Earthquake consequences

[Quasqueton]

From the earthquake spell:

Cave, Cavern, or Tunnel: The spell collapses the roof, dealing 8d6 points of bludgeoning damage to any creature caught under the cave-in (Reflex DC 15 half ) and pinning that creature beneath the rubble (see below). An earthquake cast on the roof of a very large cavern could also endanger those outside the actual area but below the falling debris.

Pinned beneath Rubble: Any creature pinned beneath rubble takes 1d6 points of nonlethal damage per minute while pinned. If a pinned character falls unconscious, he or she must make a DC 15 Constitution check or take 1d6 points of lethal damage each minute thereafter until freed or dead.

Couple questions:

Are creatures in the area of effect pinned regardless of the Reflex save?

How does one adjudicate "could also endanger those outside the actual area but below the falling debris"?

What is the damage from being pinned beneath the rubble actually coming from? Crushing/bludgeoning damage from the weight of rocks? Lack of air? Can damage reduction affect this damage? How does a victim get out of a rubble pin? Escape artist, strength check? What would the DC be?

I only have the SRD to look at right now; does the earthquake spell description in the PH have answers to my questions?

Quasqueton

 

[green slime]

Pinned regardless of whether they make the save or not.

Nobody is going to survive a whole day buried in the rubble after an earthquake with damage every minute.

 

[Caliban]

Pinned regardless of whether they make the save or not.

Nobody is going to survive a whole day buried in the rubble after an earthquake with damage every minute.

Since subdual damage can't actually kill you, any character with +14 or higher Fort save and a decent amount of hit points could survive a day or two under those conditions, as long as they don't roll to many ones and they don't run out of air.

The damage isn't from suffocation, otherwise you would die in a few rounds.

It's probably from the weight of the rubble on top of you, which might mean that creatures with DR could be immune to the damage, although as a DM I'd be tempted to rule that DR doesn't apply in that situation.

 

[Gnimish88]

Hold up there a second!

Pinned regardless of whether they make the save or not.

Nobody is going to survive a whole day buried in the rubble after an earthquake with damage every minute.

Why would you say pinned regardless? Certainly I would say that the 'and' implies that you are pinned if you fail your save. Will have to check tonight for examples where spells have multiple effects, some of which happen regardless of save, but I am pretty sure that most of them say something specific about effects that happen regardless of save.

A further question that comes up from this would be: What about the Evasion ability? Does a successful save eliminate all damage? Most would probably agree yes, unless I am forgetting some major part of the wording. But what happens if you rule that they are pinned regardless of save if they take no damage?

 

[Quasqueton]

Sure would like some more thoughts and opinions on this.

Quasqueton

 

[Gnimish88]

I'm Sorry...

Sure would like some more thoughts and opinions on this.

Quasqueton

Oops! I seem to have killed your post.

 

[EPRock]

I did not think that Damage Reduction reduced damage from "Crushing" damage.

IE Jumping off a cliff.
Crushed under a mountain
etc...

 

[Gnimish88]

After some digging in the Player's Handbook, I am of the opinion that Evasion allows one to completely dodge the damage of a earthquake triggered cave-in. Further reading into the spells has led me to the conclusion that the writers of spells could have been a lot more consistant in how they wrote the $%^&* things up, but I suppose this isn't exactly a new revelation. That aside, I would say that if you avoid the full effects of the damage, then you avoid the pinning effect, primarily because the spell doesn't specifically indicate that you don't. If you look at Glitter Dust, it specifically says that the save cancels the blindness effect, for example.

 

[dcollins]

What is the damage from being pinned beneath the rubble actually coming from? Crushing/bludgeoning damage from the weight of rocks? Lack of air? Can damage reduction affect this damage?

Yes. I asked the Sage about this (for 3.0 rules), and he replied that the intention of Damage Reduction was indeed to help protect against mundane impacts like falling, crushing, etc. (Side note: Granted this is the case, the 3.5 rules have a bit of a problem in how they reduced the DR levels for all creatures.)

From: TSRSage@a...:
In a message dated 1/14/03 5:21:53 PM, dcollins@s... writes:

Something has just occured to me that seems rather ambiguous in the core rules. I'm wondering if damage reduction is supposed to serve as protection from non-magical, non-energy effects that have no attack roll, such as: falling, landslides, tornados, crushing wall traps, or creature constrict and swallow whole abilities (DMG ch. 3, MM Introduction). Should DR help against these kinds of physical effects?

In a word, yes. (That's a departure form previous additions of the game, but once reason DR replaces the old immunity to non-magical weapons special defense is so that a long list of exceptions were no longer needed.)