How much damage do creatures deal when wielded as a weapon?

Question

I have a friend who wants to play as a druid that grapples his enemies and uses them to beat others and he asked me how much damage that would deal but i haven't been able to find a definite answer. Would a person be considered an improvised weapon or does it have it's own table?

Answer 1

I know this is disappointing, but officially using foes as weapons isn't a thing. Even the feat Fling Enemy (Races of Stone 140)—with its extremely challenging prerequisites—only allows a creature to chuck foes that the creature's grappled away from itself rather than to deal damage by chucking foes at other foes.

(I suspect there are both balance and logistical concerns here: at its core dnd-3.5e tries to be a simulation, and picking up struggling foes and using them as weapons, while amusing, is a really difficult thing to both balance and simulate. For example, folks would likely want the weaponized foe to be dealt damage even though weapons aren't normally themselves dealt damage during regular use. Likewise, I think most folks imagine employing a nonhelpless foe as a weapon, so that toad, grig, or kobold is—the whole time it's being used as weapon—struggling for freedom, a fact that would likely contribute mightily to the tactic's difficulty. (Besides, you're not even proficient with that kobold, are you?) Further, a creature that's grappling doesn't normally threaten an area, so such a tactic'll only be usable by creatures with the special ability improved grab and the like… making this—without rewriting the grapple rules—a technique best suited to monsters. Sure, it'd be awesome if you could do it, but when the hill giant's using the wizard to beat the cleric to death, it's probably only the DM that's laughing. Finally, I also venture that attempts at reality checking the tactic would quickly deplete the corporate liquor cabinet.)

I'd recommend against it—every game can't simulate everything, and this is something the game resisted until its very end—, but a DM could make a house rule about how this works anyway, in which case you'll have to ask the DM how it works.

That said, you can get sort of close with only a minor bit of fudging. While you can't normally hit foes with other foes, you can almost hit foes with themselves. One rarely used grapple option is Use Opponent's Weapon that says

If your opponent is holding a light weapon, you can use it to attack him. Make an opposed grapple check (in place of an attack). If you win, make an attack roll with the weapon with a −4 penalty (doing this doesn’t require another action). You don’t gain possession of the weapon by performing this action. (Player's Handbook 156)

Although it's not technically being held, this DM would be comfortable with a grappler using this option to employ even a grappled foe's natural weapon against itself, a natural weapon always being considered a light weapon. While this won't have what's likely the effect you're after—dealing damage to both foes by damaging one foe with another foe—the results are nonetheless hilarious. Seriously, the rest of the pack will likely be reluctant to engage you after you gore a minotaur to death with its own horns. And, the whole time, you get to say, "Stop hitting yourself."

Answer 2

Using creatures as weapons falls under Improvised Weapons

In the Complete Warrior, we find updated rules for improvised weapons:

IMPROVISED WEAPONS

Any creature using an improvised weapon—from a broken bottle to a barstool—in a fight is considered to be nonproficient with it and thus takes a –4 penalty on attack rolls made with it. An improvised weapon scores a threat (a possible critical hit) on a natural roll of 20 and deals double damage on a critical hit. An improvised thrown weapon has a range increment of 10 feet.

What about fighting with ladders, wagon wheels, or coils of rope? In the hands of a determined (or desperate) individual, these oddly shaped objects offer a wide variety of options in combat. Of course, you must still deal with the –4 penalty on attack rolls made with such a weapon, but sometimes you have to make use of what’s available!

The book goes on to mention various items used with improvised tactics involving: Bull Rush, Defense, Disarm, Entangle, Reach, and Trip.

We then find this guidance:

Improvised Weapon Damage

Most improvised weapons deal between 1d3 and 1d6 points of damage (usually bludgeoning, but possibly piercing or slashing). For more guidance on how much damage an improvised weapon deals, see Table 4–7: Improvised Weapon Damage. For every additional 200 pounds of an object’s weight beyond 400 pounds, it deals an additional 1d6 points of damage if used as an improvised weapon.

If an object weighs up to 2 pounds, a Medium character can treat it as a light weapon. Objects weighing between 2 and 10 pounds are one-handed weapons for Medium characters, and objects weighing 11 to 50 pounds are two-handed weapons. Halve these numbers for every size category below Medium, and double them for every size category above Medium.

Also, the first note from the table is applicable here:

(1) A sharp object deals damage as an object of twice its weight. For instance, a broken bottle (1 lb.) deals 1d4 points of damage, not 1d3. Conversely, a soft or malleable object, such as a gourd, deals damage as an object of half its weight, and the damage is nonlethal.

The first paragraph gives guidance on damage (see p.159 in the Complete Warrior for the table mentioned), the second provides guidance on improvised weapon size categories, and the note from the table provides guidance on soft, malleable, and sharp objects.

