Do spirit beasts fly?

[DracoSuave]

To be fair, aerial combat rules aren't meant to apply to non-aerial combat. So unless you're flying and fighting flying things, there's no aerial rules to apply.

Just sayin'.

As for the difference, a summoning summons a creature every time without exception. A conjuration is a persistant effect that may or may not be a creature, but if it is has to do with the effect itself, not the conjuration keyword.

Thusly, a conjuration might be a legitimate summon in the air because there's no gravity affecting it unless it's a creature.

 

[tmatk]

Can you support your claim that this is indeed a difference between conjurations and summons according to the game rules?

Imho, it doesn't matter if you're dealing with conjurations or summons, 'mid-air' isn't a valid target destination for either.

Well, there is a difference in game terms between summoned and conjured. Summoned keyword is in AP, conjurations keyword is in PHB2.

Since conjurations don't need the ground to support them, many interpret that as conjuring them in mid-air. IMO, that's not RAI, at least as far as the spirit goes.

To be fair, aerial combat rules aren't meant to apply to non-aerial combat. So unless you're flying and fighting flying things, there's no aerial rules to apply.

Just sayin'.

I don't think it's intended for a Shaman to be able to melee flying creatures at level 1. It also opens up the possibility of "floating" the beast right above the front line, attacking monsters, and being adjacent to 5 or 6 PCs at once!

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

The problem with not allowing conjurations to be put "mid-air" is that you are essentially ruling that that can't be used at all for aerial battles. And to me that isn't RAI.

 

[bganon]

Sounds to me like the "please everyone" solution is for conjurations to have more or less the same movement mode as their conjurer, unless otherwise specified. They use the caster's ability scores and defenses, anyway, so why not movement modes too?

 

[DracoSuave]

The problem with not allowing conjurations to be put "mid-air" is that you are essentially ruling that that can't be used at all for aerial battles. And to me that isn't RAI.

RAI, 3-d combat is supposed to be used for aquatic and aerial combat. In situations that are neither, those rules shouldn't be used. And besides, you -can- use such abilities in 3d combat, the ground level is explicitly defined for that combat, even if it's a plane across empty space.