So, I was about to join a campaign, and I want to make a person who rides an elephant, preferably a Bard or something. Now, would being up on my elephant count as distance? For example:
Assume I have a short bow. Shoots McAhoots is on his elephant, which is right next to the target. Would I have disadvantage for attacking him? Could I reach?
Now, would being up on my elephant count as distance?
Yes.
For example: Assume I have a short bow. Shoots McAhoots is on his elephant, which is right next to the target. Would I have disadvantage for attacking him? Could I reach?
Depends on how tall your elephant is and how tall your target is. If you're shooting a gnome, you're probably more than 5 feet away vertically. If you're shooting an ogre, it's going to be about as tall as an average elephant, so if it's right next to your elephant, it's also right next to you.
I thought the Mount and Rider share the same space, and therefore it would be as if there was no distance?
You're not sharing the same space. You're still a medium creature occupying a 5x5 space somewhere atop the 15x15 space your huge mount occupies. You don't magically meld your spaces together. A wolf at ground level obviously can't reach you at that height.
Consider riding a mount to be equivalent to Levitate, Fly, or hopping on a Tenser's Disk.
You do not, as per the PHB, occupy the same space as another object so you would have to view your character as being in the next available 5ft space vertically from the mount.
Given that the elephant is considered huge, it would be a 15x15 creature, that means it would take up 3 square vertically. You would be in the forth square 20ft in the air.
Using the Pythagorean Theorem you can figure out how far away you are from a creature since you know 2 distances.
It is worth noting that the commonly used war elephant of Africa and the Mediterranean was the African fresh elephant which is a smaller species than either the Indian elephant, used in Asia, or the African bush elephant. The forest elephant was also more easily trained than the bush elephant. The Romans are reported to have brought elephants with them on their conquest of Britain.
You do not, as per the PHB, occupy the same space as another object so you would have to view your character as being in the next available 5ft space vertically from the mount.
Given that the elephant is considered huge, it would be a 15x15 creature, that means it would take up 3 square vertically. You would be in the forth square 20ft in the air.
There's no rules reason why you'd need to work in 5 foot vertical increments. You don't have to work in 5 foot increments unless you're choosing to use a grid as a visual aid. Even in that case you'll notice that:
The game's rules only define a creature's space as a 2D area.
The height of creatures within the same size category can vary drastically. A dwarf and a goliath both control a 5x5 horizontal space but one's 4 feet tall and the other 8, and both are only about 1 foot tall when knocked prone.
A grid is utterly useless in the third dimension. You can't add grid lines to thin air.
Even if you stick to 5 foot vertical increments, the real distances between things at different heights won't fall into neat 5 foot increments and trying to apply the 5/10 diagonal rule in 3D with no visual aids is going to be...challenging.
So once you add a vertical component to combat things get complicated and abstractions like size categories start to break down. At that point you either start approximating distances for the sake of speed or you really commit to taking creature heights and anatomy into account if you want precision. That's a decision each group's going to have to make for themselves.
The intent behind the rules is that you're X feet away from me if any part of you is X feet away from any part of me.
The five foot grid proves itself an abstraction even more when you consider "tiny" creatures. A spider controls the same 5 foot square and has the same 5 foot reach as that 8 foot Goliath. The forest elephant rarely exceeds about 8 feet tall, a large bush elephant may reach 13 feet, so our elephant rider is not going to be 20 feet off the ground in any case. AFIK the rules don't take the exact height a horse rider is off the ground into account, so I wouldn't worry about it for an elephant rider either. 5e is not a detailed game in that respect. If you really want that kind of precision in your games don't use a gridded battle mat, use moo scale miniatures and rulers on the tabletop instead. Then you can trace the exact line of fire and get the true range.
For simplicity in the case of our elephant rider I would not consider a combatant in the square adjacent to the elephant to give the rider disadvantage on missile attacks unless the enemy was larger than size medium or armed with a weapon giving more than a 5 foot reach. KISS. Melee combat between the rider and the groundling would be at disadvantage for both, excepting larger size for the groundling or long reach weapons.Just the way I would do it. I see this as a heroic rather than a strictly realistic game.
My party does combat on a battle grid. We have those neat little elevation platforms like Matt Mercer uses. They help a lot. All of that being said, InquisitiveCoder is right. 3D combat is a pain in the ass and necessarily requires a good bit of hand-waiving on the part of the DM to keep everything moving and everything fun.
You want to ride an elephant. I think that is pretty cool. I would suggest you and your DM figure out what feels right and just go with it. You're definitely in house rules territory here.
pythagoras was an old mathematician who made a formula to be able to measure any type of lenght by using a triangle. all you need is the height, and the length. this way you can calculate the diagonal line.
a² + b² = c²
so lets say a is the height. which is 9 meters. b is the length which is 12 meters.
you, the player. are at the top of the vertical line a. your opponent is at the end of horizontal line b
this would mean that the diagonal line between you is equal to the square root of 9² + 12 ².
