Level Up (A5E) What happens when you Shove a mounted creature?

[Sword of Spirit]

This came up tonight while playing Memories of Holdenshire. I couldn't find it clearly spelled out what happens if you try to Shove a mounted creature. If a mounted creature is supposed to be knocked prone, they get a second save to avoid it, but nothing is said about Shoving or forced movement in general.

It seems rather odd that Shoving someone off a horse would just move them away and leave them standing up. Since they are falling at least a few feet, maybe they should be knocked prone under the falling rules (would that count even if it's less than 10 feet?). But Shoving them away and knocking them prone would be better than just using the Knockdown maneuver.

If it's being treated the same as being knocked off a precipice, then the rules are clear that there wouldn't be any sort of extra chance--you just get shoved off (whether prone or standing, I don't know). But being mounted isn't quite the same as just standing on something, which is probably why it's harder to get knocked prone in such a state. It seems like that precedent would suggest some sort of difficult in forced movement to knock someone off a mount also.

So it is rather confusing. It seems like there should probably be some sort of similar extra save like there is against getting knocked prone (or maybe just advantage on the save).

 

[tetrasodium]

This came up tonight while playing Memories of Holdenshire. I couldn't find it clearly spelled out what happens if you try to Shove a mounted creature. If a mounted creature is supposed to be knocked prone, they get a second save to avoid it, but nothing is said about Shoving or forced movement in general.

It seems rather odd that Shoving someone off a horse would just move them away and leave them standing up. Since they are falling at least a few feet, maybe they should be knocked prone under the falling rules (would that count even if it's less than 10 feet?). But Shoving them away and knocking them prone would be better than just using the Knockdown maneuver.

If it's being treated the same as being knocked off a precipice, then the rules are clear that there wouldn't be any sort of extra chance--you just get shoved off (whether prone or standing, I don't know). But being mounted isn't quite the same as just standing on something, which is probably why it's harder to get knocked prone in such a state. It seems like that precedent would suggest some sort of difficult in forced movement to knock someone off a mount also.

So it is rather confusing. It seems like there should probably be some sort of similar extra save like there is against getting knocked prone (or maybe just advantage on the save).

What was the situation that had a player trying to shove a mounted combatant? It's going to be almost impossible to shove someone off a horse unless the one doing the shoving is a literal giant. If you've ever been in a city that still has horse patrols (ie boston/nyc maybe) or were at an event with mounted police you'd probably know why. I went looking for pictures of mounted police in crowds & found this hilarious fight between a guy & a police horse with several pictures in it. Even though the guy is trying his best there are a couple pictures where the mounted cop does not appear to even be paying attention to the man struggling with his horse. If you look around you can find some pretty hilarious videos of the 600+ pound horse in question fighting back with threatening movements.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

What was the situation that had a player trying to shove a mounted combatant? It's going to be almost impossible to shove someone off a horse unless the one doing the shoving is a literal giant. If you've ever been in a city that still has horse patrols (ie boston/nyc maybe) or were at an event with mounted police you'd probably know why. I went looking for pictures of mounted police in crowds & found this hilarious fight between a guy & a police horse with several pictures in it. Even though the guy is trying his best there are a couple pictures where the mounted cop does not appear to even be paying attention to the man struggling with his horse. If you look around you can find some pretty hilarious videos of the 600+ pound horse in question fighting back with threatening movements.

The party was riding on a wagon while guards on horseback were melee attacking the wagon/riders. So the party was at a high enough elevation to interact with the riders without penalty. The main concern though is that there is nothing that I can find that says maneuvers don’t work on mounted combatants, so there has to be some sort of way to determine the results.

As far as the real world difficulty of the task (if they hadn't been on a wagon), there is the Pulling From Below rule that actually should give an expertise die to do so rather than a penalty.

 

[tetrasodium]

The party was riding on a wagon while guards on horseback were melee attacking the wagon/riders. So the party was at a high enough elevation to interact with the riders without penalty.

Someone would need to leap off the wagon to drag the mounted guards off their saddle. Stirrups exist for a reason. The rider could simply adjust their feet in the stirrups to guide the horse a bit to the side & veer back after dragging the person pushing to the ground. The saddle of a horse is a remarkably stable position compared to the bed of a wagon.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Someone would need to leap off the wagon to drag the mounted guards off their saddle. Stirrups exist for a reason. The rider could simply adjust their feet in the stirrups to guide the horse a bit to the side & veer back after dragging the person pushing to the ground. The saddle of a horse is a remarkably stable position compared to the bed of a wagon.

So you would rule that attempts to Shove someone off a mount automatically fail? I can see where you are coming from, but the rules actually address what happens when you try to knock a mounted person prone without forced movement (which results in knocking them off the mount and ending up prone on the ground when it succeeds), so it seems like the game already has established that it is possible.

That being said, I checked O5e and it doesn‘t seem to have a rule for it either. (It does include a rule for what happens to you when your mount suffers forced movement, which seems to not have made it into A5e.)

So I guess this actually isn‘t a Level Up thing, and the fact I‘ve never considered it before just shows how rare mounted combat has been in my 5e experience.

 

[tetrasodium]

So you would rule that attempts to Shove someone off a mount automatically fail? I can see where you are coming from, but the rules actually address what happens when you try to knock a mounted person prone without forced movement (which results in knocking them off the mount and ending up prone on the ground when it succeeds), so it seems like the game already has established that it is possible.

That being said, I checked O5e and it doesn‘t seem to have a rule for it either. (It does include a rule for what happens to you when your mount suffers forced movement, which seems to not have made it into A5e.)

So I guess this actually isn‘t a Level Up thing, and the fact I‘ve never considered it before just shows how rare mounted combat has been in my 5e experience.

I think less "automatically fail" than wrong mechanic. Unless someone is able to shove the mount everything with "shove" of the rider is trying to unhorse them & hopefully result in them falling prone as if they were tripped. There might be some edge cases like repelling eldritch blast that need a gm call or secondary rule but I think most will fall under either "trip is a trip" or "that big guy could shove the horse so punting the rider off like a teed golf ball follows the rules for that ability normally". A ruder with saddle & such might even deserve an expertise die to resist the attempt or it makes the saddle pointless.

 

[Faolyn]

So you would rule that attempts to Shove someone off a mount automatically fail? I can see where you are coming from, but the rules actually address what happens when you try to knock a mounted person prone without forced movement (which results in knocking them off the mount and ending up prone on the ground when it succeeds), so it seems like the game already has established that it is possible.

I'd say that a person wearing stirrups has advantage (or an expertise die) on their save against being Shoved.

 

[Stalker0]

So let’s consider a different scenario…how would you rule it if I shoved you off a cliff, but the bottom was 5 ft down?

this is a close approximation to being shoved from a mount, and I think you could use the same ruling

 

[tetrasodium]

So let’s consider a different scenario…how would you rule it if I shoved you off a cliff, but the bottom was 5 ft down?

this is a close approximation to being shoved from a mount, and I think you could use the same ruling

That's a shove & fall damage kicks in after 10ft so no fall damage from the cliff that sounds like giant sized stairs. The one doing the pushing has a good solid stable footing & the one being pushed can't make the cliff move with their legs/feet so would get shoved is just getting shoved but /i might make it take some kind of dex save or something if it seemed thematically interesting

Trying to shove someone on horseback got I don't think it works that way because there are rules for unhorsing someone