My brother was instrumental in writing the D20 Rules for Lava, a ten-or-so page supplement that satirically fleshed out their optional rule of “If you fall in lava, you die. No save.” The point of their satire was the fact that there is nothing damaging in D&D that always causes death. (other things–e.g., poison, disease, and magic–have “save or die” conditions, or even “no save and die” conditions, but that’s not damage in D&D terms).
Damage from falling objects maxes out at 20d6. That averages 70 HP of damage.
An average barbarian (figure 14 con–good but not great score) will have 14 HP + 8.5/level beyond first. Assume Thog is 13th level, he’s got 105 HP; at 15th level, it’s 122. Give him some endurance-boosting item or spell of +4 con, and he’s up to 131 or 152 HP.
It’s perfectly plausible in D&D terms he survived this awesome strip.
While this is true if he is just walking through the forest, he has just been in a rather long fight, taking a great deal of damage. (Not as much as he has dished out, but Roy has been hurting him, and hurt him a lot before Thog Raged. It is entirely possible that he could have been killed by the collapse. OTOH, narrative wins over rules, both in game and in the strip, so at this point, we just don’t know one way or the other. On the gripping hand, even if he did die, death is cheap in this strip, and easily reversible.
Finagle, yes. Although it does depend somewhat on the DM and the style of the campaign.
Fair enough, but the more objects hit him, the less they each weighed. Figure that he was hit by 10 100 lb rocks falling from a height of 30’: he would then take only 10d6 damage. For an individual piece to do 20d6 damage to him falling from 30’ (a rough estimate of that ceiling’s height), it would have to weigh 3,600 pounds, and I don’t think we saw any 2-ton pieces in there.
Yup. Not only that, but falling damage also caps out at some point (20d6 too, I believe). A high level character could theoretically fall from low orbit, dust himself up and be on his way. Of course, at this point it’s up to the DM to say “NO. Stop that. That’s silly.”
Hit points aren’t always a reflection of actual damage – they’re an amalgamation of physical durability and experience. When someone swings a sword at a 20th-level fighter and deals 5hp, the fighter wasn’t necessarily cut – it can be looked at that he’s used up 5hp worth of “luck”, or that he knew how to move to dodge it enough that he was nearly cut. That’s why 10hp of damage is a scratch to a 20th-level fighter, but likely fatal to a 1st-level.
So while no, that barbarian couldn’t walk off a direct asteroid impact, the rules assume that someone of high enough level would have the necessary experience – be a “gut feeling” or whatever – to realize the asteroid is incoming and leap out of the way, thereby only taking 20d6 of damage.
Well…yes. Although I would guess that in situations like today’s script where you’re letting your enemy use your head as a sledge hammer as part of your long-term winning strategy, it pretty much just comes down to HP == toughness
Personally, I prefer to say that they are a reflection of actual damage: 10 HP of damage is very close to being “just a scratch” to a 1st-level, too, it’s just that most people really will die from a relative scratch.
In the real world, we really do see a very wide range in the amount of actual damage it takes to kill someone. And the people who survive a lot really do tend to be the folks we’d think of as high level, anyway. Consider Simo Häyhä, for instance, the famous Finnish sniper: At one point, he literally got half his face shot off, and it still didn’t kill him. Or take a look at how much it took to kill Rasputin. An ordinary person would be killed by a tenth of that, but extraordinary people like Häyhä and Rasputin shrug it off. They really do take the damage, they don’t just use up their luck or something like that; it’s just that the damage that they really do take isn’t enough to kill them.
Ah yes, but you’re using your extensive combat intuition to sort of absorb the shock. Using your skull.
OK, that does sound silly still. Let’s put it another way: Roy is not, in fact, letting Thog use his skull as a demolition ball. He’s really manipulating Thog into helping him perform a rapid series of unarmed attacks at the walls (which AFAIK never involve reciprocating damage, even if you’re headbutting fire elementals or punching iron golems in the junk). Man, that boy sure is clever !
Actually, attacking a fire elemental with an unarmed attack or a natural weapon deals damage to the attacker, depending on the size of the fire elemental, from 1d4 to 2d89 damage. And sets you on fire, unless you make a reflex save.
Punching a solid iron statue as hard as one can with a bare hand, of course, deals no damage to the puncher. Just like in real life.
I stand corrected - I thought that was only when they attacked, but I rechecked the SRD and you’re absolutely right.
Which however doesn’t debunk my unarmed attacks at masonry theory. crosses arms
ETA: For some reason, I’m reminded of the Goblins! strip where Names and Ears quibble over whether crossing rapids involves a Balance check to keep one’s balance in the current, or a Strength check to resist the current’s constant push. Good times.
