[3.5] Teaching a riding dog to fly

[dob]

If someone were to cast fly on my riding dog mount, theoretically I should be able to fly mounting on him. Are there any guidelines for what it would take to teach a riding dog or other animal mount to take advantage of the fly spell?

[Ionizer]

Relevant Precedent:

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Air Walk
Transmutation [Air]
Level: Air 4, Clr 4, Drd 4
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Touch
Target: Creature (Gargantuan or smaller) touched
Duration: 10 min./level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: Yes (harmless)

The subject can tread on air as if walking on solid ground. Moving upward is similar to walking up a hill. The maximum upward or downward angle possible is 45 degrees, at a rate equal to one-half the air walker’s normal speed.

A strong wind (21+ mph) can push the subject along or hold it back. At the end of its turn each round, the wind blows the air walker 5 feet for each 5 miles per hour of wind speed. The creature may be subject to additional penalties in exceptionally strong or turbulent winds, such as loss of control over movement or physical damage from being buffeted about.

Should the spell duration expire while the subject is still aloft, the magic fails slowly. The subject floats downward 60 feet per round for 1d6 rounds. If it reaches the ground in that amount of time, it lands safely. If not, it falls the rest of the distance, taking 1d6 points of damage per 10 feet of fall. Since dispelling a spell effectively ends it, the subject also descends in this way if the air walk spell is dispelled, but not if it is negated by an antimagic field.

You can cast air walk on a specially trained mount so it can be ridden through the air. You can train a mount to move with the aid of air walk (counts as a trick; see Handle Animal skill) with one week of work and a DC 25 Handle Animal check.

(Emphasis added.)

I'd say using that final paragraph as a baseline, if not just using it wholesale, would be appropriate.

[dob]

Great find, I wouldn't have thought to look at air walk. That does raise the question though: since air walk explicitly mentions training a mount to utilize it, might that suggest that it's not considered possible with fly?

[Ionizer]

Not sure. Air Walking isn't any different than walking on the ground, other than there's no ground beneath you (which is why it takes a trick slot and a Handle Animal check to teach, an animal wouldn't willingly walk off a cliff or attempt to scale a hill that isn't there without training). Magical flying presumably means you control yourself with your thoughts, which a creature of animal intelligence may not be able to accomplish or even comprehend.

[Toliudar]

Instead of saying that the dog can't fly with the spell, you could just set a ride skill check for any turns or changes when riding, to reflect the nervousness and unsteadiness. Then, once the dog has trained as per Air Walk, the skill checks go away.

[Coidzor]

Handle Animal to push the animal, most likely. Some thoughts on the matter from the Handle Animal Guide.

[ShriekingDrake]

Handle Animal to push the animal, most likely. Some thoughts on the matter from the Handle Animal Guide.

^^ This is right I'd say; though you could up the DC given the strangeness of the circumstance for the dog.

[Trekkin]

When I saw the thread title I envisioned a cliff with a lot of pillows at the bottom.

That said, Handle Animal checks with the DC bump decreasing as the animal gets used to it would probably be the least problematic way of doing this, since fly implies that the target automatically has at least some sense of how to control itself. You'd need to get past the dog's confusion at suddenly defying gravity more than anything else, I'd think.

[MarkusWolfe]

When I saw the thread title I envisioned a cliff with a lot of pillows at the bottom.

I envisioned a Saint Benard with biplane wings with propellers on them being ridden by a halfling with a rapid fire crossbow firing at another halfling on a Red Settler in a similar get up.

MANDATORY PUN I guess that would be taking dogfighting to the next level /MANDATORY PUN

Huh....now that I think about it, why is fighting in planes referred to as 'dogfighting'?

[Greenish]

Huh....now that I think about it, why is fighting in planes referred to as 'dogfighting'?

Wikipedia to the rescue:

Etymology
The term dogfight has been used for centuries to describe a melee; a fierce battle between two or more opponents. The term gained popularity during World War II, although its origin in air combat can be traced to the latter years of World War I. The first written reference to the modern day usage of the word comes from Fly Papers, by A. E. Illingworth, in 1919, “The battle develops into a ‘dog-fight’, small groups of machines engaging each other in a fight to the death.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogfight

[Combat Reflexes]

I envisioned a Saint Benard with biplane wings with propellers on them being ridden by a halfling with a rapid fire crossbow firing at another halfling on a Red Settler in a similar get up.

That's brilliant! I'm stealing this awesome for my next session

[Greenish]

I envisioned a Saint Benard with biplane wings with propellers on them being ridden by a halfling with a rapid fire crossbow firing at another halfling on a Red Settler in a similar get up.

Wait, surely it should be beagle, not a st. bernard?

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[ericgrau]

Training an animal takes 3 hours of work per day. Air walk lasts at least an hour and 10 minutes per casting. That might be handwaved as close enough or you figure any 8th level or higher cleric can cast it at least twice a day. 3 times per day at 10th level.

Fly otoh only lasts a minute per level so there's a bit of a problem there having enough time to properly train Fido. It isn't even in the same ballpark as 3 hours. You might want to say every 10-20 times you cast it count as a day (limit 1 day per day). A wand of fly might be helpful, or you could burn higher level slots to get more 3rd level spells. A rod of lesser extend spell could cut that in half and it is a generally useful cheap item to have.

Ya "pushing" an untrained animal, probably with a high DC check, might work. Since the DC for air walk is higher than all the other training DCs and equal to the normal push DC, I might increase the push DC to, say, 30.

[MarkusWolfe]

Wait, surely it should be beagle, not a st. bernard?

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Eh, it would have to be a dire beagle for a halfling to be able to ride it. Or perhaps a legendary beagle.....