Throw Me! - The Mechanics of Lobbing a Halfling

[Sadronmeldir]

I did some initial research and I've seen a lot of different answers. In our party, we have a halfling rogue and a half-orc paladin. The debate has come up a few times regarding the viability of throwing the halfling into battle.

I've sorted out that throwing the halfling would be considered an improvised weapon, thus normally incurring a -4 penalty on attack rolls. After that, though, things get fuzzy for me. If anyone can provide some insight to the questions below or past experiences, I would appreciate it!

Question 1: When a halfing is thrown and makes contact, how much damage would it do? Would damage also be done to the halfling?

Question 2: Would the halfling have to make any sort of check to land properly?

Question 3: Can the halfing ready an attack and wait until he is thrown?

Question 4: Can the halfling treat the throw as a charge and then attack?

Thank you all in advance for any replies.

[Righty_]

Question 5 if said half ling is hiding inside the thrown object can he pop out to do a sneak attack.

[Lord Foul II]

well for one, compare the mechanic of improvised weaponry, and using seige/splass weapons, and the rules for falling damage for creatures and objects
in direct answer to the questions listed
1 yes, I'd say treat it as falling dammage
2 if a check is nessairy, it'd probably be an acrobatics check based against either their touch AC or thir CMD
3 I'd say probably not, a catfolk (reduced to small to be able to thrown if nessairy) with pounce sure, maybe a Combat manuver or a slam attack, but not a weapon attack (maybe with a few spicific exceptions like armor spikes)
4 see 3,

I have a similar issue, I have a Diamond Aasimar who can fly just under 2 miles per miniute, that weighs ~300 pounds, and I have no idea how much damage he'd do if he were to crash into someone or something

[The Terrible Zodin]

After a quick think, and trying to keep it simple, instead of realistic, I came up with this.

Sadronmeldir wrote:

Question 1: When a halfing is thrown and makes contact, how much damage would it do? Would damage also be done to the halfling?

1d6 to target and none to halfling. Throwing people is an ineffecient way of doing damage.

Quote:

Question 2: Would the halfling have to make any sort of check to land properly?

Yes, an acrobatics check will do the trick. Sounds hard so I would say DC25

Quote:

Question 3: Can the halfing ready an attack and wait until he is thrown?

Sure, why not?

Quote:

Question 4: Can the halfling treat the throw as a charge and then attack?

Again, yes.

In general, players want to do this because it looks cool and they've seen comic book characters do it. In the real world it's ridiculously hard. Ask your players how much they want to invest in it (skills and feats) and go from there. In any case it shouldn't be more powerful than a first or second level spell.

[Lord Foul II]

also concider penultys for incorectly sized weapons.

[The Terrible Zodin]

Righty_ wrote:

Question 5 if said half ling is hiding inside the thrown object can he pop out to do a sneak attack.

My gut response is no, it's too complicated.

But lets make it really hard instead.

Stealth DC 25 to hide properly
Acrobatics DC 25 to get yourself pointed in the right direction
Attack at -4, because it's totally non-standard.

Keep in mind, the better you make it, the more your players will use it.

[Sadronmeldir]

Thanks all for the replies so far. I'm aware that at the end of the day a lot of this comes down to GM discretion, I'm just trying to get the whole picture of things to consider.

The Terrible Zodin wrote:

After a quick think, and trying to keep it simple, instead of realistic, I came up with this.

In general, players want to do this because it looks cool and they've seen comic book characters do it. In the real world it's ridiculously hard. Ask your players how much they want to invest in it (skills and feats) and go from there. In any case it shouldn't be more powerful than a first or second level spell.

This is definitely in no way an optimized strategy, but more so for amusement and comedic value.

In regards to the added Question 5 for sneak attack, I personally would assume that it would be very difficult to maintain sneaking once the non-sneaking party member hoists you into the air. It kind of draws attention to you. :-P

[Fnipernackle]

see This Thread

[Lord Foul II]

for question 5 I'd say if the person throwing you had improved improvised weapon or something that made you flat footed, and you were allowed to actually attack, or if the person throwing you was also a rouge and you were flatfooted then sure,
also concider weathre or not the hafling can be lifted, in 2e there actually was a mechanic for trouwing random rocks and rock sized objects if you had a 19 or higher strength (19 then was a lot more than 19 now)