Post/Author/DateTime	Post
vivijen 06-03-05, 12:16 AM	Here is a question....Adamantine is considered to be able to go through many metals and objects. With that in mind, a player of mine felt like arguing with me about being able to use his sword in stone as like a slow fall to keep him from dying from a long fall. I let it slide but i was wondering...being that it can cut through stone like a hot knife through butter, could it actually slow your fall?
shadow52480 06-03-05, 12:45 AM	The quick answer to this is yes if you want to be a nice DM. Obviously you'll never find a rule on this considering this sounds like a desperate attempt to save his life. Think of it in terms of "real life" (although D&D states to try to stay away from logic). Is it true that titanium can smash through rock...of course it is. However, it does require a fair bit of force and an awful lot of hacking to do this. This problem can be dealt with in 2 ways in my opinion. The first being the most simple...allow your PC to gain ~10 ft extra of slowfall...if he has a few ranks in tumble he can extend this to 20 ft before actually starting to take damage. The other is a little more fun for the DM...sure he can try to stop his falling using his sword...but I'd give a 20% chance of lodging into the stone surface keeping the blade while the PC falls. That way they not only fell...but lost their weapon. You could even give them a reflex check after to see if they reacted to the blade getting stuck and holding on. Make the DC high though since nobody usually reacts too fast when falling at 32 ft/sec^2 Use a little creativity and make sure that the PC knows that trying to stop themselves while falling down a cliff with a blade isn't the best idea and that consequences are inevitable...swords were made to hack things to pieces...not for someones personal E-brake down a mountain
vivijen 06-03-05, 12:49 AM	Well that does sound like a good idea THX
Wharin 06-03-05, 01:02 AM	Though not RAW, heres how i would handle it. Alright, so how is he doing it? is he standing on the roof of a building, slamming his sword into the side and then hopping on it and slowly falling like that? or is he falling from the sky, sees a building and as the building "approaches" him he slams the sword into the build and hoping to slow his fall that way? To be sure, an adamantine sword is not a light saber, it can hold an edge better than any other material, but it does have some limitations. So lets suppose that he was falling from the sky and saw a (tall) buildng as a saving grace. Now i dont know how the rules would work for getting him close enough to the building, but we'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he could. I would have to make a attack vs. the wall. Chances are if he can afford an adamantine sword, he can probably hit the wall no problem. Now comes the fun part. And i am sorta making his up as i go along here, so bare with me: If he were to hit the ground right at that point where he stuck the sword into the wall, how much damage would have that been? I would add the weapon damage to that, and deal that much damage to the wall. I would even find out how much STR it would take to lift his weight and apply this ghost "str modifier" to that. an i believe that stone has a hardness of like 20 hp an inch and wood is something like 10hp an inch. Because he is going straight down we can even say that it doesnt matter how thick the wall is, as its getting attack the whole way through. OR you can handle that as you wish. So if he was a 200 lbs man, with a great sword and would have taken 20d6 of damage he would deal (on avg.) 60(from the fall)+6 (from the great sword)+2 (i dont have the book on me, but lets pretend it would have been str 14) = 68 damage. which is about 7 inches of would or 3 1/2 of stone. Thats actually pretty slow. Now comes the part about him holding on: unless he has a locked gauntlet, he would have to make an str check with gravity. I would say the DC would be the # of dice of the fall - # of inches he dug in + the str modifier it would have been to lift his weight [including armour, backpack, but not sword]), or let go of his sword and continue falling. In the above case it would be an str check of about 15 for wood and about 18 for stone, which can be pretty tough. If he makes his STR check, i would say that hes pretty much stuck there and really wont fall any furth on his own weight. Maybe like an inch an turn. Which could leave him in another precarious situation. He should probably still take damage from either the muscle strain in his arms from the abrupt stop, or has his body smacks into the side of the wall. I would probably make it like only a d6 or three, as his str check would account for at least some of the absorbed damage.
fatal error 06-03-05, 02:34 AM	I think the OP's player wanted to slow fall, not just jam his weapon in and use it as a handhold. Which I would say is completely absurd. Even though adamantium ignores hardness, I'd still say it takes effort to cut through stuff, unless you consider kazid'hea to be merely adamantite. So, I would allow him to do something similar to Wharin's idea, but not an actual slow fall type ability.
