DM in the kobold fight club "Yes i know this is insane, but my usual players are murderhobos." Birdman in adventures in faerun "Flapping wings" (telepathy) "The enemies are overwhelming us, i'll go break their minds." Irthos Bladesinger in trouble in timberbottom (DED) (All PbP)
20d10 for an ancient, 30d10 for a wyrm, 45d10 for a great wyrm.
Shadow dragons probably deal half extra in necrotic.
May I ask what do you mean by wyrm and great wyrm?
In older editions, dragons got stronger as they aged, going from wyrmling at the youngest to great wyrm at the oldest. For example, here's the age chart from 3.5e:
Category
Age (Years)
Wyrmling
0-5
Very young
6-15
Young
16-25
Juvenile
26-50
Young adult
51-100
Adult
101-200
Mature adult
201-400
Old
401-600
Very old
601-800
Ancient
801-1,000
Wyrm
1,001-1,200
Great wyrm
1,201 or more
In 5e, dragons still get stronger as they age, however the age category chart has been greatly reduced, to the following:
Category
Age (Years)
Wyrmling
0-5
Young
6-100
Adult
101-800
Ancient
801 or more
As for OP's question, I would treat it as a claw attack except doing bludgeoning damage instead of slashing damage. It would use the same attack modifier and damage as the dragon's regular claw attack.
If it knocked a character probe and then stepped on that character.
If a dragon knocked a character prone, and then stepped on him?
It would depend on the size of the dragon, but the Instant Death rules on page 197 are likely going to come into play. Treat it as a tail attack the first round, and automatic damage on subsequent rounds.
An ancient red dragon, for example, would do a (Tail) Melee Weapon Attack: +17 to hit, reach 20 ft., one target. Hit: 19 (2d8 + 10) bludgeoning damage on the first round, and would then do 2d8+10 bludgeoning automatically as a free action to whatever poor unfortunate is caught underneath it.
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Does a player character get some special ruling on their damage if they knock down a kobold and declare their next attack as stepping on its neck? If not (which I wouldn't give one), a dragon shouldn't have any special treatment here either.
They knock you prone, then they make a claw attack to "step on you" with advantage because you are prone, which is extra dangerous because advantage boosts their odds of hitting and of scoring a critical hit, and doesn't need some misguided attempt at selective incorporation of emulation of real-world physics (and I say "misguided" because A) attempting to base rulings on real physics is always misguided because the game just doesn't work that way, and B) the same thing that tells us that a dragon should deal deadly damage when stepping on a human would also tell us that the dragon's limbs can't even support its own weight given its known physical proportions).
I kinda agree with A Aron. In general monsters should stick to their statblocks for abilities, there are no rules for smothering a target, especially considering druid could be smothering kobolds and goblins since level 2 with brown bears.
I would allow the dragon to replace one claw attack with a grapple and apply the same rules as players get. The grappled player is grappled until they escape, which means they are also prone, so any attacks the dragon does take would be with advantage.
make a charcter prone this stepping on it . I think its easy its a claw attack with advantage . witch it has two claws if you used the bite attack to make it prone . if you want it to make a body slam whelp thats a whole other tale ... no pun intended .. totally a pun intended .
this is something I dont like about 5e . not saying each monster 3 sizes and Wight makes a lot of things difficult . . the Size of the creature is about how much space it control not how much space it is .
Does a player character get some special ruling on their damage if they knock down a kobold and declare their next attack as stepping on its neck? If not (which I wouldn't give one), a dragon shouldn't have any special treatment here either.
They knock you prone, then they make a claw attack to "step on you" with advantage because you are prone, which is extra dangerous because advantage boosts their odds of hitting and of scoring a critical hit, and doesn't need some misguided attempt at selective incorporation of emulation of real-world physics (and I say "misguided" because A) attempting to base rulings on real physics is always misguided because the game just doesn't work that way, and B) the same thing that tells us that a dragon should deal deadly damage when stepping on a human would also tell us that the dragon's limbs can't even support its own weight given its known physical proportions).
Well, I am official rule lealist too. But if @NightsLastHerowants to add a rule to add flavour to the combat I dont see why not. Besides the DMG gives also a table for improvised damage in unusual situations.
