Are there any "Epic Skill Test" charts to visualize superhuman ability scores?

[Promethean]

TL;DR: Basically had a player ask at one point how strong a dragon is, and the resulting conversation left us both realizing no one knew what the numbers Meant other than "bigger than the PCs in most cases" and "can carry/lift/drag X amount of weight".

On a more serious note: what do the numbers actually mean at superhuman levels other than "Big Number"? At what strength score does a Titan have the ability to break a mountain with a single punch? What dexterity score would a fairy need to be too fast to see? What wisdom score does a monk need to fully understand the philosophical the nature of being?

Basically, is there any kind of equivalent to the "Epic Skill Test" the Epic level handbook has for skills, but for superhuman ability scores?

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Numbers really don't scale up that well. For instance, stone has 8 hardness and 15 hp per inch of thickness, meaning that a 10'x10'x10' cube has 1,800 hp, and you can only affect a 10' cube of matter with a single attack, no matter how strong you are. Suffice it to say, you will never, ever have a high enough Str score to punch a mountain to dust, even if you deal infinite damage via the d2 crusader trick, or whatever.

Unless you're a spellcaster, in which case, you can blow up planets with low level spells. (https://dndtools.org/spells/shining-south--25/rockburst--3277/)

[Particle_Man]

Maybe a d20 supers game like Mutants and Masterminds might have something that you could transfer over?

[Ramza00]

So you are going to get a miss match of how scores are actually described vs the real mechanics…

But Pathfinder has a nice table of scores in everday metaphors.

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/BASICS-ABILITY-SCORES/ability-scores/#The_Abilities

as you can see it is -5 to +7 ability modifier, and then it skips to a +10 to +12 for a mythical score and a monster example.

[Darg]

blowing up a mountain with a single punch is quite simply impossible. The amount of force and distance an object must travel to displace that much matter is quite frankly impossible in game terms. Even without the 10 ft cube rule, you also would need line of effect to an appropriate distance. What causes such destruction is the transference of energy. Meaning it's much more likely a punch is only ever going to create a hole. You are concentrating so much force onto such a tiny point and your body is likely going to be the most limiting factor in transferring force because reach limits the body's ability to transfer larger amounts of force.

[Telonius]

Exactly how much reach can a character get? It wouldn't be a single punch, exactly, but with Whirlwind Attack you could designate each cube as an opponent...?

[Biggus]

The highest ability score a real-world human has achieved is approximately 23: see the sidebar here (https://web.archive.org/web/20161031212736/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060120a) for example.

To give some superhero examples (these come from quite old sources, so may have changed in recent years):

Captain America would have Str 25
Spiderman would have Str 49
Relatively calm Hulk would have Str 64
Raging Hulk would have Str 66+
Superman would have Str 129

If these are helpful to you, I'll try and find my old DC Heroes RPG to give you some examples for the other stats.

[Thunder999]

Not only could a low level caster blow up the moon, but it would deal at most 19 damage and only to those within 20ft of the moon.

[Telonius]

The highest ability score a real-world human has achieved is approximately 23: see the sidebar here (https://web.archive.org/web/20161031212736/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060120a) for example.

To give some superhero examples (these come from quite old sources, so may have changed in recent years):

Captain America would have Str 25
Spiderman would have Str 49
Relatively calm Hulk would have Str 64
Raging Hulk would have Str 66+
Superman would have Str 129

If these are helpful to you, I'll try and find my old DC Heroes RPG to give you some examples for the other stats.

The real-world record totals have gone up in recent years. Hafthor Bjoernsson's record is now 501kg on deadlift (about 1104-1105 lb); that would put him in the STR 27-28 range (max lift of 1040 and 1200 respectively). Coincidentally, that's about half of Kord's strength of 55 (per Deities and Demigods).

[Biggus]

The real-world record totals have gone up in recent years. Hafthor Bjoernsson's record is now 501kg on deadlift (about 1104-1105 lb); that would put him in the STR 27-28 range (max lift of 1040 and 1200 respectively). Coincidentally, that's about half of Kord's strength of 55 (per Deities and Demigods).

While you're right of course that the world records have continued to increase, I don't think the actual Str score represented has increased that much. For one thing, the deadlift world record back in 2006 when that article was written was 410kg, which equates to Str 26. For reasons not explained, they decided the snatch best represented the "heavy load" limit, and snatch has a much lower record, currently 496lbs (Str 23).

