Keith Baker has a good take on this. Werewolf physical immunity doesn’t mean that swords and arrows just bounce off of them. It means that the magic which created them lets them keep fighting despite receiving grievous wounds. They get cut, bleed, but don’t die. His house rule is that massive amounts of nonmagical damage which clearly must destroy the werewolf’s body do kill it. So a werewolf doesn’t take fall damage per se. If it falls far enough to break bones, it still just gets back up and the DM gets to describe how gruesome seeing it move is. If it falls far enough to splatter, it’s dead.
Edit: Also, werewolves should be used as horror-movie antagonists rather than simply units in a wargame if the players are facing them without magic weapons. That means less focus on the rules as written and more focus on what makes for a good horror movie. The werewolf is hunting the players for sport. They should quickly be shown that they can’t kill it by conventional means, but they should also be able to slow it down long enough to escape so that it can keep hunting them. If they push it off a roof and break its legs, that should given them time to run away. If they stay and watch instead, they’ll see some unseen force twisting its broken bones back into place and it will suffer no mechanical penalty after falling.
More or less how “aggravated” damage works, thematically. The damage resistance isn’t repellant (ie. structural DR) or regrowth (eg. vampires, trolls, hydra), it’s more of a preternatural endurance. Overloading that inherent system will trigger death, naturally.
So… what if you encased a werewolf in concrete?
I’d say it depends on exactly what werewolves are in your setting. Are they closer to living creatures that have been altered by magic, or are they closer to demons shaped like wolves? In either case, I’d rule that it’s trapped but its nature determines whether it dies or not.
(I think an Eberron werewolf would die. In that setting, werewolves were deliberately created by a demon who wants to terrorize humans, and part of his intent is presumably to have the werewolf be a person forced to become a monster. So I would say it still needs to breathe.)
Don’t most demons also need to breathe?
If I were writing the story I would say that they don’t. Accidentally releasing a trapped or bound demon is a common theme and I don’t want to argue about what it breathed and ate for a thousand years before it was set free. (And where did it poop?) But I don’t know what the rules actually say. Constructs explicitly don’t need to breathe so does everything that doesn’t have that statement in its description need to breathe? I suppose so, in which case you’re correct.
Yes.
Because gravity is magic
Yeah fall damage is a magical attack by the earth.
That’s what you get for defying it. I’d buy that.
So thats how beholder float? No gravity in the anti-magic cone?
Hmm. A beholder float… Is that with deeproot beer and ice scream? A little eyestalk garnish? Shadow parasol? Myco-spice rim? Peppered jelly cube?
Beholders filled with lighter-than-air gas they produce ?naturally?
Makes about as much sense as any other explanation of how gravity works.
Werewolves are canine. Only felines are immune to fall damage.
Felines are not immune to fall damage, this is anti-cat propaganda from Big Dawg
Environmental damage isn’t an attack. The immunity is against attacks.
“Damage Immunities: Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks that aren’t Silvered”
Resistance to B/P/S from nonmagical attacks wouldn’t effect all nonmagical B/P/S damage
This has been confirmed by one of the lead designers.
Why is it different in-lore? I guess thats just how the curse manifests
wait are they immune or are they resistant?
5e monster manual says they are immune to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks that aren’t silvered
But that being said, its not an attack per say and they would likely still suffer from falling damage
Okay but is fall damage fundamentally different than a mountain falling on top of you? What about a hill? Boulder? It all seems like bludgeoning.
FYI it’s “per se”
holy damn I hadn’t looked at their stat block, that’s wild
In the version-that-everyone-ignores, werewolves are not resistant, nor immune, to any type of attack or damage.
Only if they die outright from massive damage, otherwise it doesn’t stick
Smugly turning to my friends as I prepare to drop 50’ and faceplant on the pavement harmlessly. “See you on the flip side”.
My best friend, unwittingly killing me, replies “This is going to be Epic”.
