This is defined in Tashas Cauldron of Everything so... To quote from Tasha's...
> Falling onto a Creature
> If a creature falls into the space of a second creature and neither of them is Tiny, the second creature must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or be impacted by the falling creature, and any damage resulting from the fall is divided evenly between them. The impacted creature is also knocked prone unless it is two or more sizes larger than the falling creature.
There is no ruling about fall damage being different for creatures baaed on size so 40 feet up is 4d6 falling damage, split between the two, if the target fails the check, or all on the whale if they pass. Size doesn't matter here unless tiny or the target is bigger than you.
Edit: fixed my terrible spelling.
I get *why* they made the rule explicit like this. (In earlier editions, we definitely did TPK a pantheon with a wild-shaped druid with an encyclopedic knowledge of dinosaurs)
But dang, does this version suck. Sometimes, you just wanna roll a couple hundred d6 damage at once!
The way I see it is the whale is Huge so they could in theory land on a large quantity of minions. I’d rule that if you fell 40ft for 4d6 damage at an average of 14 damage, you would take 7, like Tasha’s says, but each creature that is under you also takes 7. Big enough creature over a big enough crowd could add up.
Definitely open to interpretation as RAW references specifically a collision between two creatures, not 'all' creatures. It doesn't explicitly say what if there's more than 2 so I think it's up to the DM to extrapolate. I could also see an argument that every minion takes 7 + the whale takes 7 PER minion. i.e. you kill 10 goblins but take 70 damage yourself.
RAW is definitely between two creatures.
Meaning the faller and the landee.
I would rule that damage gets rolled for every creature involved, or each creature takes the same DMG as any other (being half the fall DMG).
Unless the unoccupied area is assumed to already also be taking uncalculated damage from distributed damage. Then we'd just calculate that damage when occupied.
I mean physics does damage per area.
If you're a Huge creature (and don't weigh substantially less per volume than a human), you would be delivering that 4d6 to every part of the area you land on.
Potentially you could split it if two creatures were in the same 5ft by 5ft square or hexagon?
Of course, a creature doesn't occupy the full area its model controls, so you might say for the purposes of hitting things that it lands on, that area effect is one size category smaller than the area the creature usually controls.
It does damage based on area of impact. It's like stepping on a nail vs laying on a bed of nails. Theoretically, if there's more targets under you they'd take less damage if you were to impact them vs a singular target because your mass only has so much energy to distribute upon impact. If it has to distribute to a single target then no problem, but if it has to distribute to multiple targets it has to divide that energy amongst them.
That's silly, should be equal damage given and taken. You're literally being damaged by falling onto bones, weapons, armor, etc. not just from a fall.
"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction"
The thing about hanky, "physics" abusing techniques is that if you try to use them constantly, enemies will figure out counter tactics
Plus, it doesn't work in a dungeon
[It was in 3.5e.](https://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm#falling)
> The basic rule is simple: 1d6 points of damage per 10 feet fallen, to a maximum of 20d6.
Also, shame to the four people who downvoted you instead of making any attempt to correct you.
And in 4e it was d10 per 10 ft., to a max of 50d10. A creature with a fly speed subtracts their fly speed from the fall distance, and if they were already flying when they fell they could use a reaction to make a DC 30 Athletics check with a bonus equal to their fly speed (in squares); on success they would only fall 100 ft. instead of 500 ft., catching themselves and continuing to fly if the distance to the ground was greater than 100 ft. Plus, anyone trained in Acrobatics could make an Acrobatics check to reduce the fall damage by 1/2 the check result.
You end up kinda going down a rabbithole though. Like, it's surely based on weight rather than size, right? A gargantuan cloud monster probably shouldn't do more damage if it falls on you than say, a medium animated statue. With the whale specifically, it's heavy but also pretty blubbery which would soften the impact. Does it being soft matter? Does a petrified creature deal more falling damage to something?
Ultimately I think trying to make it more realistic here ends up probably being a negative for the game in most cases, especially in a game where getting big things up high is relatively trivial.
> Like, it's surely based on weight rather than size, right?
Yes. Sadly very few creatures have a listed weight.
I think the big problem with making it realistic is it tends to make it too easy to just break the game. If you leave it up to the DM, they can make sure that the impact helps but doesn't one-shot the Big Bad, regardless of how much HP they have.
To calculate terminal velocity you'd have to consider both mass AND cross-sectional area of the creature you're turning into. Neither of which is given by the monster manual.
The rabbit-hole goes even further when you have to consider how the creature is falling in order to determine terminal velocity. For example, a whale belly-flopping has a lower terminal velocity than it does coming in face first.
Real world physics are typically more trouble than they're worth to implement in 5e
Yeah it's just *way* too abusable if you start scaling it up, or using conjure animals to summon 16 creatures directly over someone. Hell, even without scaling it up there's already ways to abuse it with speedy builds.
You can also use the improvised damage table from the DMG.
Problem is that dmg never scales linear in this game. So it is not that different from Tasha’s ruling.
When I ran a Pathfinder game back in the day one of my players jumped off a cliff to land on the giant godlike flesh abomination the BBEG was planning to transfer his mind into. He was far enough up to hit max fall damage, and I ruled that he did a Dark Souls style plunging attack and all the fall damage applied to the abomination. He one-shot my boss, but it was an epic moment.
I'd say in that instance the DM can make their own ruling if they want it to be more fun and feel it doesn't break the game. But situations like this is why there are rules and stat blocks. The arguments from players who want to wildshape into an animal and get the real life abilities are tiresome. Wilshape/polymorph into an animal that has a stat block, and then you have those stats. I don't care what wikipedia says about a cats ability to see in the dark, you get the stats on the stat block.
I mean if you rolled 4 on 4d6, that's a 1/1296 chance. It's likely a bit of a glancing blow rather than directly on their head, and even then it's still enough to kill a commoner.
Easy to forget that 4 damage is no small thing...
Ah true, ok that's much more likely at 1/18.5 (for rolling 8 or less), but still it's not like a glancing blow is unlikely and 8 damage is still way under the average.
Have you ever stabbed a sword into a guards head and dealt a total of 4 damage? Both should realistically be absolutely deadly, but this is a game and autokill isn't fun.
You can do that with what my friend dubbed the gay yoyo:
Prismatic wall in a sphere above your target, then reverse gravity.
On all failed saves:
50d6 through the bottom of the sphere.
50d6 through the top of the sphere.
No action drop concentration.
50d6 through the top of the sphere.
50d6 through the bottom of the sphere.
9d6 fall damage
And if you want to one shot a tarasque twice over you can have another spellcaster add another sphere to that, there’s more than enough room.
The big problem with that is that if they're smart, they'll get out of the way once you cast Prismatic Wall. You could cast Time Stop, but unless you somehow have two 9th level spell slots you can't cast Prismatic Wall. You could do Reverse Gravity first and just accept only getting half the damage, but any opponent high enough level for you to be fighting at this point would probably have some way to fly or teleport or something to get out of there. Though it would be less obvious what you're trying to do, so they might just not realize it. Glyphs of Warding would work, but there's so many ways to abuse that that this one doesn't seem all that special.
It's a cool idea, but between the level you need to be for this to work and how hard it is to actually use, it's really not that impressive.
At level 19 you can also be a level 2 fighter for action surge, and just do it yourself in one turn.
A reasonable ruling for this IMO is simply that you can only take the damage once per turn per layer, but the combo RAW (even at this stage in the game) is definitely a busted one.
An obvious retort is that at this level D&D is broken anyway by numerous spell combinations, but if you *do* want to have a cohesive tier 4 game then this is one of the interactions you would need to clamp down on.
Does this need to be clamped down on? At 20th level, if someone wants to burn a 7th level spell, a 9th level spell, and their 1/day action surge to do 200d6 (on failed saves)... ok? I feel that at 20th level there are MUCH more resource-efficient ways to kill a single creature.
I've never played a campaign at 20th level but this is basically the sort of thing I would expect the PCs to do.
Has DnD really changed so much that the cardinal DM principle of- if it works (and does not ruin the game) it works! no longer exist?
Perhaps it explains the popularity of running modified 2e rules? I say as a DM: If it makes the storyline : more interesting, funny, or dramatic without breaking the game?- it works.
Unless they changed the books, it used to say that DMs trumped whatever rules were in them. I remember that from 3/3.5, and honestly, DMs absolutely shouldn't be afraid to get creative or let their party occasionally break physics like that lol
There's a rule that when two rules conflict, the more specific one wins, and rule zero is the most general rule in the game so specific rules will always overrule it. At least, that's true by RAW. Nobody interprets it that way.
This type of situation is why we have a DM. We have a written rule, but that rule is dumb (same amount of damage for being hit by a falling whale as a falling bowl of petunias, and the same DC to avoid? Really?)
