the size, the exact text is: "When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th level or higher, the cube increases by 5 feet for each slot level above 5th."
Since it says "the cube increases by 5'" .. I would tend to interpret this as 10x10, 15x15 and so on because otherwise it isn't a cube.
Creation can't be cast by a familiar since it only works with touch spells and Creation does not have a range of touch. "Finally, when you cast a spell with a range of touch, your familiar can deliver the spell as if it had cast the spell."
This gives the spell a maximum range of 30'. DM call as to whether that would be the edge of the created item or the center of it.
In terms of what effect an object has when it falls on someone - this is up to the DM. Typical falling damage is 1d6/10'. For one creature falling on another, the damage might be split. However, when it is a large object falling - the situation is entirely in the hands of the DM. Can the creature under the object dodge out of the way? Can it be hit only a glancing blow? Much like the witch under the house in the Wizard of Oz ... if a big heavy object actually crushes a creature they might not survive the encounter but in D&D this is entirely a DM call based on the circumstances.
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Anyway, in your present case, if I was running it - there are too many reasons why trying to drop a 25' cube of Osmium on a Bad Guy using Creation and a familiar isn't going to work based on how the spells are written and character knowledge even though it sounds sort of cool. I tend to run a game world that is pretty consistent in terms of how things work so wild and crazy options have to usually conform with what is possible.
Remember that this is a fantasy game, and physics is not always the right answer.
There are some groups where that sort of plan is good and welcome. I've heard of games where most of the players are engineers of some sort and they love that kind of physics based combat. However, if you're playing a more casual group, allowing spells to be significantly distinct based on a player's understanding of physics (which their character *might not* have- an understanding of physics isn't just a product of intelligence, it's also a product of education and exposure to people who have already done the work, which I would argue is rarer in most D&D settings than in real life) you can easily open up Pandora's Box this way.
If I have two players in a session, and one has a doctorate in physics who can explain everything they're doing with math, and the other is a fairly ordinary person who is not mathematically inclined and plays for the story, and the player with a doctorate spends half the session doing math to explain why, scientifically, the big cube should crush the bad guy flat while the story inclined player twiddles their thumbs waiting to hit the guy with a sword, then one of the players is being overindulged at the expense of the other.
I generally rule "physics" based solutions as being capped in utility to levels similar to other spells of the same level. If you want to use a 9th level slot to drop a cube of heavy metals directly on the big bad, the most I'd give you in damage is the equivalent of a 9th level spell. That keeps parity between players of different proficiency with technical mathematics, while allowing some amount of flexibility for people who want to think outside the box. That said, sometimes that requires some additional nuance; the cube isn't just damage- it might also provide cover, pin down the big bad, etc. which would require some additional balancing concerns, so I might not let it do quite the same damage as a meteor swarm.
However, as a DM, I would also want to make sure that's fine with other players. Some groups are really flexible with things happening based on math and physics, others want to stick to game mechanics as written, so if I was playing a group where rules as written is very important, 1d6 per 10' it falls is the correct ruling.
First off, there’s a 1 minute casting time. What was the BBEG doing for that minute?
The discussion ends here, honestly. A spell with a minute-long casting time is not a spell you can use in combat. If you want to set it up as a trap, consider that the DM could do the same and ask yourself how fun it would be if you were instantly killed by a random boulder trap.
I'd also add that this kind of thing is probably why a lot of high level monsters are immune/resistant to nonmagical damage. You could drop a whole mountain on a lich and it would take 0 damage.
There is no differentiation between weights of objects, different materials etc. If it's big enough to deal damage, it will deal 1d6 damage per 10 feet it falls.
There is no point in trying to apply real world physics. It's literally impossible to kill a 6th level fighter by stabbing them once with a dagger unless you have superhuman strength. There's no point in trying to get picky about the details.
OK, so thoes of you wondering how one familiar managed to lift 16 tonnes, it didn't, it is a feature of the illusion wizard where you can edit the illusion, the familiar picked up a rock created by creation, flew above the BBEG and then player used the feature to change it into a 25 foot cube of osmium. Also people saying 2d6, no, just no
Remember that this is a fantasy game, and physics is not always the right answer.
