Couple of questions regarding carrying capacity and capability of birds

[Grayfen Starling]

Ok, so first scenario I'm a level 4 human wizard and I have a raven familiar. I'm medium size, the raven is tiny. I can share spells w/my familiar. If I cast reduce person on myself and enlarge person on my familiar, is that sufficient for my familiar to be able to pick me up and fly me to another location? will I also need to cast Bull's Strength? Will that be sufficient ?

Second scenario, there's a medium sized opponent, given that RL eagles are known to be able to carry off sheep, how many eagles would it take to carry said opponent off the battlefield (or at least to a lethal drop distance)? Is that viable?

[DesolateHarmony]

Reduce person on yourself will make you size small, and enlarge person on the raven will also make it size small. That is not large enough to make it a mount for you. As to whether it can carry you at all, figure out its carrying capacity.

A raven starts with STR 2.
Enlarge Person gives a +2 bonus to STR.
A medium creature with STR 4 can carry 13 pounds or less as a light load.
A small creature can carry 3/4 of what a medium creature can as a light load. At STR 4, that is 9.75 pounds.

Reduce person will divide your weight by 8, and the weight of your equipment by 2. So, if you are a 160-pound medium creature, you will weigh 20 pounds and your equipment will probably weigh another 10-40 pounds. So, the answer to your first question is no, the raven won't be able to fly you to another location.

With Bull's Strength, the raven's STR will be 8, allowing it to carry 19.5 pounds, which still isn't enough.

According to the Bestiary, eagles have STR 10, and are size small. So they can carry 24.75 pounds as a light load. A Herd Animal, sheep is a medium creature, so I don't think the eagle will be able to carry it.

I have seen video of golden eagles pulling bighorn sheep off of mountains, but they aren't really carrying them off, just dragging them a short distance.

[keerawa]

You can't cast Enlarge Person on your familiar. It is not a person, and the Share Spells ability only works for spells with a target of 'personal', the self-only spells. You can cast Alter Self on your familiar, and change it into a small or medium-sized humanoid, but that won't help much. Eventually you can cast a high-level Beast Shape or Form of the Dragon on him, if you like, and ride him around!

[Dragnmoon]

Wrong forum, this should be in the rules forum.

That said the raven flying with a heavy carrying capacity enlarged need to be carrying less then 30 lbs. with bull Str needs to be carrying less then 60 lbs. so it depends how much you weigh to include your equipment after the reduce person.

[Dragnmoon]

keerawa wrote:

You can't cast Enlarge Person on your familiar. It is not a person, and the Share Spells ability only works for spells with a target of 'personal', the self-only spells. You can cast Alter Self on your familiar, and change it into a small or medium-sized humanoid, but that won't help much. Eventually you can cast a high-level Beast Shape or Form of the Dragon on him, if you like, and ride him around!

Share spell does 2 things, it allows you to cast spells on it with the target of you and also allows you to cast spells on it even if it does not match the type of creature needed for the target.

It is in the FAQ for UM oddly for the summoner ability that does the same when talking about synthesist.

[UndeadMitch]

I've got to admit, I kind of figured this was going to be some kind of Monty Python reference when I took a look in here...

[GreyYeti]

Slightly off-topic, but does the way share spells works allow a caster to cast paragon surge (ARG, half-elf only) on his familiar.

[Dragnmoon]

GreyYeti wrote:

Slightly off-topic, but does the way share spells works allow a caster to cast paragon surge (ARG, half-elf only) on his familiar.

Does not have a target of "you" and it is limited to personal only. Wonder if that is an error?

[andreww]

If you want to do this I recommend also casting Ant Haul on your familiar. That will treble its carrying capacity and lasts 2 hours per level. Just hope it doesn't get dispelled or the results could be unfortunate.

[Jelloarm]

It could grip you by the husk.

[Grayfen Starling]

andreww wrote:

If you want to do this I recommend also casting Ant Haul on your familiar. That will treble its carrying capacity and lasts 2 hours per level. Just hope it doesn't get dispelled or the results could be unfortunate.

Now there's an idea.

[Grayfen Starling]

DesolateHarmony wrote:

Reduce person on yourself will make you size small, and enlarge person on the raven will also make it size small. That is not large enough to make it a mount for you. As to whether it can carry you at all, figure out its carrying capacity.

A raven starts with STR 2.
Enlarge Person gives a +2 bonus to STR.
A medium creature with STR 4 can carry 13 pounds or less as a light load.
A small creature can carry 3/4 of what a medium creature can as a light load. At STR 4, that is 9.75 pounds.

Reduce person will divide your weight by 8, and the weight of your equipment by 2. So, if you are a 160-pound medium creature, you will weigh 20 pounds and your equipment will probably weigh another 10-40 pounds. So, the answer to your first question is no, the raven won't be able to fly you to another location.

