A few years back I made a forum post called Conjure Animals and Falling Cows, and we explored the ability to summon Cows over a foes head and to cause the foe damage by having the cows land on them. When the post was made there were no official rules regarding one creature falling on another, but that has changed due to the release of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything which added this new rule;
alling onto a Creature
If a creature falls into the space of a second creature and neither of them is Tiny, the second creature must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or be impacted by the falling creature, and any damage resulting from the fall is divided evenly between them. The impacted creature is also knocked prone, unless it is two or more sizes larger than the falling creature.
other than the restriction of neither creature being tiny, and the limitation to knocking an enemy two or more sizes larger, size and weight has no impact on the dc or the damage of the effect. A small Baboon does the same falling damage as the Gargantuan Sperm Whale and is just as hard to avoid. If a crazed Druid or clever Bard gets it into their head to cast Conjure Animals to create, let's say 8 Giant Poisonous Snakes in a straight line above an enemy and had them fall onto them it inflicts Crippling damage. The damage also increases based on the size of the when used on a Large target because you can fit more snakes per elevation directly above a larger target because they are also wider, however, they are also taller so the damage is averaged when used against a Huge creature as shown on this chart;
It gets even worse if the creature has a flying speed, as on their turn they can fly upwards and dash before dropping prone adding their flying speed to the height for extra damage. This is most effective on the Pteranodon as it is the only Cr 1/4 beast that is both medium and in possession of a flying speed. Depending on if you are using the Xanathar's Guide to Everything optional rule "Flying Creatures and Falling" you may only get to add their flying speed once instead of twice because you must subtract the Pteranodon's current flying speed from the distance it fell before calculating falling damage, removing the benefit it gained by dashing but not the benefit it gained by moving. this increases the damage done to a single medium target to 80d6/2.
For average damage you have to take into consideration that the Dc 15 save does no damage on a success, but even with that its damage is still vastly beyond any other 3rd level spell until affected targets have a Dex Save of at least +7. here is a chart comparing the damage averages between each target size, as well as the Pteranodon technique and a Fireball or Lightning Bolt spell cast with a 15 Dc.
keep in mind that several of the snakes will likely survive their fall and be able to inflict more damage with their bite attack on their turn, with Advantage if their target is still prone.
Am I looking at this wrong or is Conjure Animals just the best single-target damage spell now?
Edit: I fixed both of the charts for accuracy and clarity and added highlights as to how much dex save bonus is needed to bring out the same average damage with Fireball/Lightning Bolt. I also fixed the text that refers to them to reflect the change. In addition, I added the passage that refers to creatures with flying speed as well as the one referring to snake-survival and made several other general edits.
My party was facing a dragonborn who was hunting us down. My druid runs out, and polymorphs the dragonborn into a fish. Then I turn into an eagle and fly up several hundred feet. I drop the fish.
The DM chooses the creature summoned, not the player. Player just chooses the CR, and the DM isn’t limited by the examples given, either. I’d rule that if you summoned something in the air, you were obviously trying to summon something that could fly. So you might get a swarm of bats, but not snake death from above.
You can’t summon swarms with Conjure Animals, but if the DM decided that you’d summon 8 cr 1/4 Giant Bats they could, on their turn, fly 60 feet strait up dash for an additional 60 feet and drop prone falling from three times the height. This is similar for any flying creature that is in CR 1/4. It wouldn’t prevent the damage, or slow it down to near that of a Fireball.
If you’d like a flying creature to have a better chance of surviving a fall than a non-flying creature does, use this rule: subtract the creature’s current flying speed from the distance it fell before calculating falling damage. This rule is helpful to a flier that is knocked prone but is still conscious and has a current flying speed that is greater than 0 feet. The rule is designed to simulate the creature flapping its wings furiously or taking similar measures to slow the velocity of its fall.
which could be argued that the fey spirits masquerading as animals would, regardless of your commands to the contrary, try to slow their fall but their ability to fly upwards for twice the amount of damage they’d lose for having that flying speed would more than make up for the loss. However their large size would mean that less of them would be able to be stacked as high unless the creatures flying were Pteradons. In many cases flying creatures actually increase the damage dealt by the maneuver.
I agree with others that as a DM, I would likely cause a creature that appears in the air to be a creature with a flying speed.
One other thing to consider is that the creatures share the damage, they don't each take the full damage.
