mounted animal companion (aka bear rides me)


Pathfinder Society

Shadow Lodge 4/5

So I had a silly idea for a pfs character. A druid that wildshapes into a horse/tiger/whatever mount. An animal companion, 3 int to be able to put ranks in any skill. Takes ride, mounted combat, spirited charge etc. Animal companion rides druid into battle, negating attacks on his mount master with his ride skill.
I'm picturing an ape riding a tiger, evolved companion to get pounce so mount and rider can charge and full attack together. Probably with 4 levels of monk, boon companion and shaping focus to make up for multiclassing, dragon style to always be able to charge.

Is being taught to ride too much of a stretch of the animal's abilities? The FAQ does say it's assumed an animal can use its feats with handle animal, and int3 says an animal companion can take any skill so it seems legit, but I still feel like it might irk some GMs so I wanted test the waters as it were before committing.

2/5

Evolved Companion isn't legal, so ya know. Otherwise I'd say it probably works but leads to a bit of oddness in that the mount acts on the rider's initiative so you'd be using your animal companion's initiative.

Sczarni 5/5 5/55/5 ***

This is one occasion where I'd happily execute my rights as a GM to control the actions of your NPC Animal Companion ;-)

Shadow Lodge 4/5

Aw shucks, no pouncing monkey, I thought I looked at it and it was legal, but I must have misread that. Does the mount act on the rider's initiative or the animal companion act on the master's initiative? hmm, yeah I was wondering about that one too. A lot of animal companions have a high dex mod so that may be advantageous if you get to use the animals initiative.

Also, ape or such seems reasonable that it could ride much like a human does, but what about other types of animals?

@Nefreet and this is where I was wondering at GM reactions. I mean, it's mostly for humor value, whilst still being a highly effective combatant, but it could also lend itself to GMs screwing with me just because they feel they can (or feel I'm asking for it?).

Sczarni 5/5 5/55/5 ***

3 people marked this as a favorite.

Any amount of GM-screwing-with-ness is certainly subject to table variation, but usually varies proportionately with the perceived amount of player-screwing-with-ness.

Grand Lodge 4/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Another question: Can a medium sized cavalier take Undersized Mount and piggyback on the party barbarian as a mount?
Most barbarians could carry a fullplate wearing human cavalier with a lance and heavy steel shield and still be comfortably running around on a medium load.
We have already established precedent that bipedal mounts are fine thanks to the Society's love of Axebeaks.
The Barbarian could then gain from the Cavalier's Mounted Combat feat taking the pain away from their bad AC.
The Cavalier would benefit from a mount that is wayyyy harder to kill.

...

This is the logical stupid conclusion of the Undersized Mount feat so let's just go full gonzo and save everyone some time.

Grand Lodge 3/5

KestlerGunner wrote:

Another question: Can a medium sized cavalier take Undersized Mount and piggyback on the party barbarian as a mount?

Most barbarians could carry a fullplate wearing human cavalier with a lance and heavy steel shield and still be comfortably running around on a medium load.
We have already established precedent that bipedal mounts are fine thanks to the Society's love of Axebeaks.
The Barbarian could then gain from the Cavalier's Mounted Combat feat taking the pain away from their bad AC.
The Cavalier would benefit from a mount that is wayyyy harder to kill.

...

This is the logical stupid conclusion of the Undersized Mount feat so let's just go full gonzo and save everyone some time.

I would love to charge into battle with another physical fighter on my Barbarian's back..... Sounds fun!

Shadow Lodge 4/5

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Ooh, and can you stack them up? Assuming each person down the stack has strength high enough to carry everyone on top... now I'm picturing a party of 4 halflings standing on each others shoulders, all of them holding lances.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

Nefreet wrote:
This is one occasion where I'd happily execute my rights as a GM to control the actions of your NPC Animal Companion ;-)

When the animal has an int of 3 the right no longer exists.

4/5 *

Animal companions are NPCs, not PCs. Thus, GM override is in effect, no matter how smart they are. (Although the GM is bound to play the NPC by its stats, intelligence, etc.)

