What happens with the slight fellow?

[Decamber]

Hello!

I was wondering something. Let's say Dolph the STR 18 fighter hits Mårten the Slight Guy with a BMI of 12, with his Greatsword with a horizontal swing. Does Mårten stand still in the same 5-by-5 feet square, or will he fall/move to another square?

If nothing happens, what makes this differ to a bullrush?

Thanks!

 

[Crothian]

What's BMI?

The only thing that can move a person is bull rush. If you are not performing a bull rush, you aren't moving him.

 

[Decamber]

BMI stands for 'Body Mass Index'. It's the body's weight in kilograms divided by the height in meters squared (wt/ht2), used as a practical marker to assess obesity. You should lie around 21-25 to be considered "normal". The BMI system has it's disadvantages, however; it would, for instance, say that Magnus Samuelsson (officially titled the world's strongest man) is overweight.

Well, back to the topic.
Could you (or someone else) explain why the wonky guy doesn't move by the strong fighter's sword. Let's say the fighter gets a perfect swing and hits right with the middle of the sword's blade.

 

[Crothian]

Because it's not in the rules. It has nothing to do with strength, weight, or physics. It has everything to do with simplicity. First of all d20 doesn't go into detail about what type of swing or what direction its coming from. It also doesn't get into where the attack hits or what short of defensive stance the person is in.

 

[Vaxalon]

Even if you consider physics, an inelastic collision between a five pound sword moving one hundred miles per hour and a ninety-five pound man who's not moving is going to result in a one hundred pound man with a sword in him moving at 5 miles per hour... not exactly careening around the room.

 

[Decamber]

Crothian - That's the reasons I hate most: "because's it's in the rules".

Vaxalon - Huh? I guess I'm quite tired, but I didn't really get that. Could you explain a little?

Hmm. For simplicity's sake, let's take another more appropriate example:

The strong fighter is scoring an excellent hit with his greatsword against the skeleton, however not enough to drop it (the skeleton, not the greatsword). As the fighter hit with such a great force, and aimed at running through the skeleton to cleave it, wouldn't it then be logical if he pushed the skeleton along his sword swing (assuming he didn't cleave him)?

Or am I thinking too short?

 

[Berk]

There are flaws in your thinking. Put it this way. The average human has what? 3hp? You are talking about adventurers. You gotta scale them together. If in reality I swung a great sword at you and scored a terrific hit, it would kill you. Slice you in half or whatever. With your logic how come that swing doesn't just cleave the opponent in half? Cuz these are beyond ordinary people. You gotta think of them as such. Say person A has 50hp, and person B has 40hp. Person B swings and hits person A doing 8 points of damage. That hit would kill a normal person 2 times over plus some. Now if you scale it, that hit to person A was just like as if say you cut my finger off, damn right it hurt, but I'm living and well. Get my point? Don't bring reality into it, it's a fantasy game.

 

[Decamber]

There are flaws in your thinking. Put it this way. The average human has what? 3hp? You are talking about adventurers. You gotta scale them together. If in reality I swung a great sword at you and scored a terrific hit, it would kill you. Slice you in half or whatever. With your logic how come that swing doesn't just cleave the opponent in half? Cuz these are beyond ordinary people. You gotta think of them as such. Say person A has 50hp, and person B has 40hp. Person B swings and hits person A doing 8 points of damage. That hit would kill a normal person 2 times over plus some. Now if you scale it, that hit to person A was just like as if say you cut my finger off, damn right it hurt, but I'm living and well. Get my point? Don't bring reality into it, it's a fantasy game.

You made a point. If I would try push a 10th level fighter over, nothing would happen. And with the original example, it would be quite a shame for the defender if he couldn't stand the attacker's regular sword attack, and fall over or something. Hehehe...

Thanks.

 

[Christian]

Vax-your analysis would be exactly correct if the fighter released the sword at impact ... But he's more likely continuing to accelerate the sword.

Berk has it exactly correct. A hit this solid is a finisher-feel free to make up some 'flavor' rules about where the bodies fly on a Cleave.