Also, older records don't compare well with more recent ones, because modern weightlifting equipment (special shirts, wrist straps etc) make a huge difference. In the bench press for example there are two different records kept now, one with a bench shirt and one without: the record with a shirt is 1,320lbs, over 66% higher than the record without one of 793lbs.

D&D numbers are hard to translate into real-world equivalents with certainty, since other than the article I linked they don't really put numbers on them any more, like they did back in 2E (for Str and Int at least).

[Promethean]

Maybe a d20 supers game like Mutants and Masterminds might have something that you could transfer over?

Unfortunately, mutants and masterminds goes entirely vague at around ability scores of 30(low superhuman, whatever that means) and ends at 50(which it deems "Cosmic", whatever that means).


The real-world record totals have gone up in recent years. Hafthor Bjoernsson's record is now 501kg on deadlift (about 1104-1105 lb); that would put him in the STR 27-28 range (max lift of 1040 and 1200 respectively). Coincidentally, that's about half of Kord's strength of 55 (per Deities and Demigods).

I don't think that would be "half".

Every 10 points in an ability score is 4x the ability of the previous 10(according to the SRD strength chart, which only goes to 29 and then has +10= x4). So Hafthor would be less than 1/16th Kord's strength.

[Biggus]

Every 10 points in an ability score is 4x the ability of the previous 10(according to the SRD strength chart, which only goes to 29 and then has +10= x4). So Hafthor would be less than 1/16th Kord's strength.

Weirdly, the devs themselves make this mistake in D&DG: Thor's belt of strength is said to double his Str but actually doubles his Str score, which according the Str chart increases it by over 500x.

Then again, a belt which gives +5 Str would be a bit underwhelming for a greater deity's item...

[Promethean]

Weirdly, the devs themselves make this mistake in D&DG: Thor's belt of strength is said to double his Str but actually doubles his Str score, which according the Str chart increases it by over 500x.

Then again, a belt which gives +5 Str would be a bit underwhelming for a greater deity's item...

Running the calc on that, Thor would be able to lift over 6.000,000 lbs above his head. That's 3,000 tons. For reference, Large cargo ships and sierra redwoods(the tree that grow on average 11 feet in diameter and 240 feet high) are only around 1,000 tons. Thor would be able to use those as Throwing Weapons.

Granted this is a lot less superhuman than I thought, Great wyrm dragons don't typically break beyond a STR of 45 and I thought creatures on that scale would be lifting up and throwing castle towers. Turns out not so much.

It also makes me think the D&D stats for you'd need to pull off comic-book-level feats you'd see from Superman and the hulk would be Really inflated. You need 120 strength to lift the empire state building, which is tiny compared to the mountains the hulk can throw around(or planets in superman's case). That's actually Really disappointing, it means the "Superhuman" feel martial-noncasters are supposed to experience at higher than 10th level is impossibly out of reach mechanics-wise even well into epic levels.

[Biggus]

Running the calc on that, Thor would be able to lift over 6.000,000 lbs above his head. That's 3,000 tons. For reference, Large cargo ships and sierra redwoods(the tree that grow on average 11 feet in diameter and 240 feet high) are only around 1,000 tons. Thor would be able to use those as Throwing Weapons.

Granted this is a lot less superhuman than I thought, Great wyrm dragons don't typically break beyond a STR of 45 and I thought creatures on that scale would be lifting up and throwing castle towers. Turns out not so much.

It also makes me think the D&D stats for you'd need to pull off comic-book-level feats you'd see from Superman and the hulk would be Really inflated. You need 120 strength to lift the empire state building, which is tiny compared to the mountains the hulk can throw around(or planets in superman's case). That's actually Really disappointing, it means the "Superhuman" feel martial-noncasters are supposed to experience at higher than 10th level is impossibly out of reach mechanics-wise even well into epic levels.

There's a huge case of "depending on the writer" going on with the Hulk and Superman (and with all superhoeres, but those two in particular). In the old comics a raging Hulk could lift a few hundred tons, maybe a few thousand in extreme cases: in at least one more recent version he's strong enough to potentially do serious damage to the Earth itself. Superman is the opposite: the version I quoted with Str 129 is from the early 90s, while silver age Superman could move planets.

To be fair, in DC Heroes Superman is explicitly described as being stronger than gods, so it's more a case of superheroes - DC ones in particular - having truly insane stats than D&D characters being unimpressive.

