Throwing characters, AoO and other unusual manuevers

[FoxWander]

Say you need to get to a caster behind a line of fighters. Your party's fighters have their fighters well engaged, but their caster is about to ruin your day. The halfling rogue gets the idea to have your cleric (who's pretty strong and hanging back to heal your fighters) throw him over the combat to harrass the caster. How would you handle this tactic?

The halfling weighs about 50 lbs with armor and readied weapons. The cleric has an 18 str and the ceiling is 20 feet high. How far can the cleric throw the halfling in the first place? Assuming he can make the 20' to the enemy caster, does the halfling provoke AoO as he sails over the enemy fighters? What would be the tumble DC to land safely? (I'm thinking 15, same as to treat a fall as 10' shorter to lessen damage.) If the cleric makes a touch ac attack against the caster (with a -4 non-proficiency penalty for "thrown halfling") can the halfling land on the caster and immediately start a grapple? If he flubs the grapple and just hits the caster how much, if any, damage does he do/take from the impact? Would a synergy bonus from the halflings high tumble skill apply to the clerics to-hit roll? Does the clerics high strength assist in the direct-hit grapple check?

And, for a final bit of silliness, if the cleric and halfling want to practice this particular manuever is "Thrown Halfling" a Simple Weapon, which could be added to the cleric's weapon proficiencies with just a little in-game practice or would he need to take an Exotic Weapon Proficiency to get rid of the -4 attack penalty?

Have YOUR players tried any fun and unusual tactics you'd care to share, along with how you handled it rules-wise, so others can benefit from your experience/misery?

 

[LGodamus]

I do believe improvised weapons always take a -4 penalty, plus dont forget to apply falling damage to the halfling for the distance he traveled.

 

[reapersaurus]

I'd make the thrown halfling be a Ranged touch attack, using the cleric's BAB + DEX bonus - 4 for improvised weapon.
No, it can't be a weapon proficiency.
The thrower would have to be able to lift 50 lbs over their head (you might want to multiply that weight by 5, or some arbitrary factor to prevent low-STR people from pulling this move).

The cleric's STR wouldn't apply.
The halfling's Tumble skill would be good to use for both avoiding AoO's (yes, AoO's are incurred, DC 15 sounds good) and for landing without damage.
If the halfling is on the same initiative, he can perform a grapple as soon as the ranged touch attack succeeds.
If the ranged touch attack succeeds, AND the wizard misses his AoO, then I'd proceed right to the Hold phase of the Grapple.

Sounds like a cool maneuver.

 

[Hypersmurf]

The halfling rogue gets the idea to have your cleric (who's pretty strong and hanging back to heal your fighters) throw him over the combat to harrass the caster.

"Yer going to have to toss me."

-Hyp.

 

[FoxWander]

I'd make the thrown halfling be a Ranged touch attack, using the cleric's BAB + DEX bonus - 4 for improvised weapon.
No, it can't be a weapon proficiency.
The thrower would have to be able to lift 50 lbs over their head (you might want to multiply that weight by 5, or some arbitrary factor to prevent low-STR people from pulling this move).

The cleric's STR wouldn't apply.
The halfling's Tumble skill would be good to use for both avoiding AoO's (yes, AoO's are incurred, DC 15 sounds good) and for landing without damage.
If the halfling is on the same initiative, he can perform a grapple as soon as the ranged touch attack succeeds.
If the ranged touch attack succeeds, AND the wizard misses his AoO, then I'd proceed right to the Hold phase of the Grapple.

Sounds like a cool maneuver.

Yeah, that's pretty much how I handled it (except I made it the Tumble check to avoid AoO 20 because the halfling couldn't really manuever/dodge well while thrown), but I was curious how others might rule it. And yes, it was the "cool stunt" of the evening. As frustrating as trying to rule on things like this is, they do make for memorable games.

Are there good rules ANYWHERE in a d20 system to cover how much weight a character can throw and how far? I just arbitrarily ruled that 18 Str could probably hurl 50 lbs 20 feet, and that worked fine for this. But I've had similar situations come up in the past about throwing a small character across a chasm or a pit, and for something like that knowing definite rules for weight and distance would be pretty important. (I haven't had to wing it yet because they've always found another solution besides dwarf/halfling tossing.) So does anybody know of rules covering this? Or something that could be adapted, like for giants throwing boulders?

