Telekenesis damage (Or, how much damage would dropping a piano on someone do)

[Sindal]

This is just asking in general for people's opinion. I don't need it for anything specific, just musing

So telekinesis is a concentration 10 minute 5th level spell that lets you lift about 1000 pounds. I did some looking and it's just about the same as, say, a horse (those arabian ones) or a piano.

1)How much do you all think it would hurt to drop a piano or horse on someone. That should hurt, right?
2)Assuming that the DM allows it, how much damage would repeatedly smashing someone into a wall or hard surface do. I'm aware you can only move them like 30ft at a time which isn't terribly fast.

I honestly have no idea.

[LudicSavant]

Check out the "improvising damage" section in the DMG. Judging by the stuff there, dropping a piano on someone would do rather modest damage. Likewise, a giant throwing a superheavy boulder at you is just rolling 3 or 4 d10s plus strength.

As for "slamming" someone into the wall at 30 feet per 6 seconds, that's only about 3 and a half miles per hour. That's a leisurely pace. That said, most people in 5e-land move bizarrely slow, unlike past editions (where a commoner could run faster than a low-mid level Monk does in 5e). It's hard to tell what's "supposed" to be fast when even Monks burning ki struggle to match the capabilities of real life athletes.

[MaxWilson]

This is just asking in general for people's opinion. I don't need it for anything specific, just musing

So telekinesis is a concentration 10 minute 5th level spell that lets you lift about 1000 pounds. I did some looking and it's just about the same as, say, a horse (those arabian ones) or a piano.

1)How much do you all think it would hurt to drop a piano or horse on someone. That should hurt, right?
2)Assuming that the DM allows it, how much damage would repeatedly smashing someone into a wall or hard surface do. I'm aware you can only move them like 30ft at a time which isn't terribly fast.

I honestly have no idea.

I had a player once who multiclassed Shadow Monk and Moon Druid, with the intention of turning into humongous animals (and eventually Earth Elementals) and teleporting 60' over enemies to land on them.

The rules I worked out with him for this are: when you fall on someone or something else, roll falling damage as normal, but the damage gets split between you, inversely proportionate to your relative masses. So when you fall 200' onto a planet, like the Earth, essentially the whole 20d6 goes to you. If you fall onto someone about your size, you each take 10d6. If you fall onto a kitten, the kitten takes 19d6 and you take d6. (Yep, that's a little bit weird but I'm willing to live with it.)

So under those rules, I'd rule that dropping a horse onto someone is the horse's normal falling damage (I double falling damage per size category over Medium, so 12d6 if the horse fell 60'), with 2d6 going to the horse and 10d6 going to whatever 200-lb. person you dropped it onto.

[Nefariis]

This is just asking in general for people's opinion. I don't need it for anything specific, just musing

So telekinesis is a concentration 10 minute 5th level spell that lets you lift about 1000 pounds. I did some looking and it's just about the same as, say, a horse (those arabian ones) or a piano.

1)How much do you all think it would hurt to drop a piano or horse on someone. That should hurt, right?
2)Assuming that the DM allows it, how much damage would repeatedly smashing someone into a wall or hard surface do. I'm aware you can only move them like 30ft at a time which isn't terribly fast.

I honestly have no idea.


I found someone that did some physics behind this, he came out to



1-10lbs 100ft 1d6
11-30lbs 30ft 1d6
31-50lbs 15ft 1d6
51-99lbs 10ft 1d6
100lbs 10ft 2d6
200lbs 10ft 5d6
300lbs 10ft 8d6
400lbs 10ft 10d6
500lbs 10ft 13d6
600lbs 10ft 15d6
700lbs 10ft 18d6
800lbs 10ft 20d6
900lbs 10ft 23d6
1000lbs 10ft 25d6

source: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/59090/how-might-the-weight-of-a-falling-object-affect-the-damage-it-causes

[MaxWilson]

I found someone that did some physics behind this, he came out to



1-10lbs 100ft 1d6
11-30lbs 30ft 1d6
31-50lbs 15ft 1d6
51-99lbs 10ft 1d6
100lbs 10ft 2d6
200lbs 10ft 5d6
300lbs 10ft 8d6
400lbs 10ft 10d6
500lbs 10ft 13d6
600lbs 10ft 15d6
700lbs 10ft 18d6
800lbs 10ft 20d6
900lbs 10ft 23d6
1000lbs 10ft 25d6

source: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/59090/how-might-the-weight-of-a-falling-object-affect-the-damage-it-causes

That guy is assuming damage scales linearly with kinetic energy, which is clearly not the case. A 200 lb. man does not take twice as much falling damage as a 100 lb. man in 5E, and a 20,000 lb. T-Rex espeically does not take 200x as much falling damage.

