Let's say that a Human Monk wearing Muleback Cords manages to pick up his Halfling Rogue friend and put her inside his backpack without being encumbered. Later, with the Rogue still in the bag, the Monk walks into a fight. What is the Rogue able to do from the bag?
If strapped into a normal backpack, the rogue can't see out or reach out, so the answer is 'not much' except maybe take an Escape Artist check to get out and help.
|
The Rogue can do whatever the rogue can normally do when in a backpack. I'd say that getting out is a move action (manipulate an item) and that the rogue is prone (they can't really stand inside the backpack). Rogue has total concealment and cover.
GM should make the call though as it isn't covered in the rules.
Had this come up in a game this past weekend, but a gnome bard climbed onto an enlarged half-orc... So, greater size difference. I just let the gnome ride and occasionally shoot or cast a spell. She wasn't capable of influencing the fight much, either way, so I didn't over complicate it.
But, I am curious as to the actual rules involved?
Halfling must roll grapple checks every round to keep a stable balance otherwise they take the same penalties as failing a swim check by 5, they can do what they please with their move action. The human has an additional armor check penalty and max dex bonus (thinking breastplate values) to reflect the encumbrance of having a halfling in a backpack.
This is intentionally highly restrictive and is intended to discourage the behavior while still allowing large characters carrying small character to be part of the game. The Yoda piggyback scene is still possible with the above rules.
I'd be more lenient if there were more than one size difference between the characters.
There really aren't any rules to support this. Either you are going to have to make up some sort of house rule, or simply go with the rule that with the exception of mounts under a characters control and similar things, characters are forbidden from sharing a space during tactical combat.
Personally, I think the later is the better option, as a houserule that is balances is probably going to be difficult to come up given the other basic assumptions of the game, note that even the games own mounted combat rules are pretty sketchy and don't always work out that well or that clearly.
I prefer Tenser's Floating Disk for carrying allies into combat, but to each his own.