Multiple Riders

[Eldan]

Just wondering... if a creature is big enough, it should be possible for it to have multiple riders. Do the rules say anything about that? How about mounted combat with multiple riders?
I was mainly wondering because it came up in a short game I ran: the players were considering all riding on a kind of giant snake and all taking lances, charging in a group.

They also tried to argue that their mount got to act on each of their turns, which I shut down, of course, no matter what the rules say.

[Coidzor]

I believe it's covered in Arms and Equipment Guide to some extent, where it introduces Howdahs and Elephant-based-weapons platforms and having passengers on one's mount and possibly in some of the rules of the game articles on the WOTC site.

[Feint's End]

Just wondering... if a creature is big enough, it should be possible for it to have multiple riders. Do the rules say anything about that? How about mounted combat with multiple riders?
I was mainly wondering because it came up in a short game I ran: the players were considering all riding on a kind of giant snake and all taking lances, charging in a group.

They also tried to argue that their mount got to act on each of their turns, which I shut down, of course, no matter what the rules say.

Possible yes. Covered by the rules? Eh ... not really. But from a certain size only one person should count as the "rider" (more of a driver at that point) and the others should just be counted as being on a moving surface which might require balance checks to not fall off from.

Also the idea of your players is pretty stupid. How should they all attack with lances? The need at least a few feet behind each other to use their lances effectively and only the first person could charge anyways (with the other most likely being out of reach ). Also good call on shutting down the idea of the snake getting more rounds of attack.

[Eldan]

I know it was thoroughly stupid. But at least two of them were dead-set on arguing it as possible by RAW. Doesn't say you can only have one rider, after all, so you can have multiple. Doesn't say you sit in any special point on the mount, so they can all sit in front and make lance attacks, and so on.

[Feint's End]

I know it was thoroughly stupid. But at least two of them were dead-set on arguing it as possible by RAW. Doesn't say you can only have one rider, after all, so you can have multiple. Doesn't say you sit in any special point on the mount, so they can all sit in front and make lance attacks, and so on.

It's not possible by RAW because there exists no RAW on it. Just because a rule is absent doesn't mean it is a rule (this actually gets mentioned somewhere in the DMG me think). If in doubt you can only do what's written and there is no written rule supporting more than one rider.

So no ... this doesn't work by RAW and doesn't make sense neither.

[Lightlawbliss]

I and every DM I have ever had allowed multiple people to "Ride" a mount, and all of us have not allowed more then one person per two squares the mount fights in (the rest is empty space or not a good spot for riding for other reasons. However, only one person controlled the mount.

If your players insist on the mount being able to move on all of their turns, force them to overcome some really high dc to actually get it to move twice. Essentially downgrade it from Impossible to impossible. (I find something like +200 for each turn it has already acted on to get the point across nicely and skill users need something nice by the time they can do a dc that high)

[Feint's End]

I and every DM I have ever had allowed multiple people to "Ride" a mount, and all of us have not allowed more then one person per two squares the mount fights in (the rest is empty space or not a good spot for riding for other reasons. However, only one person controlled the mount.

If your players insist on the mount being able to move on all of their turns, force them to overcome some really high dc to actually get it to move twice. Essentially downgrade it from Impossible to impossible. (I find something like +200 for each turn it has already acted on to get the point across nicely and skill users need something nice by the time they can do a dc that high)

Both great suggestions .... probably how I'd handle it too!