 

[Pixie Barbarian]

A house rule that I have been using for throwing objects is that you can throw something that weighs less than you strength rating in pounds with a 10' range increment (max 5 increments). You do not suffer non-proficiency penalties unless it needs to be thrown in a certain orientation (e.g., a knife), or is unbalanced (e.g., a halfling child ).

For example, a Str 18 cleric could throw up an 18 lb rock with a 10' range increment with no non-proficiency penalty, but would suffer a -4 non-proficiency penalty for an 18 lb sack of flour (chucking an 18 lb. object up to 50' is a very impressive feat, but still in the realm of believability).

Now, for your situation, the halfling weighs too much for this rule, but you see gymnasts assist others with jumps all the time, so what I would suggest is to let the cleric add his/her Str bonus as a synnergy bonus to the halfling's jump check.

For example, the halfling with a Jump-10 skill gets a running start and plants his foot in the cupped hands of the Str 18 cleric, as he attempts to jump. The cleric throws the halfling up as hard as he can to assist the jumping motion, thus adding his +4 Str modifier to the halfling's Jump skill for a total check of 14. Essentially, the cleric has added 4 extra horizontal feet and 1 extra vertical foot to the halfling's jumping distance.

 

[RigaMortus]

Wouldn't there also be a Range Incriment in there as well? Probably the usual 10'? So every 10 feet you try and toss the halfling, would be a -2 to your ranged attack roll... Right?

 

[Silveras]

In Dragon mag.

For reference, there is a nice article in a (relatively) recent back issue of Dragon magazine (#306). "Power Fantasy" by J.D.Wilker with suggested rules for some 'cinematic combat actions'. Specifically, it addresses throwing and dropping large objects (including throwing the enemy), swinging on ropes, and riding up/down on rope elevators.

 

[Darklone]

Kalamar Players Guide has rules to throw someone during a grapple.

 

[Tilla the Hun (work)]

-rofl-

I love that trick! Did it first in vtm as a player, then had a co-player from that game do it to me in DnD.

Luckily, he's our resident rules lawyer that I leverage extensively, and he knows it, and prepared the rules for it.

There's section in the DMG or PHB (can't remember which) from 3.0 (and should be in 3.5 too) about throwing rocks.

It had an associated table describing the weight of the rocks and their projectile increments as modified by strength. The weights were in ranges of pounds, and so forth.

I'll see if I can locate that tonight and post it tomorrow. Doesn't seem to be in the SRD (strangely enough, rock throwing rules aren't open sourced??)

I would not allow tumble to avoid AoO's when the halfling is flying overhead. I would allow tumble to decrease falling damage, or monks slow fall if thrown to a wall. I would agree that the 'to hit' (marvelous thinking that' should be bab + dex -4 (until exotic weapon prof is taken in 'thrown halfling', and the practice is just RP justification for taking it), and that halfling, on a successful hit, cannot tumble out of the damage from falling.

I'd use the damage from that chart as a guide point, and potentially add in any weapons the halfling tries to use.

The str from the cleric would add in as it would for a thrown rock.


A couple of questions to add to this (because I can perceive additional complications )

1) I assume the Rogue delays action until the Cleric throws him. Instead, the Rogue 'readies' an action - "When the cleric throws me over the combat, I'll throw a dagger at the opponent I'll flank against the fighter" or at the mage, or at anyone - what mods to his hit would you give??

2) The rogue readies his magic box - a fire trapped flimsy box - and hurls it at the mage when in midair... or at the fighters opponent.

I'd also rule that you could only throw 1/2 your max lift. This over-simplifies the complexity of the olympic sport - hurling.

FYI - most athletes would have a strength of 16-18, especially those who participate in hurling, etc. The record for hurling an 8 lb iron sphere is less than 50'. So does anyone know of anyone who can throw a 50 lb object 20' ???? Caber tossing aside (the end point is measured, not how far the base traveled), this would be extremely difficult . But it's an abstraction, so who cares, right?