Mounted Aerial Combat

[ericlboyd]

Hi,

I'm confused by core rules regarding mounted aerial combat.

Let's imagine a sorcerer on a dragon, for arguments sake.

Looking at the feats:

Flyby Attack,
Improved Flyby Attack
Mounted Combat
Ride-By Attack
Shot on the Run
Spring Attack
(any I missed, other than pre-reqs?)

Dragon wants to fly-charge / full attack / fly-charge without attacks of opportunity.
Mounted sorcerer wants to simultaneously ride-charge / full attack / ride-charge without attacks of opportunity.

What feats does dragon need?
What feats does sorcerer need?

Now, same question WITHOUT charging.

Dragon wants to fly / full attack / fly without attacks of opportunity.
Mounted sorcerer wants to simultaneously ride / full attack / ride without attacks of opportunity.

What feats does dragon need?
What feats does sorcerer need?

Does anything change in either scenario if the sorcerer does a ranged touch spell (scorching ray) vs. touch spell (shocking grasp) vs. melee attack (dagger) vs. a ranged attack (hurled dagger)? What about if I limit it to a single attack?

Is there a good handbook that covers this?

TIA

--Eric

[Gruftzwerg]

Dragon wants to fly-charge / full attack / fly-charge without attacks of opportunity.
Mounted sorcerer wants to simultaneously ride-charge / full attack / ride-charge without attacks of opportunity.

What feats does dragon need?
What feats does sorcerer need?
Both need pounce and the sorcerer needs additionally Ride-by-Attack.

The problem will be to get pounce onto the dragon. The Alternate Class Feature for Barbarians (1st lvl) is the most commonly used way to get pounce, but I guess you won't be getting a mount with class levels.

I can't recall any of the pseudo-pounce feat options that would work on the dragon.

There is the spell Lion's Charge (2nd), but Rules Compendium updated it to not be a sorcerer/wizard spell anymore. Plus it is sole "personal" and thus sole works if you can share it with your dragon (special mount or animal companion).

Unless the dragon has pounce by default, this will be hard to solve.





Now, same question WITHOUT charging.

Dragon wants to fly / full attack / fly without attacks of opportunity.
Mounted sorcerer wants to simultaneously ride / full attack / ride without attacks of opportunity.

What feats does dragon need?
What feats does sorcerer need?
Not gonna happen with sole feats. And even with hard optimization I think near impossible except some edge cases maybe.




Does anything change in either scenario if the sorcerer does a ranged touch spell (scorching ray) vs. touch spell (shocking grasp) vs. melee attack (dagger) vs. a ranged attack (hurled dagger)? What about if I limit it to a single attack?
Sole if you limit yourself to a single attack (standard action) Spring Attack and Fly-by-Attack become relevant.

Fly-by-Attack also allows to cast standard action spells (which Spring Attack doesn't).

Also note that Charge ain't compatible with either Great -/ Fly By Attack, because each of em requires their own action to be taken.

Finally note that (Great) Fly-by-Attack requires you to have your own fly speed, thus a flying mount ain't enough here. But that doesn't stop you to use this if you should have your own fly speed on top of your flying mount. It's just a further burden to take into account.

edit:
Also note that "Improved Fly-By-Attack" is 3.0 and merged into "Fly-by-Attack" by default in 3.5
Don't mix it with "Great Fly-By-Attack" (which you did missed in your list. have a look at it, it is moving + "attacking along the way" and may be what you are looking for).

[holbita]

Dragon wants to fly-charge / full attack / fly-charge without attacks of opportunity.
Mounted sorcerer wants to simultaneously ride-charge / full attack / ride-charge without attacks of opportunity.

What feats does dragon need?
What feats does sorcerer need?


Now, this may be a harder thing to get that you may think, and very DM dependant. Let's divide this is parts:

What is preventing you to make a full-attack while your mount moves?
"If your mount moves more than 5 feet, you can only make a single melee attack". You can get over this with an ability like "Full Mounted Attack" from the Cavalier, but this specifically says... "The cavalier cannot combine this full attack with a charge". You will find the same clause in other classes with similar abilities like the Ashworm Dragoon or the Wild Plains Outrider, where you can full attack and move but not charge.

Then we get to pounce "When a creature with this special attack makes a charge, it can follow with a full attack", and let's check the charge section of mounted combat... "If your mount charges, you also take the AC penalty associated with a charge. If you make an attack at the end of the charge, you receive the bonus gained from the charge"... you will need to check with your DM if that counts as you making the charge for pounce or if your mount is the one charging and you just get the benefits of charge, not triggering pounce. Either way you will need to discuss wether pounce would ignore the one single melee attack limitation from mounted combat.

I can tell you it would not fly on my table, but I can see an argument to allowing it in other tables.

