Horizontal falling objects?

[PenguinKing]

That's strange, Your Icy Highness. How do they know when there's something their characters might be able to see?

The environmental cues are included in my initial descriptions of the scene - basically everything they'd pick up with DC 0-5 Spot and Listen checks anyway. If they want more information, they call for a check to hit the higher DCs. Simple, really.

And... Instant Death? I think you misunderstand my intention here - if I wanted to hose my players, I'd have these monoliths moving a touch faster than a brisk walk. Let's assume the PC is actually able to react to being smacked by a drifting rock rather than just lying there, eh?

- Sir Bob.

 

[Vaxalon]

Nah - they accuse me of being unfair when I call the shots on when Spot and Listen are called for, so aside from obvious game-mechanical cues, they decide.

If I was a player in your game, I'd be calling for spot/listen every time it was my time to speak.

 

[Crothian]

If I was a player in your game, I'd be calling for spot/listen every time it was my time to speak.

And it'd always be my time to speak.

 

[Christian]

There's just not much middle ground in this situation, as described. There's really not going to be an significant impact damage at that speed, and if they see it coming, they can either move out of the way (if they see it from far enough away) or at least jump towards the side and let it knock them off the side of the road. If they're just standing in the middle of the road and it whacks them from behind, well, that's all she wrote, I'm afraid ...

Unless they're absolutely silent, the character should always have some time to react. That's why I specified a Reflex save, and it should probably have a pretty low DC. But this is also a good argument for not requiring to make the players say when they're wanting to make a Spot check-whether you're intentionally looking or not, you're probably going to notice an enormous rock moving slowly towards you, even from a fair distance and with your peripheral vision. Not necessarily-but you should get a roll even if you're not paying attention and looking around ...

 

[PenguinKing]

I didn't want to require them to call for checks, but some of 'em are such babies about the way I adjudicate when a check is called for. Picture this:

Player: "I should have seen that!"
Me: "It was behind a door."
Player: "So?!"
Me: "That means it's a Listen check, not a Spot."
Player: "But I don't have any ranks in Listen!"
Me: "And...?"
Player: "I have maxed out ranks in Spot!"
Me: "And...?"
Player: "You're trying to screw me out of all those points I spent on Spot, aren't you?!?"

... and so forth.

- Sir Bob.

 

[Omegium]

Ok, here some physics:

All calculations are done in metric system, for I'm from europe

Energy kinectic = .5*m*v^2
Energy gravity = m*g*h

An object weighting 200 pound (90 kg) does 1d6 points of damage if it falls over 10 ft. (3 mtr). The gravity acc is 9.81 m/s^2, in the netherlands
Egrav = 90 * 9.81 * 3 = 2648 J

So 2648 J is about 1d6 damage
The rest is calculatable with the first formula.
6.5 miles = 10.4 km/h = 2.89 m/s

The energy released would be: .5 * 45000 * 2.89^2 = 187922 J, or 71d6

 

[Crothian]

I didn't want to require them to call for checks, but some of 'em are such babies about the way I adjudicate when a check is called for. Picture this:

Player: "I should have seen that!"
Me: "It was behind a door."
Player: "So?!"
Me: "That means it's a Listen check, not a Spot."
Player: "But I don't have any ranks in Listen!"
Me: "And...?"
Player: "I have maxed out ranks in Spot!"
Me: "And...?"
Player: "You're trying to screw me out of all those points I spent on Spot, aren't you?!?"

... and so forth.

- Sir Bob.

Let the guy roll spot and listen. Granted the spot DC will be 50+ but allow them to roll it. PCs somethimes don't see fiar/unfair, they see their version of fair/unfair. But not allowing him that roll, it's unfair. But if you allow him that roll and he doesn't make the DC, it's still fair to them. Give him the illusion that his spot skill could help in that situation. I also have them these two skills rolled together just for that effect.

 

[Rowenstin]

Ok, here some physics:

All calculations are done in metric system, for I'm from europe

Energy kinectic = .5*m*v^2
Energy gravity = m*g*h

An object weighting 200 pound (90 kg) does 1d6 points of damage if it falls over 10 ft. (3 mtr). The gravity acc is 9.81 m/s^2, in the netherlands
Egrav = 90 * 9.81 * 3 = 2648 J

So 2648 J is about 1d6 damage
The rest is calculatable with the first formula.
6.5 miles = 10.4 km/h = 2.89 m/s

The energy released would be: .5 * 45000 * 2.89^2 = 187922 J, or 71d6

I´m not sure what you did, but seems as if you consider that all the boulder´s energy goes to the victim. That leads to a curious scenario; the rock hits the guy and stops dead, and the guy starts flying with a sonic boom.

You should consider only the energy adquired by the victim, I think.

 

[Omegium]

I´m not sure what you did, but seems as if you consider that all the boulder´s energy goes to the victim. That leads to a curious scenario; the rock hits the guy and stops dead, and the guy starts flying with a sonic boom.

You should consider only the energy adquired by the victim, I think.

You are right, This does indeed assume the victim stops the object, but I don't know any other way to calculate it, maybe impulse, but that assumes all energy is used for movement, while that isn't the case either: the victim does slow the object down.

 

[Rowenstin]

You are right, This does indeed assume the victim stops the object, but I don't know any other way to calculate it, maybe impulse, but that assumes all energy is used for movement, while that isn't the case either: the victim does slow the object down.

That´s not difficult. Let´s assume that the boulder and the victim both end moving at the same speed; then find the new speed of the new mass (boulder+victim)

So the victim ends moving at that new speed (that will be almost equal that of the lone boulder; for engineering purpouses you can just take that) and it´s easy to extrapolate to meters of fall and dice of damage.

(Agh, need to improve my english)