Garitjax's page

I would advise for your Teamwork feat to select Lookout. If you get a Horsemaster's Saddle for your mount, and have your mount take the Bodyguard archetype, you can always act in a surprise round as long as you're within arms reach of your mount when initiative is called (which you should always be).

Alexandre Gayk-Lemay wrote:

I recommend increasing mount Int to 3 as soon as possible, so that it might gain access to Acrobatic Steps and Nimble Moves. These two feats will allow your mount to charge through up to 4 squares of difficult terrain. If you have access to Wheeling Charge, great and terrible things can be done this way.

Dude, Horseshoes of Zephyr are cheap and do the exact same thing except way better and you don't have to waste 2 feats and a stat bump on it.

Don't bother with 3 int, there isn't any real compelling reason.

Vital strike with a mount that has a powerful charge attack seems like it could be nice. IE a triceratops at mount lvl 7(20str) would have a gore attack on a charge that would deal 4d8+10 damage. If the mount is given power attack as well it would be 4d8+14 at the same level. Or combined with improved Natural attacks(Gore) it could do 6d8 with Vital strike. Improved vital strike would be late in the build but could offer as much as 9d8 from the mounts Gore.

It should also be noted that the companions version of powerful charge is not as strong as the wild animal version. A triceratops normal gore is 2d10 and a PC of 4d10 while the companion's gore is 2d6 with a PC of 2d8.

I think it should also be noted that the companion versions of the Rhino and Triceratops don't double their die on a powerful charge like their wild counterparts. Instead the just seem increase the dice size of the attack. IE, instead of going from 2d6 to 4d6 they go to 2d8 for companions. So the Megaloceros should likely have a powerful charge of 2d8+9 at level 7 as an animal companion/mount. This was probably done to try and limit the power of companions. That being said this thread is 5 years old so this may have been looked at already but it was the first thread I found in my research for my own Cavalier mount.