Wartrain Mount Spell

[andreww]

OK, I have this issue coming up in a game shortly and I wanted to check and see what people thought.

I have a hunter with a large constrictor snake animal companion. He is likely to be casting the spell Wartrain Mount on it. The spell gives the targeted animal the Combat training general purpose.

Combat training says:

Quote:

Combat Training (DC 20): An animal trained to bear a rider into combat knows the tricks attack, come, defend, down, guard, and heel. Training an animal for combat riding takes 6 weeks. You may also “upgrade” an animal trained for riding to one trained for combat by spending 3 weeks and making a successful DC 20 Handle Animal check. The new general purpose and tricks completely replace the animal's previous purpose and any tricks it once knew. Many horses and riding dogs are trained in this way.

The player intends to use this to allow him to ride his snake into combat as a mount.

My question is this, do people think that the spell turns an AC which could not normally be used as a mount into one that can?

[dragonhunterq]

No, it only does what it says it does. It doesn't make any changes to the animal, it just changes what tricks that animal knows.

If this changed the snake into a ride-able animal, just combat training the snake would do the same thing, but permanently.

It's usually a pretty bad idea to cast this on an AC, who should have the key tricks already, not to mention you'd lose attack 2. It really is a spell to cast on an untrained animal if you somehow lose access to your usual combat trained mount.

[Claxon]

The spell just make him combat trained. It doesn't change anything physically about the animal companion. If the snake can't be ridden (and I'm not sure why, too small?) then he still can't be ridden after the casting.

But now the snake will obey orders in combat better.

The spell is basically meant to deal with getting a new animal companion before you've had time to properly train it with handle animal. Like when your old animal companion dies unexpectedly.

[Mighty Squash]

The spell is good for Vermin companions, as they lack the INT to learn combat training the normal way and share spells gets around the animal type only restriction. But for a regular animal companion it should not be giving anything that the creature is not already trained for.

The rules are not clear on what makes an appropriate mount, a constrictor seems wrong as a mount regardless the training but in most cases it may really just be up to the GM.