That horse won't charge Monsignor...

[Mortalis]

AKA how I learned to stop worrying and kill the mount.

So to get on to my actual question, what happens when a mount is killed in the middle of the rider's charge? Via reach AoO, or a ready action. It goes without saying that the charge is invalidated, as they can no longer reach you (making you an illegal target). My question is, what actually happens to the rider?

My guess is they have to take a ride check for falling off the horse, to avoid damage and falling prone, but is there any RAW stipulation for what happens? I'd also like to think that the added momentum from the charge causes them to fly off the mount for added effect, but I'm really just speculating.

[Rickmeister]

RAW: Stopped in their tracks, make ride check to see how you fare.
RAI: I'd cause you to flip forward one more square (1d3 to see is slighty left/right or straight ahead).

[Mortalis]

Huh... I guess I hoped for something more exciting than that. Thanks for the help. :)

[Gherrick]

Depending on the based speed of the mount, I'd probably add to the distance being thrown. something like 5' for every 30' of base speed. With class abilities and items I've seen mounts with 80'+ BASE speed. Traveling that fast builds up some serious momentum, and if it isn't getting transferred to the target of the attack, the rider needs to pay the difference...

[Evil Lincoln]

I'd use the soft fall DC from the ride skill, and apply the damage if they fail the ride check.

[Mortalis]

Gherrick wrote:

Depending on the based speed of the mount, I'd probably add to the distance being thrown. something like 5' for every 30' of base speed. With class abilities and items I've seen mounts with 80'+ BASE speed. Traveling that fast builds up some serious momentum, and if it isn't getting transferred to the target of the attack, the rider needs to pay the difference...

This is more what I was thinking, although you managed to make it much less complicated than how I conceived it.

My formula was mount's speed - (rider's weight/10) = distance traveled.

[Aelryinth]

This is basically the same as a 'running into a wall rule'.

You're considered to have fallen from the same height as your movement rate, as I recall. So an 80' move mount getting slaughtered in the middle of a charge throws you into an adjacent square, you make a ride check to dismount safely (probably equal to the damage dealt to the mount) and potentially take 8d6 damage...which would kill a normal fighter level 3 or less outright.

There's a reason you don't drive your stallion onto the pikes, not that it would do it anyways.

==Aelryinth

[Saluzi]

I always cringe at the charge down the hill into the orcs in the movie LOTR. I know from ancient miniatures rules that, when cavalry charges steady pike, or even a bunch of Sots holding long pointed sticks, you get dead horses and riders. It's so bad I can even imagine newbies in the infantry wanting to apologize for what they have done.
There is also a painting from Waterloo of English cavalry charging French infantry only to find at the last 50 feet a deep, wide sunken road. It's a good but awful painting.