The Cavalry Has Malfunctioned - Found Steeds and Blink?

[dragoeniex]

Title sums it up. If you choose to have a spell that targets just you also target your found steed or greater steed, and the spell you're using is Blink... What happens? Do the two of you blink in time, bamfing in and out of the battle field in an impressive, coordinated display?

Or is it that just happens if you both roll below/above 11? Meaning the other times you're either leaving your griffon making confused, abandoned squawks or power faceplanting as your noble steed bamfs from under you.

This is either effective or beautifully ineffective for mounted combat, and I can't figure out which.



Related note. Can you think of other "use with caution" spells for steeds outside of the usual Haste?

[nickl_2000]

Technically? Both you and the steed have blink cast on them, so you should both have a separate initiative order and you both blind (possibly causing a PC faceplant or confused steed).

ROC (rule of cool) - When you do this, you must do the controlled option for mount and then you blink in and out together bampfing all over the place.



As for other possible spells with issues:
Misty Step?
Shadow Blade? The horse gets it own sword ;)
Crusaders Mantle, then dismounting would be fun.
Anti-Life shell would be really, really weird
Contact Other Plane could kill off your horse

Oh and one last one, less likely to happen than anything else. Shapeshift. What do both of you become?

[MaxWilson]

That's hilarious. Good find. :-) Will probably never happen in practice but it's a fun mental picture to laugh about.

[Vogie]

Reminds me of that Jumper movie where they were making the convertible blink around while driving. Good grief that was a terrible, fun movie.

[Man_Over_Game]

I guess Tenser's Floating Disk? It'd create a sandwich of two planar disks of force, capable of...I dunno, carrying a small friend on the bottom and a medium one up top, for a mobile bunkbed?

Since Spirit Guardians casts on Self, it'd be kinda weird to rule. Normally, a spell like this would designate an area, but this actually targets Self, and the guardians just happen to be about 15 feet away from you, which implies that both your horse and you must have two separate "zones". Not sure who would designate who the Spirit Guardians would attack. If your Horse can't choose (or can it, because it does whatever you tell it to?) does that mean the Spirit Guardians YOU cast but are your Horse's will attack you?

Or I guess you could turn it into a tree that's still a mount with Guardian of Nature while you turn yourself into mode (maybe into the form of a hybrid horse?)

[UnintensifiedFa]

Because of sheer coolness factor, (and not wanting to be ridiculous) I’d allow the horse and the rider to make the same roll for blink. Nothing quite as awesome as teleporting cavalry. (Besides flying, teleporting cavalry)

[dragoeniex]

ROC (rule of cool) - When you do this, you must do the controlled option for mount and then you blink in and out together bampfing all over the place.

...

Oh and one last one, less likely to happen than anything else. Shapeshift. What do both of you become?

Fair on ROC, though Rule of Funny is pretty tempting too. As for Shapechange(?), start pulling matching things like a mindflayer and intellect devourer, I'd say. Or go for wanton destruction with twin dragons.



That's hilarious. Good find. :-) Will probably never happen in practice but it's a fun mental picture to laugh about.

Heh. See, you say that, but bards can try this combo as early as level 10. Turns out they're second best at everything- except eating dirt!



Since Spirit Guardians casts on Self, it'd be kinda weird to rule. Normally, a spell like this would designate an area, but this actually targets Self, and the guardians just happen to be about 15 feet away from you, which implies that both your horse and you must have two separate "zones". Not sure who would designate who the Spirit Guardians would attack. If your Horse can't choose (or can it, because it does whatever you tell it to?) does that mean the Spirit Guardians YOU cast but are your Horse's will attack you?

Or I guess you could turn it into a tree that's still a mount with Guardian of Nature while you turn yourself into mode (maybe into the form of a hybrid horse?)

You could argue casting the spell for both of you just summons the same guardians and doesn't do anything, I guess, but earnestly asking the DM what spirits your horse summons is worth finding out. Friendly fire could be a risk that depends on your bond.

Treant steed sounds absolutely fantastic. Sign me up.