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Your average human male fighter is going to weigh from 124 lbs. to 280 lbs. based on the PHB table Height and Weight on p.109. They will most likely be wearing and/or carrying up to 50-100 lbs of additional gear, depending of if they drop their pack or not when a fight starts. (Note that in early editions of D&D gp weighed 1/10 of a pound, while later editions cited 1/50 of a pound for standard coin weight.)

This yields weight values between 174 to 380 lbs. According to the above referenced table in Complete Warrior, this creature would deal either 4d6 or 5d6 damage based on weight when used as an improvised weapon. (Keep in mind that this table is effectively infinite, given the "for every +200 lbs = +1d6" comment.)

In order to wield such a creature as an improvised weapon, the wielder must be Medium to wield a two-handed weapon up to 50 lbs., Large for up to 100 lbs., Huge for up to 200 lbs., Gargantuan for up to 400 lbs., and Colossal for up to 800 lbs.

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Thus your hypothetical druid must be size Huge for a skinny or pack-less fighter, and size Gargantuan for the beefy or well-packed fighter to wield as an improvised two-handed weapon-foe. (And have appropriate appendages....)

Also, if your improvised weapon-foe is an average unarmed and unarmored NPC citizen, they are most likely going to count as a "soft or malleable" object, thus dealing non-lethal half damage. I'd pick the nasty black knight with the spiked armor over there for your improvised weapon-foe as you might be able to persuade the DM to count them as a "sharp object" and thus gain the benefit of effective double weight when calculating the damage. Use Paralysis, Hold Person/Monster, or Flesh to Stone effects to cinch the claim.

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Please note:

This exercise assumes a:

• willing,
• unconscious,
• paralyzed,
• held,
• otherwise enspelled and/or immobilized,
• or perhaps a successfully grappled‡

...target in order for a creature to be used as an improvised weapon-foe. As grabbing a foe in the middle of combat (if successful in the first place) is likely to result in a conscious and unwilling improvised weapon-foe, check with your DM for the DC of hanging onto your improvised weapon-foe from round to round.

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Warning!: A DM who is willing to deal with this extra math, or willing to allow a character to calculate it out themselves should also keep in mind that questions such as:

• "Will my improvised weapon-foe also take damage, and if so, how much?",
• "Will the shock of impact cause my improvised weapon-foe to makes saves versus unconsciousness?",
• "What is the range increment of my improvised weapon foe?",
• "What actions can my improvised weapon-foe take while being used as an improvised weapon-foe?"
• "Can I Power Attack or Weapon Finesse with my improvised weapon-foe?"
• "Can my Goliath Wu-Jen/Hulking Hurler use this infinitely expanding table for improvised weapon damage to figure out how much damage would accrue if I threw something really big, like a giant boulder, or maybe a temple?"
• "Since I can throw an entire temple, does it count as un/holy damage?"

...and so forth WILL eventually be asked. (Which are fortunately out of scope for this question). ^^

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‡Also note: It should be mentioned that the grappling rules assume that both parties of the grapple become immobile (and are of near size), and don't take into account size differences and relative strength in the sense of, logically a really big target grappling a really small target (such as a giant picking someone up, or a dragon grabbing someone in their jaws, or even a medium sized humanoid grabbing a pixie, bird, cat, or other really small target) shouldn't be unable to move, just because their hand or jaw (which is effectively the same size entity as the target all on its own) is grappling with something.

Grappling rules also state that grapplers don't threaten any squares while grappling, which could cause other odd side effects relating to attacking.

This would at a minimum need a slight adjustment to the grappling rules, which are otherwise great for modelling the grab-a-hold of an improvised weapon-foe part.

Answer 3

"A person" is, for as I know, not listed as an official weapon anywhere. Thus, the safest bet is probably to count it as an improvised weapon of the creature's size.

However: Most improvised weapons don't actively work against their wielders. Grappled enemies do. As such, you could rule that a 'grappled dnemy swung like a weapon simply deals unarmed damage with your strength instead of its own, unless it is pinned, in which case it is an improvised weapon of its size."

Natural weapons Some creatures have natural weapons. I think these require their own ruling. I would not allow your friend access to his victim's natural weapons as they are, since a minotaur using his gore attack deals a lot more damage than a druid forcing the minotaur's horns into a soft belly of another creature. If you'd try this, I'd probably always make it an unarmed strike with the grappling druid's strength- However, possible energy-types and inherent poisons still apply. This'd be a way for your friend to bypass DR or poison an enemy.

Keep in mind that none of this is official, and the above is just one of nany ways a DM could adjudicate the described action.