Falling Damage and Stoneskin

[Ydars]

So let me get this straight; you are saying that you don't think a spell named stoneskin gives you a stone skin. OK! I think at that point I lose interest in this discussion.

Bye

 

[Jhaelen]

Well, where's the difference between a body moving at high speed to impact with a stony surface (e.g. falling) and a stony surface moving at high speed to impact with a body (e.g. getting hit with a blunt weapon)?

Imho, none; i.e. DR (which is not cirumvented by blunt damage) protects against falling damage.

 

[aboyd]

So let me get this straight; you are saying that you don't think a spell named stoneskin gives you a stone skin.

That's disingenuous. It's perfectly clear that he doesn't think a spell named stoneskin gives you plate armor. That is utterly different from your portrayal of his opinion as illogical.

Plate armor has hinges which could catch/tear skin. Stoneskin does not.

Plate armor is not a part of you, allowing you to jostle inside of it. Stoneskin becomes a natural transformation of your own skin, thus there is no banging around inside your own skin.

Plate armor does not provide damage resistance. Stoneskin does.

The names, the descriptions, the mechanics, and the concepts are all different. Thus, he's making sense to consider them different.

 

[Noumenon]

Perhaps what happens with stoneskin is that weapons hit you and sink into your flesh, but the outer layer just chips off like flakes of stone off a mountain, leaving you unharmed.

 

[Admiral Caine]

Extra wrinkle here for you wise folks to consider:

I'm not so much worried about the DR reduction of 10 points (I'm not that much of a tightwad that I can't give a player the benefit of the doubt on a potential 10d6 fall), I'm really interested in whether this uses up the hundred or so points of absorbed damage that the spell conveys.

But I guess the two go hand in hand? If I let the PC reduce the spell damage by 10 points of DR, then their spell buff is going to absorb the rest. They could walk away unharmed but that spell is going to take a beating.

Or the player can take 10d6, and keep the spell.

In any case, I appreciate the time and energy- I'm not asking just to ask. This will save game time if I have my answer ahead of time.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Injuries from falling are distributed and unavoidable (past a certain height). Wounds from weapons are localized and avoidable. They are very different, logically.

Falling damage ignores DR, because it's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop at the end.

(And yes, the implication is that falling damage shouldn't be measured in HP. Nor should any unavoidable, distributed damage. It should be measured in Constitution damage. See my thread in the house Rules forum for further explanation and my suggestion on this.)

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Extra wrinkle here for you wise folks to consider:

I'm a little confused by your post, but I think you may be misunderstanding stoneskin. (If I'm wrong, i apologize in advance.)

Stoneskin lasts until it prevents a certain amount of damage. If you choose to house-rule falling damage so that the DR applies, you should just subtract 10 from stoneskin's "ablative" protection.

Example: a wizard 10 casts stoneskin (DR 10/adamantine, until it prevents 100 points of damage), then falls 100 feet, taking 35 points of damage. Stoneskin prevents 10 of that (if you house-rule it), the wizards takes 25 HP damage, and the stoneskin can prevent 90 more points of damage.

 

[Admiral Caine]

I'm a little confused by your post, but I think you may be misunderstanding stoneskin. (If I'm wrong, i apologize in advance.)

Stoneskin lasts until it prevents a certain amount of damage. If you choose to house-rule falling damage so that the DR applies, you should just subtract 10 from stoneskin's "ablative" protection.

Example: a wizard 10 casts stoneskin (DR 10/adamantine, until it prevents 100 points of damage), then falls 100 feet, taking 35 points of damage. Stoneskin prevents 10 of that (if you house-rule it), the wizards takes 25 HP damage, and the stoneskin can prevent 90 more points of damage.

I think I did misunderstand it, thank you. But I was also in right ballpark.

(My player actually keeps track of this for himself, and I trust him. I started GMing 3.5 before I played 3.5, so sometimes there are little holes where I should know sometrhing and I don't).

So by that logic, Stoneskin's ability to absorb damage goes down in increments of 10. Everytime some damage gets through the DR 10, that is ten less that it can absorb.

So in our theoretical 100 foot drop (assuming I house rule it), the Stoneskin spell at most loses 10 points of effectiveness. Correct?

Okay.. then it just comes down to whether I allow it to have any effect on falling damage or not.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

So by that logic, Stoneskin's ability to absorb damage goes down in increments of 10. Everytime some damage gets through the DR 10, that is ten less that it can absorb.

The second sentence is correct, but the first sentence is sometimes false. If a wizard has 90 points of stoneskin left and it prevents a piddly rapier hit for 6 points of damage, he has 84 points left.

Otherwise, you've got it.

 

[Admiral Caine]

The second sentence is correct, but the first sentence is sometimes false. If a wizard has 90 points of stoneskin left and it prevents a piddly rapier hit for 6 points of damage, he has 84 points left.

Otherwise, you've got it.

I see! Thank you!