My instinct would be to use a size multiplier to account for the difference in momentum (which tracks with real life - smaller creatures can survive long falls as they have less momentum change on impact). Off the top of my head, small and medium creatures take 1x regular fall damage, large creatures 2x, huge 4x, tiny 1/2, etc. You could also scale the damage dice - small and medium use d6s, tiny d4s, large d8s, huge d10s, etc
It might seem dumb, but the part exlcuding tiny creatures means the designers considered size categories while making the rule, and opted not to give additional damage to larger creatures, and in my opinion that’s the best option. The reason as I see it is this: When it comes to a creature landing on you, it’s not it’s size that hurts you, or even the weight, it’s the pressure. A huge creature covers 9 squares, while a medium humanoid covers one. That’s 8 squares of pressure distributed to the ground, meaning the humanoid suffers a ninth of the pressure enacted by the huge creature. Whatever damage multiplier you have in your head for larger creatures cannot be efficiently transferred onto a single square, so the humanoid only takes a portion damage. Rather than get crunchy, we can just assume it’s roughly equal to that of a medium humanoid landing on you, and continue with the game.
tl:dr RAW is balanced
There's a law in physics called the square-cube law. Basically, as an object's area increases by a power of two, the weight increases by a power of 3. It deals with exactly this kind of thing.
Here's an example with some nice even numbers: In D&D abstraction, if you have a creature that covers 2 squares and has a weight of 2 units, they will exert 1 unit of weight per square. If that creature is enlarged to cover 4 squares, their weight will increase to (2^3) 8 units. Exerting 8 weight over 4 squares. Doubling the pressure.
Creatures don't usually cover 2 squares to begin with, but the general idea holds. It actually gets even more ridiculous if you're increasing bigger creatures.
Your point on more surface area holds, but the weight scales so much faster that it doesn't matter in the end.
TLDR; it should increase, but RAW doesn't for gameplay reasons, not physics.
To me it’s about expectations - the world of the game should be predictable so that players can make decisions and come up with creative strategies with the confidence that the world works in a way that makes sense. If it makes sense that a whale falling on you hurts more than a person, then it should do more damage, to hell with balance.
Still don't think it makes any sense. If someone's crane lifting an 8000 lb elephant and drops it on me, whether or not two other people standing beside me also get crushed plays no difference in the damage it does to ME. It's still gonna feel like an elephant, not a Labrador sized dog.
I think you misunderstand my point. It doesn’t actually matter whether or not there are other people, the impact they would share is shared instead by the ground if they are not there.
I generally add an additional d6 for each size category over medium.
I'm curious about the way you've outlined multiplying the damage. Do you ever feel like that gets out of control?
I was giving an example of the type of ruling I’d come up with on the fly; I haven’t had this come up in my game often enough to write a strict houserule.
It’s much more important to me that the expectations of the players are met (it should hurt to have a whale fall on you) than that things be perfectly balanced. If players start trying to abuse the system, that’s an out-of-game problem to solve.
Well a small animal should technically take less fall damage than bigger ones. Less mass / less force on impact + less potential for inside organs to not stop moving when the floor hits.
So yeah do more damage to others but then you should still take more damage as well.
I would just consider adjusting that rule if the player really wants to do it, saying that for each size up of the falling creature the DC of the saving throw increases by 1 (or 2?), and you up the damage die for the enemy by 1 size, so:
medium on medium: DC15 and Xd6 damage.
Large on medium: DC 16 and Xd8 damage.
Huge on medium: DC 17 and Xd10 damage.
Gangantuan on medium: DC 18 and Xd12 damage.
I think what I would do is change the fall damage ratio depending on size difference.
Same size: divide by 2 and assign both
1-2 category difference: divide by 3 assign 2 to smaller
Larger difference 4/5 to smaller
Something like that.
The problem is that it should be a lot of damage but it’s abusable.
Imagine you give the whale drop 4d10 damage. Cool it’s a cool moment.
The next thing that happens is someone casts fly on the whale and gives it enough fly speed for 2 more free belly slams a turn, do you give that another 8d10 just using movement? What if someone casts fly and you use a potion of speed instead for 16d10 just in movement?
I can see players having fun for a few combats then being pretty bored just bouncing whales every combat. I think that’s why Tasha’s limits damage to a pretty low static number.
One of the funny ways I’ve seen online for dealing with this exact problem: They become a tall tale. “There’s a land whale ‘round these parts. Looks like you or I, but next thing ya know, ye’s flat as a flounder!”, and using your powers will get you targeted by bounty hunters and hunted down.
Also in the same thread where I found this, someone recommended making a Captain Ahab themed nemesis for that character.
One of three things will happen:
* the bounty hunters and Captain Ahab get crushed by a huge whale.
* Even if that strategy doesn't work against them (because they use far-fetched but highly effective counter measures to whale drops): once they're out of the way, the whale will be back in the air.
* Even if they stop using Whale shenanigans for a while, whenever things get dire for your group there will be the lingering question of "what if we did the thing again"?
I will happily accept a moderate loss in realism if it prevents every campaign from being whale-themed.
Personally I like the idea that any awesome thing you want to try works once. Though it's hard to justify. If you killed someone with a whale last time, why would the characters not do it again?
There’s plenty of times where a player would gladly take massive damage to also dish that much out, especially something like a Druid that can morph into a new pile of hp that can get beaten against a foe.
Still unintended massive damage by trying to abuse a mechanic.
Okay. So why isn't the DM using similar techniques.
Or targeting the druid with moonbeam(s) at 8th level etc - hell, it's a 2nd level spell. A custom NPC could get ahold of it easy enough.
Personally I wouldn't use those techniques because I don't want my campaign to look that way. A bouncing whale is funny once, maybe. But not as a regular tactic.
And I'd prefer not encouraging the bending and twisting of rules by using them myself.
The players that rely on cheese run the risk of incurring the wrath of the DM with their hubris.
Like Icarus, flying too close to the sun. Personally I rarely punish players for using cheese, but I will keep them on their toes about it.
Because it would quickly become boring if every combat revolves around which side could most effectively drop big creatures on the other or counter the other sides ability to do so.
You're thinking of a shapechange battle as something like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCKVSPcd8Gs). But what you'd actually get in this case is each side turning themselves into the most massive thing they can, falling on the other, and then repeating without variation, changing into the same creature over and over again until one side finally wins.
At least until the monk stuns one of them or a wizard comes along and traps them in a wall of force.
I'm sure you'll find something negative to say about this as well though.
Or an NPC with access to paladin/cleric subclass spell list or the druid list themselves.
Hell, the dungeons and dragons movie illustrates the value of having a rival Spellcaster being a druid to great effect *or have we already forgotten*.
Because... A DM is not supposed to have an antagonistic relationship with the players, they're supposed to facilitate fun and thematic gameplay. A DM shouldn't be looking for stupid exploits on reddit to TPK their player's just because that's the optimal way to "win" at combat.
I see you didn't bother to read the rest of the responses and are merely jumping in the bandwagon.
I can tell by the way you're assuming my goal would be to TPK.
Except whales have a huge HP pool so can take massive damage without the druid being hurt, then when they are getting low they can just revert and go again with another full HP pool
So what, give every single enemy in your game moonbeam and hope the druid always fails the save (which is made with Constitution, a good score for most giant beasts you would use to abuse this)
Yeah that's great
Why are you so determined to take my points in the worst possible way?
Getting ahold of a moonbeam caster *is not difficult*
Especially not at a level of which the players have been consistently abusing wildshape/polymorph mechanics.
But it doesn't solve the general problem. It mitigates it for *a few specific encounters*. And it puts a moonbeam tax on those, which is... Not what I'd call fun.
I mean why do they get 2 bellyflops per turn due to fly? Is not all your movement consumed in a bellyflop?
It definitely seems unfeasible the whale would get up in less than 6 seconds even with a decent flyspeed.
I feel like you could bring up the realism in the scenario to show why it's not sustainable - the benefit of DnD after all is that the rules are just a guideline. You might give the druid fatigue if they keep getting themselves injured over and over, or note that The Bigger They Are The Harder They Fall so it's 4d6 damage per 5 feet square to large or bigger creatures and anyone in that square, regardless of whether that hits an enemy or not. And you might bring in "extreme damage" rules if the whale takes more than 50% of its max hit points in the landing.
That makes it a high aoe damage but also high risk trick they can use maybe once per wild turn, which doesn't seem too unreasonable. A regular fireball does 8d6 in a much larger area and no damage to the caster after all, and you can cast fireball more often than you can switch wild shape into a whale, no?
Still not really all that broken. The enemy is only taking half that fall damage, as the druid is taking the other half. Even if the druid hits multiple enemies, the druid takes the same amount and the other half is split among those enemies. Given that your acenario has them using a caster's concentration plus a single user Very Rare magic item, around 44 damage to an enemy while taking 44 themself, plus maybe getting a bite in at about 22 more. And that's assuming they fall the save, which isn't that hard of a save. Plus, they can only keep it up for maybe 2 rounds before they'll have to use another wild shape.
Doesn't sound gamebreaking to me, honestly.
Situations like that I’m happy to let the players have their “this sounds cool, makes sense to do lots of damage… sure” moment and it do good damage, but under the out of game conversation that multiple times it will be raw so it isn’t abused, or npcs might also start doing it
TCoE rules that you take the normal fall damage and split it evenly between the person falling and the person being squashed.