So, in your 32d6 damage example (medium creature), assuming the creature fails every saving throw, it takes half of 32d6. 32d6 averages to 112, so the creature takes 56 damage. I'm not sure how that factors into your damage table but I would guess that isn't taken into account given the damage totals.
Also, as a DM, I would not allow the creatures to be placed 60 feet in the air unless you were standing directly below them...so your PC would be the creature hit if you wanted full damage. thats going to at minimum then drop 1d6 from every creature summoned even if they were summoned over a space 5' away from you. So your 32d6 becomes 24d6-28d6 automatically, less if the creature you aim at is further away.
If we're going to nitpick about silly rules, I would point out that a creature's space is only defined in two dimensions, so you can't summon above another creature in the first place, that space is already occupied (for that matter, you can't actually fly over enemies).
If we're going to nitpick about silly rules, I would point out that a creature's space is only defined in two dimensions, so you can't summon above another creature in the first place, that space is already occupied (for that matter, you can't actually fly over enemies).
That's incorrect. Creatures in D&D are 3-dimensional. They just fill their space as if they were a cube. You can go above creatures in D&D.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
If we're going to nitpick about silly rules, I would point out that a creature's space is only defined in two dimensions, so you can't summon above another creature in the first place, that space is already occupied (for that matter, you can't actually fly over enemies).
That's incorrect. Creatures in D&D are 3-dimensional. They just fill their space as if they were a cube. You can go above creatures in D&D.
Please point out the rules that say so. The rules for Creature Size only give two dimensions, and the rules for flying creatures don't address this point either. Now, I'm sure its the intent that creatures are three dimensional, but one dumb rules interpretation deserves another.
If we're going to nitpick about silly rules, I would point out that a creature's space is only defined in two dimensions, so you can't summon above another creature in the first place, that space is already occupied (for that matter, you can't actually fly over enemies).
That's incorrect. Creatures in D&D are 3-dimensional. They just fill their space as if they were a cube. You can go above creatures in D&D.
Please point out the rules that say so. The rules for Creature Size only give two dimensions, and the rules for flying creatures don't address this point either. Now, I'm sure its the intent that creatures are three dimensional, but one dumb rules interpretation deserves another.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
The dimensions given there are two dimensions because battle-"grids" are two dimensional. Height is included in the rules as written, as shown in the rules for high jumping:
High Jump. When you make a high jump, you leap into the air a number of feet equal to 3 + your Strength modifier (minimum of 0 feet) if you move at least 10 feet on foot immediately before the jump. When you make a standing high jump, you can jump only half that distance. Either way, each foot you clear on the jump costs a foot of movement. In some circumstances, your DM might allow you to make a Strength (Athletics) check to jump higher than you normally can.
You can extend your arms half your height above yourself during the jump. Thus, you can reach above you a distance equal to the height of the jump plus 1 1/2 times your height.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
The dimensions given there are two dimensions because battle-"grids" are two dimensional. Height is included in the rules as written, as shown in the rules for high jumping:
High Jump. When you make a high jump, you leap into the air a number of feet equal to 3 + your Strength modifier (minimum of 0 feet) if you move at least 10 feet on foot immediately before the jump. When you make a standing high jump, you can jump only half that distance. Either way, each foot you clear on the jump costs a foot of movement. In some circumstances, your DM might allow you to make a Strength (Athletics) check to jump higher than you normally can.
You can extend your arms half your height above yourself during the jump. Thus, you can reach above you a distance equal to the height of the jump plus 1 1/2 times your height.
That certainly doesn't support space being a cube, since even without jumping or extending reach with a weapon a typical Medium creature can reach up to about 9', and a Storm Giant (26' tall according to the chart in the monster manual) can reach up to 39' despite being merely Huge (15' space).
It is correct that the damage is split, and I’ll post I have posted corrected charts to cap this off since it seems to be the basis of the majority of the replies directly addressing the post, however the fall damage is being applied multiple times from multiple instances allowing it to be much higher than 20d6. It’s like being hit by 8 attacks or spells, the damage isn’t just the damage of the first hit, each instance applies the damage separately
One other thing to consider...falling in D&D happens instantly (at least for the first 500' even with xanathar's rules), and no mechanics occur simultaneously. So, even if the animals all share an initiative, if you direct them to fall, they don't fall all at once, which means that any creature falling, while over another creature also flying, would have to hit that creature first.
