Damage by falling rocks

[gutnedawg]

Say a flying creature drops a boulder on a creature. How does damage dealt correlate with rock weight and fall distance

[SkyHaussmann]

Quote:

Objects that fall upon characters deal damage based on their size and the distance they have fallen. Table: Damage from Falling Objects determines the amount of damage dealt by an object based on its size. Note that this assumes that the object is made of dense, heavy material, such as stone. Objects made of lighter materials might deal as little as half the listed damage, subject to GM discretion. For example, a Huge boulder that hits a character deals 6d6 points of damage, whereas a Huge wooden wagon might deal only 3d6 damage. In addition, if an object falls less than 30 feet, it deals half the listed damage. If an object falls more than 150 feet, it deals double the listed damage. Note that a falling object takes the same amount of damage as it deals.

Quote:

Object Size Damage
Small 2d6
Medium 3d6
Large 4d6
Huge 6d6
Gargantuan 8d6
Colossal 10d6

[Lathiira]

I thought everyone knew that when rocks fall, everyone dies :)

[Darkwolf117]

Lathiira wrote:

I thought everyone knew that when rocks fall, everyone dies :)

This. This is definitely how it works.

[blackbloodtroll]

Anchor Feather Tokens?

50gp, to drop Anchor, on someone's head.

[gutnedawg]

So a large object is 500-4000 lbs?

[ZoneWolf]

I know this is an old post but I had to comment on it!

If I’m not mistaken the damages are based on by what a creature that size can hold to drop. A medium sized creature can hold a 40-60lb rock and drop it with some accuracy. (Go pick up a 60lb bag of concrete and tell me you could seriously do a lot more than that.)

The problem is this:
A medium sized boulder 6’ in diameter in the real world weighs roughly 7000-8000 lbs U.S. Now in pathfinder that is considered a medium sized boulder and would only do 3d6?????? An item that large hitting someone would easily cause instant death but I get it it’s pathfinder so I would conservatively say at a minimum it would do 10d6 damage.
What size creature would it take to throw an 8000 lb stone?

I’d love a ruling on this by a Paizo official however!

P.s. shrink item may need to be nerfed or seriously altered as a 6th lvl wizard can make a 7000 to 8000 lb boulder into a 4.5” cloth ball that weighs 2 lbs and drop/ throw it on/ at someone while they say the command word to expand it right after they have thrown it.

[Claxon]

Falling object damage isn't realistic, it's not meant to be. Otherwise the most effective attack methods are just flying above someone dropping shrunken objects on people. Which is not something that the developers wanted.

[Kayerloth]

Not to mention the higher you get the less and less accurately you are going to drop something onto a particularly spot.

There's a reason the Norden bomb sight (and its predecessors) exist not too mention guidance surfaces/fins etc. on more modern bombs.

And a cloth-like object, go up a 100 feet and see how easily you can drop a handkerchief onto a 5ft square. Then add in any kind of wind present and you'll be lucky to not miss by a fair bit.

There are no good rules for dropping objects whether its rocks, a flask of green slime, alchemist fire, or dead cows from 'altitude' with the intent of hitting a space or creature. I'd probably start any home rules with thrown weapons 10ft range increment and adjust things from there for the objects aerodynamics and probably extend the max range to at least 10 increments. With some considerable tweaking if I expected to deal with the issue with any frequency.

Total unfamiliar with Starfinder ... does it have any rule systems for 'bombing'?

PS Bombing wasn't/isn't done because its particularly accurate short of todays highly guided ordnance but because it was even harder to accurately retaliate on the flying attacker.