[Particle_Man]

Also I don’t think Hulk’s strength has an upper limit when it is the classic “The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets!” version.

[Promethean]

There's a huge case of "depending on the writer" going on with the Hulk and Superman (and with all superhoeres, but those two in particular). In the old comics a raging Hulk could lift a few hundred tons, maybe a few thousand in extreme cases: in at least one more recent version he's strong enough to potentially do serious damage to the Earth itself. Superman is the opposite: the version I quoted with Str 129 is from the early 90s, while silver age Superman could move planets.

To be fair, in DC Heroes Superman is explicitly described as being stronger than gods, so it's more a case of superheroes - DC ones in particular - having truly insane stats than D&D characters being unimpressive.

Even silver age and modern supes could move planets, it was random from comic-to comic though. Superman can be lifting a book of infinite pages that weighs infinite lbs in one comic, and struggle with something only a couple thousand pounds in the next.

I know some comic fans headcanon that Supe's powers are psionic in nature, and the reason for his variable ability is because it's based on how strong he subconsciously Believes he is. If his Id is having a bad day he's barely higher than human, but on a good day it can scale literally infinitely.

[Biggus]

Also I don’t think Hulk’s strength has an upper limit when it is the classic “The madder Hulk gets, the stronger Hulk gets!” version.

Hulk's strength has always been described as potentially unlimited, but what that means in practice has got considerably more extreme over the decades. Old Hulk threw around 40-ton tanks like tennis balls, but new Hulk can damage entire continents.


Even silver age and modern supes could move planets, it was random from comic-to comic though. Superman can be lifting a book of infinite pages that weighs infinite lbs in one comic, and struggle with something only a couple thousand pounds in the next.


You're right of course that even within a particular period Superman's strength varies enormously; but it's also true that it varies between periods how extreme it was. In the Superman stories I read in the mid-80s to early 90s (the main period I was reading them) he never demonstrated planet-moving levels of power. IIRC his powers were intentionally toned down after Crisis On Infinite Earths because they'd got so out of hand in some of the 70s-early 80s comics.

Also, I think in more recent times there's been at least a token effort made to be more consistent with this kind of thing, or at least to provide explanations for huge changes in power: in the old days they didn't even try, his powers were entirely decided by what kind of story the writer wanted to tell.

[Promethean]

Onto another point, aren't level 15-20 martial classes supposed to be in the same weight class as heracles, son wukong, and paul bunyan? The guys who can break or build mountains, route armies singlehandedly, and scare small deities with physical strength and skill alone?

It'd definitely be better for the caster/non-caster divide if martials got access to more mythology-level ability scores and epic skill tests without needing the wizard to boost them.

[Remuko]

Running the calc on that, Thor would be able to lift over 6.000,000 lbs above his head. That's 3,000 tons. For reference, Large cargo ships and sierra redwoods(the tree that grow on average 11 feet in diameter and 240 feet high) are only around 1,000 tons. Thor would be able to use those as Throwing Weapons.

Granted this is a lot less superhuman than I thought, Great wyrm dragons don't typically break beyond a STR of 45 and I thought creatures on that scale would be lifting up and throwing castle towers. Turns out not so much.

Are you factoring in the size modifier? Great Wyrms tend to be colossal and theres a huge multiplier to how much they can lift over say thor based on their size.

[hamishspence]

Them being quadrupeds rather than bipeds, also helps.

[Promethean]

Are you factoring in the size modifier? Great Wyrms tend to be colossal and theres a huge multiplier to how much they can lift over say thor based on their size.

Didn't actually remember that, thank you.

Looking at the mults large has a mult of x2, huge x4, gargantuan x8, and colossal x16, going by the strength chart this is the equivalent of +5/+10/+15/+20 strength respectively and quadropeds get a x1.5 mult on top of this(+7/+13/+17/+23). A great wyrm Red dragon would have the equivalent of 68, which should be around 150 tons, which should be around enough to pick up a blue whale.

Not anywhere near enough to lift up and toss warships or castle towers, but it's far more than the disappointing calcs I got before(strength 45 maxes out at 6 tons, barely enough to hold a medium-sized elephant less than 10% the dragon's size and weight).

Actually, running the numbers again, factoring in lifting mults for size mean a humanoid grown to colossal size would get the equivalent of +44. A strength of 28 before magic items isn't really a high bar for a 20 level humanoid(less than the CR of a dragon). It just hit me that dragons aren't impressively strong for their size(they can only lift a max of their body weight + 20%), they're mostly coasting on size modifiers for their physical ability scores.