Also, assuming you managed to line them all up and have them fall starting lowest to highest, there is nothing in the rule that says a creature moves to another space when it lands on a creature, so, to that end, a DM could very likely say that the second, third, fourth, etc falling creature starts instead impacting the (likely) corpses of the ones who fell before, softening the blow, and if any survived their own fall, they too would split the damage from being hit as well, ultimately in both cases lessening the damage.
But really the biggest obstacle to this kind of coordinated strike is that these are fey in the body of beasts...with a beasts intelligence. While they obey your commands, they will only do so to the best that their own intelligence will allow, so a DM (who controls the beasts stats and actions) could very well also say that coordinating a synchronized kamikaze is not something that they will be able to comprehend well enough to pull off.
An excellent point, in my provided example they would hit each other first or be slowed by having to move through each other on their accent. the workaround would again increase the damage. you can choose to summon each of your flying creatures 60 ft. in the air and within 60ft of the target horizontally, have each of them one at a time fly 180ft. above the target diagonally and then drop prone falling for 12d6/2 each for a total of 96d6/2 damage (reduceable by successful saves) clearing the way for the next beast as they do.
when a conjured animal dies they disappear leaving no body behind to cushion the blow of the next falling beast. and it's unlikely (albeit possible) that they will survive 6d6-12d6 with 13hp, much more possible if they are a Giant Bat or a Giant Owl with more hp, so it's definitely worth considering.
It need not be a complicated order as your command can be as simple as "all of you fly as fast as you can above that Orc Warlord and then drop prone" and each will do so in order. Flying up and falling down isn't rocket science... well I mean technically that's what rocket science accomplishes but uh.. you get the point.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Learning is power, power corrupts, study hard be Evil.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
other than the restriction of neither creature being tiny, and the limitation to knocking an enemy two or more sizes larger, size and weight has no impact on the dc or the damage of the effect. A small Baboon does the same falling damage as the Gargantuan Sperm Whale and is just as hard to avoid. If a crazed Druid or clever Bard gets it into their head to cast Conjure Animals to create, let's say 8 Giant Poisonous Snakes in a straight line above an enemy and had them fall onto them it inflicts Crippling damage. The damage also increases
based on the size of thewhen used on a Large target because you can fit more snakes per elevation directly above a larger target because they are also wider, however, they are also taller so the damage is averaged when used against a Huge creature as shown on this chart;For average damage you have to take into consideration that the Dc 15 save does no damage on a success, but even with that its damage is still
vastlybeyond any other 3rd level spell until affected targets have a Dex Save of at least +7. here is a chart comparing the damage averages between each target size, as well as the Pteranodon technique and a Fireball or Lightning Bolt spell cast with a 15 Dc.keep in mind that several of the snakes will likely survive their fall and be able to inflict more damage with their bite attack on their turn, with Advantage if their target is still prone.
Am I looking at this wrong or is Conjure Animals just the best single-target damage spell now?
Edit: I fixed both of the charts for accuracy and clarity and added highlights as to how much dex save bonus is needed to bring out the same average damage with Fireball/Lightning Bolt. I also fixed the text that refers to them to reflect the change. In addition, I added the passage that refers to creatures with flying speed as well as the one referring to snake-survival and made several other general edits.
Learning is power, power corrupts, study hard be Evil.
This is a sort of unrelated, but funny story:
My party was facing a dragonborn who was hunting us down. My druid runs out, and polymorphs the dragonborn into a fish. Then I turn into an eagle and fly up several hundred feet. I drop the fish.
20d6 - 1 falling damage! Instantly ended the entire encounter. >:D
The DM chooses the creature summoned, not the player. Player just chooses the CR, and the DM isn’t limited by the examples given, either. I’d rule that if you summoned something in the air, you were obviously trying to summon something that could fly. So you might get a swarm of bats, but not snake death from above.
You can’t summon swarms with Conjure Animals, but if the DM decided that you’d summon 8 cr 1/4 Giant Bats they could, on their turn, fly 60 feet strait up dash for an additional 60 feet and drop prone falling from three times the height. This is similar for any flying creature that is in CR 1/4. It wouldn’t prevent the damage, or slow it down to near that of a Fireball.
Xanathar’s Guide to everything offers an optional rule that says;
which could be argued that the fey spirits masquerading as animals would, regardless of your commands to the contrary, try to slow their fall but their ability to fly upwards for twice the amount of damage they’d lose for having that flying speed would more than make up for the loss. However their large size would mean that less of them would be able to be stacked as high unless the creatures flying were Pteradons. In many cases flying creatures actually increase the damage dealt by the maneuver.
