Trial by Mechanicus: What Cheese stands up to in-setting logic?

[Promethean]

Inspired by another thread where a poster pointed out to me that PAO meteors don't work by strict raw.

Basically, what forms of cheese have people noticed don't work by raw, but Should work by any logic/lore of the setting and what cheese have people noticed in RAW that don't make any sense in setting what-so-ever?

This isn't a thread for "What would a DM allow", obviously most wouldn't allow campaign breaking cheese period. So some examples for clarification:

Meteors don't work by strict RAW as there are no rules for objects harming other objects if they aren't thrown and there are Zero rules for high mass/velocity objects having a blast radius. Thing is, Several setting locations like planer touchstones and story-path dungeons have meteor impact sites across multiple settings, so obviously meteors exist and makes craters.

On the other side of the spectrum is peasant mail service(saner cousin of the peasant rail gun). By clear RAW, a long enough line of peasants can deliver an object across the country within 6 seconds by readying an action to hand the object handed to them to the next person in line. This obviously makes Zero sense from a rational perspective.

TL;DR: Basically a dysfunctional rules thread specifically for geeking about lore and physics. What other examples can people think of?

[icefractal]

Meteors don't work by strict RAW as there are no rules for objects harming other objects if they aren't thrown and there are Zero rules for high mass/velocity objects having a blast radius. Thing is, Several setting locations like planer touchstones and story-path dungeons have meteor impact sites across multiple settings, so obviously meteors exist and makes craters.I was going to say this wasn't true, but on closer inspection yeah, the damage is specified but only to "characters". :smallconfused:

Even removing that obvious disfunction, let's see how close the falling rules are to meteor-strength impacts. The dinosaur killing asteroid is estimated to be 10-15km across, so (assuming a sphere with the density of rock) roughly 5.9 quadrillion lbs. So that's about 103 trillion damage (plus 70 for the 20d6 from distance :smalltongue:)

Which is a lot, but let's see how big a crater it makes. A 10' cube of stone has 1800 hp, so that's 57 billion of those destroyed. Estimating it as a 9:1 diameter / depth ratio like the real one, we get a crater roughly 9 km in diameter.

For comparison, the real Chicxulub crater is estimated at 180 km in diameter. So it's too low (probably because mass and distance are just added together), but at least on the right order of magnitude. If the mass and distance were multiplied (so 20x effectively), it'd be closer to correct.

Disclaimer: I made a lot of calculations without double-checking them, these numbers could be wrong.

[Promethean]

I was going to say this wasn't true, but on closer inspection yeah, the damage is specified but only to "characters". :smallconfused:

Even removing that obvious disfunction, let's see how close the falling rules are to meteor-strength impacts. The dinosaur killing asteroid is estimated to be 10-15km across, so (assuming a sphere with the density of rock) roughly 5.9 quadrillion lbs. So that's about 103 trillion damage (plus 70 for the 20d6 from distance :smalltongue:)

Which is a lot, but let's see how big a crater it makes. A 10' cube of stone has 1800 hp, so that's 57 billion of those destroyed. Estimating it as a 9:1 diameter / depth ratio like the real one, we get a crater roughly 9 km in diameter.

For comparison, the real Chicxulub crater is estimated at 180 km in diameter. So it's too low (probably because mass and distance are just added together), but at least on the right order of magnitude. If the mass and distance were multiplied (so 20x effectively), it'd be closer to correct.

Disclaimer: I made a lot of calculations without double-checking them, these numbers could be wrong.


20x the power wouldn't get you 20x the radius using D&D rules, as each 10' increment of radius would have 1800 hp*[circumference in 10' cubes(diameter*pi/10)], so HP of the crater would go up exponentially rather than linearly.

[icefractal]

20x the power wouldn't get you 20x the radius using D&D rules, as each 10' increment of radius would have 1800 hp*[circumference in 10' cubes(diameter*pi/10)], so HP of the crater would go up exponentially rather than linearly.Yeah; it'd increase it to about 25 km, so 1/7th the size - which is not as far off as I'd expected before doing the math.

