While a game was in session a monk used his stunning strike and stunned an earth elemental. On his next turn he went to shove it off the bridge they were fighting on. Bridge was 10ft wide. 2ft railing. The DM rules it was impossible cause the monks Lift Push Drag weight wasn’t high enough. He argued even though it was a size larger as the shove/Grapple/knock prone rules dictate, it was still far too heavy to be pushed. I’ve played a few years in 5e now and have never run into this ruling and couldn’t find anything on the internet about it. Was hoping to find insight here. Thanks
There's no rule about it or anything like that. RAW, the only rule is that a creature you're shoving can only be one size larger than the shover. This doesn't necessarily account for weight, but it does imply it, to a certain degree.
Still, this is the kind of thing that makes sense and is totally within the DM's purview to homebrew on the fly, since it makes logical sense and stops the players from just one-shotting every enemy because they happen to be standing on a bridge. But it is 100% homebrew.
That has come to be the consensus . Just wondered if that would cause a massive weakening on being able to grapple shove and knock prone. It already uses an action, and needs a strength contest. At that point a furbolg bear totem barbarian wouldn’t be able to move it until it maxed in level.
Plus how often do you fight on a bridge. As a DM I assume if I put a fight on a bridge or cliff or top of tower, someone is falling off
Yeah... if I'm putting a fight on a bridge it's because I want the players to start shoving dudes off the sides... that's kind of the point.
Also, it's only tangentially related to this conversation, but shoving/grappling doesn't need to take a full action... you can use one of the attacks from the Attack Action and replace it with a shove.
Anyway, yeah... I think it's fair to create a creature that has features that make it more difficult to grapple or shove. But I'd imagine it would work better if it was something similar to "Powerful Build", except instead of increasing carry capacity, just something like, "This creature counts as one size larger if other creatures attempt to shove or grapple them."
It's stunned so the earth elemental is basically a free standing pillar of rock, but since stunned doesn't take away the monsters animation like paralysis, I should correct and say free wobbling pillar of rock, so I'd allow the shove.
Flavorwise this is literally the sort of "mind over matter" a Monk's martial arts are supposed to allow for. I think the player was robbed because the DM just didn't want the encounter resolved so simply by the character's stunning strike. D&D does have the Chekhov's Bridge trope, if there's a combat encounter on a bridge, someone's falling.
I'm guessing this a kobold or goblin or gnome/halfing bridge otherwise, 2 foot railing, really? That's just above the knee for an average human, unless this is an environment for smalls this is like less OSHA than star wars catwalks with no railings ... think of the knee injuries. In fact, I'd probably mandate everyone fighting in this precarious situation take saving throw vs self stunning knee digs into the environment.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
See now that makes sense! He’s a new DM and I think he wasn’t expecting the monk to be able to take out the big baddie of that encounter in 2 turns and tried to railroad out of experience. It was just an odd situation. Thanks for your feedback
Too bad it wasn't an Open Hand Monk lol. FoB ability I can knock a foe back 10 feet if they fail the Dex save (which I believe they do when Stunned) In one dungeon section, I booted a total of 4 foes over ledges to their deaths. It was great and the DM enjoyed the antics as much as I did, though after any one went over, the rest worked hard to NOT end up in the same position lol.
Also to note, most DM's HATE Stunning Strike. Very, very few monsters are immune to Stun and thus far, our DM has found no Legendary action or special things a monster can do (without Homebrewing something) to end it immediately. It can really shift a battle and with a couple bad saves, can really quickly turn a big moment against a supposed BBG into a pretty easy fight. The counter though is most higher end and/or important foes have a high Con save, so it doesn't seem to land too often.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
My question would be: What is the bridge made of? While I would allow a player to at least attempt a shove, an Earth Elemental is often depicted as not having legs, its torso just rising up from the ground. As a being of the Plane of Earth, it would probably get advantage against both being knocked prone or shoved if it was "standing" on earthen construction of some kind.
I had similar thinking till I reviewed the stats. Mechanically, an Earth Elemental would only have any sort of edge derived from its written powers on a natural bridge. The Earth Elemental's Earth glide feature only works on "unworked" stone, so a construction like a bridge isn't the raw earth the EE would bond with. They're also depicted in 5e as standing on two feet, hence my suggestion of not a free standing pillar but a free wobbling pillar (on its stunned legs).
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Earth Glide is a very specific power though. While I can't read the minds of the devs who edited the Earth Elemental for 5E, my guess is that they added "unworked" to prevent easy ambushes taking place inside castles and such by magic-users once they get to sufficient level to cast the spell and once Moon Druids get to level 10. IOW, they wanted to preserve something to the DMs to limit players from being too creative with it. Just my opinion, of course,
Ultimately, it's a question of how one interprets the relationship between Elementals and their element or, alternatively, how much power one thinks Stunning Strike should have.
I mean, this would be moot had the DM not opted for a set piece on a bridge where they envisioned I'm guessing the Elemental knocking everyone else off, then got acquainted with the character's actual abilities. The DM has the luxury of shaping the battlefield, but in this case doesn't seem to have thought about it in terms of the game that would actually be played.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
A talk was had and he wanted the fear of players being knocked off but not wanting the baddies to be. Which is why he chose water elementals and a rock elemental. He didn’t realize they still could be and since he was new he just said no you can’t opposed to giving a viable reason. It was worked out.
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While a game was in session a monk used his stunning strike and stunned an earth elemental. On his next turn he went to shove it off the bridge they were fighting on. Bridge was 10ft wide. 2ft railing.