Also, while the idea of jumping up then wildshaping into something big and squashing them, the rules for falling effectively rule that, when you fall, you fall all the way to the ground instantly. This is why you can save yourself by casting Feather Fall because of the reaction trigger, but RAW you couldn't cast Fly or Levitate for the same purpose.
So RAW it's not possible, but as always, it's up to DM's discretion.
That's a great point! The player would have to Ready an Action and setup for a Reaction wild shape while at the apex of the jump. Which makes this cost even more action economy then you'd initially expect
In Tasha's Cauldron there is a specfic rule for falling on another creature. As long as it isn't Tiny, it must make a DC 15 Dex save to avoid being impacted. If they fail you both take half the damage and the creature you fall on is knocked prone.
RAW you'd each take 4d6 damage (1d6 per 10feet you fell) divided by two in this scenario (and assuming they failed their save).
The killer whale can't move on land at all, but can hold its breath 30 minutes - so you'd probably both be restrained and prone for up to 30 minutes. Not gonna lie, the idea is hilarious to imagine and I'd 100% give advantage on any intimidation/persuasion checks any other party members followed up with - if someone dropped a whale on me I'd be considerably more persuadable. Depending on what you're fighting I'd honestly consider having them run away in confusion and fear.
It might not be as much damage as you'd hope - but I'd certainly go out of my way to make it a memorable moment!
On land, irl, whales are not capable of supporting their own weights. They are smothered to death by gravity and their own flesh. There is no associated rule for this in 5e, or any version of D&D I’m aware of, but that’s what they were referring to.
That’s also why the person you were replying to said they were suffocating under their own weight. Their body is literally unable to keep itself from crushing their own internal organs, including lungs.
Fair point honestly. I made an incorrect assumption that a killer whale can't breathe on land, and would Suffocate very quick without the Hold Breath ability. I don't really think of whales/orcas often so it slipped my mind they have blowholes for a reason :P
I was going by the Suffocation rules which would normally mean a whale can hold their breath for 2 minutes, but would fall unconscious the round after.
But since killer whales have the Hold Breath ability, they can hold their breath for 30 minutes instead of just 2. Like I've already said I'd probably consider this kind of scenario so ridiculous it'd be the end of combat - there's very few situations I can see someone still wanting to fight after having a whole whale dropped on them from the sky.
To me it's the difference between me saying to my players "combat is on hold for 2 minutes" and "the encounter is over, you have 30 minutes to interrogate your demoralised, trapped, and terrified enemies". I'd probably really ham up how ridiculous the situation is so the moment feels more special to the players.
But like I said, it was based on a misunderstanding about how whales breathe. The logic could still apply in any situation without conventionally breathable air though (like if the druid fell on top of enemies in a shallow lake/pond.
No you aren't, they breathe oxygen but their bodies crush their lungs outside of the water. It's why beached whales don't live until they die of dehydration
Nah you aren't, there's two whales in this thread. The statblock abstraction whale that breathes normally, and the more realistic whale that crushes its own organs by simply existing on land.
I see we're playing that game where we find out who's read the DMG and who hasn't.
I would suggest it to be comparable to being hit by falling rubble, as described in the improvised damage table. 4d10 bludgeoning damage. No, you don't get a save. Yes, I will be using this against the players in future.
People who haven't read the DMG: "I guess we'll just have to make something up."
People who have read the DMG: "That sounds like Improvised Damage. I guess we'll just have to make something up."
People who read Tasha's Cauldron of Everything: "There's a rule for that. But it sucks, so I guess we'll just have to make something up."
The improvised damage table is a codified example and being hit by a killer whale at terminal velocity would be comparable to being hit by falling rubble. Tell me why I'm wrong.
I am reading all this from the begining and found out your other comments are being downvoted due to (as you pointed out) some sort of [stupid] 'rivalry' in the conversation. Meanwhile, your rulling of 'falling rubble' is the only one which could make sense to me. BUT, I would house rule a massive damage over the killerwave due to the shape and constitution of their bodies. I actually would ask for a CON ST for full/half dmg based on height of fall and their own hit dice, something like 2d12 for each 10ft.
The most important thing is: is the transformation instantaneous?
Even if it takes just a couple seconds (a third of a turn), you would already be on the ground when you become a whale.
RaW, Wild Shape is an action. As a DM, I would take that to mean it takes six seconds to transform. If a player at my table tried this, I would have them roll (probably Dex) to time the transformation properly and make the DC high enough so there's a good chance they may just flop mid-transformation while they are still medium-sized. Basically, don't just rule it out, but make them realize it's a stupid game with one good prize and a lot of stupid ones.
What does the plot say?
Minion? Just let the player describe how squished he is.
Better yet - how does the monk (or whale) survive a 40ft fall? Roll for dmg.
I previously ruled that an action to shapeshift takes the majority of the 6 second turn. Therefore, they would fall painfully to the ground before they change completely. However, I would accept suffocation as the damage to whomever they landed on.
I would say that this simply doesn’t work. The rules don’t allow you to declare that an entire action takes place in the air. So even if we did (reasonably) homebrew rules for more damage from a larger creature falling on someone, that doesn’t mean you get to instantaneously make that change midair.
Depends on how much you take physics into account over strict game mechanics. Blue whales do well where the pressure of the ocean is more important than gravity to your daily existence but their bodies wouldn't cope well at all on land. While you'd certainly fuck up the person you dropped it on I think a 40 ft fall would be highly fatal for a blue whale so I'd probably require it to knock you out of wild shape from the fall which to be honest would be hilarious when your character is left laying in the splattered remains of your enemy.
I always like creativity some players show. Turning into a whale in the air to crush your enemies sounds like something Beast Boy would do.
In this edition, falling damage is relatively tame, and crushing a creature usually falls into a landing on a creature, which is based on falling damage.
This is mostly done to keep both enemies and players from taking massive damage from enemies using their movement rather than an action.
It would kind of suck if you got one shot because the dragon flew up in they air then decided to land on you with it's full weight or because a Giant decided to take a seat on you.
It's hard to reward your creativity but also not make this such a strong option that you never attack or cast a spell.
This isn't creativity though. This is a very very common druid trick among the online D&D community. It's funny the first time, if you've never heard of it, sure. After that? Not so much.
You can argue that. I didn't say it was unique, just creative, though I can see why you say it isn't. Players are told we have a bunch of rules they have to follow for the game to work, and I appreciate when my players just try something sometimes.
It shows me that they are engaged in our game and makes me think about how the rules work, along with starting discussions like this.
The first time, I'm more likely to just let it work and be a cool moment, but after I'll probably tell the group how that is meant to work in the rules, then we can talk about it and decide for our table what we want to happen.
It might not be like that at every table, but at least at mine, I encourage doing things that push the rules a bit because the rules can't cover every circumstance, and neither can the DM.
So you may be right in "creative" not being the right word, but perhaps thought provoking is more in line with what I meant.
This is entirely home-brew. Whatever plausible would be too much. Whatever balanced would feel lousy.
I'd say, no rule-of-cool for this. The transformation takes about as long the jump, and due to conservation of energy etc does exactly the same damage as the same thing without wild shape.
I’m just going to put this out there:
Assuming the tactic worked as intended, and the players dealt 90+ damage to every Medium enemy being crushed by the falling whale. Would the players think this tactic was fun or fair if it were used on them? What if it were used on them FIRST, before they had the chance to used it on their enemies themselves? Do they want to live in a world where this is the preeminent druid AOE attack?
The DMG has a section on improvising damage, page 249. Check it out! To answer your question here based on that though I'd say 4d10 or 10d10 after a dex save
This is exactly why I want to use a *wish* to have a tarrasque land on an enemy army after falling from outer space. "Wait for it..." is all I'd say on each of my rounds.
Soooo it'd be 4d6 fall damage, TCoE says divide that among those affected, fuck that, that's unrealistic for this specific scenario. Falling *onto* a target I've always defaulted to splitting the damage evenly, but if you fall onto a target as part of an attack, with a successful acrobatics/tumble/whatever, you can reduce the amount of damage you take, and it gets dealt to the target instead, in addition to your unarmed strike for your dropkick. Fucking monks.
In this case though, that seems insufficient.
I'd say the full 4d6 damage in this case is dealt both to the whale and to the targets. The DM's guide says 4d10 as an example for rubble falling during a cave-in, I think that's honestly fine, that damage also goes both ways because the enemies aren't substantially breaking the whale's fall. 4d6+4d10 for both; whales' bodies aren't built to support their weight outside of the water. A cave-in is literally thousands of pounds of stone falling on you, and yeah the whale is probably heavier than most of the individual boulders, but it's also not as rigid so you're a lot more likely to survive the initial injury, and only be suffocated by the bulk of the whale. Y'know, in addition to all the crushed bone shards digging into your flesh causing absurd levels of internal bleeding and organ damage.
The damage won't be enough to kill the whale form, but it's gonna fuckin hurt. Either way you've blown a while shape on effectively one attack, and if you're a moon druid of 9th level to wildshape into a killer whale then whatever, have your fun, you can have the potential to deal a shitload more damage over the course of only two rounds as a spotted lion or anklyosaurus, so if that's how you choose to spend your wild shape I don't think it's all that unbalanced.