With Bull's Strength, the raven's STR will be 8, allowing it to carry 19.5 pounds, which still isn't enough.

According to the Bestiary, eagles have STR 10, and are size small. So they can carry 24.75 pounds as a light load. A Herd Animal, sheep is a medium creature, so I don't think the eagle will be able to carry it.

I have seen video of golden eagles pulling bighorn sheep off of mountains, but they aren't really carrying them off, just dragging them a short distance.

Ty for the formula. Given the above, my Wizard and his equipment would weigh a little over 30 pounds. I wasn't thinking about riding my raven so much as she just grabbing me by the shoulders or a special harness and taking off w/me. The suggestion that I use Ant Haul instead of bull's Strength would make it possible after I reduce myself and enlarge my familiar, as her adjusted carrying capacity exceeds 30 pounds.

Bestiary eagles have 10 STR, however, my wizard has the Augment Summons feat, granting +4 STR/Con. So 3/4's of 58 lbs is 43.5 lbs... So about 4 eagles could possibly grapple and lift-off with an enemy weighing no more than 174 lbs, likely a spell caster or someone not wearing heavy armor. Thus, the eagles would ascend 40 feet per round (half their 80 ft fly speed), that's 4d6 damage per round lifted into the air. As it stands my eagles last for 6 rounds, so lets say ideally one round of prep and 5 rounds of lift, so 20d6 damage from the fall.

[Jeff Morse]

How are you going to get the eagles to do this though? They arnt equipped to do complicated things.

[Grayfen Starling]

Jeff Morse wrote:

How are you going to get the eagles to do this though? They arnt equipped to do complicated things.

Well, they're celestial eagles, I speak celestial and carrying off prey isn't a foreign concept for an eagle, although working together to do it might be. We also usually have a druid in the party, maybe he can instruct them at my behest. Might be an easier sell to the GM if the target is small, like a gnome (a certain gnome high on Flayleaf comes to mind). I figure the hard part is all of them managing to effect a grapple on the target before being slain or the spell expiring. Still, 4d6 fall dmg per round of lift while the target is largely incapacitated is pretty good at level 4. If I'm right, with augment summons, the eagle gets a +1 CMB instead of -1 and three eagles assisting add +6.

It's a long shot, I have to be successful on the 1d3+1 summons roll (Superior Summons Feat) to even have a chance at pulling it off.

[Jeff Morse]

look up the celestial template. it does not give them the language. Druid could try but that would be a lot of handle animals. I am just trying to point out that summoning animals dont get you much more than attacking critters. There is a discovery that allows a wizard to talk with animals you can get at 5th. They would still have to grapple and than maintain, and than can only half move a grappled foe.

[Jeff Morse]

Oh, forgot an important part. Only one of them can grapple, while the others assist, so not sure they can all carry off a person. This is better answered by the much more experienced people.

[The Fox]

Dragnmoon wrote:

keerawa wrote:

You can't cast Enlarge Person on your familiar. It is not a person, and the Share Spells ability only works for spells with a target of 'personal', the self-only spells. You can cast Alter Self on your familiar, and change it into a small or medium-sized humanoid, but that won't help much. Eventually you can cast a high-level Beast Shape or Form of the Dragon on him, if you like, and ride him around!

Share spell does 2 things, it allows you to cast spells on it with the target of you and also allows you to cast spells on it even if it does not match the type of creature needed for the target.

It is in the FAQ for UM oddly for the summoner ability that does the same when talking about synthesist.

Would you mind linking to that FAQ? I certainly interpret it the way you said, but it has been a source of discussion, and I'm unable to find the FAQ you speak of.

[Rubber Ducky guy]

UndeadMitch wrote:

I've got to admit, I kind of figured this was going to be some kind of Monty Python reference when I took a look in here...

What if the OP gets his Druid companion to cast Plant Shape (coconut) first

[Dragnmoon]

The Fox wrote:

Would you mind linking to that FAQ? I certainly interpret it the way you said, but it has been a source of discussion, and I'm unable to find the FAQ you speak of.

Link

Originally SKR said, nop you can't cast spells like Enlarge person through share spells, but then he went oops and changed his mind and changed the FAQ to allow it.

[Phosphorus]

Jelloarm wrote:

It could grip you by the husk.

It's not a question of where he grips it, It's a simple matter of weight - ratios ... A five-ounce bird could not hold a a one pound coconut.

[The Fox]

Dragnmoon wrote:

The Fox wrote:

Would you mind linking to that FAQ? I certainly interpret it the way you said, but it has been a source of discussion, and I'm unable to find the FAQ you speak of.

Link

Originally SKR said, nop you can't cast spells like Enlarge person through share spells, but then he went oops and changed his mind and changed the FAQ to allow it.

Thanks!