Immunity to bludgeoning: does take damage from falling?

12 thoughts on “Immunity to bludgeoning: does take damage from falling?

  1. John says:

    That makes no sense. Falling damage is listed as bludgeoning damage, nothing states falling damage is magical, so if you are immune or resistant to non-magical bludgeoning damage it should work on the damage from a fall.

    • Adam Doyle says:

      the creature is immune to damage from non-magical bludgeoning weapons, the ground is not a non-magical bludgeoning weapon

    • Tom says:

      If the immunity specifies “from nonmagical attacks”, it means that external damage from anything that takes an attack roll does nothing.

      When falling, your body suddenly hits the ground, and it’s your own mass and speed that does the harm when they push you against the ground. The damage is internal.

      Think of it this way: the immunity to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks is like an external magic shell on top of you that won’t let those attacks through, it just stops them. But when falling at high speed and hitting the ground suddenly, your own body is being pressed against the ground with the force from your falling speed, and the ground exerts a reaction force back at you from below. You get squeezed from two sides, and the pressing damage targets your muscles, bones, and entrails. Your immunity to external nonmagical attacks won’t help you in that situation.

  2. Matt says:

    I read it the same way, John. But the syntax often reads “; and bludgeoning, piercing and slashing from non-magical attacks.” That semi-colon makes all the difference, b/c those words then become modifiers for the word “attacks.” The fall isn’t your “attack” rather it is the result of a spell attack (in this case, a levitation spell).

  3. Dave says:

    The immunity is specifically to “bludgeoning damage from non-magical weapons”. The bludgeoning damage from a fall does not come from a non-magical weapon. To that end, bludgeoning damage that results from a spell–for instance Bigby’s Hand or Earthquake–would still deal damage to a target that is immune to any sort of weapon damage.

  4. Alex says:

    I had a character in a fight with a lycanthrope, without magical or silvered weapons. He had to grapple it and drop it off a cliff or something, except it was loke only 50ft. so he had start throwing it. around. yeah he lost, but it was funny.

  5. If`an arrow piercing it doesn’t do damage it is pretty inconsistent to allow a judo throw to do damage. If a 5 foot fall doesn’t affect it then a 50 foot fall shouldn’t either. If it fell 50 feel and landed on a magic weapon then yeah it would take lots of damage. a 10 foot pit with spikes is the same as a spear. It isn’t a character attacking the monster but the monster should still be immune to the non-magical attack.

  6. Fernando says:

    Falling damage isn’t a direct, point of the body hit. It’s a sudden deceleration that causes the actual damage, and that is not a blunt weapon, it’s gravity and the mass working against sudden disaceleratikn. I would say yes, damage is valid

    • Destiny Voltaire says:

      Barbarian Rage does not reference attacks or weapons, its just bludgeoning damage. The ground is not a weapon or an attack.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.