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What is the RAW method of resolving situations where large or larger creatures fall on multiple creatures at once when splitting the damage? I have been just splitting the damage among all involved creatures equally and rounding it down, but Tashas has a strangely specific wording, referring to a 'second creature' making me wonder if that's even close to how it's supposed to work.

Tasha's Falling Creature rules (pg. 170)

If a creature falls into the space of a second creature and neither of them is Tiny, the second creature must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or be impacted by the falling creature, and any damage resulting from the fall is divided evenly between them. The impacted creature is also knocked prone, unless it is two or more sizes larger than the falling creature.

ShadowRanger
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Friendly Neighborhood Chicken
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1 Answers1

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DM decides

Clearly, they did not think enough about corner cases when they wrote that rule (that has other loopholes, too). As always, if the rules do not cover a specific situation, it is up to the DM. Here the rules only cover the situation where the falling creature falls into the space of a second creature. So, they do not cover the case where a large creature falls into the multiple spaces of several other creatures. RAW means rules as written, and there is no rule written for falling onto multiple creatures. Hence the DM must rule on it. Xanathar's Guide to Everything, p. 4:

Many unexpected events can occur in a D&D campaign, and no set of rules could reasonably account for every contingency. If the rules tried to do so, the game would become a slog. An alternative would be for the rules to severely limit what characters can do, which would be contrary to the open-endedness of D&D. Here's the path the game takes: it lays a foundation of rules that a DM can build on, and it embraces the DM's role as the bridge between the things the rules address and the things they don't.

To rule that you split the damage evenly between all of the affected partipants is one solution, another would be to split half of the damage evenly between all the creatures on the ground, and the other half is taken by the falling creature. I'd probably do that, but it really is up to the DM.

Nobody the Hobgoblin
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  • Yeah using mechanics have given me the most fun I've had with these games in a while, and it's heartbreaking that the mechanics aren't as clearcut as they could be. Wonder if there are ttrpgs with more focus on physics esc movement rules instead of class features/techniques and such. – Friendly Neighborhood Chicken Nov 24 '23 at 20:34
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    @FriendlyNeighborhoodChicken Never in my years of playing have I seen a creature fall on multiple other creatures. It's understandable that the game does not have a rule for every single fringe case. With the exception of trivially simple games, you'll never be able to cover all edge cases and your rule books would span entire bookshelves. It's also one of the selling points of TTRPGs: Unlike a computer RPG where only things that are programmed in can ever happen, in a TTRPG the only limit is the imagination at your table: Where the rules fall short, human intuition can fill in. – Kryomaani Nov 25 '23 at 00:42
  • Larger monsters with climb speeds, earth glide, flight, etc can pretty easily just fall from high up and land on a bunch of dudes. I've actually seen it a lot in the games that consciously include tasha's falling rules, both from players of different groups and myself as a gm. I think the issue might just be that it doesn't happen much unless you consciously utilize it, which is fair but it's weird such a rule wasn't playtested further. – Friendly Neighborhood Chicken Nov 25 '23 at 01:12