Other than deities, are there any non-epic creatures with impressive ability scores for their size and CR I can compare to?

[SimonMoon6]

In the Superman stories I read in the mid-80s to early 90s (the main period I was reading them) he never demonstrated planet-moving levels of power. IIRC his powers were intentionally toned down after Crisis On Infinite Earths because they'd got so out of hand in some of the 70s-early 80s comics.

The best "planet moving" Superman examples from the post-Crisis Superman that I can think of are "The Earth Stealers" and the Grant Morrison JLA. I don't recall The Earth Stealers that well, but it does involve Superman sort of moving the Earth after it gets stolen (iirc), but it was published so soon after Crisis, that the creative team may have still had pre-Crisis Superman's power level in mind.

In Grant Morrison's JLA, Superman manages to move the moon. However, he struggled and strained to do so. Also, he was in his Electric Superman (Superman Blue) phase at the time, so he should've been less physically strong, though on the other other hand, Morrison wrote the story before knowing that Superman was going to become Superman Blue and just had to do the best he could with the story.

So, really, the only post-Crisis stories where Superman has anything like that power level are (a) a potential mistake and (b) a story where he is intentionally written to be that strong, but in a phase when he shouldn't be that strong, so something is just off with the story. I wouldn't count either of them as being particularly canonical examples of Superman's strength.

The Silver/Bronze Age Superman didn't struggle to lift things. There's the famous panel where (as a young boy), he carried all the planets from one galaxy to another (they were chained together and he carried the chain). Also, as a young boy, he used his super-breath power to move the Earth. On another occasion, he (as an adult) pushed the Earth out of the way of an alien seed traveling through space that would've caused problems if it had landed on Earth.

I'm not trying to make a point with any of this. I'm just giving examples.

[Kitsuneymg]

While you're right of course that the world records have continued to increase, I don't think the actual Str score represented has increased that much. For one thing, the deadlift world record back in 2006 when that article was written was 410kg, which equates to Str 26. For reasons not explained, they decided the snatch best represented the "heavy load" limit, and snatch has a much lower record, currently 496lbs (Str 23).

Also, older records don't compare well with more recent ones, because modern weightlifting equipment (special shirts, wrist straps etc) make a huge difference. In the bench press for example there are two different records kept now, one with a bench shirt and one without: the record with a shirt is 1,320lbs, over 66% higher than the record without one of 793lbs.

D&D numbers are hard to translate into real-world equivalents with certainty, since other than the article I linked they don't really put numbers on them any more, like they did back in 2E (for Str and Int at least).

Don’t forget too that the numbers for lifting don’t require effort or the possibility of failure. A character doesn’t need to roll anything to perform their max lift. I’m gonna go out on a limb and suggest that dead lift records are the results of months of work for a single lift that lasts a short time. Whereas max lift of 720 lbs means you can 5foot trudge that weight around whenever you want for as long as you want. In short, deadlifting weight is nothing like max lift.

[Kitsuneymg]

Other than deities, are there any non-epic creatures with impressive ability scores for their size and CR I can compare to?

Pathfinder fox is tiny, cr 1/4 with a strength of 9. Making it medium with advancement rules gives it a 17 iirc.

[Melcar]

The real-world record totals have gone up in recent years. Hafthor Bjoernsson's record is now 501kg on deadlift (about 1104-1105 lb); that would put him in the STR 27-28 range (max lift of 1040 and 1200 respectively). Coincidentally, that's about half of Kord's strength of 55 (per Deities and Demigods).

Except, for something like deadlift you get twice your max carrying capacity, so 1105lbs is in the 23 str range!

[Biggus]

Other than deities, are there any non-epic creatures with impressive ability scores for their size and CR I can compare to?