Our group if filled with nerds, one physisist, one chemist, one studying maths and 2 engineers, we like physics and have all agreed that we will follow physics as much as we can
Our group if filled with nerds, one physisist, one chemist, one studying maths and 2 engineers, we like physics and have all agreed that we will follow physics as much as we can
Very well. "You drop the 25' osmium block. It lands with an earth-shattering crash. The BBEG takes 2d6 damage while getting out of the way".
Remember that this is a fantasy game, and physics is not always the right answer.
Our group if filled with nerds, one physisist, one chemist, one studying maths and 2 engineers, we like physics and have all agreed that we will follow physics as much as we can
As you are nerds, by my calculation relativity dicatates that creating 22 cubic ft of osmium would require 9*10^22 Joules or about 100 times the earths annual energy consumption. That energy has to come from somewhere, presumably 12,000 tons of rock or some other material close at hand, then you have to think how does that energy get from the rock to location of the osmium. I can not see how that moch energy in such a small area could not result in disasterous consequences so if you want to follow physics as much as you can the effect might me something along the lines of every thing within10 miles of the creation spell takes damage equal to 10,000,000,000 divided by the number the square of the number of feet it was away from where the spell was cast. Alternatively just ban magic as it disobeys the laws of physics. (And while you are it if you are hurt you are less effective at fighting so make all attacks at disadvantage and if you have lost more than half your hit points you can not attack at all)
So one player decided to use creation at 9th level and make a 25 feet cube of osmium, the densest material on Earth, and make their familiar fly above the BBEG and make a 16-tonne cube fall onto the BBEG, how much damage will this theoretically do?
Can't use the familiar as it can only channel spells with a range of "touch".
Even if the PC has seen osmium before, and has some in hand, it is such a rare and dense material that it would not last long enough to fall an appreciable distance.
OK, so thoes of you wondering how one familiar managed to lift 16 tonnes, it didn't, it is a feature of the illusion wizard where you can edit the illusion, the familiar picked up a rock created by creation, flew above the BBEG and then player used the feature to change it into a 25 foot cube of osmium. Also people saying 2d6, no, just no
If you want to just abandon the precedent set by the rules and homebrew how much damage this would do, then that is your prerogative and it's entirely up to you. But at that point, you're asking people to just pull numbers out of a hat. You asked how much damage it would theoretically do, and the answer is "going by the rules given in the books, it deals 2d6 damage."
Falling from any distance over 199 feet up in the sky deals 70 (20d6) damage. Getting hit by a meteorite deals 70 (20d6) fire and 70 (20d6) bludgeoning damage, as per the meteor swarm spell. If what you are actually asking (despite it not being possible to do this as others have pointed out) is "how much damage is considered a lot of damage" then use the 20d6 bludgeoning from the meteor swarm.
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So one player decided to use creation at 9th level and make a 25 feet cube of osmium, the densest material on Earth, and make their familiar fly above the BBEG and make a 16-tonne cube fall onto the BBEG, how much damage will this theoretically do?
1d6 per 10' it falls.
There aren’t rules for large heavy objects falling onto creatures (other than fall damage is distributed between the two) In this instance, you’re free to assign a damage that feels right based off of the weight of the object and how far it falls.
But here’s the thing: I highly doubt that a familiar could carry that 16-tonne cube into the sky. Heck, a flock of familiars couldn’t. You’d need a couple dragons to lift it an inch off of the ground.
It’s probably casting the creation spell through their familiar.
Only spilt the party if you see something shiny.
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First off, there’s a 1 minute casting time. What was the BBEG doing for that minute?
Second, “the object must be of a form and material that you have seen before.”
Has the character seen a 25’ cube of osmium?
You could read the spell description as two separate things, like they must have seen a 25’ cube, and they must have seen osmium, but not necessarily a cube that size made of osmium. Even then, have they ever seen osmium in any amount? Or, honestly, a 25’ cube of anything?
It’s the rarest precious metal on earth — obviously they’re not playing on earth, so that would have an impact on its rarity. But, it wasn’t identified until 1803. I’m skeptical that even a character who can cast 9th level spells is aware of its existence, let alone has seen it. This really gets to the difference between player knowledge and character knowledge.
