We have a player in our party that is using Communal Mount to choke dungeons, pin bosses, attack, and generally wreck the campaign. The rest of the party loves this. Me and the GM hate it. We would like to drop a rule on him but we would prefer to do this with a rule that's already there and not have to house rule it. Anyone have any ideas?
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Fireball.
How exactly is he controlling 6 horses at once? It is a full round action to "push" an animal with Handle Animal. The animals also aren't combat trained... and why is them attacking considered a good thing? A light horse is looking at -2 attack for 1d4+1, even if he could get the animal to do so.
How exactly is he controlling 6 horses at once? It is a full round action to "push" an animal with Handle Animal. The animals also aren't combat trained... and why is them attacking considered a good thing? A light horse is looking at -2 attack for 1d4+1, even if he could get the animal to do so.
He's not Controlling them, he's using them to fill rooms so that the enemy as no room to move. Also, we have the argument that they are treated as summoned creatures and therefore controlled mentally.
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How exactly is he controlling 6 horses at once? It is a full round action to "push" an animal with Handle Animal. The animals also aren't combat trained... and why is them attacking considered a good thing? A light horse is looking at -2 attack for 1d4+1, even if he could get the animal to do so.He's not Controlling them, he's using them to fill rooms so that the enemy as no room to move. Also, we have the argument that they are treated as summoned creatures and therefore controlled mentally.
The argument that he can control them mentally is based on specific wording from Summon Monster X and Summon Monster X alone; those specifics are missing from the general description of the Summoning school. Mount is not Summon Monster X, nor does it say it works as Summon Monster X. It says you summon some non-special mounts to ride and that's all.
That said he could definitely drop them in combat and use it as an area denial spell, but then he either has to actions to try to control them via Handle Animal or let them run free (and most likely away or into your party's way).
Even for summon monster X, you need a language to tell them to do anything more than attack your enemies
This is probably a dumb question, but where in the Summon Monster line of spells does it say you can control the critters mentally? Seems to me you need to be able to speak with them using a common language, or else use Handle Animal if they're below 3 Int. What'm I missing here?
EDIT: Oh! Right, that's what I thought, BigNorseWolf.
This is probably a dumb question, but where in the Summon Monster line of spells does it say you can control the critters mentally? Seems to me you need to be able to speak with them using a common language, or else use Handle Animal if they're below 3 Int. What'm I missing here?
EDIT: Oh! Right, that's what I thought, BigNorseWolf.
You're right; you know I just read the spell before I posted, but now I realized I misread and mentally inserted the "mentally" part... probably because I was looking for it lol. My bad, the players in TC game have even less of a leg to stand on.
Just to be clear.. and I'm going by memory here but as far as I can remember no where in the summon monster spells Is the monster for any summon spell actually told who your enemies are.
One line in summon monster says It attacks ypur enemies to the best of its abilities. However no where does it say how they know.
Additionallly we have other rules saying we need to communicate with summoned creatures to tell them what to do.
What this means is we have a play paradigm to ease gameplay that is being used with a wholly unrelated spell.
Summon mount summons animals that are intended to be ridden and need to be controlled individually. Why? Because neither the summoning sub school or the spell gives mass controll.
They way I read summon Monster, once you do the summoning, that monster attacks. If, however, you want the monster to NOT attack a certain enemy (maybe you want one alive for questionioning) you need to know the language to make the summoned monster not attack that enemy. Oddly it would be kind of like riding a horse. You don't normally need to use the horse skill unless you need to do fancy riding.
In any case both spells read very specifically. Communal Mount is NOT a summon monster spell. If it was, there would be text about using the horses to attack, etc.
The players are trying to get a lot for very little. If they want to summon monsters, they should summon monsters.
I use Mount as a trap springer and to bottleneck areas as well. As others have pointed out, it's not a Summon Monster spell - you have no control over the horse(s) beyond handle animal / wild empathy. They're going to try to run, but it still can work to break charge lanes or divert stupid enemies. Also remind them that you cannot summon a creature into an area inherently dangerous to it - so no summoning it in the air above the bad guy, or on precarious ledges.
What I am confused about is why they're using Communal Mount and not Web? I regularly give my familiars wands of Web as crowd control - I can't imagine how Communal Mount is better, although if they get mental control over the horses, I can see it!
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Just to be clear.. and I'm going by memory here but as far as I can remember no where in the summon monster spells Is the monster for any summon spell actually told who your enemies are.
Correct, which leads to three possibilities
1) That the monster wont attack your enemies unless you speak its language, which seems a little odd considering the line saying it will attack you and a seperate one about what it will do if you can talk to it
2) The uber raw Summon monster Lie detector. It attacks your enemies. If you summon it near some "peasants" that are actually bandits, it attacks them!
3) After millennia of having the platonic form of themselves being summoned by hapless mortals for combat and trap disarming, the monsters have a pretty good idea about what a caster screaming and pointing at someone means.
Just to be clear.. and I'm going by memory here but as far as I can remember no where in the summon monster spells Is the monster for any summon spell actually told who your enemies are.Correct, which leads to three possibilities
1) That the monster wont attack your enemies unless you speak its language, which seems a little odd considering the line saying it will attack you and a seperate one about what it will do if you can talk to it
2) The uber raw Summon monster Lie detector. It attacks your enemies. If you summon it near some "peasants" that are actually bandits, it attacks them!