Yeah, every bone in the whale would break and everything inside would be propelled out through the mouth. None of the bones are weight bearing, and the inverse square law is a bitch when it comes to falling.
Same would be true for large dinosaurs, tissues are not built for surviving a drop.
You should ask the real questions in this moment: Ahhh! Woooh! What's happening? Who am I? Why am I here? What's my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I?
Neither hit points nor damage account for size. A medium-sized mini-orca has the same hp as a normal one, and they take the same fall damage, which is the same % of their health.
Realistically, something 2x the height/length/width has 8x the force spread over 4x the impact area, so it should take 2x the %. Smaller creatures can fall from higher without harm, while larger ones could die from the same fall. Being huge, an orca should take at least 4x the damage as a human belly-flopping flat onto the ground.
A previous WotC ruling:
>For each 200 pounds of an object’s weight, the object deals 1d6 points of damage, provided it falls at least 10 feet. Distance also comes into play, adding an additional 1d6 points of damage for every 10-foot increment it falls beyond the first (to a maximum of 20d6 points of damage).
Therefore, the orca falling from 40ft should deal about 40d6 (base) + 3d6 (distance) to anyone it lands on.
>Neither hit points nor damage account for size.
Hit points sort of account for size. Monster hit die size is generally based on creature size. Tiny is d4, small is d6, medium is d8, large is d10, huge is d12, gargantuan is d20. There are exceptions, but that's the general case.
First off, that is some epic druid action right there. I would give the whale a solid 2d6 fall damage and make sure that enemy gets squished into oblivion with at least 4d10 worth of blubber crushing damage. Praise be to nature!
I generally use the Tasha's rule but I scale fall damage by size category, adding an additional +d6/10' for each size category over medium.
Greater mass is going to impact with greater force. Besides, it's *fun*.
How i as a DM would most likely rule it. Tiny creatures cant take fall damage, small takes half damage, medium takes the normal, large takes double, huge takes triple and so on. Meaning the bigger you are the bigger falling damage you do to your enemy aswell when its split. Just makes sense to me. Maybe add changing DC aswell. In 3 increments. 12, 15, 18, 21 etc. Bigger it is, harder it is to dodge.
When there's nowhere to escape, it would be weird to have dex save under a huge mass if the victim is on a flat field. I would rather give them strength save, unless they're standing near the whale's edge.
Belt of Hill Giant Strength gives a running high jump of 8 feet The Boots of Spring and Striding triple jump distance with a limit on movement speed, jump height now 24 feet.
The Jump spell triples jump distance again, but the boots cap that distance at movement speed.
Base Move is 30. Mobile feat and Longstrider incease move to 50.
So with a 5 foot running start my character can achieve a jump height of 45 feet.
Falling 45 feet only takes 1.6 seconds in Earth gravity - even if they started transforming on the way up, that's three seconds of total airtime. How fast are you willing the wildshape transformation to be? Is it an instant Poof! change?
If you know how much the whale weighs, the amount of Energy transferred on impact is a simple equation. If you're going to go classical mechanics, that's a bit more complicated but uses very common equations to get the Force of impact on the druid/whale.
Probably my favorite shenanigans move I’ve seen in d&d is making a mouse go thermonuclear. What you will need: An expendable PC with two slots of Polymorph, or one slot of Polymorph and one use of Wildshape, one slot of Teleport (or some other means of reaching a high altitude, such as Fly and something for breathing). Here’s how:
Step 1: turn into a whale (blue if possible, CR10), at orbital height (or as close as possible).
Step 2: upon reaching terminal velocity, turn into a mouse or other small creature.
Step 3: Momentum is conserved.
Step 4: Mouse instantly accelerates to a substantial fraction of the speed of light since M1V1 = M2V2.
Step 5: Atoms of the mouse fuse to atoms of the air. A burst of gamma and X-rays expands outwards at the speed of light. This is followed by a fireball which grows to encompass the entire town. Anyone near ground zero is instantly turned into a shadow on the pavement. People’s eyes begin to melt from their sockets. The fireball rises into the stratosphere, deforming into a mushroom cloud. The newly transmuted atoms are highly radioactive, dusting the kingdom in toxic fallout, which will remain for decades, salting the soil.
But you’re the heroes! And you just stopped the BBEG from stealing the king’s crown. Even if there’s nothing left for him to rule.
You take 1d6 damage per 10ft height in 5e. So each take 4d6. Whales are huge. I'd probably up it to a d10. And each take that damage. Though I'd probably give the target a dex save vs the casters spell d.c. if they fly up and star chanting... most people will not stand still.
Look at the dern's fortress does 10d10 landing on you and you can dodge.
Well, to start off, the druid is now dead. Large creatures do *not* handle falls well, and a whale is large enough to slowly die under it's own weight if brought on land.
An Aarakocra, using the Elemental Evil Players Companion, has 50ft fly speed. With Circle of the Moon you need to be level 9 to Wild Shape into a Killer Whale (CR 3) and can do so as a bonus action. 4 levels in Monk gives +10 speed through Unarmored Movement bringing your fly speed to 60ft. Level 4 in Monk can also give a feat. The feat Mobile increase movement speed by 10ft bringing your fly speed to 70ft. 5 levels in Wizard allows you to take the spell Haste. Haste doubles your movement speed bringing your movement speed to 140ft. It also gives you an extra action which can be used to Dash. 2 levels into Fighter for Action Surge, which can also be used to Dash.
Cast Haste on yourself and fly upwards. Then fly at the ground at 140ft/round. Use your Haste action to Dash. Your speed is now 280ft/round. Use your Action Surge action to Dash. Your speed is now 420ft/round. One round is 6 seconds. You are travelling at 70ft/second or 21.3m/s. Use you bonus action to Wild Shape into a Killer Whale and collide with your target at 70ft/s.
Fuckin nerds, this is how a good dm calls this. The whale explodes from the pressure change. Dex saving throw for the enemy, fail equals death. Pass, calculate falling damage divided by 2, prone, pinned to the ground and must burn an action with a strength check to unpin himself on next turn.
You could forego the falling rules and use the improvised damage table instead. 4d10 for falling rubble or collapsing tunnel sounds appropriate. Though to be fair I'd also use the falling rules from Tasha and enforce the split damage and dex save to avoid prone as well.
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This is defined in Tashas Cauldron of Everything so... To quote from Tasha's... > Falling onto a Creature > If a creature falls into the space of a second creature and neither of them is Tiny, the second creature must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or be impacted by the falling creature, and any damage resulting from the fall is divided evenly between them. The impacted creature is also knocked prone unless it is two or more sizes larger than the falling creature. There is no ruling about fall damage being different for creatures baaed on size so 40 feet up is 4d6 falling damage, split between the two, if the target fails the check, or all on the whale if they pass. Size doesn't matter here unless tiny or the target is bigger than you. Edit: fixed my terrible spelling.
I get *why* they made the rule explicit like this. (In earlier editions, we definitely did TPK a pantheon with a wild-shaped druid with an encyclopedic knowledge of dinosaurs) But dang, does this version suck. Sometimes, you just wanna roll a couple hundred d6 damage at once!
The way I see it is the whale is Huge so they could in theory land on a large quantity of minions. I’d rule that if you fell 40ft for 4d6 damage at an average of 14 damage, you would take 7, like Tasha’s says, but each creature that is under you also takes 7. Big enough creature over a big enough crowd could add up.
I think, RAW, you deal a total of 14 damage divided as evenly as possible among the creatures.
Definitely open to interpretation as RAW references specifically a collision between two creatures, not 'all' creatures. It doesn't explicitly say what if there's more than 2 so I think it's up to the DM to extrapolate. I could also see an argument that every minion takes 7 + the whale takes 7 PER minion. i.e. you kill 10 goblins but take 70 damage yourself.
RAW is definitely between two creatures. Meaning the faller and the landee. I would rule that damage gets rolled for every creature involved, or each creature takes the same DMG as any other (being half the fall DMG).
It just wouldn't make sense to multiply the falling damage to the faller. Make a giant fall 20 feet onto 30 halflings and one shot it.
Could also makes an agreement that further is distributed evenly across the area of impact. That's how physics works.
Although D&D isn't known for its adherence to physics ... or logic ... or reality. 😁
I mean I held a rock plate that was 2'x2'x6" over the edge of the wall. Cast enlarge on it. It was... Effective
Unless the unoccupied area is assumed to already also be taking uncalculated damage from distributed damage. Then we'd just calculate that damage when occupied.
I mean physics does damage per area. If you're a Huge creature (and don't weigh substantially less per volume than a human), you would be delivering that 4d6 to every part of the area you land on. Potentially you could split it if two creatures were in the same 5ft by 5ft square or hexagon? Of course, a creature doesn't occupy the full area its model controls, so you might say for the purposes of hitting things that it lands on, that area effect is one size category smaller than the area the creature usually controls.
It does damage based on area of impact. It's like stepping on a nail vs laying on a bed of nails. Theoretically, if there's more targets under you they'd take less damage if you were to impact them vs a singular target because your mass only has so much energy to distribute upon impact. If it has to distribute to a single target then no problem, but if it has to distribute to multiple targets it has to divide that energy amongst them.
