I was thkning of fall damage ending up as 6d6 if a mediam human falls 60ft. So if a average mediam human weighs about 100 lb then all you have to do is multiply the weight of a average humans fall damage by 10 to get the fall damage of a 1,000 lb object (which would be 60d6, quite a lot of damage but can just end up capping it at something like everyone else has said). And i would think that fall damage would be similar to somthing falling on you.
My basic rule of thumb for this is always Spells that do not list damage are NEVER better attacks than spells of the same level that list damage.
In the situation of dropping a blunt object on the creature, I would let it do 8d6 (Synaptic shock) with a Dex save negates - non-magical bludgeoning.
If they were trying to drop something point first, (Stalagtite, etc), I would let it do 6d10 attack roll of 1d20 + your wisdom bonus (you are NOT proficient with this attack and you are guessing where to drop it, not swinging.) Hit or nothing. A player did convince me once that the creature was right next to him, so he should use his Intelligence, not Wisdom. I let him do that, but warned a natural 1 would have the Giant's Axe he was dropping hit HIM for the same 6d10.
Adds up. A 1000 lb object dropped from 60 ft will have about 81 kJ of kinetic energy on impact. The mace in this example has 290 J of energy so the boulder has 280X the energy of the mace. Assume the collisions are ~265/280 = 95% inelastic and you result checks out. :) To put this in context for Telekinesis you need to calculate the amount of time it takes for an object to fall 60 ft. The answer is 1.96 or ~ 2 sec or about 1/3 of a round. This is actually kind of a long time and one could argue that if the object was less than 20 ft in diameter (10 ft radius), a target that *noticed* it could simply use their normal move (assuming a 30ft move) to get out of the way. Given this, its totally reasonable to give the target a dex save for dramatically reduced damage relative to what one would expect from physics.
My basic rule of thumb for this is always Spells that do not list damage are NEVER better attacks than spells of the same level that list damage.
That's how I see it, forget 'realistic', it has to fit within the logic of the game. So yeah maybe it should be an instakill but then it could just become a cheesy I win button. Also if a player tries to argue just point out that baddies can do it too, do they want to be instakilled?
Regarding the first wolf encounter - I possibly also think about hitpoints differently than other people do, I'm not really sure, but my interpretation is that you aren't necessarily literally being wounded every time you lose hitpoints, it's more of an abstract. So to me it's not that 1st level characters are superhumans that can survive being bitten by wolves repeatedly - it's that the 1st level characters are using their wits/reflexes/strength to avoid a bite at the last second, wearing down their endurance. Also, wolves are quite capable of killing a 1st level character, if things go badly!
I think you're confusing Hit Points for Armor Class. Armor Class accounts not only for the durability and protection of armor, but takes other defensive measures into account to represent a character's grand sum total ability to avoid getting hit. In older additions, a combination of Intelligence and Dexterity gave you a "Reflex" score, which was used to calculate your AC. In 5e, it's simplified to Dex only, unless you're in heavy armor, or have a class feature that says otherwise; which to be honest, makes more sense.
This is incorrect. In 4E only, there was something called Reflex Defense, which was separate from your AC and calculated by taking your Dexterity modifier OR your Intelligence modifier, whichever was higher. It applied to things that in 3rd Edition would have called for a Reflex Saving Throw, such as AoE spells like Fireball. At no time has there ever been an edition when your intelligence modifier applied to your AC as a default- there were a few prestige classes that did that, but that was a class-specific exception.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
At no time has there ever been an edition when your intelligence modifier applied to your AC as a default- there were a few prestige classes that did that, but that was a class-specific exception.
In 4th edition, if wearing light or no armor, your AC was based on the greater of Intelligence and Dexterity, the same as reflex defense.
Was it? I thought it just applied to Reflex Defense, but I didn't play much 4E. But anyway, that's the only edition of D&D where Intelligence gave you defensive modifiers as a basic rule.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
We polymorphed players into dinosaurs. They were dropped about 60 feet on top of the monsters attacking us. Damage was done to the player and target. The Player morphed back into his original form minus soon damage. That Dm will not let us do that again.
a 1000 pounds is only 450kg. Sounds like a lot, but it really isn't. An untrained human body can survive that with only a few broken bones and bruises. An adventurer would be in a much better physical state to take it. 60ft is only 18m which isn't that high either.
Exactly. Also remember that a cow usually weighs much more than that, so we're not talking about a massive object crushing you. I can personally lift at least 650 pounds with my legs at the gym with a leg press machine and I'm not even a strongman. Another thing to consider is the range of the spell. The object in question can't be moved more than 60 feet away from you. Unless you intend on having it fall down on yourself, the maximum height for making it fall on someone else, assuming they're on the same elevation as you, is 55 feet if you're 5 feet away from your target. Personally, I would rule it as a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw to avoid (not halve) bludgeoning damage equivalent to the fall damage you would have taken if you were the object in question. In other words, it shouldn't inflict more than 5d6 bludgeoning damage when used as an attack.