Besides the DMG gives also a table for improvised damage in unusual situations.
I think that is probably the summation of my objection; the scenario described isn't what I would call an "unusual situation". I would call it "one of many possible narrations with which to describe the completely typical situation of a monster attacking a character."
So the idea of opening up a larger damage potential seems, to me, out of place because it's not something happening that can't be attempted in basically any/every scenario, and inconsistent unless similar applications are allowed so that the player characters can join the monsters in dealing damage values determined entirely by the players' ability to describe up a source of harm rather than by the character's actual game mechanics.
...and what's an "official rule lealist"? I've never heard that term before.
Besides the DMG gives also a table for improvised damage in unusual situations.
...and what's an "official rule lealist"? I've never heard that term before.
Sorry, I was with the phone, i have completely mispelled the word "loyalist". I meant I tend to stick with the official rules with very minor modifications.
But the way I see it, a claw attack and putting all the weight of a Huge or Gargantuan creature over a medium cretaure are different things. In the end to each DM his own rules.
You could also port the Crush (Ex) ability from previous editions and adapt it to 5e, although I'm still in favor of treating it as a regular claw attack with the damage type swapped (and perhaps throw in a free grapple for good measure). Not everything has to be super realistic (there's dragons and magic, after all), and PCs are pretty dang resilient at later levels (compare HP of a high level character to HP of a level 1 character). They can probably withstand the crushing force for a few rounds before succumbing.
If you're going to go for that much realism, you'd have to find out what the crushing point is on the armor. While an ancient (gargantuan) dragon might crush a warrior in full plate, what happens when an adult (huge) dragon does? Does that weigh enough to crush the forged plate armor enough to damage the wearer, what about scale armor? Obviously an adult dragon would likely still crush a mage in no armor, but would a leather-wearer be protected?
See, there's too many questions you'd have to ask.
This is among the same vein as "why can't my invisible rogue simply walk up and slit the guard's throat, instantly killing him?" Or hold person was successful, "I walk up and put my blade into the target's head, instantly killing it". It would make those already-potent spells absolutely deadly.
How is a rogue or a monk able to dodge the explosive blast of a fireball that was centered on them? It would be physically impossible to do, but we allow it in game mechanics.
The paladin is surrounded by enemies, yet gets the shield bonus to AC for every single one of their attacks?
Do you really need to be trained in Defensive Duelist (a feat) to get a bonus to AC for using a sword? Like, I've never fenced before in my life, but I'd know to try to put my sword up to block a swing... For that matter, how does a Defensive Duelist use a rapier, dagger, etc... to deflect/parry a giant slamming a two-handed maul against their head?
How the hell does a monk fall slower? 3e made sense since you had to be near a wall to slow your decent, that's just physics (albeit still somewhat magical physics). I'd also understand if it was a matter of tumbling the correct way to avoid damage (like 3e Tumble checks to reduce the fall damage by x amount of feet). I'd even understand if the monk used its ki to do it. After all, that's a power source like magic, so I'm cool with that. But no, you just simply fall slower.
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Most armor being leather, wouldn't really help at all, and I think the advantage of wearing plate may not help given the character is still being pinned into the ground. So I think at best a PC should take some damage. I think this should be more than the claw or tail attacks, as it requires the dragon to first make the character prone, and to step on the PC before the PC can get up. I think it should hurt and make the dragon scary, but not be overly deadly. Though watching PCs rush to figure out how to get their friend up would be beneficial.
(Granted I can see a claw attack if your assuming the dragon sinks his feet claws into the player.)
Assuming Con has some relation to mass, damage = attacker's Strength score + attacker's Constitution score - victim's choice of their Str score or Con score, attacker has to make an unarmed attack roll, attacker must be 2 sizes larger than victim. 3 sizes larger, remove victim's ability to reduce damage, attack roll has advantage. 4 sizes larger, double damage, forego attack roll. 5 sizes larger . . . You're dead. Only 1 size larger, unarmed strike + Con modifier. Note that this is exclusively for stepping on something smaller than you that can't get out of the way easily.
