Amber Amulet of Vermin, usable as Mount?

[Firechanter]

Hey folks,

if you do a Google search for keywords like "Amber Amulet, Giant Wasp" most of the hits will suggest using this affordable little trinket to get a Flying Mount for 1 minute per day.
Question is, how is that backed by the rules?

The item description says it basically duplicates a Summon Nature's Ally spell.
The SNA spell description says you can command the summoned creature if you have a way to communicate with it.
Now I suppose very few, if any, characters will be able to communicate with a Vermin - at least for such characters that have no other ways to Fly.

Also, _if_ you can theoretically use the Giant Wasp as a mount, would that require use of the Ride skill, or does the mental control over your Summon make that irrelevant?
Same question regarding saddle. If you first have to harness your Summon with an Exotic Saddle, you won't get much use out of your 1min/day duration. Or can the amulet be made so that the summoned creature is automatically saddled?

Or did I get that wrong entirely, and you're not supposed to _ride_ that thing, but let it carry you with its feet... legs... things? If that, I'd expect that to be rather useless in combat; you'd probably count as Grappled or at least lose your Dex bonus.

My mental image of a character riding a Giant Wasp would not show him sitting astride on the waist, but standing/balancing on its torso, whirling weapons while zooming into battle. ;)

[Vizzerdrix]

Use the ride skill and ride bareback. If the DM wants precedence for vermin mounts several drow related books have examples of spider riding. If a saddle is demanded, then get a jar of shapesand and don't fail a DC16 wisdom check.

[Bronk]

Well, the 'summon nature's ally' spell indicates, generally, that the creature shows up and either attacks your enemies or whatever else, as long as you can communicate with it.

If you call it up, especially with no enemies about, you should be able to get onto it and get around by communicating with it using the ride skill. You probably don't need a special saddle if you aren't doing anything tricksy.

Because the spell it mimics doesn't actually give you mental control, you'd have a hard time telling it to pick you up in it's legs and carry you around. It looks like it isn't that smart... all those things it has for options are all int zero vermin, after all. There are a few PrCs that let characters talk to vermin, control vermin, and/or treat vermin as if they were int 2, though.

You might be better off with the Ebony Fly from the SRD. It specifically has the same stats as the hippogriff, so it has at least some intelligence.. Int 2. Not as much as the Onyx Dog though, which is int 8 and can speak in common. Maybe get a big one of those if you can?

Also... Your avatar is now the first image that shows up for this when using google...