9² + 12 ²is equal to 225.
then you take the square root of that. which is 15.
your opponent is 15 feet away from you
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So, I was about to join a campaign, and I want to make a person who rides an elephant, preferably a Bard or something. Now, would being up on my elephant count as distance? For example:
Assume I have a short bow. Shoots McAhoots is on his elephant, which is right next to the target. Would I have disadvantage for attacking him? Could I reach?
Yes.
Depends on how tall your elephant is and how tall your target is. If you're shooting a gnome, you're probably more than 5 feet away vertically. If you're shooting an ogre, it's going to be about as tall as an average elephant, so if it's right next to your elephant, it's also right next to you.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Why?
I thought the Mount and Rider share the same space, and therefore it would be as if there was no distance?
Just asking for some clarification, and maybe someone else’s opinion.
You're not sharing the same space. You're still a medium creature occupying a 5x5 space somewhere atop the 15x15 space your huge mount occupies. You don't magically meld your spaces together. A wolf at ground level obviously can't reach you at that height.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Consider riding a mount to be equivalent to Levitate, Fly, or hopping on a Tenser's Disk.
You do not, as per the PHB, occupy the same space as another object so you would have to view your character as being in the next available 5ft space vertically from the mount.
Given that the elephant is considered huge, it would be a 15x15 creature, that means it would take up 3 square vertically. You would be in the forth square 20ft in the air.
Using the Pythagorean Theorem you can figure out how far away you are from a creature since you know 2 distances.
Hmm... what’s the Pythagorean Theorem?
To figure out the length of the sides of a right triangle: A squared + B squared = C squared
Your height from the ground (as 5ft squares) = A squared
Distance between your target and the square below you on the ground (as 5ft squares) = B squared
Distance from you to your target = C squared
From there you get the square root of C and you have the number of squares between you and your target. It's a classic Geometry/Algebra formula.
Oh! This should help! Thank you!
It is worth noting that the commonly used war elephant of Africa and the Mediterranean was the African fresh elephant which is a smaller species than either the Indian elephant, used in Asia, or the African bush elephant. The forest elephant was also more easily trained than the bush elephant. The Romans are reported to have brought elephants with them on their conquest of Britain.
There's no rules reason why you'd need to work in 5 foot vertical increments. You don't have to work in 5 foot increments unless you're choosing to use a grid as a visual aid. Even in that case you'll notice that:
So once you add a vertical component to combat things get complicated and abstractions like size categories start to break down. At that point you either start approximating distances for the sake of speed or you really commit to taking creature heights and anatomy into account if you want precision. That's a decision each group's going to have to make for themselves.
The intent behind the rules is that you're X feet away from me if any part of you is X feet away from any part of me.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
The five foot grid proves itself an abstraction even more when you consider "tiny" creatures. A spider controls the same 5 foot square and has the same 5 foot reach as that 8 foot Goliath. The forest elephant rarely exceeds about 8 feet tall, a large bush elephant may reach 13 feet, so our elephant rider is not going to be 20 feet off the ground in any case. AFIK the rules don't take the exact height a horse rider is off the ground into account, so I wouldn't worry about it for an elephant rider either. 5e is not a detailed game in that respect. If you really want that kind of precision in your games don't use a gridded battle mat, use moo scale miniatures and rulers on the tabletop instead. Then you can trace the exact line of fire and get the true range.
For simplicity in the case of our elephant rider I would not consider a combatant in the square adjacent to the elephant to give the rider disadvantage on missile attacks unless the enemy was larger than size medium or armed with a weapon giving more than a 5 foot reach. KISS. Melee combat between the rider and the groundling would be at disadvantage for both, excepting larger size for the groundling or long reach weapons.Just the way I would do it. I see this as a heroic rather than a strictly realistic game.
My party does combat on a battle grid. We have those neat little elevation platforms like Matt Mercer uses. They help a lot. All of that being said, InquisitiveCoder is right. 3D combat is a pain in the ass and necessarily requires a good bit of hand-waiving on the part of the DM to keep everything moving and everything fun.
You want to ride an elephant. I think that is pretty cool. I would suggest you and your DM figure out what feels right and just go with it. You're definitely in house rules territory here.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
pythagoras was an old mathematician who made a formula to be able to measure any type of lenght by using a triangle. all you need is the height, and the length. this way you can calculate the diagonal line.
a² + b² = c²
so lets say a is the height. which is 9 meters.
b is the length which is 12 meters.
you, the player. are at the top of the vertical line a. your opponent is at the end of horizontal line b
this would mean that the diagonal line between you is equal to the square root of 9² + 12 ².
9² + 12 ²is equal to 225.
then you take the square root of that. which is 15.
your opponent is 15 feet away from you