Death from above, an unorthadox strategy

[Al]

Good idea, but I'm afraid it's flawed. The simple fact is that even ignoring air resistance, it would take 6-7 seconds: a full combat round for the rock to fall. Any enemies underneath it would be able to simply move out of the way. What would be possible, however, would be for an ally to bull rush them back into the square

 

[d20fool]

Darned falling orca

This actually doesn't work.
So no falling Orca.

KerlanRayne

Thank you for your insight. Would you care to mention WHY it doesn't work.

 

[Piratecat]

Thank you for your insight. Would you care to mention WHY it doesn't work.

Err - he did. Read the rest of his post where he quotes the SRD. You can only summon creatures into a medium that can support them, which means no summoning orcas into mid air.

 

[Thanee]

And soon you are going to discover the ultimate power of Fly and Shrink Item.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Piratecat]

Good idea, but I'm afraid it's flawed. The simple fact is that even ignoring air resistance, it would take 6-7 seconds: a full combat round for the rock to fall. Any enemies underneath it would be able to simply move out of the way.

You know, Al, I'm not sure this is true. If you pardon the horrible example, take the catapult shots from Minas Tirith in the third LotR movie. Most of those crushed orcs by the dozens... except for the orc leader, who simply stepped to the side. Why? He made his reflex save!

On a separate note, I was doodling with the warhulk the other day and realized that one of these guys can lift 12 TONS as a light load. That's 60d6, baby. 210 pts of avg damage. I think I'm in love.

HULK SMASH!

 

[Zepherus Bane]

And soon you are going to discover the ultimate power of Fly and Shrink Item.

I like the way you think! I'll have to look into this as a backup plan for my Wizard.

 

[Bauglir]

This reminds me of the old 3.0 exploit of flying above your enemy's head, and shapechanging into a 200' ball of solid iron, then dropping - sure you'd take a few d6 falling damage, but given the mass of a 200' sphere of iron, your victim would take somewhere around 73,219,351d6 damage. (caveat: This was worked out by me, probably incorrectly (but close enough ))

Smarts a bit, that...

 

[myradale]

I thought about the accuracy as well...

And true, once you let go of the rock, it pretty much just plumets and hits whatever spot it's over.
But lets GM this "realistically". You're a nasty evil frost giant. You've been fighting a group of little people and one of them picks up a rock and dissappears. Now, you MIGHT think "where has he gone?" but are you really going to notice that he reappeared 600' above your head? And are you really likely to move out of the way significantly in the 6 seconds it takes before the boulder completes it's descent?

When I was a DM, I usually used to rule that you had to be somewhat aware of something happening to be allowed a reflex save against it. You can see a fireball erupting from a mages hand. You can see a dragon beginning to exhale, but in the midst of battle, are you even going to notice something coming from 600' above you?

I think not. Hey...if Wile E Coyote never got a reflex save, neither should anyone else...I mean...HE'S expecting it.

 

[MarauderX]

A follow up to accuracy...

Range increments. If you have a 10' range with an object, chances are you are going to miss (200' = -40 to hit). Think of it as trying to do precision bombing from 200 feet up. You can hardly see a target to aim an arrow at (you are looking down at them standing) and they should also get bonuses similar to prone (4) for standing vs. the death from above.

For a little realistic perspective, go stand on top of a building in your area, take the number of floors you are on and multiply it by ~12' per floor. Now toss a water balloon, or even spit, and try to hit something below.

 

[niastri]

Good idea, but I'm afraid it's flawed. The simple fact is that even ignoring air resistance, it would take 6-7 seconds: a full combat round for the rock to fall. Any enemies underneath it would be able to simply move out of the way. What would be possible, however, would be for an ally to bull rush them back into the square

Standard falling accelleration under normal circumsances is 10 meters/second squared. (10m/s^2)

After 1 second, the rock has fallen 10 meters, and accelerated to 20 meters/second

At 2 seconds, it has fallen 30 meters and accelerated to 30 meters/second

At 3 seconds it has fallen 60 meters and squashed whatever was trying to move out from under it.

Terminal velocity for a rock is much greater than that for a feather for instance, and would be based on a few variables, but that sort of acceleration would continue at least out to 100+meters/second, especially for a rock of normal density. The maximum damage from a fall rules is based on terminal velocity (if they put that much thought into the rule) of a person or creature, not of a rock. So the 6-7 seconds thought would have to be from a VERY high place.

I also imagine it would be a very high spot check to notice where the Monk disappeared to. Even if you saw it, you would only get a Reflex save in my game, not be able to move out of the way of something going that fast automatically.

So, touch attack on the square of the target by the monk, spot check by the target to see the attack, and then possible reflex save by the target to avoid getting squashed is how I would rule it.