Learning is power, power corrupts, study hard be Evil.
Just keep in mind that anything the players do, NPCs can do better.
If anyone attempts to cheese the system in this way, it should with the knowledge that the party only lives due to the DMs infinite mercy.
I agree with others that as a DM, I would likely cause a creature that appears in the air to be a creature with a flying speed.
One other thing to consider is that the creatures share the damage, they don't each take the full damage.
So, in your 32d6 damage example (medium creature), assuming the creature fails every saving throw, it takes half of 32d6. 32d6 averages to 112, so the creature takes 56 damage. I'm not sure how that factors into your damage table but I would guess that isn't taken into account given the damage totals.
Also, as a DM, I would not allow the creatures to be placed 60 feet in the air unless you were standing directly below them...so your PC would be the creature hit if you wanted full damage. thats going to at minimum then drop 1d6 from every creature summoned even if they were summoned over a space 5' away from you. So your 32d6 becomes 24d6-28d6 automatically, less if the creature you aim at is further away.
If we're going to nitpick about silly rules, I would point out that a creature's space is only defined in two dimensions, so you can't summon above another creature in the first place, that space is already occupied (for that matter, you can't actually fly over enemies).
That's incorrect. Creatures in D&D are 3-dimensional. They just fill their space as if they were a cube. You can go above creatures in D&D.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Please point out the rules that say so. The rules for Creature Size only give two dimensions, and the rules for flying creatures don't address this point either. Now, I'm sure its the intent that creatures are three dimensional, but one dumb rules interpretation deserves another.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
The dimensions given there are two dimensions because battle-"grids" are two dimensional. Height is included in the rules as written, as shown in the rules for high jumping:
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
That certainly doesn't support space being a cube, since even without jumping or extending reach with a weapon a typical Medium creature can reach up to about 9', and a Storm Giant (26' tall according to the chart in the monster manual) can reach up to 39' despite being merely Huge (15' space).
It is correct that the damage is split, and
I’ll postI have posted corrected charts to cap this off since it seems to be the basis of the majority of the replies directly addressing the post, however the fall damage is being applied multiple times from multiple instances allowing it to be much higher than 20d6. It’s like being hit by 8 attacks or spells, the damage isn’t just the damage of the first hit, each instance applies the damage separatelyEdit: I fixed the carts
Learning is power, power corrupts, study hard be Evil.
One other thing to consider...falling in D&D happens instantly (at least for the first 500' even with xanathar's rules), and no mechanics occur simultaneously. So, even if the animals all share an initiative, if you direct them to fall, they don't fall all at once, which means that any creature falling, while over another creature also flying, would have to hit that creature first.
Also, assuming you managed to line them all up and have them fall starting lowest to highest, there is nothing in the rule that says a creature moves to another space when it lands on a creature, so, to that end, a DM could very likely say that the second, third, fourth, etc falling creature starts instead impacting the (likely) corpses of the ones who fell before, softening the blow, and if any survived their own fall, they too would split the damage from being hit as well, ultimately in both cases lessening the damage.
But really the biggest obstacle to this kind of coordinated strike is that these are fey in the body of beasts...with a beasts intelligence. While they obey your commands, they will only do so to the best that their own intelligence will allow, so a DM (who controls the beasts stats and actions) could very well also say that coordinating a synchronized kamikaze is not something that they will be able to comprehend well enough to pull off.
An excellent point, in my provided example they would hit each other first or be slowed by having to move through each other on their accent. the workaround would again increase the damage. you can choose to summon each of your flying creatures 60 ft. in the air and within 60ft of the target horizontally, have each of them one at a time fly 180ft. above the target diagonally and then drop prone falling for 12d6/2 each for a total of 96d6/2 damage (reduceable by successful saves) clearing the way for the next beast as they do.
when a conjured animal dies they disappear leaving no body behind to cushion the blow of the next falling beast. and it's unlikely (albeit possible) that they will survive 6d6-12d6 with 13hp, much more possible if they are a Giant Bat or a Giant Owl with more hp, so it's definitely worth considering.
It need not be a complicated order as your command can be as simple as "all of you fly as fast as you can above that Orc Warlord and then drop prone" and each will do so in order. Flying up and falling down isn't rocket science... well I mean technically that's what rocket science accomplishes but uh.. you get the point.
Learning is power, power corrupts, study hard be Evil.