Finally, I don’t read the size scaling up quite like that. Base spell is a five foot cube, up a level, and I read it as 2, 5-foot cubes (5x5x10) That is not the same as 1, 10-foot cube (10x10x10). So at 9th level, you’d get 5, 5-foot cubes (5x5x25) but that is not near a 25’ cube (25x25x25). That, I concede, is a reading that is open to interpretation, but I’m pretty sure I’m right.
Now that I’ve ruined your fun. All that said, if you’re going to allow it, I agree with pantagruel. 1d6 per 10’ of fall. It makes it simple, and removes the cheesiness of the player picking something silly — it doesn’t matter if it’s osmium or stone or wood, or how much of it there is, it does the same damage.
I agree with Xalthu's comments. It is an interesting idea but there are issues with it. "The object must be of a form and material that you have seen before."
In terms of the size, the exact text is: "When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th level or higher, the cube increases by 5 feet for each slot level above 5th."
Since it says "the cube increases by 5'" .. I would tend to interpret this as 10x10, 15x15 and so on because otherwise it isn't a cube.
Creation can't be cast by a familiar since it only works with touch spells and Creation does not have a range of touch. "Finally, when you cast a spell with a range of touch, your familiar can deliver the spell as if it had cast the spell."
This gives the spell a maximum range of 30'. DM call as to whether that would be the edge of the created item or the center of it.
In terms of what effect an object has when it falls on someone - this is up to the DM. Typical falling damage is 1d6/10'. For one creature falling on another, the damage might be split. However, when it is a large object falling - the situation is entirely in the hands of the DM. Can the creature under the object dodge out of the way? Can it be hit only a glancing blow? Much like the witch under the house in the Wizard of Oz ... if a big heavy object actually crushes a creature they might not survive the encounter but in D&D this is entirely a DM call based on the circumstances.
-------
Anyway, in your present case, if I was running it - there are too many reasons why trying to drop a 25' cube of Osmium on a Bad Guy using Creation and a familiar isn't going to work based on how the spells are written and character knowledge even though it sounds sort of cool. I tend to run a game world that is pretty consistent in terms of how things work so wild and crazy options have to usually conform with what is possible.
I agree with Xalthu's comments. It is an interesting idea but there are issues with it. "The object must be of a form and material that you have seen before."
In terms of the size, the exact text is: "When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th level or higher, the cube increases by 5 feet for each slot level above 5th."
Since it says "the cube increases by 5'" .. I would tend to interpret this as 10x10, 15x15 and so on because otherwise it isn't a cube.
Creation can't be cast by a familiar since it only works with touch spells and Creation does not have a range of touch. "Finally, when you cast a spell with a range of touch, your familiar can deliver the spell as if it had cast the spell."
This gives the spell a maximum range of 30'. DM call as to whether that would be the edge of the created item or the center of it.
In terms of what effect an object has when it falls on someone - this is up to the DM. Typical falling damage is 1d6/10'. For one creature falling on another, the damage might be split. However, when it is a large object falling - the situation is entirely in the hands of the DM. Can the creature under the object dodge out of the way? Can it be hit only a glancing blow? Much like the witch under the house in the Wizard of Oz ... if a big heavy object actually crushes a creature they might not survive the encounter but in D&D this is entirely a DM call based on the circumstances.
-------
Anyway, in your present case, if I was running it - there are too many reasons why trying to drop a 25' cube of Osmium on a Bad Guy using Creation and a familiar isn't going to work based on how the spells are written and character knowledge even though it sounds sort of cool. I tend to run a game world that is pretty consistent in terms of how things work so wild and crazy options have to usually conform with what is possible.
Remember that this is a fantasy game, and physics is not always the right answer.
There are some groups where that sort of plan is good and welcome. I've heard of games where most of the players are engineers of some sort and they love that kind of physics based combat. However, if you're playing a more casual group, allowing spells to be significantly distinct based on a player's understanding of physics (which their character *might not* have- an understanding of physics isn't just a product of intelligence, it's also a product of education and exposure to people who have already done the work, which I would argue is rarer in most D&D settings than in real life) you can easily open up Pandora's Box this way.
