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At a PFS event last weekend, the fighter wanted to throw the Halfling up onto a platform that was 30' in the air.
For a Halfling he was pretty heavy since he had medium armor and a tower shield. But if needed he could have dropped the tower shield.
The fighter was str 19 (I think).
People were looking up the carrying loads tables, arguing about how far you could throw something laterally vs. vertically, whether it should be a strength check or ranged touch attack, etc...
We eventually used enlarge person and bulls strength on the fighter. So the vertical distance was not that great and the relative weight was much lower.
I believe the GM decided on the strength allowed the throw without penalty for unwieldy weight, ranged touch for a location (DC=10), non-proficient -4, and the Halfling had to make an acrobatics check to keep from falling prone on arrival.
The fighter made the ranged touch easily. The Halfling barely made his acrobatics check.
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First, I want to make it clear I have no problem with the GM's ruling. He had to come up with something on the fly and he did. Actually it came pretty close to what I was thinking in my head (although I was thinking more of a DC=15).
Second, if it comes up again when I am GM, is there a better or more rules savvy way to handle this type of thing? Everyone liked the effect, so I can see that pair trying it again in the future.
I think off the top of my head I would have made it a strength check, maybe with the DC based on how the weight fit in with the thrower's carrying capacity... Light load DC 10, Medium load DC 15, Heavy load DC 20? Not sure how I would factor in how far he could actually throw though, but then again I've never looked too much into range increments and improvised weapons.
"How would you rule Halfling tossing?"
High Strength, lots of spin, and controlled form, kind of like the Hammer Throw, only more wiggle
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That DC looks waaaay undercosted to throw a person UP 30' into the air.
Think about it this way...someone with a running start needs a DC 30 acrobatics check to jump 30' horizontally. With a running start, they need a DC 120 to jump 30' straight UP.
Spitballin':
I would say it would be STR check for height and ranged touch for location. If you're generous, you could say since it's a willing tossee who's assisting in being thrown that the STR DC is 2 or 3 per foot of height being tossed up--this keeps it in the realm of difficult but not impossible.
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(This method is much more forgiving)
Or, alternately, the Fighter picks up the Halfling and holds him over his head. The Fighter performs a bullrush combat maneuver to bullrush the halfling straight up. Since the halfling is a willing, yielding target offering no resistance you could rule his CMD = 0 (or just the base of 10).
"If your attack is successful, your target is pushed back 5 feet. For every 5 by which your attack exceeds your opponent's CMD you can push the target back an additional 5 feet. You can move with the target if you wish but you must have the available movement to do so. If your attack fails, your movement ends in front of the target."
It's not so much a toss as a shove but it uses existing mechanics. For realism's sake you can halve the distance moved since it's vertical and not horizontal, but by RAW, there is no difference.
(minor edit made)
In all honesty? Throwing a 30 lb naked halfling straight up is probably around dc 120. This is the dc to /jump/ that high. You coould maybe drop it to 60 because its an ability check.
Before anyone says gosh that is way too high.. the realoty is a naked halfling is the same weight as a large medicine ball and less aerodynamic. Your basically left doing a granny throw 30 feet up I doubt anyone on earth can do it.
I dislike using rl to explain why something should be difficult but in the absense of rules childhood memories of medicine balls followed by googling weightz will have to suffice.
At the end of the day acrobatics high jump dc gives us a good gauge of hoe hard it is to go straight up.
Before anyone says gosh that is way too high.. the realoty is a naked halfling is the same weight as a large medicine ball and less aerodynamic. Your basically left doing a granny throw 30 feet up I doubt anyone on earth can do it.
Looking at keg toss records being a little over 20 feet high, I would agree with this. Then again, I don't really stick strictly to realism in my games. Also someone with 19 str is really high. 14 strength is already a very strong person.
In my game, I would probably make it a 25-30 str check and let the person being thrown help with a 20-25 acrobatics check (he jumps as he is being tossed) for a bonus 5. Enlarge person would cut this check in half.
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I'd insist the halfling be wielding some kind of bagh naka variant, and that the maneuver be called a Fastball Special.
Yeah, no. Not vertical, not more than 10ft, tops.
We've seen circus throws, ice-dancing throws, and cheerleading throws. 30ft is right out. The math involved is more than I can be bothered to do, but... no.
Imagine a beefy body-builder throwing a loaded suitcase 30ft upwards. Those are usually about 50lbs, reasonable for an equipped halfling. Not going to happen.