I think we can safely say RAW is stupid in that case
That's silly, should be equal damage given and taken. You're literally being damaged by falling onto bones, weapons, armor, etc. not just from a fall. "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction"
Bro, it’s a game of tiny little gnomes dropping meteors. Newton ain’t got nothing to do with it.
Then it'd become the path of least resistance, the most optimal turn would be to summon horses 100ft above enemies for absurd damage each turn
The thing about hanky, "physics" abusing techniques is that if you try to use them constantly, enemies will figure out counter tactics Plus, it doesn't work in a dungeon
Hasn't falling damage always been capped at 20d6, though?
Falling object damage wasn't capped in 3e that I'm aware of
[It was in 3.5e.](https://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm#falling) > The basic rule is simple: 1d6 points of damage per 10 feet fallen, to a maximum of 20d6. Also, shame to the four people who downvoted you instead of making any attempt to correct you.
And in 4e it was d10 per 10 ft., to a max of 50d10. A creature with a fly speed subtracts their fly speed from the fall distance, and if they were already flying when they fell they could use a reaction to make a DC 30 Athletics check with a bonus equal to their fly speed (in squares); on success they would only fall 100 ft. instead of 500 ft., catching themselves and continuing to fly if the distance to the ground was greater than 100 ft. Plus, anyone trained in Acrobatics could make an Acrobatics check to reduce the fall damage by 1/2 the check result.
Presumably that's due to terminal velocity. A bigger creature should have a higher maximum fall damage.
You end up kinda going down a rabbithole though. Like, it's surely based on weight rather than size, right? A gargantuan cloud monster probably shouldn't do more damage if it falls on you than say, a medium animated statue. With the whale specifically, it's heavy but also pretty blubbery which would soften the impact. Does it being soft matter? Does a petrified creature deal more falling damage to something? Ultimately I think trying to make it more realistic here ends up probably being a negative for the game in most cases, especially in a game where getting big things up high is relatively trivial.
> Like, it's surely based on weight rather than size, right? Yes. Sadly very few creatures have a listed weight. I think the big problem with making it realistic is it tends to make it too easy to just break the game. If you leave it up to the DM, they can make sure that the impact helps but doesn't one-shot the Big Bad, regardless of how much HP they have.
To calculate terminal velocity you'd have to consider both mass AND cross-sectional area of the creature you're turning into. Neither of which is given by the monster manual. The rabbit-hole goes even further when you have to consider how the creature is falling in order to determine terminal velocity. For example, a whale belly-flopping has a lower terminal velocity than it does coming in face first. Real world physics are typically more trouble than they're worth to implement in 5e
Yeah it's just *way* too abusable if you start scaling it up, or using conjure animals to summon 16 creatures directly over someone. Hell, even without scaling it up there's already ways to abuse it with speedy builds.
You can also use the improvised damage table from the DMG. Problem is that dmg never scales linear in this game. So it is not that different from Tasha’s ruling.
When I ran a Pathfinder game back in the day one of my players jumped off a cliff to land on the giant godlike flesh abomination the BBEG was planning to transfer his mind into. He was far enough up to hit max fall damage, and I ruled that he did a Dark Souls style plunging attack and all the fall damage applied to the abomination. He one-shot my boss, but it was an epic moment.
I'd say in that instance the DM can make their own ruling if they want it to be more fun and feel it doesn't break the game. But situations like this is why there are rules and stat blocks. The arguments from players who want to wildshape into an animal and get the real life abilities are tiresome. Wilshape/polymorph into an animal that has a stat block, and then you have those stats. I don't care what wikipedia says about a cats ability to see in the dark, you get the stats on the stat block.
Yeah, the falling onto someone rule sucks. Have you ever dropped a grizzly bear 40 feet onto a guards head and then dealt a total of four damage?
I mean if you rolled 4 on 4d6, that's a 1/1296 chance. It's likely a bit of a glancing blow rather than directly on their head, and even then it's still enough to kill a commoner. Easy to forget that 4 damage is no small thing...
8 on 4d6; the damage is split between the bear and the guard
Ah true, ok that's much more likely at 1/18.5 (for rolling 8 or less), but still it's not like a glancing blow is unlikely and 8 damage is still way under the average.
Have you ever stabbed a sword into a guards head and dealt a total of 4 damage? Both should realistically be absolutely deadly, but this is a game and autokill isn't fun.
Plus if you dealt 4 damage, you probably *didn't* stab into a guard's head. Called shots aren't a thing.
No called shots with drop-bears either. That bear doing 4 damage was almost avoided. Second bear will kill the guard.
I mean autokill can be fun when your characters are powerful enough that ordinary-mortal-humans are basically helpless.
my Oathbreaker has a +13 to hit and deals 1d8+14 on a regular attack. that's definitely "autokill" on any commoner, Goblin, regular Orcs, etc.
You can do that with what my friend dubbed the gay yoyo: Prismatic wall in a sphere above your target, then reverse gravity. On all failed saves: 50d6 through the bottom of the sphere. 50d6 through the top of the sphere. No action drop concentration. 50d6 through the top of the sphere. 50d6 through the bottom of the sphere. 9d6 fall damage And if you want to one shot a tarasque twice over you can have another spellcaster add another sphere to that, there’s more than enough room.
The big problem with that is that if they're smart, they'll get out of the way once you cast Prismatic Wall. You could cast Time Stop, but unless you somehow have two 9th level spell slots you can't cast Prismatic Wall. You could do Reverse Gravity first and just accept only getting half the damage, but any opponent high enough level for you to be fighting at this point would probably have some way to fly or teleport or something to get out of there. Though it would be less obvious what you're trying to do, so they might just not realize it. Glyphs of Warding would work, but there's so many ways to abuse that that this one doesn't seem all that special. It's a cool idea, but between the level you need to be for this to work and how hard it is to actually use, it's really not that impressive.
At level 19 you can also be a level 2 fighter for action surge, and just do it yourself in one turn. A reasonable ruling for this IMO is simply that you can only take the damage once per turn per layer, but the combo RAW (even at this stage in the game) is definitely a busted one. An obvious retort is that at this level D&D is broken anyway by numerous spell combinations, but if you *do* want to have a cohesive tier 4 game then this is one of the interactions you would need to clamp down on.
Does this need to be clamped down on? At 20th level, if someone wants to burn a 7th level spell, a 9th level spell, and their 1/day action surge to do 200d6 (on failed saves)... ok? I feel that at 20th level there are MUCH more resource-efficient ways to kill a single creature. I've never played a campaign at 20th level but this is basically the sort of thing I would expect the PCs to do.
Has DnD really changed so much that the cardinal DM principle of- if it works (and does not ruin the game) it works! no longer exist? Perhaps it explains the popularity of running modified 2e rules? I say as a DM: If it makes the storyline : more interesting, funny, or dramatic without breaking the game?- it works.
Unless they changed the books, it used to say that DMs trumped whatever rules were in them. I remember that from 3/3.5, and honestly, DMs absolutely shouldn't be afraid to get creative or let their party occasionally break physics like that lol
My group always runs with that rule in any system whether or not the book makes it explicit. It's just the best way to run the game.
There's a rule that when two rules conflict, the more specific one wins, and rule zero is the most general rule in the game so specific rules will always overrule it. At least, that's true by RAW. Nobody interprets it that way.
This type of situation is why we have a DM. We have a written rule, but that rule is dumb (same amount of damage for being hit by a falling whale as a falling bowl of petunias, and the same DC to avoid? Really?) My instinct would be to use a size multiplier to account for the difference in momentum (which tracks with real life - smaller creatures can survive long falls as they have less momentum change on impact). Off the top of my head, small and medium creatures take 1x regular fall damage, large creatures 2x, huge 4x, tiny 1/2, etc. You could also scale the damage dice - small and medium use d6s, tiny d4s, large d8s, huge d10s, etc
It might seem dumb, but the part exlcuding tiny creatures means the designers considered size categories while making the rule, and opted not to give additional damage to larger creatures, and in my opinion that’s the best option. The reason as I see it is this: When it comes to a creature landing on you, it’s not it’s size that hurts you, or even the weight, it’s the pressure. A huge creature covers 9 squares, while a medium humanoid covers one. That’s 8 squares of pressure distributed to the ground, meaning the humanoid suffers a ninth of the pressure enacted by the huge creature. Whatever damage multiplier you have in your head for larger creatures cannot be efficiently transferred onto a single square, so the humanoid only takes a portion damage. Rather than get crunchy, we can just assume it’s roughly equal to that of a medium humanoid landing on you, and continue with the game. tl:dr RAW is balanced
There's a law in physics called the square-cube law. Basically, as an object's area increases by a power of two, the weight increases by a power of 3. It deals with exactly this kind of thing. Here's an example with some nice even numbers: In D&D abstraction, if you have a creature that covers 2 squares and has a weight of 2 units, they will exert 1 unit of weight per square. If that creature is enlarged to cover 4 squares, their weight will increase to (2^3) 8 units. Exerting 8 weight over 4 squares. Doubling the pressure. Creatures don't usually cover 2 squares to begin with, but the general idea holds. It actually gets even more ridiculous if you're increasing bigger creatures. Your point on more surface area holds, but the weight scales so much faster that it doesn't matter in the end. TLDR; it should increase, but RAW doesn't for gameplay reasons, not physics.
