Hovering, attacking and threatened squares!

Hi all.

I will apologise in advance if this has been discussed before but I couldn't find. I have a few questions.

1. If I am wanting to hover over a target (have passes the skill check etc), how far above the target do I need to say I am when I have a 5' reach?

2. While hovering over the target, what squares am I threatening below. If you were to think of a numeric keypad and I am smack bang in the middle at 5, do I threaten all squares 1 through 9?

123
456
789

3. If the target is directly below me in square 5, can it take a 5' step to avoid an Attacks of Opportunity?

4. How do things change if the target is large (and occupying all 9 squares below) or huge?

Thanks
George

1. You would need to be adjacent to the enemy.

2. Yes.

3. 5 foot steps don't provoke AoOs, but if it wanted to 5 foot step to cast a spell without provoking it wouldn't work. If it's directly below you ajd it 5 foot steps (even diagonally) it would still be in an adjacend square, and would still be threatened.

4. If it's occupying all 9 squares it would be "Huge", not "Large". The easiest way to think of this is that creatures are actually cubes, not squares. So a Huge creature that takes up a 3x3 square would tske up a 3x3x3 cube. It would also have a natural reach of 15 feet, so you'd have to be 35 feet off the ground to avoid it's attacks. As far as threatening the Huge creature, that all depends on your size and reach, so the creature's size doesn't change anything (except I guess if you were hovering 5 feet off the ground you'd be inside the creatue). All the Cube stuff assume vaguely humanoid shape, Horses etc would have less reach and possibly less height (GM discretion maybe?).

My group signs how high you are from the terrain in 5' increments. If you are at a height of 5' and you have a reach of 5'you threaten all the 9 squares. But if you are at a height of 10' (the height at which you want to hoover to threaten a medium sized target under you) you threaten only medium sized or larger targets in those squares, the small or smaller guys aren't threatened.

1. You would need to be adjacent to the enemy.

2. Yes.

3. 5 foot steps don't provoke AoOs, but if it wanted to 5 foot step to cast a spell without provoking it wouldn't work. If it's directly below you ajd it 5 foot steps (even diagonally) it would still be in an adjacend square, and would still be threatened.

4. If it's occupying all 9 squares it would be "Huge", not "Large". The easiest way to think of this is that creatures are actually cubes, not squares. So a Huge creature that takes up a 3x3 square would tske up a 3x3x3 cube. It would also have a natural reach of 15 feet, so you'd have to be 35 feet off the ground to avoid it's attacks. As far as threatening the Huge creature, that all depends on your size and reach, so the creature's size doesn't change anything (except I guess if you were hovering 5 feet off the ground you'd be inside the creatue). All the Cube stuff assume vaguely humanoid shape, Horses etc would have less reach and possibly less height (GM discretion maybe?).

Caveat to #4: you can have a Huge (Long) creature listed in the Core book (P195, Table 8-4: Creature Size and Scale) as Space 15', Natural Reach 10'. This is the case for, say, a Very Old black dragon.

In the case of monsters of this size configuration you'd only need to be hovering 30' off the ground. I know it's nit-picky but just saying.

The shorthand is that three-dimensional combat simply takes the 2D rules and expands them in the third dimension. Grid squares are now grid cubes. A Small or Medium creature with normal reach threatens their own grid cube and the 26 surrounding grid cubes, forming a 3x3x3 cube of threat centered on the creature.

This quickly gets annoying once you add reach and double-diagonals to the mix, which is why I was pretty miffed that Aquatic Adventures didn't really expand on three dimensional combat and why an Aerial Adventures core book is at the top of my "Stuff I Wish Paizo Had Made for Pathfinder RPG" list.

Thank you all, appreciate the help.

Hey all, just a follow-on question.

I'm facing a Large opponent and hovering above them. I'm assuming here that as it occupies a 10' cube so that would mean I am hovering above it at 10' and adjacent to it. Can this target kneel down to half it's height, say 5' and therefore move outside my threatened area?

eg Spellcaster kneels down and casts spell at me.

There aren't really rules for that, so no.

I'd probably rule that they can drop prone if they like, but then that comes with all the penalties for being prone - including the fact that if you move 5 feet downward the caster no longer has room to stand up, so they're stuck prone with you adjacent to them.

Thanks MrCharisma

In general, a creature's size in game terms represents its area of influence (and the area at which it can be directly influenced), not necessarily its physical dimensions. A six foot tall human still only occupies a 5-foot cube for combat purposes, same as a three foot tall halfling, and many very large creatures have tails or other appendages that don't exactly match their size. (natural reach accounts for some, but not all, of these disparities).

So ducking doesn't really change your area of influence. Even falling prone doesn't--the adjustment is modeled using bonuses, penalties, and other rules rather than an actual change in grid coverage.

Edit: Squeezing does change your area of influence, but only because it says so explicitly.