If I have two players in a session, and one has a doctorate in physics who can explain everything they're doing with math, and the other is a fairly ordinary person who is not mathematically inclined and plays for the story, and the player with a doctorate spends half the session doing math to explain why, scientifically, the big cube should crush the bad guy flat while the story inclined player twiddles their thumbs waiting to hit the guy with a sword, then one of the players is being overindulged at the expense of the other.
I generally rule "physics" based solutions as being capped in utility to levels similar to other spells of the same level. If you want to use a 9th level slot to drop a cube of heavy metals directly on the big bad, the most I'd give you in damage is the equivalent of a 9th level spell. That keeps parity between players of different proficiency with technical mathematics, while allowing some amount of flexibility for people who want to think outside the box. That said, sometimes that requires some additional nuance; the cube isn't just damage- it might also provide cover, pin down the big bad, etc. which would require some additional balancing concerns, so I might not let it do quite the same damage as a meteor swarm.
However, as a DM, I would also want to make sure that's fine with other players. Some groups are really flexible with things happening based on math and physics, others want to stick to game mechanics as written, so if I was playing a group where rules as written is very important, 1d6 per 10' it falls is the correct ruling.
The discussion ends here, honestly. A spell with a minute-long casting time is not a spell you can use in combat. If you want to set it up as a trap, consider that the DM could do the same and ask yourself how fun it would be if you were instantly killed by a random boulder trap.
I'd also add that this kind of thing is probably why a lot of high level monsters are immune/resistant to nonmagical damage. You could drop a whole mountain on a lich and it would take 0 damage.
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To make the question simpler:
How much damage does a creature suffer when a heavy object falls on it?
The correct answer has already been given:
There is no differentiation between weights of objects, different materials etc. If it's big enough to deal damage, it will deal 1d6 damage per 10 feet it falls.
There is no point in trying to apply real world physics. It's literally impossible to kill a 6th level fighter by stabbing them once with a dagger unless you have superhuman strength. There's no point in trying to get picky about the details.
Incidentally, 16 tons is wrong by orders of magnitude. A 25' cube of osmium would actually weigh around 11,000 tons.
OK, so thoes of you wondering how one familiar managed to lift 16 tonnes, it didn't, it is a feature of the illusion wizard where you can edit the illusion, the familiar picked up a rock created by creation, flew above the BBEG and then player used the feature to change it into a 25 foot cube of osmium. Also people saying 2d6, no, just no
Our group if filled with nerds, one physisist, one chemist, one studying maths and 2 engineers, we like physics and have all agreed that we will follow physics as much as we can
Very well. "You drop the 25' osmium block. It lands with an earth-shattering crash. The BBEG takes 2d6 damage while getting out of the way".
As you are nerds, by my calculation relativity dicatates that creating 22 cubic ft of osmium would require 9*10^22 Joules or about 100 times the earths annual energy consumption. That energy has to come from somewhere, presumably 12,000 tons of rock or some other material close at hand, then you have to think how does that energy get from the rock to location of the osmium. I can not see how that moch energy in such a small area could not result in disasterous consequences so if you want to follow physics as much as you can the effect might me something along the lines of every thing within10 miles of the creation spell takes damage equal to 10,000,000,000 divided by the number the square of the number of feet it was away from where the spell was cast. Alternatively just ban magic as it disobeys the laws of physics. (And while you are it if you are hurt you are less effective at fighting so make all attacks at disadvantage and if you have lost more than half your hit points you can not attack at all)
Can't use the familiar as it can only channel spells with a range of "touch".
Even if the PC has seen osmium before, and has some in hand, it is such a rare and dense material that it would not last long enough to fall an appreciable distance.
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If you want to just abandon the precedent set by the rules and homebrew how much damage this would do, then that is your prerogative and it's entirely up to you. But at that point, you're asking people to just pull numbers out of a hat. You asked how much damage it would theoretically do, and the answer is "going by the rules given in the books, it deals 2d6 damage."
Falling from any distance over 199 feet up in the sky deals 70 (20d6) damage. Getting hit by a meteorite deals 70 (20d6) fire and 70 (20d6) bludgeoning damage, as per the meteor swarm spell. If what you are actually asking (despite it not being possible to do this as others have pointed out) is "how much damage is considered a lot of damage" then use the 20d6 bludgeoning from the meteor swarm.