Of course, once the crater gets larger than the asteroid itself, we're outside the rules. RAW (well, minus the "characters only" thing), I guess it would just make a deeper pit the exact size of the asteroid.

[ShurikVch]

Let's talk about falling-related rules...
The very fact of existence of the "falling" as a separate kind of damage
Falling damage is capped at 20d6 - Baleen and Cachalot Whales are capable to survive even the maximal possible damage most of the time (unless they fail their Massive Damage save - which is rather unlikely: DC 15 with Fort +14/+15)
Poor visibility may reduce falling speed or increase falling damage
Falling rat and falling minotaur took the same amount of falling damage
Falling off a cliff, stalling in flight, and jumping down all have different speeds
Falling into water hurts more than falling onto land
Falling objects don't do any damage if they weighs less than 1 pound (no matter how sharp it is!) or fall from a height of less then 10' (no matter how heavy the object in question!); and no rules for damage from falling creatures... :smallsigh:

[Kurald Galain]

Falling rat and falling minotaur took the same amount of falling damage
Falling off a cliff, stalling in flight, and jumping down all have different speeds
Falling into water hurts more than falling onto land

There three are more-or-less accurate by real-world physics; I'm not sure why you're listing them.

[Quertus]

Poor visibility may reduce falling speed or increase falling damage

Tell me more! I’d love to pull this off in a joke game. :smallamused:

[ShurikVch]

Tell me more! I’d love to pull this off in a joke game. :smallamused:
It's from the Dysfunctional Rules IV- It's like a sandwich made of RAW failure! (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=16354164&postcount=415)



Hampered Movement

Difficult terrain, obstacles, or poor visibility can hamper movement. When movement is hampered, each square moved into usually counts as two squares, effectively reducing the distance that a character can cover in a move.
(emphasis mine)

This one's mostly me being pedantic, but by RAW you fall and jump at half speed in poor visibility. Such as... closing your eyes? Yes, there is a 'can' and a 'usually' in there, so the DM is totally within their rights to give a special exception to those things, but the standard case is the DM would have to go out of his way to stop you from closing your eyes to fall slower, as far as I can tell.

Less pedantic, but less dysfunctional (it just doesn't make sense really) is that later in the section it states :

You can’t run or charge through any square that would hamper your movement.
That pretty clearly means you can't run across an even, non-slick surface in dim lighting.



There three are more-or-less accurate by real-world physics; I'm not sure why you're listing them.
What's you mean? :smallconfused:

[InvisibleBison]

Meteors don't work by strict RAW as there are no rules for objects harming other objects if they aren't thrown and there are Zero rules for high mass/velocity objects having a blast radius.

Meteors absolutely work by RAW, because by RAW there is a DM whose job is to adjudicate situations that aren't covered by other rules. You can't just discard one of the axioms of the game and then claim that you're somehow still acting according to the rules.

[Promethean]

Meteors absolutely work by RAW, because by RAW there is a DM whose job is to adjudicate situations that aren't covered by other rules. You can't just discard one of the axioms of the game and then claim that you're somehow still acting according to the rules.

Rule Zero has no place in RAW threads. Every DM will have different rules for their own table and there's no way for anyone to know who has what homebrew rules.

The printed and published rules are the things everyone can reference as the same for everyone, and thus the only valid avenue for discussing RAW.

[exelsisxax]

What is the meteor thing being mentioned and why does it not work? There's multiple ways to make or unmake meteors with PAO, mostly temporary. What's the cheese?

[Kurald Galain]

What's you mean? :smallconfused:

Falling speed doesn't depend on weight (that's Galilei's deal), so it makes sense for a tiny and a large creature to take the same falling damage.

Falling off a cliff, stalling in flight, and jumping down each give you a different momentum. I'm not sure what exact rule you're referring to, but it is realistic that jumping down gives you a higher initial speed than falling off something.

Due to physics, falling into water has more-or-less the same result as falling onto hard concrete, except from short heights. That falling into water is harmless from large heights is Hollywood physics (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SoftWater). The rulebooks could explain this better, I suppose.

[Promethean]

Falling speed doesn't depend on weight (that's Galilei's deal), so it makes sense for a tiny and a large creature to take the same falling damage.

Falling Speed doesn't depend on weight. Larger and heavier objects 100% take more damage from falls though. IRL a mouse dropped off the empire state building would be fine in most cases. An elephant dropped off the empire state building would explode into a gory mess.



Falling off a cliff, stalling in flight, and jumping down each give you a different momentum. I'm not sure what exact rule you're referring to, but it is realistic that jumping down gives you a higher initial speed than falling off something.

But that doesn't really matter whe it comes to terminal velocity and air-drag. The final speed of both situations would even out Very quickly unless their initial energy was higher than air resistance could compensate for(I.E. were shot out of a canon).



Due to physics, falling into water has more-or-less the same result as falling onto hard concrete, except from short heights. That falling into water is harmless from large heights is Hollywood physics (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SoftWater). The rulebooks could explain this better, I suppose.

Unless you break surface tension. If breaking surface tension wasn't a thing then all cliff divers would be dead.

[ShurikVch]

Falling speed doesn't depend on weight (that's Galilei's deal), so it makes sense for a tiny and a large creature to take the same falling damage.
Andy - the cat of a Florida Senator by the name of Ken Myer - survived 200' fall (Guinness Book of World Records)
Susie (https://www.dogster.com/lifestyle/dog-maltipoo-falls-15-stories-apartment-building-survives-fort-lauderdale) the dog survived fall from 15th floor
Meanwhile, elephants are incapable to survive fall from height much smaller than their own height without serious injuries
Weight does matter!..


Falling off a cliff, stalling in flight, and jumping down each give you a different momentum. I'm not sure what exact rule you're referring to, but it is realistic that jumping down gives you a higher initial speed than falling off something.
If you simply trip and fall off a cliff, the fall is instantaneous (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/environment.htm) (no duration is listed).
On the other hand, if you fly (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/movement.htm), when you stall, you only fall 150 feet on the first round and 300 feet every round thereafter.
However, if you jump (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/jump.htm), you can only fall as far in a round as you could normally move.


Due to physics, falling into water has more-or-less the same result as falling onto hard concrete, except from short heights. That falling into water is harmless from large heights is Hollywood physics (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SoftWater). The rulebooks could explain this better, I suppose.
Stormwrack pg. 90 tells us that falling from a height above 240 ft. deals 2d3 nonlethal damage + 20d6 normal falling damage. That's only if you try to dive in, and fail. If you're just free fallin' for fun and profit, you'll take less damage.

[Kurald Galain]

Falling Speed doesn't depend on weight. Larger and heavier objects 100% take more damage from falls though. IRL a mouse dropped off the empire state building would be fine in most cases. An elephant dropped off the empire state building would explode into a gory mess.
Fair enough. A reasonable conclusion would be to make a rule that diminutive or fine creatures don't take falling damage. That's very much a corner case, as the rules are written for more-or-less human-sized characters taking more-or-less dungeon-sized falls.

[Promethean]

Fair enough. A reasonable conclusion would be to make a rule that diminutive or fine creatures don't take falling damage. That's very much a corner case, as the rules are written for more-or-less human-sized characters taking more-or-less dungeon-sized falls.

Could give every size category a multiplier on falling damage the same way we already have a size category multiplier for lifting/carrying.



The figures on Table: Carrying Capacity are for Medium bipedal creatures. A larger bipedal creature can carry more weight depending on its size category, as follows: Large ×2, Huge ×4, Gargantuan ×8, Colossal ×16. A smaller creature can carry less weight depending on its size category, as follows: Small ×¾, Tiny ×½, Diminutive ×¼, Fine ×1/8.

[icefractal]

Of course, for giants with human proportions to exist, D&D's version of the square/cube law would have to work differently anyway.

IRL, larger creatures face more risk from falls because impact force goes up with the mass (cubic), but resilience depends on cross-sections or even single dimensions, plus not all body components become more resilient with size, so the net impact is that the bigger you are, the more it hurts.

But that's also the reason with you can't have a 50' tall human with human-looking legs, which in D&D you manifestly can. If we assume that material durability and muscle strength relative to cross section increases linearly with size, then it matches the cubic increase of mass and makes giants possible (also that heat management and respiration scale up as well). And in a world where that's true, I think larger creatures wouldn't be hurt more by falls.

But there should still probably be an exception for Tiny- creatures, because squirrels dying when they jump down from a tree branch is just silly.

[Promethean]

Of course, for giants with human proportions to exist, D&D's version of the square/cube law would have to work differently anyway.

Don't forget that D&D worlds have hit-dice. Where all IRL humans and animals are basically stuck with the equivalent of 1 HD and scale linearly various differences in stat-equivalents to compensate, D&D creatures can be many multiple time denser and more resilient for each hit dice they have.

This give D&D creatures an extra "dimension" to their resilience to offset the square cube law in a way IRL can't

[Crake]

Meteors absolutely work by RAW, because by RAW there is a DM whose job is to adjudicate situations that aren't covered by other rules. You can't just discard one of the axioms of the game and then claim that you're somehow still acting according to the rules.

Isn't this a named fallacy? Rule 0 does not excuse issues in a system.

That being said, I think the notion that everything needs to conform within the rules of the system, or more specifically, that the rules cover all possible use cases, is itself a fallacy. This is why rules-as-abstraction is really the ONLY way to play, because the rules just don't cover all the bases such that rules-as-physics would work without significant additions or rulings by the DM.

[Kurald Galain]

Isn't this a named fallacy? Rule 0 does not excuse issues in a system.
In general, yes. However, considering the topic at hand is that there is no rule about how a meteor impact might make a crater, that is such an obscure never-once-in-your-lifetime corner case that one cannot reasonably expect any RPG to have rules for it.


That being said, I think the notion that everything needs to conform within the rules of the system, or more specifically, that the rules cover all possible use cases, is itself a fallacy.
Yes, this. The rules exist to cover situations that commonly or uncommonly come up in actual gameplay; it's the GM's job to adjudicate for situations that come up rarely.

That said, I find it hilarious that the game Paranoia actually has rules for PCs falling from orbit, because that is something that will plausibly come up in the setting. In case you're wondering, the rule is to roll 1d20; on a 1, you die (because of cartoon physics). On a 2-20, you're disintegrated.

[Jack_Simth]

There three are more-or-less accurate by real-world physics; I'm not sure why you're listing them.

The first definately isn't - a rat has a much lower terminal velocity than an adult human, and a mouse is liable to survive a fall from any height that isn't so high that it would suffocate along the way. When dropped down a thousand foot mine, a mouse is stunned, a rat is killed, a man is broken, and a horse splashes. Most of that's due to terminal velocity differences.

[Crake]

The first definately isn't - a rat has a much lower terminal velocity than an adult human, and a mouse is liable to survive a fall from any height that isn't so high that it would suffocate along the way. When dropped down a thousand foot mine, a mouse is stunned, a rat is killed, a man is broken, and a horse splashes. Most of that's due to terminal velocity differences.

I mean, it partly has to do with terminal velocity, but also just to do with how much extra momentum their body has. A mouse only has to sustain the weight of it's small body, and the tensile strength of it's body can withstand that, but a horse on the other hand, has much larger mass, so even if they land at the same velocity, they would have vastly different outcomes.

It's kinda like how water tension can keep a single droplet in a round shape, but not an entire cup of water.

[Kurald Galain]

a mouse is liable to survive a fall from any height that isn't so high that it would suffocate along the way.

A reasonable conclusion would be to make a rule that diminutive or fine creatures don't take falling damage. That's very much a corner case, as the rules are written for more-or-less human-sized characters taking more-or-less dungeon-sized falls.

[Promethean]

In general, yes. However, considering the topic at hand is that there is no rule about how a meteor impact might make a crater, that is such an obscure never-once-in-your-lifetime corner case that one cannot reasonably expect any RPG to have rules for it.

Not really, the rules we'd need would also be necessary for using falling objects to damage other objects and scaling damage overflow to the surrounds.

For example: if a party was trying to get creative with using their environment to collapse a structure, solve a puzzle or damage specific areas of an environmental piece, we have zero rules to account for that. Meteors are just an example of where the lack of those rules