3) After millennia of having the platonic form of themselves being summoned by hapless mortals for combat and trap disarming, the monsters have a pretty good idea about what a caster screaming and pointing at someone means.
Actually looking over the wording on a device larger than my phone the RAW appears to be this.
Summon Monster attacks your enemies, but conveys no way to actually tell it who your enemies or Allies are. This has created the actual play paradigm of the monster just "knows" somehow who all your enemies/allies are when its summoned.
The Actual RAw leaves early summon monster unplayable, only lasts rounds per level and Wizards or clerics would have difficulty pushing animals. Some things like Insects woud be wholly un-usable.
a few years ago i had a situation where a PC of mine was summoning the giant mantis and the bad guy walked around the corner before my summons came out.
As a player i didnt think of this right away so just summoned it anyways and did not have the range to put the enemy in sight of the Giant Mantis. Needless to say my giant insect just... stood there. It had no enemies in sight and i had no way to convey to it to walk around the corner.
I think by Raw if the bad guy had walked back arund the corner the Mantis would not have attacked him until he did something to be an enemy. This area isnt really clear as it hasnt come up alot.
really i think as far as summon monster goes leting it 'know' who all visible bad guys are when it comes into existance is the most playable reading.
But none of this applies to summon mount.
really i think as far as summon monster goes leting it 'know' who all visible bad guys are when it comes into existance is the most playable reading.
True, but i thought the summon monster lie detector was a funny bit of rules lawyering insanity :)
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We have a player in our party that is using Communal Mount to choke dungeons, pin bosses, attack, and generally wreck the campaign. The rest of the party loves this. Me and the GM hate it. We would like to drop a rule on him but we would prefer to do this with a rule that's already there and not have to house rule it. Anyone have any ideas?
Thoughts:
In every situation where the player uses Communal Mount, just have 10 or so low-level goblin fighters with Horse Choppers and Alchemist's Fire come out of a cabinet or something. They'll scream and fight and kill the horses.Make it happen every time. Never explain where they come from.
Give all enemies Dragon Style, Fly, or Freedom of Movement.
Bad guy uses Obscuring Mist to hide, and a Thunderstone to panic and stampede the horses back towards the party. Make Overrun maneuvers.
Maybe the horses run around the corner and down the hall; come up with a reason for the PCs to have to run away... like the room starts filling with water. Laugh as they try to figure out how to move past a bunch of panicking horses.
Dead horses could persist in-world for the spell's duration and become difficult terrain. All enemies have potions of Feather Step.
As discussed by others, Communal Mount cannot be used to attack unless the caster or a party member is absolutely incredible with Handle Animal.
Mount can be used to detect traps, not destroy them. If it's disabling your traps, why don't they auto-reset without a substantial Disable Device check?
The enemy weapon to destroy the world is powered by the blood of equines funneled through the traps.
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Maybe there's a Sandpoint Devil or a Leukodemon waiting for them, and it's pretty mad at all the horse-wasting.
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Just to play Devil's Advocate:
You summon a light horse or a pony (your choice) to serve you as a mount. The steed serves willingly and well. The mount comes with a bit and bridle and a riding saddle.
The serve you "willingly and well" sentence suggests to me that you have more controlled over the creature than a normal horse. I'm not alone in this interpretation. Our group lets them fight (though pathetically) and we laugh hysterically when they manage to do anything at all. Of course, as the DM I run them and frequently have them make Will saves to stand and fight "unnatural creatures". They generally muck up the battlefield in a way that's entertaining. The happy medium is to allow the player to control them in a limited way, but for the DM to treat them as magical horses of a sort, but not particularly brave ones. Demons, undead, etc. should simply terrify them, though it is funny when one particularly Spartan horse sticks around to fight the BBEG.
In short, embrace the Wall of Horseflesh and have some fun with it. Just find a happy medium that the entertains both the players & the DM.
Ask the player to stop because its not fun for you and the DM?
Just to play Devil's Advocate:
You summon a light horse or a pony (your choice) to serve you as a mount. The steed serves willingly and well. The mount comes with a bit and bridle and a riding saddle.The serve you "willingly and well" sentence suggests to me that you have more controlled over the creature than a normal horse. I'm not alone in this interpretation. Our group lets them fight (though pathetically) and we laugh hysterically when they manage to do anything at all. Of course, as the DM I run them and frequently have them make Will saves to stand and fight "unnatural creatures". They generally muck up the battlefield in a way that's entertaining. The happy medium is to allow the player to control them in a limited way, but for the DM to treat them as magical horses of a sort, but not particularly brave ones. Demons, undead, etc. should simply terrify them, though it is funny when one particularly Spartan horse sticks around to fight the BBEG.
In short, embrace the Wall of Horseflesh and have some fun with it. Just find a happy medium that the entertains both the players & the DM.
They should serve you inasmuch as you can communicate with them. I would require a Handle Animal check. Heck, they aren't even combat trained, so there might be some pushing involved. Alternately, there's the reposition maneuver, or you can simply wait for the enemy to carve its way to you.
How about this, the enemies have Ranks of Handle Animal and Ride and they jump on these horses and attack the players!
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I've done this before. Its a valid, but potentially dangerous tactic.
They're just normal horses. They aren't even combat trained. They'll fight back if attacked or scared, but mostly they're just going to want to stay out of the way.
The best trick for this spell is to put them in 5' hallways where they can't turn around, and set off a thunderstone behind them to spook them and make them stampede.
Woe be it to anything in that hallway.