Wharin 06-03-05, 03:17 AM	Now if the house was made of *paper* or cloth, or something that like hp of 1 per inch, he could do that. It would slow his decent to something like that which he wanted.
Azar the Prince 06-03-05, 03:33 AM	Ah ha, but what if he twists the sword in midfall?
Lorianne 06-03-05, 04:04 AM	Here is a question....Adamantine is considered to be able to go through many metals and objects. With that in mind, a player of mine felt like arguing with me about being able to use his sword in stone as like a slow fall to keep him from dying from a long fall. I let it slide but i was wondering...being that it can cut through stone like a hot knife through butter, could it actually slow your fall? I wouldn't allow it... and simple reasoning would, nay SHOULD, tell a player that it's impossible unless you were able to fly in the first place. First; you want to hit the wall hard enough for the sword to penetrate? -That requires you to brace yourself against something, else you'll just bounce of off the rock. So... it's a no go for this reason alone. Second; "Adamantine is considered to be able to go through many metals and objects." - It isn't... the DMG states that it ignores hardness less than 20. Meaning that you don't automatically cut through it, you still have to deal damage to it to do that. Which brings up the first point again.
Mellowship Slinky 06-03-05, 05:58 AM	First; you want to hit the wall hard enough for the sword to penetrate? -That requires you to brace yourself against something, else you'll just bounce of off the rock. So... it's a no go for this reason alone. Second; "Adamantine is considered to be able to go through many metals and objects." - It isn't... the DMG states that it ignores hardness less than 20. Meaning that you don't automatically cut through it, you still have to deal damage to it to do that. Which brings up the first point again. Your reasoning isn't quite correct. A falling character would have enormous inertia and an attack against a wall (especially with an adamantine weapon that does piercing or slashing damage) would be more likely to stick into the wall than to make you "bounce off" of it, conservation of momentum shows that in order to "bounce" the character would have to move upwards. A player would take a weapon (best candidate for this would be a dagger, short sword, or pick) and swing it from over his head at the wall, if he hits AC 5 the weapon connects. A stone wall has hardness 8 and the weapon ignores the first 20 points of hardness, so no problem there. It also has 15hp/inch. I'd calculate the damage the character would take from the distance he's fallen so far (1d6/10ft) and deal that much damage to the wall and to the character. I'd rule that the weapon would have to penetrate at least an inch to have any chance of slowing the character, then have the character make a strength check (DC 15+#of dice of damage) or lose his grip and continue falling, but with his weapon now stuck in the wall who knows how many feet up.
Lorianne 06-03-05, 08:47 AM	Your reasoning isn't quite correct. A falling character would have enormous inertia and an attack against a wall (especially with an adamantine weapon that does piercing or slashing damage) would be more likely to stick into the wall than to make you "bounce off" of it, conservation of momentum shows that in order to "bounce" the character would have to move upwards. Actually, no... you're moving parallel with the wall, and exersizing force on the wall would make you move in a horizontal plane, thus moving away from the wall. Weapons with hooks (thrusting downward) would have a better effect, but that would all depend on the surface of the wall in question.
vivijen 06-03-05, 10:56 AM	well he was on the top of a 50 foot building being attacked and fell off, he made his reflex check and asked to see if it would work, making the argument that it could cut through anything....so yeah!
