Harzel
Adventurer
In a recent game during a combat one of my players asserted that his familiar (an owl) was perched on his shoulder. (Fine so far.) Then he further asserted that he moved as far as he could and then his familiar took flight and moved its full movement (in addition to the distance that he had carried it.) I said no. My reasoning was that the fundamental resource being expended was time and that the familiar had essentially used up its movement time riding on the PC's shoulder. We moved on, but the player asked me to look into this further.
The closest analogy that I could think of was mounted combat, but those rules appear to me to be ambiguously silent on the matter of whether, for instance, a rider can move with his mount for the mount's full movement, then dismount and then move further on his own. (Dismounting only costs 1/2 of his movement.)
It sort of looks to me like strictly by RAW the additional movement would be allowed; however a) this grates hard on my sense of verisimilitude, b) I have a hard time believing that this is RAI, and c) it seems like the kind of loop hole that might be subject to some pretty wild abuse in the right situation.
Opinions?
The closest analogy that I could think of was mounted combat, but those rules appear to me to be ambiguously silent on the matter of whether, for instance, a rider can move with his mount for the mount's full movement, then dismount and then move further on his own. (Dismounting only costs 1/2 of his movement.)
It sort of looks to me like strictly by RAW the additional movement would be allowed; however a) this grates hard on my sense of verisimilitude, b) I have a hard time believing that this is RAI, and c) it seems like the kind of loop hole that might be subject to some pretty wild abuse in the right situation.
Opinions?