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Stepping on someone is an unarmed strike (emphasis mine):
Instead of using a weapon to make a melee weapon attack, you can use an unarmed strike: a punch, kick, head--butt, or similar forceful blow (none of which count as weapons).
All creatures can make an unarmed strike, because monsters can take any of the actions described in the Player's Handbook in addition to the specific actions on its stat block.
It doesn't. A fat, sedentary person should have less constitution than a skinny marathon runner. CON measures your endurance more than anything else. Let's look at beasts since these are "real world" creatures.
I have the Monster Manual on roll20, so I can easily do advanced searches to check this sort of thing. The CON for tiny beasts ranges from 8-12 while the CON for huge beasts ranges from 12 to 21. Note that killer whales only have a CON of 13, despite being heavier than any other real-world animal. (There are no gargantuan beasts.)
Tiny beasts grouped by CON:
Results for Category:Monsters Type:*beast* Size:Tiny GroupBy:CON
On the other hand, Strength correlates much better. The range is 1-5 for tiny beasts, 4-8 for small, 7-16 for medium (ignoring swarms), 12--21 for large and 19-25 for huge beasts. There's very little overlap except for the upper end of medium creatures with the lower end of large creatures.
Tiny:
Results for Category:Monsters Type:*beast* Size:Tiny GroupBy:STR
Do you really need to be trained in Defensive Duelist (a feat) to get a bonus to AC for using a sword? Like, I've never fenced before in my life, but I'd know to try to put my sword up to block a swing... For that matter, how does a Defensive Duelist use a rapier, dagger, etc... to deflect/parry a giant slamming a two-handed maul against their head?
I agree with most of your points, but I'd like to address this just for fun; parrying is hard. You have to react correctly to the way they're attacking using something that has the shape of a stick. If you're using a sword, you want to use the flat, because using the edge is a great way to damage it and swords are crazy expensive (relative to common weapons). Also, the ideal way to parry is to push to the side, not to oppose their force. I.e. if they're striking downwards, there's a lot less effort involved in pushing their weapon sideways. If you do oppose their attack directly, you want to use the part of your weapon close to your grip, because if they strike further away that creates a lever. But using the part close to your hands puts your hands at risk (swords help solve that with the gross guard, but maybe you're using a polearm, mace, etc.)
It's much simpler to either take a step backwards or sideways and just get out of the way, or to use a big piece of metal or wood centered on your arm or fist.
Stepping on someone is an unarmed strike (emphasis mine):
Instead of using a weapon to make a melee weapon attack, you can use an unarmed strike: a punch, kick, head--butt, or similar forceful blow (none of which count as weapons).
All creatures can make an unarmed strike, because monsters can take any of the actions described in the Player's Handbook in addition to the specific actions on its stat block.
It doesn't. A fat, sedentary person should have less constitution than a skinny marathon runner. CON measures your endurance more than anything else. Let's look at beasts since these are "real world" creatures.
I have the Monster Manual on roll20, so I can easily do advanced searches to check this sort of thing. The CON for tiny beasts ranges from 8-12 while the CON for huge beasts ranges from 12 to 21. Note that killer whales only have a CON of 13, despite being heavier than any other real-world animal. (There are no gargantuan beasts.)
Tiny beasts grouped by CON:
Results for Category:Monsters Type:*beast* Size:Tiny GroupBy:CON
On the other hand, Strength correlates much better. The range is 1-5 for tiny beasts, 4-8 for small, 7-16 for medium (ignoring swarms), 12--21 for large and 19-25 for huge beasts. There's very little overlap except for the upper end of medium creatures with the lower end of large creatures.
Tiny:
Results for Category:Monsters Type:*beast* Size:Tiny GroupBy:STR
Do you really need to be trained in Defensive Duelist (a feat) to get a bonus to AC for using a sword? Like, I've never fenced before in my life, but I'd know to try to put my sword up to block a swing... For that matter, how does a Defensive Duelist use a rapier, dagger, etc... to deflect/parry a giant slamming a two-handed maul against their head?