Some creatures with high stats for size and/or CR:

Str
Legendary Ape, Str 30, Med, CR 7 (MM2)
Legendary Bear, Str 36, Large, CR 9 (MM2)

Dex
Dire Rat, Dex 17, Small, CR 1/3
Legendary Eagle, Dex 30, Small, CR 6 (MM2)
Elder Air Elemental Dex 33, Huge, CR 11 (Huge but has the highest Dex of any nonepic creature)

Con
Barbed Devil Con 23, Med, CR 11
Hezrou Con 29, Large, CR 11
Balor Con 31, Large, CR 20

Int
Yuan-ti Abomination, Int 20, CR 7
Illurien Int 36, CR 15 (MM5, unique creature)

Wis
Unicorn Wis 20, CR 3
Pit Fiend Wis 26, CR 20

Cha
Unicorn Cha 24, CR 3
Succubus Cha 26, CR 7

[Prime32]

Onto another point, aren't level 15-20 martial classes supposed to be in the same weight class as heracles, son wukong, and paul bunyan? The guys who can break or build mountains, route armies singlehandedly, and scare small deities with physical strength and skill alone?

It'd definitely be better for the caster/non-caster divide if martials got access to more mythology-level ability scores and epic skill tests without needing the wizard to boost them.
Weapons of Legacy includes the sword Caladbolg, and mentions how in mythology it could cut mountains in half and even the greatest heroes feared to face it. Then calls that a gross exaggeration and just gives it the mighty cleaving property. Yeah...


Other than deities, are there any non-epic creatures with impressive ability scores for their size and CR I can compare to?
DMG 2 has the CR +0 Prodigy template, which grants +2 to an ability score plus an extra +4 on related ability checks and skill checks. I.e. it effectively quadruples your Strength for certain things.


Pathfinder fox is tiny, cr 1/4 with a strength of 9. Making it medium with advancement rules gives it a 17 iirc.
Also very good choice for the Mauler familiar archetype (https://aonprd.com/ArchetypeDisplay.aspx?FixedName=Familiar%20Mauler) , which grows it to Medium and adds half your level to Strength on top of that.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

An epic level martial character can shatter a 10'x10'x10' boulder by pouring every resource he has into it: https://youtu.be/GXeOlcctd9g?t=280

A mid level caster can blow up planets with a single spell that takes a few minutes to learn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sEINMGorTE

[Promethean]

Weapons of Legacy includes the sword Caladbolg, and mentions how in mythology it could cut mountains in half and even the greatest heroes feared to face it. Then calls that a gross exaggeration and just gives it the mighty cleaving property. Yeah...

Simultaneously, the most unoptimized wizard can still use fly + polymorph any object to turn pebbles into country destroying meteors at level 15.

Why are martials not allowed to have nice things? Why did the creators think Monks were overpowered?

[Darg]

Simultaneously, the most unoptimized wizard can still use fly + polymorph any object to turn pebbles into country destroying meteors at level 15.

Why are martials not allowed to have nice things? Why did the creators think Monks were overpowered?

Such loose interpretations of the rules can apply to martials too. All a martial has to do is ready a bull rush and the meteor is as harmless as a pebble.

[Promethean]

Such loose interpretations of the rules can apply to martials too. All a martial has to do is ready a bull rush and the meteor is as harmless as a pebble.

The PAO meteor thing is not a loose interpretation of the rules. At level 15, the spell let's you transmute up to 1,500 cubic feet of nonmagical, non-valuable material.

1500 cubic feet of iron would be 736500 pounds. In IRL terms that meteorite going at terminal velocity would leave a crater 1620 feet wide and 573 feet deep. Just going by D&D SRD rules, that'd do 3682.5D6 of damage falling Per 10 feet fallen to anything under it.

That's not a loose anything, that's the rules proper.

[Darg]

The PAO meteor thing is not a loose interpretation of the rules. At level 15, the spell let's you transmute up to 1,500 cubic feet of nonmagical, non-valuable material.

1500 cubic feet of iron would be 736500 pounds. In IRL terms that meteorite going at terminal velocity would leave a crater 1620 feet wide and 573 feet deep. Just going by D&D SRD rules, that'd do 3682.5D6 of damage falling Per 10 feet fallen to anything under it.

That's not a loose anything, that's the rules proper.

It is a loose interpretation. There is no rule for objects harming anything by falling other than creatures. Unless the object was thrown (not possible) it cannot harm objects. Even then, it can only harm one thing at a time while losing the falling damage. The height bonus damage is capped at 20d6. Only weight damage is uncapped. If you want it to do what you think it ought to do, the DM must rule 0.

[Promethean]

It is a loose interpretation. There is no rule for objects harming anything by falling other than creatures. Unless the object was thrown (not possible) it cannot harm objects. Even then, it can only harm one thing at a time while losing the falling damage. The height bonus damage is capped at 20d6. Only weight damage is uncapped. If you want it to do what you think it ought to do, the DM must rule 0.

