Animal companion barding and flying

[powerdemon]

The SRD entry for barding wrote:

Flying mounts can't fly in medium or heavy barding.

What about animal companions?

[powerdemon]

I'm guessing since it doesn't say, that it means companions are fine as long as they are not ridden.

[ShadowDax]

Take it at face value, no matter what the creature flying is wearing it has to be light armor to take off. It defeats the purpose of having a flying mount and not be able to fly because it is wearing heavy or medium armor. It is a very strict restriction without any room to get out of it.

The game designers feel too high an AC and flying is just too broken and way too powerful, no matter what the strength of the creature is.

[Maezer]

...it really matter how technical you want to be. I am aware of a few creatures (gate archon) in the bestiaries that wear medium/heavy armor and appear to use winged flight. If you are just referencing the rules. It only effects "barding" and "mounts". And the rules in encumbrance only counts only as "armor" not barding so has no relevance. And over 20 years of errata/faqs neither 3.x nor Pathfinder have really seen fit to clarify these rules to my knowledge. So by a RAW standard yeah an animal can fly just fine wearing heavy armor and/or carrying a heavy load.

But from my perspective of RAI. If something is wearing enough armor/carrying so much that its movement speed is reduced. Then winged flight should be restricted. The vast majority of winged creatures seem to hold to this, having only light or no physical armor. (Even those utilizing mechanical weapons.)

I'd expect to encounter table variation and want to clear a heavily armored flying companion with my GM before investing too much in the concept.

[Gauss]

ShadowDax, that is directly contradicted by Paizo creatures such as the Solar.

In 3.5 anything heavier than light armor prevented flight. They removed that in Pathfinder when they gutted the flight rules.

The only remnant of the 3.5 rule is the flying mount in barding rule.

So, if you put a flying creature in heavy armor it can still fly.
Put a flying mount in heavy armor it cannot fly. That is the rule.
Mount, not mount..that is the switch..not the type of armor.