Other than this DM discussion you are going to be very hard pressed to find ways to do it. They will usually involve things like shadow pounce on a Crinti Shadow Marauder, or similar... "movements", but I think those cases are not exactly what you are aiming for.

The AoO issue is the easier to fix. Ride-By Attack is the obvious answer to not provoke, but things like total concealment would get you the same result, and a sorcerer on a dragon may find it quite easy to get that. Plenty of ways to make this work.

Regarding the feats you mention in the original post. Only Ride-By Attack would be relevant for what you want.

And for things like Shot on the Run and Spring Attack you will need to check with your DM if your mount moving counts as you moving. Take into account that the skirmish rules point to that not being the case.

At the end of the day my recommendation would be to either take the one melee attack route (specially if that attack is a lance channeled spell) or go with ranged attack as those are not limited to just one.

Another thing to keep in mind... if your mount charges you are not limited to a normal attack. Your attack will benefit from the charge but your actions are not restricted, so you could use shocking grasp and that would benefit from the charge bonus. That's a heavily overlooked detail that opens a lot of options.

Also to note... to sheathe a weapon is a move action... something you are going to have in spades if you only attack once... so iaijutsu focus works wonder on a mounted character.

Edit: I realize now I didn't mention this. Your mount works like a normal character so just give them pounce using any of the normal tricks and that would work for them to get full attack.

[ericlboyd]

So Improved Flyby Attack was dropped from 3.5, as far as I can tell. It's only listed in the WoTC feat index as coming from Savage Species and the Epic Level Handbook, both of which are 3.0.

There's also Adroit Flyby Attack from Draconomicon (which I think was also 3.0, but I don't remember for sure).

Regardless, the 3.5e Flyby Attack does NOT protect you from AoOs, so there still is a need for a second feat.. Adroit Flyby Attack does protect the creature/steed from the target the creature/steed is attacking, but it had much higher prereqs than the 3.0 Improved Flyby Attack.

Long and the short of it, I think a new feat is warranted, patterned after Ride-By Attack and Spring Attack, looking something like this:

Feat: Mounted Flyby Attack [General]
You are skilled at making melee attacks from a flying steed.
Prerequisites: Ride 1 rank, Mounted Combat, base attack bonus +4.
Benefit: When using the attack action to make a melee attack and mounted on a steed with Flyby Attack, you can make a single attack at the same time as your steed’s attack during your steed’s move. You cannot use this feat if you are wearing heavy armor.
If your steed does not incur an attack of opportunity from a specific creature (such as due to Adroit Flyby AttackDrac), you also do not incur an attack of opportunity from that specific creature.
Normal: If your steed does not have Flyby Attack, your steed takes a standard action before or after its move. If you do not have this feat or if you are wearing heavy armor, you take a standard action before or after your steed’s move, even if it has Flyby Attack.


This would cover a mounted warrior with a sword or a wizard with a melee touch attack (like shocking grasp), but not ranged touch attack spells.

There is a feat in the Dragonlance Campaign Setting called Flyby Breath, which I'll have to find a copy of. I imagine there's another feat to be written called Mounted Shot on the Wing.

[Darg]

You can full attack with ranged weapons while your mount is moving. At a double move (charge) it's a -4 attack penalty. If the mount is using the run action (4x speed) it's a -8.

You can also combine your ranged attacks with your one melee attack you're allowed to have.

[Gruftzwerg]

So Improved Flyby Attack was dropped from 3.5, as far as I can tell. It's only listed in the WoTC feat index as coming from Savage Species and the Epic Level Handbook, both of which are 3.0.

There's also Adroit Flyby Attack from Draconomicon (which I think was also 3.0, but I don't remember for sure).

Regardless, the 3.5e Flyby Attack does NOT protect you from AoOs, so there still is a need for a second feat.. Adroit Flyby Attack does protect the creature/steed from the target the creature/steed is attacking, but it had much higher prereqs than the 3.0 Improved Flyby Attack.

Long and the short of it, I think a new feat is warranted, patterned after Ride-By Attack and Spring Attack, looking something like this:


You could still pick the 3.0 version of Fly-by-Attack if you really want to, but imho its a wasted feat. Better put enough points to hit the Tumble 15 DC in your armor to avoid AoO due to movement.

And regarding the protection of the rider:
What do you think about the abuse of a familiar or animal companion that rides on you at the same time (when you are riding on another mount)?

You could give it Mounted Combat (AC can pick it as feat, Familiar needs to get it via magic item) and let it make ride checks to avoid the first melee attack per round (the AC needs to invest the skillpoints into Ride, while the familiar gets your ranks shared).
Have a parrot on your shoulder for style & safety! ^^
(Note that the AC is more preferable since you don't lose XP and have to wait 1 year if it dies. Further anyone can get an Animal Companion via the Wild Cohort feat.)