Boosting someone up a few feet, sure. This, not so much.
The urge to say "yes" to a player is strong but here they might as well have asked to throw the halfling to the moon.
For all the people citing real-life examples, I would ask how many of these RL examples involved people who had strength and size boosting spells cast on them like the fighter mentioned in the OP did.
Doesn't matter really. In addition to the rl stuff I cited acrobatics. Acrobatics tells us the designers acknowlege gravity and its a harsh mistress.
I think if the ops fighter could attach a chain to the halfling nailing a shot put st a 90degree angle might be easier thsn straitht up.. but somone who knows physics could answer that better.
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... but somone who knows physics could answer that better.
Well the basic physics are pretty simple. Equivalent speed will send something about twice as far in a lateral direction as a vertical direction. The complicated part is that the human body is not as well designed for a vertical throwing motion as a lateral throwing motion. So probably can’t impart the same speed in the vertical direction.
In all honesty? Throwing a 30 lb naked halfling straight up is probably around dc 120...
That would be the DC for the fighter to get his own large 1680 lb butt 30‘ in the air (after enlarge). He is throwing a Halfling approx 3% of that weight. So that would be a normal sized person throwing approximately 6 lbs. Or in the ball park of a shot put weight.
He is also throwing from a shoulder height or better release point. So about 10’ in the air. So really only need to travel about 20’ vertical.
He has a strength of 25 (19 +4 bulls strength +2 enlarge) which is about the same as a dire bear or hill giant.
A hill giant throws a rock of the same size category as the Halfling with a 120’ range increment. And it can throw that stone up to 5 range increments or 600'.
Anyway, those were the things floating around in my head when we were discussing.
I agree that the DC=10 (or even 15) for a ranged touch attack seems too low.
A strength check of DC=120 seems too high to the point of silly.
For all the people citing real-life examples, I would ask how many of these RL examples involved people who had strength and size boosting spells cast on them like the fighter mentioned in the OP did.
Exactly. It doesn't matter. There's already precedent. We know roughly what your lifting capacity is for a given strength.
Someone with Strength 29 can lift about 1,400 lbs over their head. Well, I know I can likely do 140 lbs, maybe. Can I throw a halfling/dog 3 feet upwards? No. So can a Strength 29 throw one 30 feet? No. Only height doesn't scale linearly. Ten times the height doesn't just require ten times the strength.
So hey, using existing game mechanics we can see this isn't doable as discussed.
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Another thing to consider is that jump distance/height is limited by your max move speed. You can't move, including distanced jumped, further than your max move speed for the round. That means, if you effectively "double-move" to jump (forego your standard for the round), this halfling cannot move+jump further than 40'. 30' jump + 10' running start means that this is the "hard limit" for how high you can jump; technically 40', but that means double the DC for no running start
That is why were throwing the Halfling rather than some sort of aiding the Halfling in jumping.
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World record for shot put is approx. 76' linear distance.
Same speed vertical would carry it 38' up.
Can't really impart the same vertical speed so say we cut it in half to only about 19' straight up.
Shot put is larger percentage of body mass to the enlarged fighter but less aerodynamic. However, once you are talking about large mass things that have the density to push through the air, the aero dynamics don't make much difference at the low velocities we are discussing.
The str=25 fighter is stronger than any human that ever lived.
Could he get the Halfling 20' in the air? Doesn't seem like anything that should be considered impossible to me. We were just not sure about a reasonable DC value.
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At the very least it would be a multi part check.
A strength check of some sort to determine how high the character can throw the weight in question.
Then a dexterity or to hit roll to determine accuracy. Power throws of bulk weight are generally not very accurate.
Most likely realistic scenario for something like this would be similar to the aforementioned keg tosses at strongman competitions. Those guys are freakishly strong, so I think we have that part nailed, and they are heaving up kegs over a crossbar. So, back to the target, weight low and an upward swing/heave and release... now they don't get anywhere near 30 feet, but then they are also not enhanced with an enlarge spell, and because they are throwing the way they are to maximize height, their accuracy is not always great.
What would make this possible, from the physics standpoint, is the massive weight of the thrower from the enlarge spell. Much like a hydraulic ram or launch at that point, the amount of resistance and force they can generate should be sufficient to do the trick. Remember that lift capacity goes up drastically with size category, so it is not just the raw strength score at play.
