Using Telekinesis to throw objects at creatures, damage?

[Oramac]

Reading the spell Telekinesis, it says you can move an object of up to 1000 pounds up to 30 feet in any direction. It doesn't say how fast, nor whether the object does damage if it hits something.

So if I wanted to throw, say, a barstool at a bad guy, how would you rule the damage and avoidance?

I'm thinking the creature makes a Dex save and takes 1d6 per 5 feet of travel, or half damage on a save.

Thoughts?

[DivisibleByZero]

30 feet is your walking speed.
The thing you're telekinetically moving isn't zooming around all over the place. No damage.

And 1d6/5'? Are you kidding me? That's twice as much damage as a terminal velocity fall, which is 1d6/10'.
Again, it's not moving anywhere near that fast. Do you take damage if I'm walking down the street and bump into you? Even if you were walking the other direction, and providing twice the force that this has, you still aren't hurt by me.

[Easy_Lee]

If there's any damage, your DM will have to decide. For best results, I recommend dropping heavy objects onto enemies. If you want to throw a barstool, you could just do that with your PC's hands.

[ghost_warlock]

There's already a level one spell (catapult, in the free Elemental Evil book) that deals damage by hurling a small object at someone.

Telekinesis is meant more for dropping something heavy on someone.

Catapult scaled up to 5th level would deal 7d8. If your DM isn't burdened by strict RAW, you might be able to negotiate dealing similar damage with telekinesis, at the cost of the spell ending

[Oramac]

If there's any damage, your DM will have to decide. For best results, I recommend dropping heavy objects onto enemies. If you want to throw a barstool, you could just do that with your PC's hands.

I should have specified in the OP. I'm the DM for this game and have a caster bad guy who has Telekinesis in his stat block. I was trying to see if there's a way I could use it for damage without having to change the stat block at all.

So the short version is no, with some caveats.

Thanks y'all!

[Asmotherion]

Alright, so, here are some things to consider:

-The first thing is what I like to call "what damage would Fireball deal at this level"? As a 5th level spell, fireball would deal 10d6 damage. However, fireball is an instantaneus spell, wile Telekinesis is a consentration spell with a duration of up to 10 minutes. This means the Damage it deals must be downgraded.

An other concentration spell with a 1 minute duration, namelly flaming sphere, when cast as a 5th level spell deals 5d6 damage on a failed save, or half that much on a succesful one.

However we are talking about magical fire damage, wile in your case we are talking about non-magical bludgeoning damage propeled by magical force that does not deal damage (or, for balance issues, gravity... see below).

-The second thing is, if something deals a lot of damage, and is easy to replicate, your players will try to do so, if able.

-Instead of throwing the item, why not drop it instead, and let gravity do the rest. 1d6 per 10 feet of falling damage (bludgeoning), both to the item and the one(s) receiving the item on them, makes a good AOE (Dex save for Half damage for big items or save or suck for small items). 3d6 in one turn, or 6d6 in two turns can pack big damage with telekinesis, and since it has 10 minutes duration, it goes on till the end of the fight. The bigger the item, the bigger the AoE.

I know it's unrealistick to pack the same damage for a big statue or a small vase, but keep in mind that you want to avoid giving your players a gruesome death because of realism, and at the same time keep them on their toes.

[Sir cryosin]

If there's any damage, your DM will have to decide. For best results, I recommend dropping heavy objects onto enemies. If you want to throw a barstool, you could just do that with your PC's hands.

Or the first level spell catapult.

[Aett_Thorn]

Yeah, the spell lasts ten minutes. Have the BBEG concentrating on this for when the party comes in, and he's actually holding part of the ceiling aloft. Once he's finished his monologue, the ceiling comes crashing down on the players for Xd6 damage.

[Oramac]

Yeah, the spell lasts ten minutes. Have the BBEG concentrating on this for when the party comes in, and he's actually holding part of the ceiling aloft. Once he's finished his monologue, the ceiling comes crashing down on the players for Xd6 damage.

Oh!!! I like that! Good idea.

[SharkForce]

Yeah, the spell lasts ten minutes. Have the BBEG concentrating on this for when the party comes in, and he's actually holding part of the ceiling aloft. Once he's finished his monologue, the ceiling comes crashing down on the players for Xd6 damage.