So your take is that objects regardless of size and velocity can't harm objects and have no blast radius?

I feel like that should be classified under rules disfunction rather than RAI. I wouldn't classify any reading that ignores an obvious disfunction as a "Loose Interpretation".

[Darg]

So your take is that objects regardless of size and velocity can't harm objects and have no blast radius?

I feel like that should be classified under rules disfunction rather than RAI. I wouldn't classify any reading that ignores an obvious disfunction as a "Loose Interpretation".

Is it a dysfunction or purposely left unsaid? Turns out you can't really have adventures if allowed to orbitally bombard anything you want. The rules are there to facilitate adventure, not blowing up planets. I'm surprised you haven't noticed that the only limit on size is the target, not the result of the spell. If one wanted you could technically PAO something into a super massive body that would collapse under it's own massive gravity creating a blackhole. But hey, it must be a dysfunction that the rules don't facilitate that.

[Promethean]

Is it a dysfunction or purposely left unsaid? Turns out you can't really have adventures if allowed to orbitally bombard anything you want. The rules are there to facilitate adventure, not blowing up planets. I'm surprised you haven't noticed that the only limit on size is the target, not the result of the spell. If one wanted you could technically PAO something into a super massive body that would collapse under it's own massive gravity creating a blackhole. But hey, it must be a dysfunction that the rules don't facilitate that.

As I understand it the target of the spell is also the limit to the range it can effect, therefore you can't "Make" anything outside the target range because the spell can't actually stretch that far.

Besides, if you wanted to make a black hole you could just transmute an object into one, it's not made of any magically significant material. :smalltongue:

[Darg]

As I understand it the target of the spell is also the limit to the range it can effect, therefore you can't "Make" anything outside the target range because the spell can't actually stretch that far.

Besides, if you wanted to make a black hole you could just transmute an object into one, it's not made of any magically significant material. :smalltongue:

That has to do with the range of the spell, not the target.

[Promethean]

That has to do with the range of the spell, not the target.

"range" is "How far away from the caster can the target be".

The target section is the one with an object size limit and my previous comment was on Why you can't create an object larger than that size.

[Darg]

"range" is "How far away from the caster can the target be".

The target section is the one with an object size limit and my previous comment was on Why you can't create an object larger than that size.

Except there is no rule about the target specifications limiting an effect.

[Promethean]

Except there is no rule about the target specifications limiting an effect.

Huh, revisiting the spell rules highlights how Weird POA's description is, it's "target" defines an effect/area rather than having an effect/area descriptor.

Granted, this makes PAO cheese absurdly stronger than I thought because they don't have a max cap on the object they can make. By RAW they could make a planet if they wanted.

"Rocks Fall and Everyone Dies" I guess.

[King of Nowhere]

The PAO meteor thing is not a loose interpretation of the rules. At level 15, the spell let's you transmute up to 1,500 cubic feet of nonmagical, non-valuable material.

1500 cubic feet of iron would be 736500 pounds. In IRL terms that meteorite going at terminal velocity would leave a crater 1620 feet wide and 573 feet deep. Just going by D&D SRD rules, that'd do 3682.5D6 of damage falling Per 10 feet fallen to anything under it.

That's not a loose anything, that's the rules proper.

That's not a meteorite. A meteorite is moving at orbital speeds, several km per second. What you are talking about is a falling boulder.
And while a 300 ton asteroid would leave a crater as you describe - if it didn't burn in the atmosphere first - a falling boulder would not.
I would rule that trying to drop a boulder on someone that way would entail a reflex saving throw to dodge, same ruling as fallen objects, so not much use in combat as the dc is pretty low.
On the other hand, it would work very well at collapsing buildings.

Regarding rules interpretation, a lot of those break for high numbers simply because some quantities scale linearly and some logarythmically. Famous example is that by raw you cannot see the sun - or pretty much anything past a certain distance.

[Promethean]

That's not a meteorite. A meteorite is moving at orbital speeds, several km per second. What you are talking about is a falling boulder.
And while a 300 ton asteroid would leave a crater as you describe - if it didn't burn in the atmosphere first - a falling boulder would not.
I would rule that trying to drop a boulder on someone that way would entail a reflex saving throw to dodge, same ruling as fallen objects, so not much use in combat as the dc is pretty low.
On the other hand, it would work very well at collapsing buildings.

