can I shrink my gnome to tiny in order to ride a small eagle?

[Sanjiv]

As a gnome summoner who can summon a small eagle, can I cast reduce person on myself and then ride the eagle? Or are there restrictions to that?

Riding on the eagle, how far can I travel assuming a minute of summoning? With a fly speed of 80, and at least a minute duration, will I be able to travel... say, 9x(80x2)=1440 ft, assuming two move actions, and I'll have to rise and then land 20 ft? Or do running rules apply to the eagle, such that I'd multiply that by another 2, getting around 2900 ft?

[Ximen Bao]

Assuming you can make your ride checks, you can do that.

As far as the speed, your numbers look right.

I've been looking for rules about flying creatures running off and on and haven't found much. The fly spell says you can't run, but that isn't necessarily generalizable.

[Nefreet]

Be sure to get it a saddle.

[Quatar]

It's possible that carrying a rider and all his gear puts the eagle into heavy encumbrance, so he might only be able to move 3 times speed.
And most probably puts him into medium encumbrance at least, so his base speed would get reduced significantly (down to 55)

[Sanjiv]

yeah, but where do I find the encumbrance effects on fly speeds? I was hoping that a small person further reduced would be the equivalent size of prey which eagles would normally be used to hunting down, and as such wouldn't be a burden to flying.

@ Ride check: "Typical riding actions don't require checks. You can saddle, mount, ride, and dismount from a mount without a problem."

But since I'm summoning these creatures, can I summon them with saddles intact, as the Riding Dog used to be when it was still on the list? If you were a GM, would you allow it?

[Maezer]

Some people take the rule the encumbrance rule that medium/heavy encumbrance by weight count as medium/heavy armor for the purpose of abilities or skills that are restricted by armor (p. 169 core rules). This is also where you see the reduction in movement speed for encumbrance (flying has the same reduction as ground movement).

And the barding rules (armor for animals) that state creatures cannot fly in medium/heavy barding. (p.162 core rules)

To mean animals (or possibly anything) cannot fly with a medium/heavy encumbrance.

You get a fair amount of debate on the issue whenever it comes up.
....

And no you can't summon a creature with extra equipment. Else you would have people summoning things with +5 full plate etc. You get what's in the stat block nothing else. Honestly, you shouldn't be getting a saddle with the riding dog either, that's flavor text not listed equipment, but I'd probably let that one slide.

[Gauss]

Eagle capacity: 25/50/75

Assuming the halfling normally weighs about 35lbs + 50lbs of equipment = 85lbs being shrunk to tiny would reduce the weight to 1/8th normal. Thus: 10.625lbs. Well within the eagle's weight for light speed.

Since you are using a summoned creature you probably don't have time to put a saddle on it. Riding bareback is a -5 ride check penalty.

With an 80' fly speed you will be able to (using a 'run' action) fly 400' per round for a distance of 4,000 feet in one minute.

BUT, considering this is an untrained mount you may be required to make handle animal checks to get it to do what you want.

- Gauss

[Nefreet]

Be sure you also have some sort of way to communicate with your eagle, else it will just fly towards the nearest enemy and attack it to the best of its ability. If you were a Wizard, instead of a Sorcerer, I would recommend the Feral Speech Discovery. Not sure if Sorcerers have a way to learn it.

[GermanyDM]

Hee hee... in the course of 8 posts, the OP's character mutated from a gnome summoner to a halfling sorcerer. :-)

[Poldaran]

GermanyDM wrote:

Hee hee... in the course of 8 posts, the OP's character mutated from a gnome summoner to a halfling sorcerer. :-)

It's like a game of telephone, but sillier.

[DeathSpot]

What are you saying? There aren't any telephones in Golarion. You could use any number of spells to do the same thing, though.

[Cayzle]

A lot of these issues go away if you share Enlarge Person with your tiny hawk/owl/raven familiar, then Reduce yourself. Lasts longer, too.

[HaraldKlak]

DeathSpot wrote:

What are you saying? There aren't any telephones in Golarion. You could use any number of spells to do the same thing, though.

Is it so? Who are you to tell everybody else that telephones in Golarion is WRONGBADFUN?! :-p

Take a look at Tolkien's works, they are littered with references to modern telecommunications...