Any reason this wouldn't work?

[Seharvepernfan]

I'm playing a summoner in a pathfinder game, and I was deciding on which creatures to summon with my summon monster ability. I know earth elementals make great tanks, and they have that nifty earth glide ability. I noticed that they are extremely heavy...and I got to thinking; is there any reason that one couldn't earthglide into a tunnel wall, float up over the tunnel, locate an enemy with tremorsense, then drop down on an opponent for tons of falling damage?

Also, is there an upper limit to how much damage a falling object can do? I notice the 20d6 max from height, but does that apply to weight?

[Maginomicon]

In a World's Largest Dungeon campaign I was in for a while, the druid in the party took the elemental companion ACF for an earth elemental in the shape of a Tiki pillar.

Two words: GOOMBA STOMP! :smallbiggrin:

[SamsDisciple]

Damage from falling is a combined calculation between both height and weight, more weight means less height needed to deal max damage. I think that would work just fine if a. The height of the tunnel is fairly high b. you can convince an earth elemental to leave all connection with the earth (in some settings and mythologies that is essentially the only way to kill an earth elemental.

[BrokenChord]

By anal RAW readings, a falling creature is not treated as a falling object for purposes of doing damage.

For any sane DMs, I don't see why this wouldn't be allowed.

[tiercel]

I'd say one thing you'd want to do before trying this tactic is make sure one or more members of your party have feather fall prepared, because if it works for you, it works for NPCs/BBEGs.

[Togo]

Hitting a creature with a falling objects is problematical. Simply letting it drop without aiming would allow at least a reflex save, that wouldn't scale with level.

If you do aim, then it's an improvised attack, and you probably won't hit very often.

The short answer is that there are ways the DM can stop it, or at least rule that it's not very effective. So it may be worth limiting your use of such tactics to make sure it's not that much more effective than straight combat. And watch out for Kobolds or similar pushing heavy boulders onto you, since it's a lot easier for them to set up.