Thrown/Dropped from Above Weapons

[Yogibear41]

Most thrown weapons have short range increments, or an absolute short range, such as the 10ft range of the net. What happens however if such a weapon is dropped from height? Say you train your flying animal companion or some such to drop alchemist fire or nets on bad guys, how is that handled?

[Jowgen]

Depends on what you're dropping and the DM of course.

With a splash weapon, the creature would almost certainly take the splash damage. Also, the way it fell might be done according to the missed-splash landing rules (which I am hazy on) but yeah, splash damage. I believe dropping a sack full of Acid is one of the commonly unseen servant tricks.

A net would be ineffective for the purpose of entangling something, so it falls into the same category as: everything else.

By strict RAW, falling objects cause damage based on their weight and fall of height up to a maximum of 20d6. There be DMG tables for that. This is the basis for Feather Token Tree abuse (or folding boats, when used with Unseen Servant). There is nothing in the rules that differentiates by more than weight and height afaik, so a 5 lb sword from 30 ft deals the same as a 5 lb chair from 30 ft. DM may rule different.

Now, it is an exceedingly common houserule to allow characters reflex saves to avoid falling stuff, sometimes for negate, sometime for half. I believe there are even parts of the DMG that at least imply that would be the appropriate thing. For nets and falling weapons that would apply. Alternatively, a character might catch a falling object, for which there are at least suggested similar rules to be found as part of the Rules of the Game articles (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040706a).

The only other thing that might factor into all this afaik are siege engine rules, provided the falling thing is boulder-sized; but again, house-rule territory for the most part.

[Darrin]

Now, it is an exceedingly common houserule to allow characters reflex saves to avoid falling stuff, sometimes for negate, sometime for half.


It's not exactly a house rule if you have Heroes of Battle, which has rules for Aerial Bombardment (pp. 67-68). There's an attack roll to hit a particular square, and there's a Ref save DC 15 to negate. Range increment is 50', and beyond 250' the rules say something about "indirect hits (see below)" and then completely fails to explain how exactly indirect hits are supposed to work (all we know is from the Volley rules, you ignore all cover between the archer and the target, such as firing over a wall, but I fail to see how this has any relevance to dropping an object directly above a target).

I've also seen Curmudgeon suggest that you treat falling objects as a "falling block" trap as per the rules in the DMG: the DM makes an attack roll, but would have to arbitrarily assign some sort of attack bonus.

[SkipSandwich]

It's not exactly a house rule if you have Heroes of Battle, which has rules for Aerial Bombardment (pp. 67-68). There's an attack roll to hit a particular square, and there's a Ref save DC 15 to negate. Range increment is 50', and beyond 250' the rules say something about "indirect hits (see below)" and then completely fails to explain how exactly indirect hits are supposed to work (all we know is from the Volley rules, you ignore all cover between the archer and the target, such as firing over a wall, but I fail to see how this has any relevance to dropping an object directly above a target).

I've also seen Curmudgeon suggest that you treat falling objects as a "falling block" trap as per the rules in the DMG: the DM makes an attack roll, but would have to arbitrarily assign some sort of attack bonus.

If going the falling block route, I suggest that the attack be made at a +0 bonus +5 per size catagory of the object above medium (up to +20 for colossal objects).

according to this post http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?140868-3-5-Falling-Speed
in 1 round you fall about 500ft, then over the course of the next round you accerate to terminal velocity and fall a total of 2000ft falling 1200/rd after that point. Given this, if the object is falling more then 500 feet, I would require it to be aimed at the target like any other attack roll, with unlimited range increments (-2 per increment penalty as normal) and an additional -2 penalty per round it will take to reach the target to account for the lead time calculation (stationary targets do not incur this penalty).

If you happen to have trustworthy information that the target will be at a specific square within a specific 6second window, then I would say that would be a DC 5 attack roll to hit the square, and it attacks as a falling block trap if somebody happens to be standing in that square at the end of the round it touches down.