I need help figuring out the damage of this

[Valdor]

So, this weekend as i was playing 3.5, my wizard used a scroll of Major Creation at caster lever 15. Well me and the rest of the party were currently cruising 350ft above an enemy castle in our airship when i cast the spell making 16 cubic feet of Tungsten in the shape of a wedge which weighs around 1201/ cubic foot (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_does_one_cubic_foot_of_tungsten_weigh) making 15 cubic feet weigh about 18015 pounds. This dropped the entire 350 feet onto the castle...

So my question is how would one go about calculating that damage? We kinda stopped the session at this moment so the DM can try to figure out what exactly to do but non of use know about the damage output of this thing.

[Allanimal]

It is in the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm#tableDamagefromFallingObjects)


Falling Objects
Just as characters take damage when they fall more than 10 feet, so too do they take damage when they are hit by falling objects.

Objects that fall upon characters deal damage based on their weight and the distance they have fallen.

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).


Base from weight: 18000/200 = 90d6 (maxes out at 20d6? See below)
From height: maxes out at 20d6

Not sure if the total maxes at 20d6 or just from the distance.

[Curmudgeon]

The rules for falling object damage are in the Dungeon Master's Guide on page 303. All D&D structural damage is done in terms of 5' sections. Basically you're going to destroy 5' cubes all the way down, punching a vertical hole in the castle, but under the D&D rules damage won't propagate horizontally. So the castle will require some moderate repair work, and you'll have a tiny chance of killing people who happened to be in the path of destruction.

[NNescio]

So, this weekend as i was playing 3.5, my wizard used a scroll of Major Creation at caster lever 15. Well me and the rest of the party were currently cruising 350ft above an enemy castle in our airship when i cast the spell making 16 cubic feet of Tungsten which weighs around 1201/ cubic foot (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_does_one_cubic_foot_of_tungsten_weigh) making 15 cubic feet weigh about 18015 pounds. This dropped the entire 350 feet onto the castle...

So my question is how would one go about calculating that damage? We kinda stopped the session at this moment so the DM can try to figure out what exactly to do but non of use know about the damage output of this thing.

You can't conjure a block of metal in midair.


A creature or object brought into being or transported to your location by a conjuration spell cannot appear inside another creature or object, nor can it appear floating in an empty space. It must arrive in an open location on a surface capable of supporting it.

Apparently, too many people were dropping summoned whales on enemies or conjuring water in their foes' lungs.

Shoving the block of tungsten overboard is fair game though, but that might be somewhat hard to do.

[Skrobo]

(desclaimer: Air resistance is ignored, as the shape of the item is not known)

18015 pounds dropped from 350 feet will need about 4.65 seconds to reach the ground level, at which point they will have a speed of 164 Km/h (45.5 m/sec).
This gives us an energy of about 8.5 Megajoules.

8.5 Mj is about the energy produced when a 9-ton lorry crashes at 160km/hour (excluding all other types of energy).


Now, this doesn't sound like a lot and I would be willing to bet that only "cosmetic" damage will occur to the castle (battlements destroyed, a colapse of a portion of the top floor of the castle).

That said, I have no idea whatsoever of the energy delivered by siege weapons.


PS: I hope that you character has a valid reason for being familiar with Tungsten.

[Valdor]

I had just as much reason to know about Tungsten as our DM did at allowing mechs into the game without telling the players. So he let it go. I am also sorry for not making the shape of the Tungsten clear. It was a wedge shape since i was hoping to drive it all the way through the castle(some 7 floors if i remember right) OP has been changed to reflect the shape.

[Bhaakon]

I'm wondering where you got a sample of tungsten to work the spell in the first place. Not that it really matters, since you could just use gold instead without changing the outcome in game terms.

[CodeRed]

Enough damage to kill all the catgirls. While I applaud your creativity, this is just silly. Ultimately it should do exactly plot damage. There is no realistic way to figure the damage out using real-life logic attempting to be shoehorned into D&D. So it does however much damage the DM says it does in order to advance the plot.

[Valdor]

It is in the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm#tableDamagefromFallingObjects)



Base from weight: 18000/200 = 90d6 (maxes out at 20d6? See below)
From height: maxes out at 20d6

Not sure if the total maxes at 20d6 or just from the distance.

from the way i read this it seems like only the 20d6 from height has a cap while the actual weight damage seems to be open ended.


Enough damage to kill all the catgirls. While I applaud your creativity, this is just silly. Ultimately it should do exactly plot damage. There is no realistic way to figure the damage out using real-life logic attempting to be shoehorned into D&D. So it does however much damage the DM says it does in order to advance the plot.

It is a freeplay game so no plot to dictate anything :smalltongue:

[TroubleBrewing]

Weight is open ended, height is not.

[Grommen]

The best way to handle something like that is just to have it do what it needs to do. And if their is a discrepancy between what the DM and you think it should do. The DM wins. If he is nice, he might be willing to go 50/50 on a roll with you.

By the way. Cheep way to kill people and gain access to the castle. I would advise doing it again.

And I would be willing to bet that the changes to the conjuring spells reflect the fact that far too many people dropped large objects on people far too often.

I know we did :smallbiggrin:

[Diarmuid]

I had just as much reason to know about Tungsten as our DM did at allowing mechs into the game without telling the players. So he let it go. I am also sorry for not making the shape of the Tungsten clear. It was a wedge shape since i was hoping to drive it all the way through the castle(some 7 floors if i remember right) OP has been changed to reflect the shape.

This theory of entitlement in a player is one of the many things wrong with whats happened to D&D in 3.5. If the players cant reverse engineer a monster, trap, spell effect, etc then they feel as if the DM is cheating.

It's his world, his game, you agreed to play in his game. If he wants to add mechs to his game and didnt tell you players....so what? That gives you the right to use out of game knowledge? (and use a spell incorrectly, as summoning that much weight would have crashed just about anything you would have been flying in)

While I applaud the creativity...I dislike the reasoning.

[Valdor]

While i see how you get that I feel entitled to know things the DM does, i actually dont. I agree with the the fact that the DM may have to fudge this little and we as PC's DONT know everything. But everyone in the game was kinda pissed when in over a year of playing this game nothing of mechs was ever mentioned and it was a straight normal D&D game until suddenly our non-combat airship was attacked by mechs made out of adamantine. We more felt cheated and that it was a low blow just to kill the party(as 3 of the 5 man party did in fact die to cannon fire) if we had some sort of knowledge of mechs possibly existing in the word we would not have cared but when we started the game we each only got to pick two books outside of core the the DM specifically said "these are the only books i will use" none of them had mechs. And now we see the dragon mech book living in that stack. It kinda listed the group off.

[Thurbane]

Applications and calculations of real world physics in D&D always reminds of a favorite Simpons quote:

"As for Science versus Religion, I'm issuing a restraining order. Religion must stay 500 yards from Science at all times."

:smalltongue: