The Commoner Bull Rush: Or How I Learned to Stop Farming and be the Bomb

[Zom B]

EDIT: The below doesn't work. Still, the thought was fun. There's an obscure rule in the Movement section:

Accidentally Ending Movement in an Illegal Space
Sometimes a character ends its movement while moving through a space where it’s not allowed to stop. When that happens, put your miniature in the last legal position you occupied, or the closest legal position, if there’s a legal position that’s closer.

More exercises in absudity when mixing D&D with real-world physics.

While reading through special attacks, I stumbled across this passage:

If you fail to beat the defender’s Strength check result, you move 5 feet straight back to where you were before you moved into his space. If that space is occupied, you fall prone in that space.

Prone, just to enhance clarification:

The character is on the ground.

So you have an obstacle. Maybe that obstacle is a large-sized wall and maybe that obstacle is a large-sized dragon. Either way, it's large-sized and it would be out of the question for your average commoner to have the strength to move it.

Your average human commoner has a move speed of 30. So, conceivably, if you have one commoner that stays standing next to the obstacle, and a line of five more commoners behind him, five commoners can bull rush this obstacle in a given round (bull rush does not require you to have nothing in your way, unlike a charge). Now, let me point you to the quotes above. When all five of them fail, all five of them are knocked back 5 feet into the square they just left. Because it is occupied by the one commoner that decided to stay put, all five of them are prone in the same square. According to the definition of prone, they are all on the ground, i.e. touching the ground.

Perhaps its conceivable that 5 medium-sized Twister champions could touch the ground in a given five-foot space, so we'll give these commoners the benefit of the doubt. However, now come in the next 5 commoners, and coupled with the one commoner that remained, all six of them attempt a bull rush, and six more join the square.

Oh, my. Eleven commoners occupying the same point in space. Well, nothing to worry about yet. What you will need to worry about, however, will come later.

You see, the human body has a density of around 960 kg/cubic meter. As six more commoners per round begin to occupy the same point in space, the increased temperature quickly begins to seperate the hydrogen from the oxygen in the water composing their bodies. Once the density is high enough, temperatures exceed 100 million Kelvin (six times hotter than the sun's core) and the hydrogen fuses, releasing about 500 megawatts of energy, about the same amount of energy your average nuclear power plant produces in the entire summer.

[AgentPaper]

How are they moving through the standing commoner's space?

[Zom B]

I edited it. Bull Rush does not have the limitation that charge does on having to have an unbroken line of effect. I did, however, edit out the part about 7 commoners charging and just have it as 5 commoners making a standard move before bull rushing.

[cheezewizz2000]

So you're saying that given an infinite number of commoners and a sufficiently immovable object, you will initiate fusion.

Inform these guys, they're going about it all wrong.

[Optimystik]

Oh, my. Eleven commoners occupying the same point in space.

Even in D&D, a square is not a point.

However, I think with some tweaking this could kill a few thousand more catgirls.

[Zom B]

True, a square =/= a point, but you can only pile so many commoners on one square with the stipulation that they all have to be touching the ground before they have to start overlapping.

[Tavar]

Easier way; use the grapple rules. Also, have them be in an area with a 5ft high ceiling.

[Zom B]

Easier way; use the grapple rules. Also, have them be in an area with a 5ft high ceiling.

Ah, but grappling says you have to move into the creature's square, and if you cannot, the grapple fails. Only so many creatures can willingly occupy the same square. With this little rule, they are being forced into occupying the same square.

[lsfreak]

The biggest problem is going to be lack of compression. Yes, the hydrogen will eventually start fusing, but that will rapidly blow apart your cube of commoners (really, organic-mush-that-was-once-commoners at this point) before there's a significant release of energy. Unless you also posit that the explosion won't move the commoners from the square, but that gives you other problems (like the the heat will be trapped in that square and will only radiate, not explode).

[Cespenar]

I edited it. Bull Rush does not have the limitation that charge does on having to have an unbroken line of effect. I did, however, edit out the part about 7 commoners charging and just have it as 5 commoners making a standard move before bull rushing.

Bull rush is either a standard action or part of a charge. The charge part is already out with the other prone commoners proving as obstacle. The standard action means it's a combat action, meaning the commoners have to be adjacent to the target, and those commoners can't occupy the same square and fight.

[Oslecamo]

True, a square =/= a point, but you can only pile so many commoners on one square with the stipulation that they all have to be touching the ground before they have to start overlapping.

Not really. The commoners may just end up piling each other to the stratoshpere, since there's always space up.

[Zom B]

Not really. The commoners may just end up piling each other to the stratoshpere, since there's always space up.

But they have to all be touching the ground.

[Greenish]

The biggest problem is going to be lack of compression. Yes, the hydrogen will eventually start fusing, but that will rapidly blow apart your cube of commoners (really, organic-mush-that-was-once-commoners at this point) before there's a significant release of energy. Unless you also posit that the explosion won't move the commoners from the square, but that gives you other problems (like the the heat will be trapped in that square and will only radiate, not explode).

1 mole of deuterium fusing with 1 mole of tritium (so about 5 grams of hydrogen all together) releases about 17MJ of energy. When the hypothetical pile of commoners achieves fusion, there will be more than 5 grams of hydrogen reacting. Much more.

[Devils_Blind]

You can occupy the same 5-foot square in combat with any other allied small creature that also possesses the swarmfighting feat at no penalty.

A first level lightfoot halfling warrior meets the prerequisites to take the feat, and can then share a space with any number of other halflings who also have the feat. And since they can all make attacks, they presumably stay rather close to the ground.

[lsfreak]

1 mole of deuterium fusing with 1 mole of tritium (so about 5 grams of hydrogen all together) releases about 17MJ of energy. When the hypothetical pile of commoners achieves fusion, there will be more than 5 grams of hydrogen reacting. Much more.

Yes and no. There will certainly be more hydrogen there than that, but as soon he first fraction of a percent of it starts reacting, there's nothing to keep the energy release self-sustaining. That first little burst of energy will be enough to blow the pile of commoner-goo apart, and suddenly the pressure and temperature is no longer enough to keep the reaction sustained (the hydrogen will burn, but not fuse). You'll get very poor results, because there's nothing to keep the temperature/pressure high enough to react a significant portion of the hydrogen before it's simply scattered. [Compare this with how extremely necessary compression is in nuclear weapons]

[Zom B]

A first level lightfoot halfling warrior meets the prerequisites to take the feat, and can then share a space with any number of other halflings who also have the feat. And since they can all make attacks, they presumably stay rather close to the ground.

You know, that might actually make it work. Of course, if we're doing that we don't have to bring bull rush into the equation. Just keep packing lightfoot halfling commoners into a square until they fuse.

[Cespenar]

A first level lightfoot halfling warrior meets the prerequisites to take the feat, and can then share a space with any number of other halflings who also have the feat. And since they can all make attacks, they presumably stay rather close to the ground.

Yeah, that settles it, but the idea of numerous first level lightfoot halfling warriors with the Swarmfighting feat isn't as smooth as if you could have done it with mere commoners.

[Greenish]

Yes and no. There will certainly be more hydrogen there than that, but as soon he first fraction of a percent of it starts reacting, there's nothing to keep the energy release self-sustaining. That first little burst of energy will be enough to blow the pile of commoner-goo apart, and suddenly the pressure and temperature is no longer enough to keep the reaction sustained (the hydrogen will burn, but not fuse). You'll get very poor results, because there's nothing to keep the temperature/pressure high enough to react a significant portion of the hydrogen before it's simply scattered. [Compare this with how extremely necessary compression is in nuclear weapons]

I would argue that a small fraction of a percent is a significant enough portion to cause a major explosion. It's not H-bomb, but it'll leave a hole. Not to mention that once the chain reaction is started, it'll progress faster than the mass can expand for a while.

[lsfreak]

I would argue that a small fraction of a percent is a significant enough portion to cause a major explosion. It's not H-bomb, but it'll leave a hole. Not to mention that once the chain reaction is started, it'll progress faster than the mass can expand for a while.

Doesn't work like that. Fusion is so energetic that without the immense pressures inside an exploding bomb, the center of a star, or the like, it simply disperses itself before any significant reaction (significant meaning available material, rather than actual size of the explosion).

But you are right, as it turns out. I did some (admittedly, *very* rough) calculations. Turns out you'd need to cram somewhere beyond a quintillion people into the same square, which is going to make one hell of a hole when it goes off.

[Greenish]

Doesn't work like that. Fusion is so energetic that without the immense pressures inside an exploding bomb, the center of a star, or the like, it simply disperses itself before any significant reaction (significant meaning available material, rather than actual size of the explosion).

But you are right, as it turns out. I did some (admittedly, *very* rough) calculations. Turns out you'd need to cram somewhere beyond a quintillion people into the same square, which is going to make one hell of a hole when it goes off.

Well, it's not like you could do anything more useful with a quintillion of people anyway.

[Jothki]

So wait, what happens if you jump off a wall or cliff into a bull rush and fail? Do you get bounced back to your original position?

Edit:

Interestingly, I'm looking at the SRD and I don't think you can ever perform a bull rush by RAW, since bull rush requires you to move into the same square as the target and you aren't allowed to move through or end your move in the same square as your target. Maybe as part of a charge, since that technically isn't a move action.

[lsfreak]

So wait, what happens if you jump off a wall or cliff into a bull rush and fail? Do you get bounced back to your original position?

Edit:

Interestingly, I'm looking at the SRD and I don't think you can ever perform a bull rush by RAW, since bull rush requires you to move into the same square as the target and you aren't allowed to move through or end your move in the same square as your target. Maybe as part of a charge, since that technically isn't a move action.

First part: Assuming your DM rules you can bull rush an opponent into the ground, I'd say you land prone. A successful bull rush would probably knock you both prone. More likely though, I'd ask the player if they would prefer to attack rather than bull rush.

Second part: You are allowed to move through occupied spaces, you just can't end your movement. But bull rush doesn't end your movement there - either your opponent is moved out of the square, or you move back to the square you were in.

[Sophismata]

Bull rush is either a standard action or part of a charge.

Didn't they errata that, for some (baffling) reason?

[AgentPaper]

You are allowed to move through occupied spaces, you just can't end your movement.

Actually, no you can't, not even allies. They specifically note that you, as DM, might want to let them do so if, for example, the cleric is on the other side of the rogue from the fighter and the fighter needs healing badly in a 5-foot wide corridor, but it's not RAW.

[Asbestos]

So wait, what happens if you jump off a wall or cliff into a bull rush and fail? Do you get bounced back to your original position?

You'd get bounced back to 5ft above the target and fall from there?

A way to not take falling damage?

[AgentPaper]

You'd get bounced back to 5ft above the target and fall from there?

A way to not take falling damage?

HAH!

Reminds me of warriors from World of Warcraft. Fly a few hundred feet above some enemy (or jump off a cliff onto one) and then hit charge/intercept as soon as you get in range to take no damage from the fall. It's fun to kill people doing that.

[lsfreak]

Actually, no you can't, not even allies. They specifically note that you, as DM, might want to let them do so if, for example, the cleric is on the other side of the rogue from the fighter and the fighter needs healing badly in a 5-foot wide corridor, but it's not RAW.

"You can move through a square occupied by a friendly character, unless you are charging. When you move through a square occupied by a friendly character, that character doesn’t provide you with cover.

You can’t move through a square occupied by an opponent, unless the opponent is helpless. You can move through a square occupied by a helpless opponent without penalty. (Some creatures, particularly very large ones, may present an obstacle even when helpless. In such cases, each square you move through counts as 2 squares.)

You can’t end your movement in the same square as another creature unless it is helpless."