I agree with most of your points, but I'd like to address this just for fun; parrying is hard. You have to react correctly to the way they're attacking using something that has the shape of a stick. If you're using a sword, you want to use the flat, because using the edge is a great way to damage it and swords are crazy expensive (relative to common weapons). Also, the ideal way to parry is to push to the side, not to oppose their force. I.e. if they're striking downwards, there's a lot less effort involved in pushing their weapon sideways. If you do oppose their attack directly, you want to use the part of your weapon close to your grip, because if they strike further away that creates a lever. But using the part close to your hands puts your hands at risk (swords help solve that with the gross guard, but maybe you're using a polearm, mace, etc.)
It's much simpler to either take a step backwards or sideways and just get out of the way, or to use a big piece of metal or wood centered on your arm or fist.
I bow to your superior knowledge.
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If it knocked a character probe and then stepped on that character.
Depending on the size of the dragon, I would say something between 4d10 and 10d10 (DEX save for halve)
20d10 for an ancient, 30d10 for a wyrm, 45d10 for a great wyrm.
Shadow dragons probably deal half extra in necrotic.
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DM in the kobold fight club "Yes i know this is insane, but my usual players are murderhobos."
Birdman in adventures in faerun "Flapping wings" (telepathy) "The enemies are overwhelming us, i'll go break their minds."
Irthos Bladesinger in trouble in timberbottom (DED)
(All PbP)
In 5e, dragons still get stronger as they age, however the age category chart has been greatly reduced, to the following:
As for OP's question, I would treat it as a claw attack except doing bludgeoning damage instead of slashing damage. It would use the same attack modifier and damage as the dragon's regular claw attack.
⬐ If you thought I added value to the conversation, please let me know!
Does a player character get some special ruling on their damage if they knock down a kobold and declare their next attack as stepping on its neck? If not (which I wouldn't give one), a dragon shouldn't have any special treatment here either.
They knock you prone, then they make a claw attack to "step on you" with advantage because you are prone, which is extra dangerous because advantage boosts their odds of hitting and of scoring a critical hit, and doesn't need some misguided attempt at selective incorporation of emulation of real-world physics (and I say "misguided" because A) attempting to base rulings on real physics is always misguided because the game just doesn't work that way, and B) the same thing that tells us that a dragon should deal deadly damage when stepping on a human would also tell us that the dragon's limbs can't even support its own weight given its known physical proportions).
I kinda agree with A Aron. In general monsters should stick to their statblocks for abilities, there are no rules for smothering a target, especially considering druid could be smothering kobolds and goblins since level 2 with brown bears.
I would allow the dragon to replace one claw attack with a grapple and apply the same rules as players get. The grappled player is grappled until they escape, which means they are also prone, so any attacks the dragon does take would be with advantage.
make a charcter prone this stepping on it . I think its easy its a claw attack with advantage . witch it has two claws if you used the bite attack to make it prone .
if you want it to make a body slam whelp thats a whole other tale ... no pun intended .. totally a pun intended .
this is something I dont like about 5e . not saying each monster 3 sizes and Wight makes a lot of things difficult . . the Size of the creature is about how much space it control not how much space it is .
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D&D Beyond FoundersMy rule of thumb for such situation is usually, "How can I resolve this with minimum downtime for the game?"
A standard Claw attack or Tail attack would seem the most obvious.
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You could also port the Crush (Ex) ability from previous editions and adapt it to 5e, although I'm still in favor of treating it as a regular claw attack with the damage type swapped (and perhaps throw in a free grapple for good measure). Not everything has to be super realistic (there's dragons and magic, after all), and PCs are pretty dang resilient at later levels (compare HP of a high level character to HP of a level 1 character). They can probably withstand the crushing force for a few rounds before succumbing.
If you're going to go for that much realism, you'd have to find out what the crushing point is on the armor. While an ancient (gargantuan) dragon might crush a warrior in full plate, what happens when an adult (huge) dragon does? Does that weigh enough to crush the forged plate armor enough to damage the wearer, what about scale armor? Obviously an adult dragon would likely still crush a mage in no armor, but would a leather-wearer be protected?
See, there's too many questions you'd have to ask.