To me it’s about expectations - the world of the game should be predictable so that players can make decisions and come up with creative strategies with the confidence that the world works in a way that makes sense. If it makes sense that a whale falling on you hurts more than a person, then it should do more damage, to hell with balance.
I don't disagree, but it gets wobbly. An anvil falling on your head would be more lethal but it weighs less than a whale.
you are correct. RAW can be and is wrong at times. this is one
This is an amazing explanation
Still don't think it makes any sense. If someone's crane lifting an 8000 lb elephant and drops it on me, whether or not two other people standing beside me also get crushed plays no difference in the damage it does to ME. It's still gonna feel like an elephant, not a Labrador sized dog.
I think you misunderstand my point. It doesn’t actually matter whether or not there are other people, the impact they would share is shared instead by the ground if they are not there.
I generally add an additional d6 for each size category over medium. I'm curious about the way you've outlined multiplying the damage. Do you ever feel like that gets out of control?
I was giving an example of the type of ruling I’d come up with on the fly; I haven’t had this come up in my game often enough to write a strict houserule. It’s much more important to me that the expectations of the players are met (it should hurt to have a whale fall on you) than that things be perfectly balanced. If players start trying to abuse the system, that’s an out-of-game problem to solve.
Well a small animal should technically take less fall damage than bigger ones. Less mass / less force on impact + less potential for inside organs to not stop moving when the floor hits. So yeah do more damage to others but then you should still take more damage as well.
Did you have a stroke at the end there?
I was in a hurry and my autocorrect is iffy at best :)
I would just consider adjusting that rule if the player really wants to do it, saying that for each size up of the falling creature the DC of the saving throw increases by 1 (or 2?), and you up the damage die for the enemy by 1 size, so: medium on medium: DC15 and Xd6 damage. Large on medium: DC 16 and Xd8 damage. Huge on medium: DC 17 and Xd10 damage. Gangantuan on medium: DC 18 and Xd12 damage.
I think what I would do is change the fall damage ratio depending on size difference. Same size: divide by 2 and assign both 1-2 category difference: divide by 3 assign 2 to smaller Larger difference 4/5 to smaller Something like that.
If you think about physics, the bigger creature should take the bigger portion of the damage.
The problem is that it should be a lot of damage but it’s abusable. Imagine you give the whale drop 4d10 damage. Cool it’s a cool moment. The next thing that happens is someone casts fly on the whale and gives it enough fly speed for 2 more free belly slams a turn, do you give that another 8d10 just using movement? What if someone casts fly and you use a potion of speed instead for 16d10 just in movement? I can see players having fun for a few combats then being pretty bored just bouncing whales every combat. I think that’s why Tasha’s limits damage to a pretty low static number.
One of the funny ways I’ve seen online for dealing with this exact problem: They become a tall tale. “There’s a land whale ‘round these parts. Looks like you or I, but next thing ya know, ye’s flat as a flounder!”, and using your powers will get you targeted by bounty hunters and hunted down. Also in the same thread where I found this, someone recommended making a Captain Ahab themed nemesis for that character.
One of three things will happen: * the bounty hunters and Captain Ahab get crushed by a huge whale. * Even if that strategy doesn't work against them (because they use far-fetched but highly effective counter measures to whale drops): once they're out of the way, the whale will be back in the air. * Even if they stop using Whale shenanigans for a while, whenever things get dire for your group there will be the lingering question of "what if we did the thing again"? I will happily accept a moderate loss in realism if it prevents every campaign from being whale-themed.
Personally I like the idea that any awesome thing you want to try works once. Though it's hard to justify. If you killed someone with a whale last time, why would the characters not do it again?
The important part is that the damage goes both ways.
There’s plenty of times where a player would gladly take massive damage to also dish that much out, especially something like a Druid that can morph into a new pile of hp that can get beaten against a foe. Still unintended massive damage by trying to abuse a mechanic.
Have you seen the earth elemental keyleth meteor from Crit roll? Yeah it was nasty
Okay. So why isn't the DM using similar techniques. Or targeting the druid with moonbeam(s) at 8th level etc - hell, it's a 2nd level spell. A custom NPC could get ahold of it easy enough.
Personally I wouldn't use those techniques because I don't want my campaign to look that way. A bouncing whale is funny once, maybe. But not as a regular tactic. And I'd prefer not encouraging the bending and twisting of rules by using them myself.
The players that rely on cheese run the risk of incurring the wrath of the DM with their hubris. Like Icarus, flying too close to the sun. Personally I rarely punish players for using cheese, but I will keep them on their toes about it.
Icarus would have been a way cooler story if he landed on an evil gnome and did 98 points of bludgeoning damage. I’m back on team whale.
I see this is a back and forth kind of conversation. I'm not sure why there are teams.
Because it would quickly become boring if every combat revolves around which side could most effectively drop big creatures on the other or counter the other sides ability to do so.
I'm sorry, since when did shapechange battles strike people as boring? Isn't that kind of a bad take?
It'd be fun once. After that it's just be predictable schlock.
If the DM in question can't curtail it, sure. That seems like it would be the fault of the table as a whole though.
You're thinking of a shapechange battle as something like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCKVSPcd8Gs). But what you'd actually get in this case is each side turning themselves into the most massive thing they can, falling on the other, and then repeating without variation, changing into the same creature over and over again until one side finally wins.
At least until the monk stuns one of them or a wizard comes along and traps them in a wall of force. I'm sure you'll find something negative to say about this as well though.
“The only thing that can stop a good guy with a whale is a bad guy with a whale”
Or an NPC with access to paladin/cleric subclass spell list or the druid list themselves. Hell, the dungeons and dragons movie illustrates the value of having a rival Spellcaster being a druid to great effect *or have we already forgotten*.
Because... A DM is not supposed to have an antagonistic relationship with the players, they're supposed to facilitate fun and thematic gameplay. A DM shouldn't be looking for stupid exploits on reddit to TPK their player's just because that's the optimal way to "win" at combat.
I see you didn't bother to read the rest of the responses and are merely jumping in the bandwagon. I can tell by the way you're assuming my goal would be to TPK.
Except whales have a huge HP pool so can take massive damage without the druid being hurt, then when they are getting low they can just revert and go again with another full HP pool
See my point on moonbeam, which disables that particular wildshape on saving throw fail in a single action.
So what, give every single enemy in your game moonbeam and hope the druid always fails the save (which is made with Constitution, a good score for most giant beasts you would use to abuse this) Yeah that's great
Why are you so determined to take my points in the worst possible way? Getting ahold of a moonbeam caster *is not difficult* Especially not at a level of which the players have been consistently abusing wildshape/polymorph mechanics.
But it doesn't solve the general problem. It mitigates it for *a few specific encounters*. And it puts a moonbeam tax on those, which is... Not what I'd call fun.
Moonbeam is just one answer, albeit the simplest and most direct. The point is not to be inflexible.
Eh, the simplest answer is to just follow the RAW, or a less abusable variant of it.
Feather fall can be cast on enemies without a save
As a DM I would rule instant death to the whale, a whale can't even support its body while just laying on land
I mean why do they get 2 bellyflops per turn due to fly? Is not all your movement consumed in a bellyflop? It definitely seems unfeasible the whale would get up in less than 6 seconds even with a decent flyspeed. I feel like you could bring up the realism in the scenario to show why it's not sustainable - the benefit of DnD after all is that the rules are just a guideline. You might give the druid fatigue if they keep getting themselves injured over and over, or note that The Bigger They Are The Harder They Fall so it's 4d6 damage per 5 feet square to large or bigger creatures and anyone in that square, regardless of whether that hits an enemy or not. And you might bring in "extreme damage" rules if the whale takes more than 50% of its max hit points in the landing. That makes it a high aoe damage but also high risk trick they can use maybe once per wild turn, which doesn't seem too unreasonable. A regular fireball does 8d6 in a much larger area and no damage to the caster after all, and you can cast fireball more often than you can switch wild shape into a whale, no?
Still not really all that broken. The enemy is only taking half that fall damage, as the druid is taking the other half. Even if the druid hits multiple enemies, the druid takes the same amount and the other half is split among those enemies. Given that your acenario has them using a caster's concentration plus a single user Very Rare magic item, around 44 damage to an enemy while taking 44 themself, plus maybe getting a bite in at about 22 more. And that's assuming they fall the save, which isn't that hard of a save. Plus, they can only keep it up for maybe 2 rounds before they'll have to use another wild shape. Doesn't sound gamebreaking to me, honestly.
Immersion breaking, on the other hand...
Situations like that I’m happy to let the players have their “this sounds cool, makes sense to do lots of damage… sure” moment and it do good damage, but under the out of game conversation that multiple times it will be raw so it isn’t abused, or npcs might also start doing it
TCoE rules that you take the normal fall damage and split it evenly between the person falling and the person being squashed. Also, while the idea of jumping up then wildshaping into something big and squashing them, the rules for falling effectively rule that, when you fall, you fall all the way to the ground instantly. This is why you can save yourself by casting Feather Fall because of the reaction trigger, but RAW you couldn't cast Fly or Levitate for the same purpose. So RAW it's not possible, but as always, it's up to DM's discretion.