Why wouldn't it be moving at orbital speeds? Nothing is stopping a wizard from flying that high and D&D physics has this quirk of giving everyone who flies into space a personal air bubble that protects them from vacuum pressure and suffocation.

You could literally drop a meteor at orbital speeds and nothing could stop you south of shooting you at of the sky before you attempted it.

Besides, what happens when they drop a mountain whose circumference exceeds that of the country it's falling on like Darg pointed out? A reflex save doesn't really make sense when you can't reasonably make your way out of the area of effect or find cover that could stand up to the damage being done.

[King of Nowhere]

Why wouldn't it be moving at orbital speeds? Nothing is stopping a wizard from flying that high and D&D physics has this quirk of giving everyone who flies into space a personal air bubble that protects them from vacuum pressure and suffocation.


You could literally drop a meteor at orbital speeds and nothing could stop you south of shooting you at of the sky before you attempted it.

I am very familiar with orbital mechanics, having played thousands of hours at kerbal space program. explaining to a neophite is going to be hard...
so, orbital speed. objects in space move fast, or they won't stay in space. stuff in low earth orbit moves at 8 km per second. that's the speed required for the centrifugal force to compensate for earth's gravity (yes, I know it's not a 100% accurate physical explanation, but i'm trying to not overcomplicate). if you see a rocket launch, you can notice that after the first minute or so going out of the atmosphere, the rocket turns horizontal and spends several minutes accelerating. stuff that comes from afar is going to be even faster than that. the earth moves around the sun at 30 km/s, and asteroids also move at similar speeds, and so hits are at speeds in the 10-30 km/s range.
now, the kinetic energy of a body depends on the square of its speed, which is why an asteroid as small as a mountain - you won't even see it compared to the planet - can trigger a global extinction.

a wizard flying in space is NOT in orbit. he's flying because his fly spell cancels gravity. his fly spell lets him move at 60 feet per second, and I know no way to accelerate to the 8 km/s required for orbit. he's in space, but not in orbit, and if his fly spell ends he drops.
but this is what you want, right? you drop a pebble, and polimorph it into a boulder. then the boulder starts falling. and it accelerates. and yes, it can go pretty fast, but nowhere near "orbital speeds".

anyway, if you actually let your boulder fall from space, it will hit atmosphere, and will face a lot of drag. it may explode and burn up harmlessly - stuff like the tunguska or cheliabinks asteroids did a lot of damage even exploding up high, but they were significantly larger than you can make with PaO and a lot faster.
or, it may resist and fall down on the ground at a speed comparable to a speeding train. Maybe as fast as a plane if it's got the right shape. yes, pretty destructive.
but still a far cry from something that will make a 500 mt wide crater.

I realize this can be probably seen as just nitpicking by anyone not interested in orbital mechanics. or anyone not trying to accurately calculate how much destruction you could create by summoning boulders in space and letting them fall.





Besides, what happens when they drop a mountain whose circumference exceeds that of the country it's falling on like Darg pointed out? A reflex save doesn't really make sense when you can't reasonably make your way out of the area of effect or find cover that could stand up to the damage being done.
I am sure somebody found some RAW-legitimate way to drop a mountain from space, but I'm not aware of any. PaO and every other spell I know has size restrictions.

P.S. Tungsten needle-like bars are the best object to drop from orbit; they have high density and are very aerodinamic, and they'd not be slowed much. there was a project from the american government to weaponize that, but it was never implemented.
it was calculated those bars could hit the ground at 3 km/s - starting from orbit at 8 km/s, so they'd still lose 5 km/s to drag.
if there was no atmosphere, someting dropped from 100 km of altitude (the conventionally accepted edge of space) would hit the ground at 1 km/s, and from an infinite distance at 4 km/s.

[Darg]

Besides, what happens when they drop a mountain whose circumference exceeds that of the country it's falling on like Darg pointed out? A reflex save doesn't really make sense when you can't reasonably make your way out of the area of effect or find cover that could stand up to the damage being done.

There are ways to arrest movement and objects don't cause damage if they fall less than 10 ft. As you mention, D&D physics are weird precisely because it's not trying to facilitate reality. The lack of rules for something is because some times you just aren't supposed to do something because it can be harmful for the average game.

[Promethean]

I am sure somebody found some RAW-legitimate way to drop a mountain from space, but I'm not aware of any. PaO and every other spell I know has size restrictions.


