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I had a recent D&D meet where a player cast hold person on a soldier who was riding on a giant vulture. The question then arose as to whether the soldier would fall off the vulture and plummet to the floor.
So the general question is, if a rider of any sort is paralyzed, will they fall off their mount?
The only situations given for forceful dismounts are:
If an effect moves your mount against its will while you're on it, you must succeed on a DC 10 Dexterity saving throw or fall off the mount, landing prone in a space within 5 feet of it. If you're knocked prone while mounted, you must make the same saving throw.
If your mount is knocked prone, you can use your reaction to dismount it as it falls and land on your feet. Otherwise, you are dismounted and fall prone in a space within 5 feet it.
The only thing you can do directly to the rider to forcefully dismount them is to prone them and hope that they fail the DC 10 Dexterity saving throw.
However, it's worth noting that a paralyzed, petrified, stunned, or unconscious rider will automatically fail that Dexterity saving throw if you prone them or if you move the mount against it's will.
Besides the good RAW rules that you've received, I'd say as a DM that my rulling would be based on the kind of saddle used by the rider. Some saddles may have some sort of harness/support to prevent you from falling (at the expense of making it slightly slower to mount/dismount). Most saddles would be like regular horse saddles (where you hold yourself from the feet and hands... note however that it's relatively hard to release yourself accidentally from stirrups even in those).
So, would a saddle on a flying mount would have some kind of harness/seatbelt? given on the danger of falling I'd say that those are more common there, especially if these are troops that fight only from the air (if they use the mount only as transportation, or even without a saddle, I'd say instead that they don't have that benefit)
The spell Hold Person causes the condition "paralyzed", which itself causes the condition "incapacitated". An incapacitated creature cannot take an action. Since staying upon a mount does not require an action, it would follow that the rider would NOT fall off the mount if paralyzed.