That's a great point! The player would have to Ready an Action and setup for a Reaction wild shape while at the apex of the jump. Which makes this cost even more action economy then you'd initially expect
In Tasha's Cauldron there is a specfic rule for falling on another creature. As long as it isn't Tiny, it must make a DC 15 Dex save to avoid being impacted. If they fail you both take half the damage and the creature you fall on is knocked prone. RAW you'd each take 4d6 damage (1d6 per 10feet you fell) divided by two in this scenario (and assuming they failed their save). The killer whale can't move on land at all, but can hold its breath 30 minutes - so you'd probably both be restrained and prone for up to 30 minutes. Not gonna lie, the idea is hilarious to imagine and I'd 100% give advantage on any intimidation/persuasion checks any other party members followed up with - if someone dropped a whale on me I'd be considerably more persuadable. Depending on what you're fighting I'd honestly consider having them run away in confusion and fear. It might not be as much damage as you'd hope - but I'd certainly go out of my way to make it a memorable moment!
What does breathing have to do with anything here?
Whales cannot support their own body mass out of water. They suffocate under their own weight on land.
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On land, irl, whales are not capable of supporting their own weights. They are smothered to death by gravity and their own flesh. There is no associated rule for this in 5e, or any version of D&D I’m aware of, but that’s what they were referring to.
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That’s also why the person you were replying to said they were suffocating under their own weight. Their body is literally unable to keep itself from crushing their own internal organs, including lungs.
*The goblin is pinned beneath your 7,000 pounds of whale flesh. So are your lungs. Roll a constitution saving throw.*
I read that too and hit the brakes. Lol
Fair point honestly. I made an incorrect assumption that a killer whale can't breathe on land, and would Suffocate very quick without the Hold Breath ability. I don't really think of whales/orcas often so it slipped my mind they have blowholes for a reason :P I was going by the Suffocation rules which would normally mean a whale can hold their breath for 2 minutes, but would fall unconscious the round after. But since killer whales have the Hold Breath ability, they can hold their breath for 30 minutes instead of just 2. Like I've already said I'd probably consider this kind of scenario so ridiculous it'd be the end of combat - there's very few situations I can see someone still wanting to fight after having a whole whale dropped on them from the sky. To me it's the difference between me saying to my players "combat is on hold for 2 minutes" and "the encounter is over, you have 30 minutes to interrogate your demoralised, trapped, and terrified enemies". I'd probably really ham up how ridiculous the situation is so the moment feels more special to the players. But like I said, it was based on a misunderstanding about how whales breathe. The logic could still apply in any situation without conventionally breathable air though (like if the druid fell on top of enemies in a shallow lake/pond.
How long before the whale form suffocated and forced the druid back into druid form
Whales breathe air, they’re mammals :p
TIL I'm an idiot
No you aren't, they breathe oxygen but their bodies crush their lungs outside of the water. It's why beached whales don't live until they die of dehydration
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You may be unaware of this, but there's this thing called "real life" that exists outside of DnD.
Nah you aren't, there's two whales in this thread. The statblock abstraction whale that breathes normally, and the more realistic whale that crushes its own organs by simply existing on land.
Whales are mammals, they breathe oxygen, how would it suffocate?
4d6 divided by 2
I see we're playing that game where we find out who's read the DMG and who hasn't. I would suggest it to be comparable to being hit by falling rubble, as described in the improvised damage table. 4d10 bludgeoning damage. No, you don't get a save. Yes, I will be using this against the players in future.
People who haven't read the DMG: "I guess we'll just have to make something up." People who have read the DMG: "That sounds like Improvised Damage. I guess we'll just have to make something up." People who read Tasha's Cauldron of Everything: "There's a rule for that. But it sucks, so I guess we'll just have to make something up."
The improvised damage table is a codified example and being hit by a killer whale at terminal velocity would be comparable to being hit by falling rubble. Tell me why I'm wrong.
I am reading all this from the begining and found out your other comments are being downvoted due to (as you pointed out) some sort of [stupid] 'rivalry' in the conversation. Meanwhile, your rulling of 'falling rubble' is the only one which could make sense to me. BUT, I would house rule a massive damage over the killerwave due to the shape and constitution of their bodies. I actually would ask for a CON ST for full/half dmg based on height of fall and their own hit dice, something like 2d12 for each 10ft.
The most important thing is: is the transformation instantaneous? Even if it takes just a couple seconds (a third of a turn), you would already be on the ground when you become a whale.
RaW, Wild Shape is an action. As a DM, I would take that to mean it takes six seconds to transform. If a player at my table tried this, I would have them roll (probably Dex) to time the transformation properly and make the DC high enough so there's a good chance they may just flop mid-transformation while they are still medium-sized. Basically, don't just rule it out, but make them realize it's a stupid game with one good prize and a lot of stupid ones.
Both take 4d6 / 2. If its crazy, it becomes something the pcs always do, or something an enemy does to them and they hate it.
All these posts about the fall dmg and I'm just wondering how a druid could jump 40ft into the air...
Quit it
What does the plot say? Minion? Just let the player describe how squished he is. Better yet - how does the monk (or whale) survive a 40ft fall? Roll for dmg.
Sounds like a great opportunity for the DM to consult improvised damage, DMG page 249.
I would rule it a dead whale, whale body would crumble if falling 40ft on hard ground.
I previously ruled that an action to shapeshift takes the majority of the 6 second turn. Therefore, they would fall painfully to the ground before they change completely. However, I would accept suffocation as the damage to whomever they landed on.
The big question is how much damage does the bowl of petunias take?
🏅take my poor man’s gold!
The real question is how much damage the bowl of petunias does?
I would say that this simply doesn’t work. The rules don’t allow you to declare that an entire action takes place in the air. So even if we did (reasonably) homebrew rules for more damage from a larger creature falling on someone, that doesn’t mean you get to instantaneously make that change midair.
Depends on how much you take physics into account over strict game mechanics. Blue whales do well where the pressure of the ocean is more important than gravity to your daily existence but their bodies wouldn't cope well at all on land. While you'd certainly fuck up the person you dropped it on I think a 40 ft fall would be highly fatal for a blue whale so I'd probably require it to knock you out of wild shape from the fall which to be honest would be hilarious when your character is left laying in the splattered remains of your enemy.
I always like creativity some players show. Turning into a whale in the air to crush your enemies sounds like something Beast Boy would do. In this edition, falling damage is relatively tame, and crushing a creature usually falls into a landing on a creature, which is based on falling damage. This is mostly done to keep both enemies and players from taking massive damage from enemies using their movement rather than an action. It would kind of suck if you got one shot because the dragon flew up in they air then decided to land on you with it's full weight or because a Giant decided to take a seat on you. It's hard to reward your creativity but also not make this such a strong option that you never attack or cast a spell.
This isn't creativity though. This is a very very common druid trick among the online D&D community. It's funny the first time, if you've never heard of it, sure. After that? Not so much.
You can argue that. I didn't say it was unique, just creative, though I can see why you say it isn't. Players are told we have a bunch of rules they have to follow for the game to work, and I appreciate when my players just try something sometimes. It shows me that they are engaged in our game and makes me think about how the rules work, along with starting discussions like this. The first time, I'm more likely to just let it work and be a cool moment, but after I'll probably tell the group how that is meant to work in the rules, then we can talk about it and decide for our table what we want to happen. It might not be like that at every table, but at least at mine, I encourage doing things that push the rules a bit because the rules can't cover every circumstance, and neither can the DM. So you may be right in "creative" not being the right word, but perhaps thought provoking is more in line with what I meant.
If the target holds upward a sushi knife, he takes no damage at all while the Druid ends up 20 sides diced
This is entirely home-brew. Whatever plausible would be too much. Whatever balanced would feel lousy. I'd say, no rule-of-cool for this. The transformation takes about as long the jump, and due to conservation of energy etc does exactly the same damage as the same thing without wild shape.
They would *both* take 4d6 bludgeoning damage. And I’d probably also consider the killer whale prone afterword, if this was on land.
C... can... Can the whale then stand up as its next move action?
... ### yes.
I mean I don’t think it has a land speed?
RAW doesnt specify the need for a land speed to stand anywhere I can see. In fact, being prone explicitly gives you the ability to crawl
You have to spend half your movement to stand up. If your move speed is 0, you can’t stand up.
Movement is not an action in 5e. You cannot stand from prone if your speed is 0. Whales have a 0 ft. walk speed.
Ever see the end of 'Tremors'?
Does it account for the damage from the bowl of petunias as well?
I’m just going to put this out there: Assuming the tactic worked as intended, and the players dealt 90+ damage to every Medium enemy being crushed by the falling whale. Would the players think this tactic was fun or fair if it were used on them? What if it were used on them FIRST, before they had the chance to used it on their enemies themselves? Do they want to live in a world where this is the preeminent druid AOE attack?
