Riding Monsters

[Diplomancy]

I'm DM'ing a 3.5 game, and some frisky little (size small) pcs want to jump on the back of my flying monster and pummel it as it fights a much larger pc. I'm thinking grapple checks and ride checks, but I'm just not quite sure how to apply the rules in this situation. Any thoughts?

Another one is the big (size large) pc likes to throw the little pcs at the enemy as a special attack, and then also throw smaller enemies to damage them. Thoughts on how the rules could apply?

These battles are fun and end up pretty cinematic, and they will probably keep employing these strategies, so I need a consistent method of dealing with them. Thanks in advance.

[Frosty]

:smallbiggrin:

http://shamusyoung.mu.nu/images/comic_lotr122a.jpg
http://shamusyoung.mu.nu/images/comic_lotr122b.jpg
http://shamusyoung.mu.nu/images/comic_lotr122c.jpg
I still approve of your players' plans though.

[Coidzor]

Are you going by the printed feats for flinging allies and flinging enemies or did you guys come up with something on your own for covering it?

As far as a small creature fighting a bigger creature while occupying its space... The feat "Confound the Big Folk" from Races of the Wild(huh, would've sworn it was races of stone :smallconfused:) covers that idea fairly well if you want to look in that direction.

As far as the actually riding it goes... Yeah, that's probably a standard grapple, so anything you wanna do branching out from there. I suppose they could allow it to still fly if it required using its wings to do so if they were intending to avoid knocking it out of the air... But IIRC, a standard grapple on a creature like a bird that has to be aerodynamic to fly (as opposed to, say, a beholder) will cause the creature to start falling unless it can succeed on the grapple checks necessary to move while grappled.

[Greenish]

Giantbane has Grapple vs. Climb check, for shaking you off/holding on, that might work.

RoS had rules (actually, feats) for throwing allies/enemies, but they suck. I'd say throwing allies, the ally can ready an action to attack, treated as charge. Throwing enemies, eh, treat them as improvised weapons (minus the break chance :smalltongue:).

[Larpus]

Well, I'd say that Ride checks aren't really called for, since they're not truly riding the creature, more like "just staying on it", so the checks would be Grapple, Climb or Balance (whichever is higher), for some visual aid, just look on youtube for a Shadow of Colossus playthrough (in case you never played it).

As for the large PC throwing the small ones, check if he can actually throw their weight and if he can, use simple thrown weapon rules but with a touch attack instead (since he just needs his thrown fellas to make contact with the monster and not damage it with their bodies) followed by a Grapple/Climb/Balance check on part of the bullets to be able to hold themselves on the beast.

At least that's how I'd handle the situation if I were DMing.

[Diplomancy]

Thanks for pointing out the Giantbane and Confound the Big Folk feats. I'll probably offer the Giantbane feat to the halfling monk as a bonus feat and that should simplify things a bit, help him be more engaged against size large and larger creatures.

As far as throwing friends and enemies, I just ad-libbed some checks so as not to slow us down, but I like the readied charge idea for friends, and then thrown object damage for enemies.

[Keld Denar]

One of the previous IronOp challenges featured an awakened monkey or something that Compressed itself down to rediculously small size, used Giantbane (along with a monkey's natural ability to take 10 on climb checks and +8 racial climb bonus) and Blade Bravo's ability to take advantage of size differences to just wreck even medium sized foes.

WHY IS THE MONKEY STABBING ME?!!!?! FOR THE LOVE OF PELOR, MAKE IT STOP!!!!