This is among the same vein as "why can't my invisible rogue simply walk up and slit the guard's throat, instantly killing him?" Or hold person was successful, "I walk up and put my blade into the target's head, instantly killing it". It would make those already-potent spells absolutely deadly.
How is a rogue or a monk able to dodge the explosive blast of a fireball that was centered on them? It would be physically impossible to do, but we allow it in game mechanics.
The paladin is surrounded by enemies, yet gets the shield bonus to AC for every single one of their attacks?
Do you really need to be trained in Defensive Duelist (a feat) to get a bonus to AC for using a sword? Like, I've never fenced before in my life, but I'd know to try to put my sword up to block a swing... For that matter, how does a Defensive Duelist use a rapier, dagger, etc... to deflect/parry a giant slamming a two-handed maul against their head?
How the hell does a monk fall slower? 3e made sense since you had to be near a wall to slow your decent, that's just physics (albeit still somewhat magical physics). I'd also understand if it was a matter of tumbling the correct way to avoid damage (like 3e Tumble checks to reduce the fall damage by x amount of feet). I'd even understand if the monk used its ki to do it. After all, that's a power source like magic, so I'm cool with that. But no, you just simply fall slower.
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Most armor being leather, wouldn't really help at all, and I think the advantage of wearing plate may not help given the character is still being pinned into the ground. So I think at best a PC should take some damage. I think this should be more than the claw or tail attacks, as it requires the dragon to first make the character prone, and to step on the PC before the PC can get up. I think it should hurt and make the dragon scary, but not be overly deadly. Though watching PCs rush to figure out how to get their friend up would be beneficial.
(Granted I can see a claw attack if your assuming the dragon sinks his feet claws into the player.)
Assuming Con has some relation to mass, damage = attacker's Strength score + attacker's Constitution score - victim's choice of their Str score or Con score, attacker has to make an unarmed attack roll, attacker must be 2 sizes larger than victim. 3 sizes larger, remove victim's ability to reduce damage, attack roll has advantage. 4 sizes larger, double damage, forego attack roll. 5 sizes larger . . . You're dead. Only 1 size larger, unarmed strike + Con modifier. Note that this is exclusively for stepping on something smaller than you that can't get out of the way easily.
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Tiny beasts grouped by CON:
Results for Category:Monsters Type:*beast* Size:Tiny GroupBy:CON
8
9
10
11
12
Huge beasts grouped by CON:
Results for Category:Monsters Type:*beast* Size:Huge GroupBy:CON
12
13
14
15
17
18
19
21
On the other hand, Strength correlates much better. The range is 1-5 for tiny beasts, 4-8 for small, 7-16 for medium (ignoring swarms), 12--21 for large and 19-25 for huge beasts. There's very little overlap except for the upper end of medium creatures with the lower end of large creatures.
Tiny:
Results for Category:Monsters Type:*beast* Size:Tiny GroupBy:STR
1
2
3
4
5
Small:
Results for Category:Monsters Type:*beast* Size:Small GroupBy:STR
4
5
6
7
8
Medium:
Results for Category:Monsters Type:*beast* Size:Medium GroupBy:STR
3
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
Large:
Results for Category:Monsters Type:*beast* Size:Large GroupBy:STR
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
Huge:
Results for Category:Monsters Type:*beast* Size:Huge GroupBy:STR
19
21
22
23
24
25
I agree with most of your points, but I'd like to address this just for fun; parrying is hard. You have to react correctly to the way they're attacking using something that has the shape of a stick. If you're using a sword, you want to use the flat, because using the edge is a great way to damage it and swords are crazy expensive (relative to common weapons). Also, the ideal way to parry is to push to the side, not to oppose their force. I.e. if they're striking downwards, there's a lot less effort involved in pushing their weapon sideways. If you do oppose their attack directly, you want to use the part of your weapon close to your grip, because if they strike further away that creates a lever. But using the part close to your hands puts your hands at risk (swords help solve that with the gross guard, but maybe you're using a polearm, mace, etc.)
It's much simpler to either take a step backwards or sideways and just get out of the way, or to use a big piece of metal or wood centered on your arm or fist.
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