Hello!
I'm in a situation right now where an Enlarged Brawler (blessed with a Fly Spell) is Grappling a (Large, Winged) Dragon midair.
A few questions:
1) What happens if the Dragon fails a Fly Check to Hover while still in a Grapple? By 5 or more? By less than 5?
2) What happens if the Brawler fails a Fly check to Hover? Do they both fall?
3) If the Grapple gets reversed (so that the Winged Dragon is the Grappler), would they both suddenly fall now that the Grappler/Grapplee has switched?
Part of it is the lack of movement by someone in a Grapple and the fact they are always adjacent to each other combined with the plummet rules for Wings.
I've been looking at a bunch of sources, but I can't find a right-proper answer. A bunch talk about using encumbrance rules, lifting rules and a lot more, but there is no real consolidated answer.
Any help would be appreciated.
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Good luck. Unless Paizo finally puts out proper aerial combat rules, it's mostly made of houserulium.
Yup, since grapple rules and flight rules collide here.
Some ideas for houseruling:
First: I'd say that grapple check would count as being attacked, so per every grapple/maintain/reversal, a DC10 check must be made by both or they'll lose altitude during the squirmish.
Second: If anyone fails a fly check, that creature cannot perform the chosen maneuver (in this case, hover), so they'd have to move normally per fly rules. This maneuver interferes with grapple rules where the grappled cannot move, but also may interfere with encumbrance. I'd check encumbrance caps for both, to see if anyone can hold the other as dead weight. If one of them can hold the other, then that creature may chose not to move and stay in place. In any other scenario, the creature in control of the grapple choses if he moves along (maintaining the grapple) or lets the other one go (releasing the grapple)
Third: The dragon has wings so in a fly check failure by 5+ he plummets to the ground. If the brawler is grappling, I'd say GM must check if he can hold the dead weight of the dragon (fly spell only works up to maximum encumbrance). If dragon's weight goes over maximum encumbrance then either the brawler releases or plummets with the dragon.
Fourth: If the Dragon reverses the grapple, I'd say both keep flying normally, but if the dragon fails a check by 5+ then he plummets. I'd check again if the brawler can hold dragon as dead weight since he cannot plummet (bassically, brawler would fly with the dragon grappled to him as dead weight). If fly spell cannot sustain the grapple, I'd say dragon would get a new grapple check to see if he can dragon the brawler with him (both plummet) of if he releases the grapple.
Be aware that this is pure houseruling. Pero pure RAW, you could hold the dragon in place, oor even a g$~$#%n tarrasque with a high enough check (I'd totally say the Tarrasque would just ignore your epic grapple and drag you along for a trip).
Well this is reassuring.
Thanks for the responses. I thought I may had been missing something but hearing the ways its run makes me more confident to run it as such.
... Though this sucks. I would think Aerial Adventures would come way before Aquatic or some other random book.
At least an Aerial Tactics Toolbox or something would be welcome (and overdue!). Flight happens in pretty much every campaign; even PFS has to be getting hit by this regularly.