[Nefariis]

That guy is assuming damage scales linearly with kinetic energy, which is clearly not the case. A 200 lb. man does not take twice as much falling damage as a 100 lb. man in 5E, and a 20,000 lb. T-Rex espeically does not take 200x as much falling damage.

Well how I read this chart is that if you were hit by a falling 200lb man it would hurt more then if you were hit by a 100lb man - and in the same vein, if you were hit by a falling 20,000lb T-Rex, that would probably hurt even more.

I dont really think this has anything with falling damage for you personally (which is actually already outlined in the DMG).

Conversely there are 3.5 rules - "... improvised weapon does [3 + (weight/200 lbs round up)]d6 points of damage" (see Complete Warrior, page 159).

So in the case of 1000lb piano, 8d6 or 28 damage.

Which seems kinda low but still reasonable when taken into account that a commoner in 5E has 4hp - so a falling piano would kill a few commoners fairly easily.

[MaxWilson]

Well how I read this chart is that if you were hit by a falling 200lb man it would hurt more then if you were hit by a 100lb man - and in the same vein, if you were hit by a falling 20,000lb T-Rex, that would probably hurt even more.

When a 20,000 lb. T-Rex swats you with its massive tail, it does not deal 200x as much damage as a punch from a 100 lb. human.

The assumption the chart is based on has already been disproven. It doesn't make it a bad chart, but it does justify ignoring the chart: the assumptions it's making about the relationship between energy and damage are not correct.

That's why the chart gives absurd results that don't fit well into the feel of 5E. 25d6 damage for a 1000 lb. object falling 10' onto you, when a 1000 lb. creature falling 10' onto the Earth takes only 1d6 damage? Puh-lease!

[Nefariis]

When a 20,000 lb. T-Rex swats you with its massive tail, it does not deal 200x as much damage as a punch from a 100 lb. human.

No kidding, the T-Rex is 20,000 lbs, the tail isn't {Scrubbed}


25d6 damage for a 1000 lb. object falling 10' onto you, when a 1000 lb. creature falling 10' onto the Earth takes only 1d6 damage? Puh-lease!

A creatures weight has nothing to do with it's own falling damage - however a creature's weight does have to do with crushing to death whatever happens to be under it.


And just so I understand your rules correctly, if a 1000lb piano dropped 60ft (or five stories) on a 1000lb horse, they would each take 6d6 damage (12d6 split between them)?

I dont think the piano would be effected by the horse at all, I think the horse would be paste, and the piano would only be effected by the ground (which in the DMG is already 6d6)

So in your example,


.. so 12d6 if the horse fell 60') with 2d6 going to the horse and 10d6 going to whatever 200-lb. person you dropped it onto.

you are completely ignoring the DMG falling damage where it says
"1d6 bludgeoning damage for every 10 feet it fell, to a maximum of 20d6."

The horse should take 6d6 damage to start with and the guy should take quite a bit more.


And truthfully, this is a really really really stupid argument. -

This is completely open to interpretation, this wasn't even my table to begin with, at a certain point weight x height = death, so it's all becomes moot anyways

[MaxWilson]

No kidding, the T-Rex is 20,000 lbs, the tail isn't {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

The T-Rex's tail is thousands of times larger than the human's hand, and has thousands of times the kinetic energy--but the damage isn't thousands of times higher. This shows that the assumptions the table is based on are false.

Scrubbed I'd say it's time for me to stop beating this dead horse. Have a good game.

[MagneticKitty]

Check the psionic talent mastery of force... and use that? Closest thing I can think of
if 5 spell translates to 9 points. So this is equivilent to a 4th lv Psion "spell." We can assume 5th level is 9d6 damage perhaps. Either way is ua so take with grain of salt

Psi / weight lbs / damage
2 / 25 lbs. / 2d6
3 / 50 lbs. / 4d6
5 / 250 lbs. / 6d6
6 / 500 lbs. / 7d6
7 / 1,000 lbs. / 8d6

[JackPhoenix]

Based on your tone (frustrated? angry? insulting? hard to say), I'd say it's time for me to stop beating this dead horse. Have a good game.

But we don't know if the horse is dead. That depends on the damage it takes from the falling piano.