[3.5] Concerning Falling Objects – and Creatures

[Duke of Urrel]

The RAW explain how much damage you take when a falling object hits you, but none of the rulebooks that I own explains how you can avoid being hit.

I imagine you can make a Reflex save to avoid being hit by an object up to a certain size, but when the object gets to be too big, perhaps the Reflex save should merely reduce the damage to half, or perhaps no Reflex save should be possible at all. Are there published rules for this to be found somewhere, or must we resort to house-ruling?

I am also confused about the utility of living creatures as bombs or projectiles, which I have seen discussed in this forum on occasion as if this battle strategy were quite common. Is it, really? Because I have a few questions in regard to it. For example:

1. When a creature falls on a creature, isn't it a general rule that both creatures suffer the same damage? After all, the force of impact is the same in both directions.

2. In specific cases, when a creature falls on a creature, the two creatures may suffer unequal damage, such as when the body of the falling creature is naturally armored or the body of the creature it falls upon is covered with spikes. If you should happen to fall upon a soft-bodied or thickly furred creature, you might suffer less damage than that creature. On the other hand, if you should happen to fall upon – or be thrown or catapulted at – a unicorn, I think highly damaging impalement should be a real possibility for you, but how likely should it be?

Obviously, there is a good chance that the answers to these questions are simple and appear in some rulebook that I don't have. I would be grateful for any references.

[Deophaun]

It's a DC 15 Reflex save. Let's see if someone ninjas my edit with a source

Bah, thought it would be in the RC...

[Darrin]

It's a DC 15 Reflex save. Let's see if someone ninjas my edit with a source

Bah, thought it would be in the RC...

It is not in the Rules Compendium.

Aerial Bombardment rules are in Heroes of Battle (p. 68).

In Core, there are no rules for creatures falling on top of other creatures. The dropper takes falling damage as normal, determined by the distance fallen. The droppee takes damage from a falling object, which is determined by weight and distance dropped.

The DM without access/awareness of the rules in Heroes of Battle can use several methods to resolve this, but by RAW they all boil down to house rules. He can treat it as a trap and use the DMG to determine an appropriate attack bonus, or he can call for a Ref save and eyeball the DC.

[Duke of Urrel]

Okay, it looks like we now have both a rule and a source! Thanks, Deophaun and Darrin.

I think I'll adopt the rule of the Reflex save at DC 15 for all falling objects. It's easy enough to argue that although you don't have to move as far to avoid being hit by smaller objects, bigger objects are easier to dodge just because they're easier to see from farther away, so the Reflex save DC works out to be the same. I'll make exceptions to this rule only if there's nowhere to run, for example if you're at the bottom of a mine shaft and an elevator falls on you.

And unless others advise me otherwise, I'll do the best I can with house-ruling for creatures that fall on creatures.