Question for DMs

[Gillric]

Just wondering, what would you do if one of your players wanted to jump his horse off a 90 foot cliff?

[valadil]

Start counting my d10s.

[Amnestic]

Have the Interplanar Police come along and arrest him for animal cruelty.

[hoff]

Make the local nature godess save the horse while letting the player fall to his death. Divine intervention for the win.

[Grogmir]

I believe the DM of the Rings covered this subjuect sufficently.

[evirus]

Just wondering, what would you do if one of your players wanted to jump his horse off a 90 foot cliff?

There has to be more to it than just this.

What was he trying to accomplish? Does he just want to play a new character or is this part of some weird plan?

[Gillric]

No, he just was too stubborn to leave the damn horse behind

[evirus]

No, he just was too stubborn to leave the damn horse behind

So wait... He was going to jump off the cliff anyway and decided to take his horse? But why jump off the cliff in the first place?

[Altair_the_Vexed]

90 ft?
By the RAW, that's 9d6, or an average of 31.5 damage, so I'd point out that the fall would likely kill the horse, and badly injure the PC.

If he insisted, it's his character. I'd have the PC's alignment move toward chaotic and evil.

Next, the jump attempt may not work.

The horse may refuse to jump. Make a ride check, with a -4 circumstance penalty. If that's failed, the PC needs to make a ride check to stay in the saddle when the horse freezes on the edge. If the PC falls off, he can make a REF save DC15 to not fall over the edge.

If the ride check to jump is passed, then the horse and rider sail out into the air and tumble down the cliff. To stay on top of the horse as it falls, I'd have the PC make a ride check.
If the PC failed that ride check, I'd use the rules for falling objects to have the rider deal damage to the horse and the horse to the rider, additionally to the falling damage.

Of course, in my house ruled game, this fall would almost certainly kill or cripple any character - falling damage is partially applied to CON.

EDIT: Just noticed I'm posting in the 4e section. Not sure if the figures and checks work this way in 4e... But my principle stands, I think.

[RebelRogue]

First of all, the mount would refuse such an action. If it is somehow forced or tricked to do so anyway, I guess it's 9d10 damage right there, or perhaps even insta-death depending on the situation. But I'd need a very convincing argument for him/her to do somthing like this in the first place (ok, I guess I might allow it, if it was part of an extremely cinematic/awesome/high tier action scene).

Divine intervention seems silly: in that case the gods should interfere all the time!

[BRC]

Just wondering, what would you do if one of your players wanted to jump his horse off a 90 foot cliff?

Make him roll a d20, if he rolls a 1, he misses the ground and gains a fly speed.

[Grogmir]

and if he fails he takes 9D10 falling damage and the horse comes back and haunts him!

[BobTheDog]

Make him roll a d20, if he rolls a 1, he misses the ground and gains a fly speed.

I must apply this houserule to my games! Though I guess it would make statistical sense to do this on rolling 1 twice in a row.

[Sipex]

I'd definitely have the mount refuse unless the player does one of few things.

1) Intimidates it at a high enough DC. Make the DC at least equal to the Horse's Will defense.

2) Nature check to convince the horse to do it, I'd put the DC higher than that of the Intimidate check.

3) Blinds the horse and spurs it. Of course, the horse will fall, not jump.

Have you tried convincing him to stick his horse in a bag of holding and jumping?

edit: The two checks should be IMPOSSIBLE without training and hard with training. So if the player is trained in either skill, make the DC equal to the player's check -3 or so. If the player isn't trained, make the check equal to the player's maximum check +2 (ie: impossible to do alone)

In addition, if the player fails his/her check the horse tries to throw them off and run away.

[Kurald Galain]

Just wondering, what would you do if one of your players wanted to jump his horse off a 90 foot cliff?

The mount bucks and throws him off. Horses aren't that stupid.

[evirus]

If he's not ON the horse, roll initiative.

If he is... figure out what he's trying to accomplish and rule from there.

[Doug Lampert]

The mount bucks and throws him off. Horses aren't that stupid.

Well, tries to. Nature is used for Handle Animal, so I'd use the nature skill for the check to try this.

The horse is what, level 1 or 3 depending on type. Staying on should be Hard for a character of the horse's level. So either way DC 15 to stay on the horse, getting the horse to actually go over the cliff? I'd say that's much worse, but if he makes a DC of 25 on the handle animal roll then I'd say he not only stays on but the horse goes with him.

Staying on top of the horse when it hits the ground? Beats me, but I'll bet having 1600lb or so of horse land on top of you is bad. Since I have a sick sense of humor that's what happens if he rolls exactly 25 on his nature roll, and I'd let him know this AFTER he says what he's doing and PRIOR to rolling the dice, more fun for everyone.

DougL

Edit to add: I haven't had anyone do anything as stupid as jump a horse off a cliff in a long time, stunts and misuse of minions and prisoners, yes, that sort of thing, no. I maintain that things like "the horse may well land on you" is part of why people don't do that sort of ****. Unlike divine intervention it's a perfectly reasonable and likely consequence of the action and the action is clearly something "the rules don't cover".

[Sipex]

This sounds like it's going to be an interesting character death.

Level 3 elven ranger - Crushed by a horse after falling off a cliff with it.