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World record for shot put is approx. 76' linear distance.
Same speed vertical would carry it 38' up.
Can't really impart the same vertical speed so say we cut it in half to only about 19' straight up.
It is very hard to throw an object upwards as our bodies are not designed for the motion, and you can project something significantly farther horizontally than vertically. However, that is of course dependent on the manner in which you throw it.
The str=25 fighter is stronger than any human that ever lived.
I wouldn't go that far, as for pure lifting capacity it is at the upper recorded limits, but since Strength also applies to carrying and pushing/pulling, real life examples exceed the charts in some areas. But lets say that that 25 strength is about the human capstone (which would make sense based on the idea of a 20 starting and 5 level increases).
Again the big difference would be the mass of the thrower, in general no human being with a non magically enhanced strength of 18 or better is going to weigh under 200 lbs(and 200 is a very low minimum), making him weigh at least 1600 after enlarge... that is a lot of a** to put behind the throw.
Both together it should be possible to do, just finding the mechanical sweet spot for a roll is the question.
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I wouldn't go that far, as for pure lifting capacity it is at the upper recorded limits, but since Strength also applies to carrying and pushing/pulling, real life examples exceed the charts in some areas. But lets say that that 25 strength is about the human capstone (which would make sense based on the idea of a 20 starting and 5 level increases)...
The str=25 fighter is stronger than any human that ever lived.
I was basing that off of everyone continually saying the highest non-superhero PC's or non-supervillan NPC's is around level 8. So they would only have 2 level increases. But that is a minor quibble.
I'd have allowed. Though there are a couple ways I've seen to adjudicate already. The hurling line of rage powers and Mythic champion path abilities. Going ad hoc trivialized said features existence's but honestly I don't and probably wouldn't care.
The world record for a maximum lift is 1038 lbs.
The world record for a 16 lbs hammer throw is 284 ft. Let's reduce that by 1/4 to simulate a vertical throw. That's 71 feet.
The weight of the hammer is 1.5 % of the max load.
A large sized 25 strength max load is 1600. A halfling and gear weighs approx 50 lbs. Which is 3% of max load. If we further reduce the above vertical throw by half to represent something weighing twice the percentage of the max load we are looking at 35.5 feet. If the halfling were to hold on to a rope or strap and the large fighter hammer threw him. I believe it is easily possible to throw the halfling a mere 20 feet.
Also consider figure skaters. They hammer throw there partners 10 feet and that's something almost equivalent in weight.
I would make the target square ac a 20. With a non proficiency penalty of -4 and a -2 penalty for range (20) foot.
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I think, if anything, we can all agree on one thing:
Spend 2 gp so you have 50' of rope and a grappling hook.
:)
It was during a fight and there was a creature up there that would have easily just flipped the hook back off the platform.
A tactic like this always going to be low level since by 7th level short flights or dim door should be common enough to not need to do this. I can see this being better then levitate since I would put all of the movement into a single round...
Party was 5th to 8th level three of us had already used our potions of fly or I would have given mine to the Halfling. (I would have rather him up there in the danger face instead of my squishy sorc.) That is pretty much a standard purchase for many/most people by about 4th to 5th level. So it didn't even occur to most of that those 2 guys might not have one. Especially since they are the 2 that most had need of one. {shrug}
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Maybe a strength check with the high jump DCs to determine max height.
Take an encumbrance penalty for the halfling's weight + carrying load using the carrying capacity table from the heavy load column, subtracting the associated strength score from the total of the "throw" check in feet.
Examples:
To take 10 on a +4 str character, with the halfling carrying 150 pounds (str 13 from the table), that's a total of 1, meaning the halfling wouldn't get anywhere (from the acrobatics high jump table, 14-13=1 where 1 isn't even a foot high).
Rolling a nat 20 on the same character for the same halfling would be 24-13=12 which is 3 feet high.
If your thrower has a giant 30 str (+10 str mod), taking 10 on the same halfling (20 acrobatics high jump = 5ft high max), you'd get a total of 7 - still only 1 foot high. A nat 20 for the thrower (30-13=17) would get the halfling 4 feet high.
Note that these are throwing high, not long - but the same could likely apply using long jump DCs.
To simplify,
* thrown height = str check vs acrobatics high jump DC - halfling carried weight's heavy load encumbrance score.
* thrown length = str check vs acrobatics long jump DC - halfling carried weight's heavy load encumbrance score.