Animal Companion and evasion

[kayn99]

Currently we have a halfling in the party with an animal companion that he rides. He has taken the sub. levels out of Races of the Wild for his halfling Druid. The Druid has just reached 3rd level and the companion has gotten the Evasion ability. Here is the question; If the halfling is riding the companion and it evades a fireball, does the halfling also evade it? Should I have a house rule and have him make a ride check to see if he evades the fireball with the companion?

Any advice would be great

Kayn

 

[Thanee]

No, technically, the Fireball (or whatever else calls for the Reflex save) affects both independantly.

Both make their own save and only the animal companion benefits from Evasion (unless the rider also has the ability).

There is no Ride check necessary.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Stalker0]

Think of it like this. The creature passed through an open space in the big ball of fire, but about 5 feet above it, there was no open space, so you got fried.

 

[kjenks]

I have a halfling druid who rides his dire bat animal companion, and I think of it like this:

Enemy wizard: Fireball!
(Bat shoves halfling between himself and the center of the burst)
Halfling: "Ouch!"
Dire bat: (thinks to himself) "Heh, heh, heh."

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

A Rider is techincally not a piece of carried equipment. I can imagine reasonable ways of accomplishing that status that would be in keeping in the spirit of the rules. Naturally they would require DM approval as these would be extrapolations on the RAW and not strict RAW. But they would all have very significant downsides in a combat environment. Keep in mind that equipment is relatively easy to attack, but there is rarely sufficient incentive to do so in actual play.

It would be a reasonable capping feat as part of a feat chain to allow a Ride check to gain the benefits of Evasion of the mount IMHO. Powerful, yes. But Rider + Mount teams are generally very vulnerable to AoE spells so I think it would be fair to allow them to be less vulnerable to a specific kind of AoE attack.