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Age: 33 | Sex: Male | Languages: French and English | Roles: DM and Player
Most giants in the MM throw rocks/boulders that deal either 3d10, 4d10, or 4d12 depending on the giant. Judging by the size of the giants and the size of the respective rocks shown in the MM I'd assume most of these are medium sized (as many character races are able to be up to 8ft tall and that would be around the correct size that a humanoid of proportionate size to the giants could throw decently)
A rock that is roughly 8ft or 6ft in diameter is around 1000lbs making it a medium sized rock so personally I'd say 4d10ish (I would argue against adding the 1d6 per 10ft fall damage simply because other suggestions for falling objects elsewhere don't add fall damage. Like the improvised damage table in the DMG suggests 18d10 damage for being hit by a crashing flying fortress with no mention of additional damage from fall damage. But using the base fall damage rules to determine the damage an object does instead works too.)
You are able to push/drag/lift 30x your strength score => max 600lbs@strenght 20. So even when you survive the impact, you are stuck prone underneath a 1000 lbs object.
Just for shits and grins, on Earth, a flat bottomed, 1000lb block of stone, free falling from 60 feet, would impact anyone directly under it with a force equal to slowly lowering a 93.5 ton block of stone onto that person. For anyone wanting to go the realistic route, a direct hit would result in any heavily armored warrior becoming a very flat can of spam, or the complete flattening of any body part that's in the way. This dramatic multiplication of force is why a small hammer can drive a nail, and someone swinging a 3lb mace can crush an armored helmet, with a head in it.
Any other option indicates an indirect strike of some sort. For game play purposes, one might always want to assume that the strike was glancing/indirect.
(edit: for those who want to call "Bullshit!", consider what bullets do to a body. Bullets are relatively tiny, but because a fired bullet is moving very fast, it transfers a great deal of damaging energy into the body, as the resistance of that body causes it to rapidly decelerate.
Okay, I just did a little "research" on this topic. Of course, none of this is exact by any means. However, we need some basis for comparison, right? So, I compared a 4 lb mace swung at 40 mph (58.7 ft/s) to a 1000 lb boulder dropped from 60 ft (which would hit a ground-level target at 62.14 ft/s). Assuming a couple of things are equal (which they wouldn't necessarily be in "reality", namely the duration and distance of impact), the boulder would generate a peak impact force of 531 kN, while the mace would generate approximately 2 kN. So, the boulder would generate 265.5 times the force of the mace. Assuming that this translates roughly to damage, that would mean 265d6, or 796 points of damage on average (with a potential of 1590 points). In other words, pretty well instant death (to say the least) to essentially anything; as you would expect. The only mitigating factor here would be the ability of the target to see it coming and get out of the way. So, it would be up to the DM to determine whether the spellcaster could effectively pull this off covertly (perhaps while the target was distracted?). Anyway, if completed effectively, you'd have to give it to the party (and the spellcaster) for creative problem solving, and declare the target instantly liquified.
The only problem with this, (fantastic math btw) is that this is a 5th level slot, and if you give a caster the ability to always pastify someone with that slot, that caster will never do anything different. So as a dm it’s very dumb because you can’t give them something mildly accurate without breaking the game, and if you don’t break the game you give them something disappointing.
Yes, but how do they accomplish that goal? D&D has generally been pretty coy about answering whether or not they represent how many times a character can tolerate being stabbed in the pancreas before the blood loss becomes a problem or if they're more of a representation of a character's ability to dodge, deflect, or otherwise avoid being injured. Get where I'm going here?
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
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I was thkning of fall damage ending up as 6d6 if a mediam human falls 60ft. So if a average mediam human weighs about 100 lb then all you have to do is multiply the weight of a average humans fall damage by 10 to get the fall damage of a 1,000 lb object (which would be 60d6, quite a lot of damage but can just end up capping it at something like everyone else has said). And i would think that fall damage would be similar to somthing falling on you.
My basic rule of thumb for this is always Spells that do not list damage are NEVER better attacks than spells of the same level that list damage.
In the situation of dropping a blunt object on the creature, I would let it do 8d6 (Synaptic shock) with a Dex save negates - non-magical bludgeoning.
If they were trying to drop something point first, (Stalagtite, etc), I would let it do 6d10 attack roll of 1d20 + your wisdom bonus (you are NOT proficient with this attack and you are guessing where to drop it, not swinging.) Hit or nothing. A player did convince me once that the creature was right next to him, so he should use his Intelligence, not Wisdom. I let him do that, but warned a natural 1 would have the Giant's Axe he was dropping hit HIM for the same 6d10.
Adds up. A 1000 lb object dropped from 60 ft will have about 81 kJ of kinetic energy on impact. The mace in this example has 290 J of energy so the boulder has 280X the energy of the mace. Assume the collisions are ~265/280 = 95% inelastic and you result checks out. :) To put this in context for Telekinesis you need to calculate the amount of time it takes for an object to fall 60 ft. The answer is 1.96 or ~ 2 sec or about 1/3 of a round. This is actually kind of a long time and one could argue that if the object was less than 20 ft in diameter (10 ft radius), a target that *noticed* it could simply use their normal move (assuming a 30ft move) to get out of the way. Given this, its totally reasonable to give the target a dex save for dramatically reduced damage relative to what one would expect from physics.