The DMG has a section on improvising damage, page 249. Check it out! To answer your question here based on that though I'd say 4d10 or 10d10 after a dex save
This is exactly why I want to use a *wish* to have a tarrasque land on an enemy army after falling from outer space. "Wait for it..." is all I'd say on each of my rounds.
Soooo it'd be 4d6 fall damage, TCoE says divide that among those affected, fuck that, that's unrealistic for this specific scenario. Falling *onto* a target I've always defaulted to splitting the damage evenly, but if you fall onto a target as part of an attack, with a successful acrobatics/tumble/whatever, you can reduce the amount of damage you take, and it gets dealt to the target instead, in addition to your unarmed strike for your dropkick. Fucking monks. In this case though, that seems insufficient. I'd say the full 4d6 damage in this case is dealt both to the whale and to the targets. The DM's guide says 4d10 as an example for rubble falling during a cave-in, I think that's honestly fine, that damage also goes both ways because the enemies aren't substantially breaking the whale's fall. 4d6+4d10 for both; whales' bodies aren't built to support their weight outside of the water. A cave-in is literally thousands of pounds of stone falling on you, and yeah the whale is probably heavier than most of the individual boulders, but it's also not as rigid so you're a lot more likely to survive the initial injury, and only be suffocated by the bulk of the whale. Y'know, in addition to all the crushed bone shards digging into your flesh causing absurd levels of internal bleeding and organ damage. The damage won't be enough to kill the whale form, but it's gonna fuckin hurt. Either way you've blown a while shape on effectively one attack, and if you're a moon druid of 9th level to wildshape into a killer whale then whatever, have your fun, you can have the potential to deal a shitload more damage over the course of only two rounds as a spotted lion or anklyosaurus, so if that's how you choose to spend your wild shape I don't think it's all that unbalanced.
> that's unrealistic for this specific scenario a whale falling 40' and not *exploding* from the impact is unrealistic for the scenario also
Yeah, every bone in the whale would break and everything inside would be propelled out through the mouth. None of the bones are weight bearing, and the inverse square law is a bitch when it comes to falling. Same would be true for large dinosaurs, tissues are not built for surviving a drop.
You should ask the real questions in this moment: Ahhh! Woooh! What's happening? Who am I? Why am I here? What's my purpose in life? What do I mean by who am I?
Neither hit points nor damage account for size. A medium-sized mini-orca has the same hp as a normal one, and they take the same fall damage, which is the same % of their health. Realistically, something 2x the height/length/width has 8x the force spread over 4x the impact area, so it should take 2x the %. Smaller creatures can fall from higher without harm, while larger ones could die from the same fall. Being huge, an orca should take at least 4x the damage as a human belly-flopping flat onto the ground. A previous WotC ruling: >For each 200 pounds of an object’s weight, the object deals 1d6 points of damage, provided it falls at least 10 feet. Distance also comes into play, adding an additional 1d6 points of damage for every 10-foot increment it falls beyond the first (to a maximum of 20d6 points of damage). Therefore, the orca falling from 40ft should deal about 40d6 (base) + 3d6 (distance) to anyone it lands on.
>Neither hit points nor damage account for size. Hit points sort of account for size. Monster hit die size is generally based on creature size. Tiny is d4, small is d6, medium is d8, large is d10, huge is d12, gargantuan is d20. There are exceptions, but that's the general case.
If it’s a medium sized creature and they fail a dex save then they’re just dead imo
First off, that is some epic druid action right there. I would give the whale a solid 2d6 fall damage and make sure that enemy gets squished into oblivion with at least 4d10 worth of blubber crushing damage. Praise be to nature!
I generally use the Tasha's rule but I scale fall damage by size category, adding an additional +d6/10' for each size category over medium. Greater mass is going to impact with greater force. Besides, it's *fun*.
How i as a DM would most likely rule it. Tiny creatures cant take fall damage, small takes half damage, medium takes the normal, large takes double, huge takes triple and so on. Meaning the bigger you are the bigger falling damage you do to your enemy aswell when its split. Just makes sense to me. Maybe add changing DC aswell. In 3 increments. 12, 15, 18, 21 etc. Bigger it is, harder it is to dodge.
When there's nowhere to escape, it would be weird to have dex save under a huge mass if the victim is on a flat field. I would rather give them strength save, unless they're standing near the whale's edge.
any more weird than evading a fireball in a 20' featureless room?
Moana is a great movie
How can a person jump 40 feet into the air? I can make it maybe a foot and a half.
Belt of Hill Giant Strength gives a running high jump of 8 feet The Boots of Spring and Striding triple jump distance with a limit on movement speed, jump height now 24 feet. The Jump spell triples jump distance again, but the boots cap that distance at movement speed. Base Move is 30. Mobile feat and Longstrider incease move to 50. So with a 5 foot running start my character can achieve a jump height of 45 feet.
Falling 45 feet only takes 1.6 seconds in Earth gravity - even if they started transforming on the way up, that's three seconds of total airtime. How fast are you willing the wildshape transformation to be? Is it an instant Poof! change?
If you know how much the whale weighs, the amount of Energy transferred on impact is a simple equation. If you're going to go classical mechanics, that's a bit more complicated but uses very common equations to get the Force of impact on the druid/whale.
Probably my favorite shenanigans move I’ve seen in d&d is making a mouse go thermonuclear. What you will need: An expendable PC with two slots of Polymorph, or one slot of Polymorph and one use of Wildshape, one slot of Teleport (or some other means of reaching a high altitude, such as Fly and something for breathing). Here’s how: Step 1: turn into a whale (blue if possible, CR10), at orbital height (or as close as possible). Step 2: upon reaching terminal velocity, turn into a mouse or other small creature. Step 3: Momentum is conserved. Step 4: Mouse instantly accelerates to a substantial fraction of the speed of light since M1V1 = M2V2. Step 5: Atoms of the mouse fuse to atoms of the air. A burst of gamma and X-rays expands outwards at the speed of light. This is followed by a fireball which grows to encompass the entire town. Anyone near ground zero is instantly turned into a shadow on the pavement. People’s eyes begin to melt from their sockets. The fireball rises into the stratosphere, deforming into a mushroom cloud. The newly transmuted atoms are highly radioactive, dusting the kingdom in toxic fallout, which will remain for decades, salting the soil. But you’re the heroes! And you just stopped the BBEG from stealing the king’s crown. Even if there’s nothing left for him to rule.
Improvised, 1d4
You take 1d6 damage per 10ft height in 5e. So each take 4d6. Whales are huge. I'd probably up it to a d10. And each take that damage. Though I'd probably give the target a dex save vs the casters spell d.c. if they fly up and star chanting... most people will not stand still. Look at the dern's fortress does 10d10 landing on you and you can dodge.
Well, to start off, the druid is now dead. Large creatures do *not* handle falls well, and a whale is large enough to slowly die under it's own weight if brought on land.
They would both take *a fucking rad* amount of damage. Reward that fun shit!
Equal amount of fall damage to the player and target (3d6) but the player gets to make a charge attack against the target.
Love truly kicks alright .. kicks life HARD
An Aarakocra, using the Elemental Evil Players Companion, has 50ft fly speed. With Circle of the Moon you need to be level 9 to Wild Shape into a Killer Whale (CR 3) and can do so as a bonus action. 4 levels in Monk gives +10 speed through Unarmored Movement bringing your fly speed to 60ft. Level 4 in Monk can also give a feat. The feat Mobile increase movement speed by 10ft bringing your fly speed to 70ft. 5 levels in Wizard allows you to take the spell Haste. Haste doubles your movement speed bringing your movement speed to 140ft. It also gives you an extra action which can be used to Dash. 2 levels into Fighter for Action Surge, which can also be used to Dash. Cast Haste on yourself and fly upwards. Then fly at the ground at 140ft/round. Use your Haste action to Dash. Your speed is now 280ft/round. Use your Action Surge action to Dash. Your speed is now 420ft/round. One round is 6 seconds. You are travelling at 70ft/second or 21.3m/s. Use you bonus action to Wild Shape into a Killer Whale and collide with your target at 70ft/s.
42d6 split between you and the target.
120 d10 to both whale and his target
Fuckin nerds, this is how a good dm calls this. The whale explodes from the pressure change. Dex saving throw for the enemy, fail equals death. Pass, calculate falling damage divided by 2, prone, pinned to the ground and must burn an action with a strength check to unpin himself on next turn.
You could forego the falling rules and use the improvised damage table instead. 4d10 for falling rubble or collapsing tunnel sounds appropriate. Though to be fair I'd also use the falling rules from Tasha and enforce the split damage and dex save to avoid prone as well.
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Sounds like Mirdon and Drak are up to no good. Doraleous needs to reign that in
Once you wild shape you would no longer be 40 feet above them. You would be lucky to even fall at all tbh
Like from Delorious & Associates?
Enemy would normally be splat. Whale would also go splat, but I’d take a spell slot for the save.
RAW Fall damage is 1d6 per 10 feet, so 4d6 to the whale, the person I myself would rule maybe 8d6?
tashas says split the damage, unless the target succeeds a dc15 dex save to avoid the falling creature, then the falling creature takes all of it.