If you look at the comments before yours, you'll find me having the fact POA does Not have size restrictions on it's end product being explained to me. The writers screwed up and put a size limit on the target and not the effect, meaning by RAW you could fill the crystal sphere with sand and no one can stop you shy of a teleport through time to kill you beforehand.


There are ways to arrest movement and objects don't cause damage if they fall less than 10 ft. As you mention, D&D physics are weird precisely because it's not trying to facilitate reality. The lack of rules for something is because some times you just aren't supposed to do something because it can be harmful for the average game.

Honestly wasn't a conversation about physics when this started, it started with the question "Why are the writers so against giving martials nice things?" with examples of the apocolyptic damage even generic spellcasters can do at Level 15(before 9th level spells) VS martials who'd need to make specific builds with high resource requirements just to reliably break a 10' cube of rock(that a caster could asplode with a level 2-3 spell)

[King of Nowhere]

Honestly wasn't a conversation about physics when this started, it started with the question "Why are the writers so against giving martials nice things?" with examples of the apocolyptic damage even generic spellcasters can do at Level 15(before 9th level spells) VS martials who'd need to make specific builds with high resource requirements just to reliably break a 10' cube of rock(that a caster could asplode with a level 2-3 spell)

the apocaliptic damage happens only with specialized combos that the game designers never predicted and had no idea were even possible. the game designers designed the game for low optimization play, and it's relatively balanced there - at least it was, for the way it was playtested.

also, this conversation didn't start as "why martials can't get nice things". this conversation started as "what does an ability score of 30 actually mean". but it hasn't been about that for the last several posts.


There are ways to arrest movement and objects don't cause damage if they fall less than 10 ft. As you mention, D&D physics are weird precisely because it's not trying to facilitate reality. The lack of rules for something is because some times you just aren't supposed to do something because it can be harmful for the average game.

d&d rules are supposed to be approximations covering what can happen in broad strokes. the dm is supposed to invoke rule 0 whenever he feels it appropriate. the dm handbook explicitly says so many times. trying to run an accurate physics simulation... well, there's too much stuff to say about it, but it basically boils down to "it would be impractical and pointless".

[Promethean]

the apocaliptic damage happens only with specialized combos that the game designers never predicted and had no idea were even possible. the game designers designed the game for low optimization play, and it's relatively balanced there - at least it was, for the way it was playtested.

PAO, contingency, time stop, and most of the other most broken spells in D&D are core and don't require specialized builds to break fundamental aspects of the game like action economy or wealth by level. The game actually becomes significantly more balanced when you Remove the core spells.



also, this conversation didn't start as "why martials can't get nice things". this conversation started as "what does an ability score of 30 actually mean". but it hasn't been about that for the last several posts.

Not the thread, the off topic tangent about meteors. I know how the thread started, I'm the one who started it.

[King of Nowhere]

PAO, contingency, time stop, and most of the other most broken spells in D&D are core and don't require specialized builds to break fundamental aspects of the game like action economy or wealth by level. The game actually becomes significantly more balanced when you Remove the core spells.


they are core spells, but used in ways the designers never anticipated.
the designers thought you could use PaO as a lesser shapechange on you, or as a baleful polimorph on enemies. they certainly never considered that you could fiddle with conditions to permanently take on a powerful shape, or that you could throw mountains on enemies.

[Promethean]

they are core spells, but used in ways the designers never anticipated.
the designers thought you could use PaO as a lesser shapechange on you, or as a baleful polimorph on enemies. they certainly never considered that you could fiddle with conditions to permanently take on a powerful shape, or that you could throw mountains on enemies.

That doesn't really address my point. I'm highlighting that even general spellcasters without broken builds are imbalanced against martials in even low OP settings. Just because the game designers didn't intend it doesn't make it not the case, it just means there's flaws in the game.

Which isn't news, we've known about linear fighter quadratic wizard for a long time.

[The Glyphstone]

As I understand it the target of the spell is also the limit to the range it can effect, therefore you can't "Make" anything outside the target range because the spell can't actually stretch that far.

Besides, if you wanted to make a black hole you could just transmute an object into one, it's not made of any magically significant material. :smalltongue:

If black holes are not made of significant or valuable material, does that mean a spell component pouch contains an infinite number of them?:smallbiggrin:

[Promethean]

If black holes are not made of significant or valuable material, does that mean a spell component pouch contains an infinite number of them?:smallbiggrin:

Yes, it's right next to the hair samples of every major deity!