.... you've just invented the load-bearing boss for D&D.

[90sMusic]

When using a spell in a non-"explicitly described" way, I always look at comparable spells.

Bigby's hand is about the closest thing you can get to telekinesis.

Both are 5th level spells.

Both can "grapple" and pick up creatures that are huge or smaller... Both put the grabbed creature in the restrained condition and can be moved 30 feet.

Telekinesis can pickup an object weighing 1,000 pounds. Bigby's hand doesn't implicitly say it can pickup objects, just creatures, but presumably unless your DM is a real douche, you can pick up objects with it as well. Since it doesn't list how much it can carry, you can base it off it's given strength score of 26 which would limit it's ability to lift things to 390 pounds.

Very similar effects between the two.

Bigby's hand can deal 4d6 force damage, it can also deal this as a bonus action on subsequent turns which is great. It does an additional 2d6 per spell level above 5th.

So i'd say if you wanted to use telekinesis as a means of hurting people, i'd use the bigby's hand damage since the two spells are very comparable.

Now if you did pickup a 1,000 pound object and dropped it on someone, that would presumably do a lot more damage than 4d6. Most cars weigh around 3,000 pounds so imagine having a third of a car dropped on you suddenly. That aint gonna be pretty. But presumably if you just brought a massive 1,000 pound chunk of granite you used as a weapon to instantly kill anything smaller than a large creature, it would cause some problems with the game, so i'd probably restrict it to the 4d6 because doing anything else opens up the door to re-using that same strategy to get far more damage value out of a spell than you should be getting.

[sightlessrealit]

Check out Mystics "Mastery of Force" if you want a point of reference for damage. Specifically Move.

[Rynjin]

Yeah, the spell lasts ten minutes. Have the BBEG concentrating on this for when the party comes in, and he's actually holding part of the ceiling aloft. Once he's finished his monologue, the ceiling comes crashing down on the players for Xd6 damage.

Might be better were it the floor, instead, and it dropped the PCs into a very unpleasant location.

...Join me, and reap great rewards. Or strike at me and face the consequences."

*PC moves up and strikes*

*BBEG intentionally fails Concentration*

[Unoriginal]

.... you've just invented the load-bearing boss for D&D.

Not really, but it's a new spin on it.


Might be better were it the floor, instead, and it dropped the PCs into a very unpleasant location.

...Join me, and reap great rewards. Or strike at me and face the consequences."

*PC moves up and strikes*

*BBEG intentionally fails Concentration*

Also good.

Levitate a big carpet (weight less than a regular floor), let the PCs drop to their doom when are on it.

[Aett_Thorn]

Might be better were it the floor, instead, and it dropped the PCs into a very unpleasant location.

...Join me, and reap great rewards. Or strike at me and face the consequences."

*PC moves up and strikes*

*BBEG intentionally fails Concentration*

Hmmm...can you twin Telekinesis by any chance? Not only does the floor fall out from under the party, but the ceiling falls on top of them just after?

[90sMusic]

Hmmm...can you twin Telekinesis by any chance? Not only does the floor fall out from under the party, but the ceiling falls on top of them just after?

Can't twin Telekinesis without bending the rules. Would be pretty neat if you could though.

[Unoriginal]

Hmmm...can you twin Telekinesis by any chance? Not only does the floor fall out from under the party, but the ceiling falls on top of them just after?

You can have both ceiling and floor count as one object if they're connected by a pillar. Just make so the pillar breaks when the structure fall.

[JackPhoenix]

Hmmm...can you twin Telekinesis by any chance? Not only does the floor fall out from under the party, but the ceiling falls on top of them just after?

Have the floor hold support pillar holding up the ceiling. May need some creative engineering to fit it in the 1000 lb limit of Telekinesis, though.

[WickerNipple]

Might be better were it the floor, instead, and it dropped the PCs into a very unpleasant location.

...Join me, and reap great rewards. Or strike at me and face the consequences."

*PC moves up and strikes*

*BBEG intentionally fails Concentration*

...And immediately after they land he casts Reverse Gravity, they fly up and hit the ceiling, and then releases it and they fall again. Splat! Splat!! Splat!!!