Theres a similar problem in my campaign where we have a player who will spend FOREVER arguing out the mathematics as to why an improvised action should deal more damage. For example, shrinking an object, dropping it onto an enemy, and removing the shrink as it hits. As a DM, I usually make up an amount of damage that I feel is good for it and move on. But, He'll actually want to calculate the force of impact based on the objects mass and the acceleration of gravity, compare it to the average force that can be produced by a human swinging a weapon, and then argue that his damage should have been more because of the numbers... We've fixed this problem by just saying: "I'm just gonna pick a number and thats the damage you do" lol
My favorite reasoning to give him when he starts a "Well technically..." conversation is "Well technically you shot fireballs out of your hands earlier so it doesn't matter" lol
Make him do intelligence checks for synchronizing the timing of his releasing of the shrinking or not.
if you want to troll him hard, give the enemy a reaction dex save to get out of the way once it enlarges as no reasonable anything would stand under a falling piano without moving. Where as if an egg was falling they likely wouldn’t even realize it.
Using REDUCE/ENLARGE on thrown/dropped objects is a time honored tradition. That said, the damage is already set based upon the size of the object OR the distance of the fall.
If you want to get technical with it, the DENSITY of an object does not change, which means the AIR RESISTANCE is a constant, so whether it is a pebble or a boulder, dropping it from 100' would be 10d6 of damage, same as if the target had fallen 100' and landed on the pebble or the boulder. For thrown/projectiled only the size at impact matters, and since the force applied has already happened, the "instant" change in mass effectively robs all the momentum imparted by the initial acceleration, the object begins decelerating as soon as the throw/projectile force ends.
I'm DMing for the first time and love it for the most part. However, I do seem to be running into a problem that I'm not too sure how to handle. I'm my small group, one of them asked at the start of the campaign if physics works the same in this world as it does in our world. I had a little tinkle of a warning bell go off in my head as this was asked by a physics major but brushed it off and answer that for the most part it does.
Fast forward and now anytime his character does something or tries to achieve some sort of feat (this last encounter required they break through a large Boulder) he will perform his action and then say things along the lines of "Physics states that should completely work." It's gotten progressively up to the point where he'll argue on my need for certain skill checks because Physics. I've tried to talk to him outside of the game and have tried asking him during sessions how his character would even know about physics as his character has not studied physics before.
Well, the first answer is, it's your game. You're the DM; your word is law. And DM's law trumps all laws of all universes, including the puny laws of physics that don't even work in 24/25ths of the known planes (only on the Prime Material plane would physics work the way your Physics Major learned in school). In the other planes, all bets are off. And again, your laws trump all the laws of all the known planes including the PM plane.
Secondly, I am curious, what sort of physics argument was he giving you. You said they had to break through a boulder. I'm guessing he suggested doing something that you did not think would work, and he insisted that by physics it would, but I would like some examples of times when he proposed a rule of physics that would violate the way the game is normally run and tried to make you rule on the basis of physics rather than the rules.
Also, I agree that his character would not know the laws of modern physics.That is metagaming. But that's a separate problem. Right now I am trying to wrap my brain around what he's saying would "work" or "not work" in terms of physics that disagrees with the typical rulings a DM would ordinarily make. I know the game is not a physics simulator, but they pretty well try, so far as a simplified game system is able (simple compared to reality), to do their best to make things like attack damage, to hit, movement, etc., physically reasonable.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
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Make him do intelligence checks for synchronizing the timing of his releasing of the shrinking or not.
if you want to troll him hard, give the enemy a reaction dex save to get out of the way once it enlarges as no reasonable anything would stand under a falling piano without moving. Where as if an egg was falling they likely wouldn’t even realize it.
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Using REDUCE/ENLARGE on thrown/dropped objects is a time honored tradition. That said, the damage is already set based upon the size of the object OR the distance of the fall.
If you want to get technical with it, the DENSITY of an object does not change, which means the AIR RESISTANCE is a constant, so whether it is a pebble or a boulder, dropping it from 100' would be 10d6 of damage, same as if the target had fallen 100' and landed on the pebble or the boulder. For thrown/projectiled only the size at impact matters, and since the force applied has already happened, the "instant" change in mass effectively robs all the momentum imparted by the initial acceleration, the object begins decelerating as soon as the throw/projectile force ends.
Well, the first answer is, it's your game. You're the DM; your word is law. And DM's law trumps all laws of all universes, including the puny laws of physics that don't even work in 24/25ths of the known planes (only on the Prime Material plane would physics work the way your Physics Major learned in school). In the other planes, all bets are off. And again, your laws trump all the laws of all the known planes including the PM plane.
Secondly, I am curious, what sort of physics argument was he giving you. You said they had to break through a boulder. I'm guessing he suggested doing something that you did not think would work, and he insisted that by physics it would, but I would like some examples of times when he proposed a rule of physics that would violate the way the game is normally run and tried to make you rule on the basis of physics rather than the rules.
Also, I agree that his character would not know the laws of modern physics.That is metagaming. But that's a separate problem. Right now I am trying to wrap my brain around what he's saying would "work" or "not work" in terms of physics that disagrees with the typical rulings a DM would ordinarily make. I know the game is not a physics simulator, but they pretty well try, so far as a simplified game system is able (simple compared to reality), to do their best to make things like attack damage, to hit, movement, etc., physically reasonable.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.