Ariarig 06-03-05, 11:07 AM	Vivijen> According to me, you shouldn't let your player slow his fall with an adamantine sword unless you add an extra +3.300 gp to the price given for adamantine weapons. Indeed, this use of the sword make it become a good weapon and a ring of feather falling in the same time. So add the price of such a ring to the sword (with an extra +50% for this enchantment is not on the right place - inspired from the DMG p. 288 even if swords and rings are not wondrous items), and it is OK. It makes an adamantine weapon cost +6.300 gp, it is not so bad and sounds quite balanced for the use your player is trying. In an other hand, if you're not OK for this change, and prefer giving a lesson to your self-adapting-rules player, force its reasoning to the excess. If an adamantine weapon cut through rock like a hot knife through butter, it shouldn't slow any fall. Imagine the real thing. Does a man, armed with a hot sword, would slow anything when cutting through the huge butter cliff is falling from... ? :OMG! The decision is yours ;)
SunJack 06-03-05, 11:26 AM	You guys must be out of your minds today, the game sense is all wrong, the best you could allow would be for the character to have such an outstanding shot at the stone and the weapon to be so great that it might go into the stone and act as a static aiding hold. This action would presuppose a character with enormous strength, strength high enough to pierce stone, even Excalibur could do such a feat only once in epic fantasy history. Otherwise, you will have characters with such swords never missing, since stone is arguably harder to penetrate than many natural armor classes, and many kinds of shields and armors. Swords such as the ones you describe are much more similar to those Light Sabers used in the Star-Wars movies. Using a sword to slow down a fall makes no sense whatsoever, and using a sword for a long period of time in such an insensitive manner would damage it or shatter it to pieces.
Lord Schpungus 06-03-05, 11:32 AM	In this instance, WHO CARES ABOUT BALANCE!! It's totally awesome; I'd let him do it this time. Especially if it saves him from dying. This is a one-time thing, however, that I as DM would allow specifically this time because it was awesome. Next time you want to be saved from dying a stupid death, come up with something new and awesome.
tarkin 06-03-05, 11:40 AM	I would let him try, but no way an auto-success. This is how I would rule it: 1) Is your weapon drawn? No? Use quickdraw and Roll to hit. 2) Great you hit, that means you only fell 96 ft (first second - to quickdraw - you fall 32 ft, 2nd you fall 64 feet) 3) So that means you took 9d6 damage from the sudden stop. Roll a Dex Check DC 19 (10 + 9 for the 9d6 you took) 4) You failed the Dex check? Too bad, the pain in your arm was so great you let go of the sword. You fall another 30 ft and hit the ground, taking 3d6 more. 5) How are you going to get your sword down?
SunJack 06-03-05, 12:25 PM	Yes, Tarkin does a good summary for execution of the conceptual framework that I advocate for this instance and the matter at hand. As for you Schpungus, even the thought of anyone defacing the beauty of natural stone in this manner would turn over many a dwarf in their stone graves. You might not care as you say, but you might be proven right in self description by one of the adjectives of your use otherwise.
Wharin 06-03-05, 02:56 PM	Yes, Tarkin does a good summary for execution of the conceptual framework that I advocate for this instance and the matter at hand. As for you Schpungus, even the thought of anyone defacing the beauty of natural stone in this manner would turn over many a dwarf in their stone graves. You might not care as you say, but you might be proven right in self description by one of the adjectives of your use otherwise. What are you, an Urdinnur? :P Any self respecting shield dwarf or gold dwarf would appreciate how he got such a straight line down the mountain side and would use it for the makings of a fine, gimongus door way to gain the ooh's and awe's of everyone who can see it. My thought on the matter is this: 1. If the weapon was anything but Adamantine, specifically in this situation, it would pretty much bounce off any surface other than paper or cloth. But since this is the material that does go through materials "like buttah'", i should think that there should be some lee-way (sp). 2. In my example that i gave, there would indeed be some cushioning between a hard fall, and this slower decent. Not being a physic's major in any sense of the word, i couldn't tell you how much cushioning there would be, but mechanically from a rules stand-point, i like how the numbers i came up with worked. 3. I've seen this happen in cartoons and comics and movies a number of times. Not that its the most entirely realistic, but come on! If it can happen in a movie, i should be possible in a fanatasy game. Granted i hate using the "hey its a fantasy game" defence, but for a situation where there is already a (granted maybe only thematic) precedence, i would give the benefit of the doubt to the creative thinker. Edit: if you do use Tarkins method, a STR check or a Fort check would probably be more apropros.