tonyz wrote:
Read the Ride skill carefully -- there are lots of things people can do. (don't forget about armor check penalties applying to Ride).
A Cavalier on his bonded mount gets to ignore armor check penalties to Ride.
Mounted Combat is a bit of a mess. It's best to talk with your player beforehand and come to an agreement on how things work. Anything you're really unsure about is likely to be just as unclear on the forums. So doing things the way they work for your group is about as good as you're going to get.
Here's my run down of most of the contested or confusing rules:
Charging while mounted. FAQ Basically, all the restrictions that apply when charging on foot apply when charging on a mount: No Charge + Vital Strike. Contention: ALL RESTRICTIONS apply when charging while mounted, and some people contend that it's a move action to use Handle Animal to instruct it to attack instead of a free action to guide the mount, so you can never charge unless you're a cavalier. This shouldn't apply to your PC if he's a cavalier since it's a bonded mount and even Handle Animal commands are free actions if they're trained tricks.
Charging, when does it end? I rule the charge ends when the PC attacks (unless he has Ride by Attack.) So, if he's using a lance and his mount doesn't have reach his mount won't get to attack and the charge stops 10' away. Some people argue that your mount will charge until it hits the enemy and the PC takes his attack on the way in. Feel free to choose which rule to use. Controversy: If you stop when you attack, not when the mount attacks, this makes it an invalid charge so your mount can't charge when you have a reach weapon.
Charge Lanes, what's the "nearest square?" I think the currently mostly accepted RAW is that, when you charge, you HAVE to end up in the square most directly adjacent to your target. I.e. draw a line from the center of your square to the center of your enemy's square and you end up in the last square that line goes through. That means that 90% of the time the target is in your path and you can't move on with Ride By Attack. Even if, say, you're shifted by one square away from a straight line to the enemy. There may be some newer rules interpretations, like in Melee Tactics Toolkit or the new Rules cards that give you more flexibility over that, choosing any square that's adjacent to the enemy and not on the other side. I would suggest you make your own call on this, and let your player know, so that everyone will know whether Ride by Attack will happen very often or not.
Lance damage. Lances are special: You get 1.5 Str to damage and -1/+3 Power Attack damage even when you're holding them in one hand while mounted. Shield + Lance is very effective. Power Attack FAQ. The Two-Handed Weapon rule says "...Apply 1-1/2 times the character's Strength bonus to damage rolls for melee attacks with such a weapon." Every ability that allows you to use a larger weapon in one hand explicitly says "you only get 1 times your Str damage" except the lance which implies that you do get 1.5x Str with the lance. If you want to rule otherwise, let your player know.
Trample Feat Does your mount need the Improved Overrun feat to not draw an AoO? Whose CMB do you use? The rule of thumb I learned was "use the rider's numbers" when doing something mounted. But, again, that's a call you'll want to make if your player picks up this feat.
Ride Checks Just a reminder, but you do not auto fail skill checks on a natural 1. So once your PC has a +4 bonus to Ride, he won't need to make a roll to guide with his knees because he can't fail. But he will need to make a DC 10 Ride check to fight while mounted, or he spends the round trying to control his mount. I'd suggest both of you reading through the Ride and Handle Animal skills carefully. Also, you need to train the "Attack" trick twice if you want your mount to attack anything other than an animal, humanoid or magical beast.
Escape Route and adjacency Do a PC and a mount count as being adjacent? They share the same squares, so if they're adjacent Escape Route means they'll never take an AoO for movement. I don't think the forums have come to a consensus on that, and I'm not seeing a FAQ at first glance. You'll need to make a decision before your player spends resources on it or any similar feats.
I love playing mounted characters, it's a lot of fun. But there are a lot of undefined areas in the mounted combat rules. As long as you and your player are on the same page, which pretty much means you both trust the other not to screw you over, you shouldn't have a problem. But spending 10 minutes to come to an agreement on how this list works will go a long way to making sure everyone has fun. I'm sure there are unclear rules that I missed, so when you run into something that's unclear, I'd suggest you and your player talk it out and come to a ruling then stick with it. Don't worry too much about being right or wrong based on RAW or the forums, because 9 times out of 10 the forums will violently disagree on what RAW is.
Also, Howie23 has a great link to a series on how mounted combat worked in 3.5. It would be worth your time to read through that, if you're up to it.
<edit> Forgot one: Animal Companion archetypes from Animal Archives These, especially the mount related ones like Charger and Racer trade out Share Spells, but Cavalier mounts don't get Share Spells. The author mentioned on the forums somewhere that he meant for the archetypes to be available to Cavaliers and the requirement was an oversight. Your call on whether or not you want to allow them. </edit>
