Bodyslam of DOOM

[XO]

Also, Back in the Old Days...

The "Get the Drop on Someone" 1E tactic was (ab)used to slay a deity (or maybe two).

And as some of you might have heard, the mythic 10' cube blocks of descending ceiling trap goodness flattened quite a few hapless adventurers, although I never perpetrated that one on my players.

What I did perpetrate was the dragon lair entrance prepped with large stones enchanted with (1E Unearthed Arcana)...

Item (Alteration)
Level: 3
Range: Touch
Duration: 6 furns/level*
Area of Effect: 2 cu. ft. per level of caster
Components: V; S, M
Casting Time: 3 segments
Saving Throw: Special
* Duration quadrupled if used on non-living material.
ExplanationlDescription: By means of this spell, the magic-user is able to touch any normal, non-magical item of a size appropriate to the allowable area of effect and cause it to shrink to one-twelfth of its normal size. Optionally, the caster can also change its now-shrunken
composition to a cloth-like one. Only living things are entitled to a saving throw versus spell, but each such save is at + 4. Objects and creatures transformed to cloth make saving throws normally (as if not altered) against subsequent attacks. Objects changed by an item
spell can be returned to normal composition and size merely by tossing them onto any solid surface or by word of command from the original spell caster. It is possible to affect a fire and its fuel with this spell.

Ah, the joys of the dragon releasing the Itemized stones from above as he bathed the crushed invaders in cleansing draconic breath...

 

[Ardenian]

...Alter Self (huge form)...

medium creatures cant get to Huge.. they can only gain 1 size difference from medium to large, or medium to small.

 

[mmu1]

Here's a problem I have with this sort of thing:

How is hitting the earth at terminal velocity different (as far as the laws of physics are concerned) from being hit by and earth falling towards you at terminal velocity?

Whether you hit the earth or the earth hits you, you only take 20d6 falling damage by the rules.

Anything extra is not be falling damage - it's damage based on whether you bounce off (if you're falling) or you get squashed by the weight (if something falls on you). So logically speaking, really large and heavy things should be able to do hundreds of d6s of damage to people simply by sitting on them.

 

[javcs]

medium creatures cant get to Huge.. they can only gain 1 size difference from medium to large, or medium to small.

It was an ogre.
They're large.

He started out alter selfed to a medium form, and then dropped it and alter selfed to a huge form. At least, that's what I'm reading, and where I think you misunderstood the OP.

mmu1 - When the laws of physics start getting tossed around it all breaks down. IE magic, and almost everything else.
But the difference between you hitting the earth, which is falling damage, and you getting hit by the earth, which happens to be falling object damage, in the rules, is that falling damage is assumed to hit a maximum, terminal velocity, faster than some object dropping on your skull. Mostly because when you're falling, you are assumed to be attemping to take as little damage as possible, and land in the safest way possible, not on your head, which is where you're likely getting hit by some random, probably fairly heavy, object being dropped on you, which has no control over its fall and is probably fairly hard as well. From what I recall of the falling object damage rules, softer items do less damage than hard items (being hit with a 10lb pillow is different from being hit by a 10lb hunk of metal or rock.

 

[Notmousse]

Ok, The Ogre wizard has a fairly high strength and con, so we ruled he should weigh in at around 200. 230 with all his gear. He casts Iron Body, which is chain contengencied to cast enlarge, tensors transformation, and true strike. The Wizard then drops off 20ft a cliff onto a bad guy. We worked out that he weighs about 36,800 lbs. That's 185d6 of damage. +40 to aim himself. Does anyone else see anything wrong with this? Also, how much damage should the wizard take?

Yeah I have a problem with it! He should be wearing armor spikes so he's a more dangerous object (and thus does double damage).

I'd give him the max falling damage (20d6 as noted above several times), and then subject him to falling object damage equal to half the weight of his carried items (at their enlarged weight) since it hurts more to fall with things following you on the way down.

 

[pallandrome]

Yeah, umm, he was nekkid. When you shift up with Alter Self, your gear melds with you.

 

[Machiavelli]

That is a really cool, though mildly disturbing, mental image.


And yeah, it's not the easiest tactic to use, so I wouldn't penalize it any more than common sense would suggest is absolutely necessary.