[Oracle_Hunter]

I'd probably give the horse a Saving Throw to see if it could stop itself from being moved into Obviously Hazardous Terrain.

If it succeeded, it would fall prone at the edge of the cliff.

If it failed, then I'd roll 9d10 and apply the damage to both the Horse and the PC. If the Horse survives, it lands prone at the bottom of the cliff. If the Horse does not, then it is killed outright.

Adjudicate damage to the PC as normal.

* * * *
OK, now I have to ask - why is this even a question? Aside from the Saving Throw bit, it's straight-up RAW. If this is a question about whether to follow the rules or not, the answer is "follow the rules - the Player is committed to doing something stupid and should experience the fallout."

[Gillric]

Needless to say I was not the DM, and I was rather opposed to how the DM handled it. I am also not the one jumping the horse off a cliff. Just wanted to find out how other DMs would handle the situation.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Needless to say I was not the DM, and I was rather opposed to how the DM handled it. I am also not the one jumping the horse off a cliff. Just wanted to find out how other DMs would handle the situation.

Well, how did the DM handle it? And what did you find objectionable?

[Lord Vampyre]

This depends on how long he has had the horse. Only a highly trained horse that trusted its rider, would even consider doing such a thing.

Thus, he would need to make a difficult skill check to succeed. Failing that, another moderate skill check, to not go over by himself.

[Doug Lampert]

I'd probably give the horse a Saving Throw to see if it could stop itself from being moved into Obviously Hazardous Terrain.

Why? The horse ISN'T being forced to move. And that save is against forced movement. Since the horse isn't being forced to move, then if it's smart enough to resist being moved into Obviously Hazardous Terrain it simply doesn't do it.

Mounts are USUALLY cooperative with their rider, but it's still the mount's movement, not the rider's. I can't see how the forced movement rules can POSSIBLY apply. Either the horse controls it's movement and gets to decide what to do (and doesn't go over the side baring the PC doing something to make it) or the rider has complete control of the horse's actions by virtue of sitting on it and can dictate that it tries to jump off the cliff (in which case this isn't forced and the horse doesn't get a save).

If it succeeded, it would fall prone at the edge of the cliff.

If it failed, then I'd roll 9d10 and apply the damage to both the Horse and the PC. If the Horse survives, it lands prone at the bottom of the cliff. If the Horse does not, then it is killed outright.

Adjudicate damage to the PC as normal.

* * * *
OK, now I have to ask - why is this even a question? Aside from the Saving Throw bit, it's straight-up RAW. If this is a question about whether to follow the rules or not, the answer is "follow the rules - the Player is committed to doing something stupid and should experience the fallout."

Where do the rules say that a mount will do absolutely anything a rider tells them to?

[valadil]

Where do the rules say that a mount will do absolutely anything a rider tells them to?

The damage is straightforward. How effectively the mount resists and whether the rider stays with the mount are up to the GM.

[Doug Lampert]

The damage is straightforward. How effectively the mount resists and whether the rider stays with the mount are up to the GM.

So you agree with me? Typically posts are followups to something they disagree with or contain a definite statement of disagreement. But that's 100% in agreement with what I said.

[Sipex]

Let's not turn this into another arguement, I want to see what actually happened before the thread gets locked.

Plus we have enough arguements on these forums nowadays.

I would say it's something completely up to the DM since there aren't rules in place for it. As a DM you'd have to make an arbitration.

[valadil]

So you agree with me? Typically posts are followups to something they disagree with or contain a definite statement of disagreement. But that's 100% in agreement with what I said.

I choose to be atypical.

The post was clarification of several previous posts but I didn't quote them all. Apologies if I thought I was targeting your post explicitly. It looked like you disagreed with Oracle questioning why this question was being asked. I was trying to clarify what I thought Oracle_Hunter meant, which was that the damage should not be questioned. In retrospect I should have included his quotation as well as yours.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Where do the rules say that a mount will do absolutely anything a rider tells them to?

As I said, the RAW on mount reaction is limited at best. Better to do a quick adjudication to a not-important act than to turn it into a Skill Challenge.

Also:

Actions (Adventurers Only): An adventurer and his or her mount have one combined set of actions: a standard action, a move action, and a minor action. The player chooses how the two creatures use the actions on the adventurer’s turn. Most commonly, the mount takes a move action to walk or fly, and the adventurer takes a standard action to attack. The adventurer and the mount also share a single immediate action each round and a single opportunity action each turn. If the adventurer dismounts, the two still share one set of actions on that turn, but have separate sets of actions thereafter.

Emphasis mine.

No, it doesn't says mounts always do what they're rider tells them, but in the case of movement it seems that Players get to choose how the rider acts as long as the PC is mounted on it.

[Gillric]

Well the DM let him just jump, horse's free will not accounted for. Also, somehow he reduced the falling damage by 2d10 for sliding down a sheer wall........

[Drglenn]

Horse stops suddenly at/near edge of cliff, he makes a saving throw: if he passes he falls prone off the horse at the edge of the cliff, if he fails he takes full falling damage and lands prone at bottom of cliff (probably killing him).

Also he gets an OOC slap from whoever's sitting nearest to him at the table