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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DracoSuave" data-source="post: 4915332" data-attributes="member: 71571">For most cases it's not important.In 3d movement that will mean -at most- that the dragon is denied either a point of height or a point of distance.  However, what the dragon gets to choose which.  The dragon will provoke a single opportunity attack from the Spirit (if the spirit is within 20 squares of the shaman) and the dragon will still get to cover the same distance away from the party.And this is -only- if the spirit is conjured at a diagonal from the dragon.  If the spirit is conjured non-diagonal, the dragon can just fly up or across as it would normally without being denied that one square of movement.So, a spirit is not an effective blocker using the 3d rules, so there's nothing to be gained by using the 3d rules to adjudicate a flying dragon in this instance.  Just block a square, give the shaman his OAction, and move along with your game.So yeah.  Don't bother.If you are using aerial combat, and all combatants are flying, then you can Call a Spirit Companion into thin air.  Once there it can be moved within that space as any other moveable conjuration.This should only be used during aerial combat, however.  3d space should not be used for a ground fight.And that goes for flying monsters as well.  They should not be using aerial combat rules in a ground fight either.  So it sort of balances out.  As for why not?  Well, if the flying monster wants to run away, it should, but if it wants to fight, it should fight.And if it wants to blast ranged attacks at the party from out of reach then you should, as a DM, provide the party the terrain needed to make the fight fair.  Yep!And for that, my answer is 'Depends on the monsters involved.'A more exact answer would be:A raiding party of goblins who are aware of how spirit companions work might attack the spirit companion when they cannot get directly to the healing shaman.  They would do so because their melee attack force can damage the shaman indirectly this way.  However, given a choice, they would probably rather just attack the shaman directly.That said, they may wish to avoid triggering OAs from the spirit in situations it is to their disadvantage.So, intellegent monsters would not attack a spirit companion when it was not advantageous to do so.A pack of zombies might ignore the spirit companion -even if- it is in their advantage to attack it.  The reason for this is because the spirit companion is not a living thing.  If they have but one motivation: snuff out life, then a spell effect hardly registers on their hitlist so to speak.  They'll probably provoke OActions from it as well, because they do not have the intellegence to assess the situation beyond an instinctual soulless level.A pack of natural spirit ghost things, however, might -prefer- to attack the spirit companion, seeing as that it -is- an effect that exists on their level and plane of existance.So, yeah.  Depends on the monster is about as good an answer as you'll get.But this is the same with any tactical consideration and is part and parcel of playing monsters to their strengths and weaknesses.Again, see above.  I don't feel it nerfs the shaman because of the massive amount of damage or healing they get from it otherwise.  The spirit companion's damage-soaking ability isn't even the primary feature of the class.  It's like a ranger claiming that he's being nerfed because melee monsters often end up in melee so he can't Prime Shot.  But again, see above how different monsters react to the situation.  Some monsters will attack, some won't, and I should figure this out in advance of the battle.Oh by all means.  Of course, the above is just my take on things.  Others have different opinions (DMing is an art, not a science) and it -is- interesting to see how others run things.Believe it or not, I actually -do- change my mind every so often based on that.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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