The DM rules it was impossible cause the monks Lift Push Drag weight wasn’t high enough. He argued even though it was a size larger as the shove/Grapple/knock prone rules dictate, it was still far too heavy to be pushed. I’ve played a few years in 5e now and have never run into this ruling and couldn’t find anything on the internet about it. Was hoping to find insight here. Thanks
There's no rule about it or anything like that. RAW, the only rule is that a creature you're shoving can only be one size larger than the shover. This doesn't necessarily account for weight, but it does imply it, to a certain degree.
Still, this is the kind of thing that makes sense and is totally within the DM's purview to homebrew on the fly, since it makes logical sense and stops the players from just one-shotting every enemy because they happen to be standing on a bridge. But it is 100% homebrew.
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That has come to be the consensus . Just wondered if that would cause a massive weakening on being able to grapple shove and knock prone. It already uses an action, and needs a strength contest. At that point a furbolg bear totem barbarian wouldn’t be able to move it until it maxed in level.
Plus how often do you fight on a bridge. As a DM I assume if I put a fight on a bridge or cliff or top of tower, someone is falling off
Yeah... if I'm putting a fight on a bridge it's because I want the players to start shoving dudes off the sides... that's kind of the point.
Also, it's only tangentially related to this conversation, but shoving/grappling doesn't need to take a full action... you can use one of the attacks from the Attack Action and replace it with a shove.
Anyway, yeah... I think it's fair to create a creature that has features that make it more difficult to grapple or shove. But I'd imagine it would work better if it was something similar to "Powerful Build", except instead of increasing carry capacity, just something like, "This creature counts as one size larger if other creatures attempt to shove or grapple them."
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
It's stunned so the earth elemental is basically a free standing pillar of rock, but since stunned doesn't take away the monsters animation like paralysis, I should correct and say free wobbling pillar of rock, so I'd allow the shove.
Flavorwise this is literally the sort of "mind over matter" a Monk's martial arts are supposed to allow for. I think the player was robbed because the DM just didn't want the encounter resolved so simply by the character's stunning strike. D&D does have the Chekhov's Bridge trope, if there's a combat encounter on a bridge, someone's falling.
I'm guessing this a kobold or goblin or gnome/halfing bridge otherwise, 2 foot railing, really? That's just above the knee for an average human, unless this is an environment for smalls this is like less OSHA than star wars catwalks with no railings ... think of the knee injuries. In fact, I'd probably mandate everyone fighting in this precarious situation take saving throw vs self stunning knee digs into the environment.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
See now that makes sense! He’s a new DM and I think he wasn’t expecting the monk to be able to take out the big baddie of that encounter in 2 turns and tried to railroad out of experience. It was just an odd situation. Thanks for your feedback
Hahaha! I’ll take it up to OSHA of that village. And thanks. Maybe the railings had been worn down by the waterfall right next to it. Who knows.
That was the argument as well. If a normal person and tip a sleeping moose then a well trained monk can topple a stunned rock man on two rock legs
Too bad it wasn't an Open Hand Monk lol. FoB ability I can knock a foe back 10 feet if they fail the Dex save (which I believe they do when Stunned) In one dungeon section, I booted a total of 4 foes over ledges to their deaths. It was great and the DM enjoyed the antics as much as I did, though after any one went over, the rest worked hard to NOT end up in the same position lol.
Also to note, most DM's HATE Stunning Strike. Very, very few monsters are immune to Stun and thus far, our DM has found no Legendary action or special things a monster can do (without Homebrewing something) to end it immediately. It can really shift a battle and with a couple bad saves, can really quickly turn a big moment against a supposed BBG into a pretty easy fight. The counter though is most higher end and/or important foes have a high Con save, so it doesn't seem to land too often.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
My question would be: What is the bridge made of? While I would allow a player to at least attempt a shove, an Earth Elemental is often depicted as not having legs, its torso just rising up from the ground. As a being of the Plane of Earth, it would probably get advantage against both being knocked prone or shoved if it was "standing" on earthen construction of some kind.
I had similar thinking till I reviewed the stats. Mechanically, an Earth Elemental would only have any sort of edge derived from its written powers on a natural bridge. The Earth Elemental's Earth glide feature only works on "unworked" stone, so a construction like a bridge isn't the raw earth the EE would bond with. They're also depicted in 5e as standing on two feet, hence my suggestion of not a free standing pillar but a free wobbling pillar (on its stunned legs).
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Earth Glide is a very specific power though. While I can't read the minds of the devs who edited the Earth Elemental for 5E, my guess is that they added "unworked" to prevent easy ambushes taking place inside castles and such by magic-users once they get to sufficient level to cast the spell and once Moon Druids get to level 10. IOW, they wanted to preserve something to the DMs to limit players from being too creative with it. Just my opinion, of course,
Ultimately, it's a question of how one interprets the relationship between Elementals and their element or, alternatively, how much power one thinks Stunning Strike should have.
I mean, this would be moot had the DM not opted for a set piece on a bridge where they envisioned I'm guessing the Elemental knocking everyone else off, then got acquainted with the character's actual abilities. The DM has the luxury of shaping the battlefield, but in this case doesn't seem to have thought about it in terms of the game that would actually be played.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
A talk was had and he wanted the fear of players being knocked off but not wanting the baddies to be. Which is why he chose water elementals and a rock elemental. He didn’t realize they still could be and since he was new he just said no you can’t opposed to giving a viable reason. It was worked out.