No no no the last peasant gets to make an Improvised Weapon attack at least! d20 + Dex to hit and 1d4 on hit. Thrown it has a normal range of 20 feet and a long range of 60 feet.
You're right though that it's just a mishmash of inapplicable rules (it's not a falling object) and mixing real and game world physics only to the players advantage (peasants are able to pass it any distance in 6 seconds but you turn on real world physics when it comes time to apply damage). That's why my general rule is we're either working all in one world or all in the other when trying to figure out what happens in weird situations.
You're right though that it's just a mishmash of inapplicable rules (it's not a falling object) and mixing real and game world physics only to the players advantage (peasants are able to pass it any distance in 6 seconds but you turn on real world physics when it comes time to apply damage). That's why my general rule is we're either working all in one world or all in the other when trying to figure out what happens in weird situations.