Damage from Falling Object: Gelatinous Cube

[Ashtagon]

Interestingly, the gelatinous cube has a density of about 15 lb/cf (comapred to 65-70 lb/cf for water).

Fly :: d20srd.org

Fly allows movement at 60 feet per round. This is nowhere near falling speed, and using the fly spell's speed to fly straight down will do no meaningful hp damage. I'd treat that as a bull rush attack (or maybe a charge or overrun, player's choice).

There's nothing in the spell description to allow the subject (or caster) to voluntarily allow gravity to take full effect on the subject of the spell, and short of ending the spell by an anti-magic field, you can't fall normally at the end of the spell.

Environment :: d20srd.org (especially falling objects)

The falling character takes 1d6 damage per 10 feet, capped at 2d6.

The creature hit would take teh full force of all 15,000 lb; this wouldn't be divided over the entire area. The entire weight acts upon the highest object on the surface, such as whoever got fallen on. This is the same principle that allows pressure-sensitive landmines to only detonate when driven over by a tank, but ignore infantry on them. (side-track to the side-track: the ground pressure (pounds per square inch) is higher for infantry than it is for a modern battle tank, thanks to the size of the traks.)

A 200 lb object falling 10 feet inflicts 1d6 damage on whatever it lands on. Add one die for each additional 10 ft or each additional 200 lb, capped at 20d6. Even for a 10 ft fall, that's 20d6 under RAW.

Basically, dropping a gelatinous cube is a sound tactic in terms of damage inflicted (and I woudl insist on an attack roll to do so), but a fly spell in itself isn't sufficient to get it in teh air and falling in position.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Interestingly, the gelatinous cube has a density of about 15 lb/cf (comapred to 65-70 lb/cf for water).

This raises an interesting point: a gelatinous cube is only about half as dense as whipped cream. Dropped from any substantial height, a light breeze would blow it off course.

I'll agree with Ashtagon for the most part, but I might add in a (non-RAW) consideration that the cube is a big, soft, squishy thing, and use a reverse form of the "falling into water" rules: ignore damage from the first 20 ft of the cube's fall, and the next 20 ft fallen do non-lethal damage. I'd definitely allow the engulf on a failed reflex save. The cube would sustain the normal falling damage.


But alas, RAW is woefully unsatisfactory here

Honestly, I have a hard time imagining such a squishy, low-density thing dealing much damage at all no matter how high it's dropped from. I also think gelatinous cubes ought to weigh closer to 60000lbs-- and they really should burst on impact, like a water balloon, with a 20ft radius paralytic splash zone! Hee hee!