Grand Lodge 3/5

gnoams wrote:
Ooh, and can you stack them up? Assuming each person down the stack has strength high enough to carry everyone on top... now I'm picturing a party of 4 halflings standing on each others shoulders, all of them holding lances.

Muleback Cords and a Heavy load belt should do the trick....

Shadow Lodge 4/5

I'm going to have to make this an NPC for some game. A stack of gnomes disguised/illusion to look like one ogre or some such. A sohei monk with snake style riding an oracle riding a rogue riding a skald or bard. The top three with mounted combat to protect each other down the stack, the skald with bodyguard to send the protection back up. The rogue with gang up to always get sneak attack.

4/5

This thread is almost as hilarious as the Succubus in a Grapple thread.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
KestlerGunner wrote:

Another question: Can a medium sized cavalier take Undersized Mount and piggyback on the party barbarian as a mount?

Most barbarians could carry a fullplate wearing human cavalier with a lance and heavy steel shield and still be comfortably running around on a medium load.
We have already established precedent that bipedal mounts are fine thanks to the Society's love of Axebeaks.
The Barbarian could then gain from the Cavalier's Mounted Combat feat taking the pain away from their bad AC.
The Cavalier would benefit from a mount that is wayyyy harder to kill.

...

This is the logical stupid conclusion of the Undersized Mount feat so let's just go full gonzo and save everyone some time.

You won't save anyone one lick of time. Because no matter how this question is answered, some wag will be repeating it on a regular basis.

Because stupid threads never die... they just get reborn.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

GM Lamplighter wrote:

Animal companions are NPCs, not PCs. Thus, GM override is in effect, no matter how smart they are. (Although the GM is bound to play the NPC by its stats, intelligence, etc.)

Not according to Ultimate Campaign.


GM Lamplighter wrote:

Animal companions are NPCs, not PCs. Thus, GM override is in effect, no matter how smart they are. (Although the GM is bound to play the NPC by its stats, intelligence, etc.)

PRD wrote:
Sentient Companions: A sentient companion (a creature that can understand language and has an Intelligence score of at least 3) is considered your ally and obeys your suggestions and orders to the best of its ability. It won't necessarily blindly follow a suicidal order, but it has your interests at heart and does what it can to keep you alive. Paladin bonded mounts, familiars, and cohorts fall into this category, and are usually player-controlled companions.

5/5 5/55/5 ** Venture-Captain, Germany—Hamburg

As riding isn't within most animals' natural behavior, I would definitely have the druid handle his companion, which should involve giving the companion a trick that lets the companion ride.
Since an animal companion gets lots of bonus tricks and the extra point of Int grants an additional 3 tricks, this shouldn't be much of an issue (also, most druids have enough Handle Animal to hit a 10 even on a natural 1). But sometimes people forget their animal companions need the tricks, otherwise it's a DC 20 and a move action to push the animal (and that's for a companion, normal animals require a move to handle and a full-round to push).

Other than that, I see no problem with a character-riding animal companion. At Int 3+, it's able to put ranks in any skills it's physically able to use and may select any feats it's physically able to use.

2/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Am I the only one who read the title of this thread and immediately thought "In Soviet Russia, bear rides you." ???

4/5

The character-riding companion is likely going to need to take Undersized Mount, but assuming you've taught it the necessary trick (assuming the trick is Society-legal) to ride you, it probably could be done.

Shadow Lodge 4/5

Whiskey Jack wrote:
Am I the only one who read the title of this thread and immediately thought "In Soviet Russia, bear rides you." ???

The character concept in my head was a human from Irrisen, just so I could say that.

As far as I understand, the FAQ on animal companions says an animal companion can use any of its feats (with a handle animal check), so if the animal has the mounted combat feat, that seems to me it should have no problems with needing additional tricks to mount up or ride or whatever.

And yeah, you'd need either need undersized mount or have to wait until level 6 to be able to wildshape large. Or you could go with something like a panda. Starts small then gets medium at level 7.

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