Because of sheer coolness factor, (and not wanting to be ridiculous) I’d allow the horse and the rider to make the same roll for blink. Nothing quite as awesome as teleporting cavalry. (Besides flying, teleporting cavalry)

I think that's fair. :) Though I'll second Nickl and say probably you'd need to be taking the controlled mount option.

[Man_Over_Game]

Fair on ROC, though Rule of Funny is pretty tempting too. As for Shapechange(?), start pulling matching things like a mindflayer and intellect devourer, I'd say. Or go for wanton destruction with twin dragons.




Heh. See, you say that, but bards can try this combo as early as level 10. Turns out they're second best at everything- except eating dirt!




You could argue casting the spell for both of you just summons the same guardians and doesn't do anything, I guess, but earnestly asking the DM what spirits your horse summons is worth finding out. Friendly fire could be a risk that depends on your bond.

Treant steed sounds absolutely fantastic. Sign me up.




I think that's fair. :) Though I'll second Nickl and say probably you'd need to be taking the controlled mount option.

Normally, I'd agree with you, but Spirit Guardians says to pick a spot up to 15 feet of you (the caster). Because you and your horse can have different locations and thus create variable ranges, its best implied that both you and your horse have different zones.

[dragoeniex]

Normally, I'd agree with you, but Spirit Guardians says to pick a spot up to 15 feet of you (the caster). Because you and your horse can have different locations and thus create variable ranges, its best implied that both you and your horse have different zones.

Hmm! I can see that, and it would definitely be punchy. Dismount and act independently to let your mount be a sort of movement controller, kiting around to land in inconvenient spots where enemies start in the aura and either need to pay attention to it/move close or high-tail it out of there. If you two stand on either side of some poor middleman, you've just created a Venn diagram of sadness.

By all means, DM, what kind of spirits does my horse summon?

[DarkKnightJin]

Normally, I'd agree with you, but Spirit Guardians says to pick a spot up to 15 feet of you (the caster). Because you and your horse can have different locations and thus create variable ranges, its best implied that both you and your horse have different zones.

I'd go with the 'less bookkeeping' ruling and say that the Caster's and the Steed's Spirit Guardians have the same creatures that they exclude from the effect.
As for mounted vs unmounted in that case.. You could have 2 zones to control the battlefield and where enemies are likely to go.. and possibly lose your Steed in the process as you've left it alone to have non-overlapping AoE's. Because an enemy wouldn't trigger both zones on the same turn.
This would make SG while mounted no more powerful than just you, so.. You can try it, but I wouldn't expect to gain a reliable strategy to use all the time.

[Galithar]

When you CAST spirit Guardians you can choose creatures for it to not affect, so long as you can see them. The steed is not casting the spell, you are, the steed shares the spell with the same conditions you used to cast it on yourself. Thus there is no need to question what it affects as it's whatever the caster chose, as per a normal casting.

Likewise I would rule things like shapeshift would turn the mount into the same thing you shapeshift into, but follow all normal restrictions. A Horse for example cannot change into a CR 20 Dragon as it's CR is much too low. In this case the spell would fail to affect them even though you tried to share it.

[Vogie]

Because of sheer coolness factor, (and not wanting to be ridiculous) I’d allow the horse and the rider to make the same roll for blink. Nothing quite as awesome as teleporting cavalry. (Besides flying, teleporting cavalry)

That's probably the best.

However, if I want the ability to blink off of my horse for a killing blow, diversion, or other type of epic dismount, that should also be allowed.



Heh. See, you say that, but bards can try this combo as early as level 10. Turns out they're second best at everything- except eating dirt!


Lore bards could pull it off at 6



By all means, DM, what kind of spirits does my horse summon?

Hopefully they don't have kids addicted to the Netflix show... or they'll look at you with intense disdain as they hear, in the back of their head

I'm gonna ride, I'm riding free
So come along, lets go along
Come on lets journey with me
I'm gonna ride, I'm riding free
As long as I am here with you
I feel the spirit within me

But if you do this, make sure you let them know ahead of time so they have some Spirit Horse Guardians in mind.