Say the party is fighting a giant who easily towers the players. How would I go about making it first grab a player and then hurl them at a wall or the ground for damage. Would it first be a grapple, a shove? How would damage be calculated or should I just make it an action for a homebrew creature?
It will, at least in my experience, always start with a grapple check.
From there there's a few things that I'd take into account:
1: No Multi-attack: Maintain grapple and on the next turn the "attack" is to throw 2: Multi-attack available: Use next "attack" to throw
Damage could be dealt in two different ways as well:
1: Improvised weapon: 1d4 damage (at 10ft increments like falling damage) 2: Falling damage: 1d6 for every 10ft
The distance thrown is the tricky part, in this case we'll use the base idea that Giants have the "Rock" attack which has a normal range of 60ft. I'd say that it wouldn't be too off base to say that your scenario would cause an avg of 18 (6d4) or 24 (6d6) bludgeoning damage based on the damage you'd assign.
This is my take on the scenario since I've never had to deal with it personally :)
Like falling damage aside, I'm also wondering the initial impact against a wall or floor. I feel the giant throwing a creature down would hurt more than just falling off a building.
Well, The tricky part to this is that we don't want it to outshine the actual attacks of the giant already
We take a look at the Rock action and find that it does 21 damage from a Hill Giant, 28 from a Stone Giant. So we're looking at that as our base.
The reason I chose to use falling damage is so that it lined up with those numbers a bit closer. I would say, if you wanted it to be a bit more powerful, use a d8 instead of a d6, but then you risk the giant wanting to get into melee and use it's grapple/throw more often as it will do more damage than it's predefined attacks. With them also having Multiattack this makes that strategy more available as well.
I suppose you could do a flat damage amount, let's say half the damage of the distance thrown plust STR modifier. So at 60ft it's 30+STR , at 30ft you'd get 15+STR, at 15ft you'd get 7+STR
I would just make it a reverse rock throw. Same range and damage as a rock, but the projectile, the grappled creature takes the damage. If you hit something else with it, i'd make that half the damage to both the thrown and the target. Since a soft person doesnt impact as hard as a rock and the person thrown at cushions the impact better than a hard surface forthe one who was thrown.
I vaguely remember there being a creature that had an action option to throw a grappled creature, but i'd have to find it.
Say the party is fighting a giant who easily towers the players. How would I go about making it first grab a player and then hurl them at a wall or the ground for damage. Would it first be a grapple, a shove? How would damage be calculated or should I just make it an action for a homebrew creature?
It will, at least in my experience, always start with a grapple check.
From there there's a few things that I'd take into account:
1: No Multi-attack: Maintain grapple and on the next turn the "attack" is to throw
2: Multi-attack available: Use next "attack" to throw
Damage could be dealt in two different ways as well:
1: Improvised weapon: 1d4 damage (at 10ft increments like falling damage)
2: Falling damage: 1d6 for every 10ft
The distance thrown is the tricky part, in this case we'll use the base idea that Giants have the "Rock" attack which has a normal range of 60ft. I'd say that it wouldn't be too off base to say that your scenario would cause an avg of 18 (6d4) or 24 (6d6) bludgeoning damage based on the damage you'd assign.
This is my take on the scenario since I've never had to deal with it personally :)
Like falling damage aside, I'm also wondering the initial impact against a wall or floor. I feel the giant throwing a creature down would hurt more than just falling off a building.
Well, The tricky part to this is that we don't want it to outshine the actual attacks of the giant already
We take a look at the Rock action and find that it does 21 damage from a Hill Giant, 28 from a Stone Giant. So we're looking at that as our base.
The reason I chose to use falling damage is so that it lined up with those numbers a bit closer. I would say, if you wanted it to be a bit more powerful, use a d8 instead of a d6, but then you risk the giant wanting to get into melee and use it's grapple/throw more often as it will do more damage than it's predefined attacks. With them also having Multiattack this makes that strategy more available as well.
I suppose you could do a flat damage amount, let's say half the damage of the distance thrown plust STR modifier. So at 60ft it's 30+STR , at 30ft you'd get 15+STR, at 15ft you'd get 7+STR
I would just make it a reverse rock throw. Same range and damage as a rock, but the projectile, the grappled creature takes the damage. If you hit something else with it, i'd make that half the damage to both the thrown and the target. Since a soft person doesnt impact as hard as a rock and the person thrown at cushions the impact better than a hard surface forthe one who was thrown.
I vaguely remember there being a creature that had an action option to throw a grappled creature, but i'd have to find it.
The Juvenile Kraken's "Fling"
I just want to add to this old thread that Stone Giants (Variant) already have a baked in attack for this, called Fling! https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/stone-giant-variant