That's how I see it, forget 'realistic', it has to fit within the logic of the game. So yeah maybe it should be an instakill but then it could just become a cheesy I win button. Also if a player tries to argue just point out that baddies can do it too, do they want to be instakilled?
This is incorrect. In 4E only, there was something called Reflex Defense, which was separate from your AC and calculated by taking your Dexterity modifier OR your Intelligence modifier, whichever was higher. It applied to things that in 3rd Edition would have called for a Reflex Saving Throw, such as AoE spells like Fireball. At no time has there ever been an edition when your intelligence modifier applied to your AC as a default- there were a few prestige classes that did that, but that was a class-specific exception.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
In 4th edition, if wearing light or no armor, your AC was based on the greater of Intelligence and Dexterity, the same as reflex defense.
Was it? I thought it just applied to Reflex Defense, but I didn't play much 4E. But anyway, that's the only edition of D&D where Intelligence gave you defensive modifiers as a basic rule.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
60,000 ft-lbs
We polymorphed players into dinosaurs. They were dropped about 60 feet on top of the monsters attacking us. Damage was done to the player and target. The Player morphed back into his original form minus soon damage. That Dm will not let us do that again.
Exactly. Also remember that a cow usually weighs much more than that, so we're not talking about a massive object crushing you. I can personally lift at least 650 pounds with my legs at the gym with a leg press machine and I'm not even a strongman. Another thing to consider is the range of the spell. The object in question can't be moved more than 60 feet away from you. Unless you intend on having it fall down on yourself, the maximum height for making it fall on someone else, assuming they're on the same elevation as you, is 55 feet if you're 5 feet away from your target. Personally, I would rule it as a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw to avoid (not halve) bludgeoning damage equivalent to the fall damage you would have taken if you were the object in question. In other words, it shouldn't inflict more than 5d6 bludgeoning damage when used as an attack.
Age: 33 | Sex: Male | Languages: French and English | Roles: DM and Player
So a few points of reference for this.
Most giants in the MM throw rocks/boulders that deal either 3d10, 4d10, or 4d12 depending on the giant. Judging by the size of the giants and the size of the respective rocks shown in the MM I'd assume most of these are medium sized (as many character races are able to be up to 8ft tall and that would be around the correct size that a humanoid of proportionate size to the giants could throw decently)
A rock that is roughly 8ft or 6ft in diameter is around 1000lbs making it a medium sized rock so personally I'd say 4d10ish (I would argue against adding the 1d6 per 10ft fall damage simply because other suggestions for falling objects elsewhere don't add fall damage. Like the improvised damage table in the DMG suggests 18d10 damage for being hit by a crashing flying fortress with no mention of additional damage from fall damage. But using the base fall damage rules to determine the damage an object does instead works too.)
You are able to push/drag/lift 30x your strength score => max 600lbs@strenght 20. So even when you survive the impact, you are stuck prone underneath a 1000 lbs object.
edit typo
playing since 1986
Hp is not a measure of damage, but fighting capacity.
Add to that the fact everyone is hung up on 1500lbs killing people irl keep in mind average people are 4hp commoners and not leveled adventurers.
I think the dmg guide for damage is an acceptable way to run it.
The only person you're going to hit is yourself.
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Harley Davidson manufactures bikes up around 900 pounds for sake of comparison.
Just for shits and grins, on Earth, a flat bottomed, 1000lb block of stone, free falling from 60 feet, would impact anyone directly under it with a force equal to slowly lowering a 93.5 ton block of stone onto that person. For anyone wanting to go the realistic route, a direct hit would result in any heavily armored warrior becoming a very flat can of spam, or the complete flattening of any body part that's in the way. This dramatic multiplication of force is why a small hammer can drive a nail, and someone swinging a 3lb mace can crush an armored helmet, with a head in it.
Any other option indicates an indirect strike of some sort. For game play purposes, one might always want to assume that the strike was glancing/indirect.
(edit: for those who want to call "Bullshit!", consider what bullets do to a body. Bullets are relatively tiny, but because a fired bullet is moving very fast, it transfers a great deal of damaging energy into the body, as the resistance of that body causes it to rapidly decelerate.
The only problem with this, (fantastic math btw) is that this is a 5th level slot, and if you give a caster the ability to always pastify someone with that slot, that caster will never do anything different. So as a dm it’s very dumb because you can’t give them something mildly accurate without breaking the game, and if you don’t break the game you give them something disappointing.
It’s sad :(
Of course, a lot of that comes down to "what are hit points?"
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
My definition: The (raw) measured value of a character's ability to not become dead.
Yes, but how do they accomplish that goal? D&D has generally been pretty coy about answering whether or not they represent how many times a character can tolerate being stabbed in the pancreas before the blood loss becomes a problem or if they're more of a representation of a character's ability to dodge, deflect, or otherwise avoid being injured. Get where I'm going here?
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.