So, I am planning on using the Cav. class as a BBEG in an upcoming adventure. I was reviewing mounted combat with a friend of mine. The question is: If the horse has the feat trample, and the Cav has ride by attack and spirited charge, do all of them apply in each charging pass the guy makes? Can the horse trample the poor schlep thats about to get knocked around by the knight?
So, I am planning on using the Cav. class as a BBEG in an upcoming adventure. I was reviewing mounted combat with a friend of mine. The question is: If the horse has the feat trample, and the Cav has ride by attack and spirited charge, do all of them apply in each charging pass the guy makes? Can the horse trample the poor schlep thats about to get knocked around by the knight?
The key is to look at what all of the feats do. Ride-By Attack lets you keep moving after a charge attack. Spirited Charge increases the damage done by the charge attack. It's fairly obvious that you can use these two at the same time when you're performing a charge.
Now, Trample makes things a bit more complicated. Basically it gives you a special benefit when you decide to overrun someone while mounted. They can't choose to avoid you, and your mount gets to make a free hoof attack (wonder what happens if your mount doesn't have hooves?). It's also worth noting that your mount isn't eligible to take Trample, since that's something that the rider takes.
Overrun is kind of weird for a combat maneuver. The first part says:
As a standard action, taken during your move or as part of a charge, you can attempt to overrun your target, moving through its square.
So you can use overrun in conjunction with a charge attack. You're allowed to run over people while charging towards your target, and if you do well enough on the check you knock them prone. The weird thing here is that it doesn't take an action to do this if it's done as part of a charge (since a charge by default is a full-round action), which seems to mean you can try to overrun as many people as are in your way during a charge on the way to your target.
Now with Ride-By Attack, you move through the charge attack target's square to continue your movement and run away. That means you can definitely make an overrun and subsequently use Trample on the charge's target as you pass through their square.
It's also interesting to note that it seems like you can use Improved Overrun and Greater Overrun while mounted. It's not immediately clear whether you or your mount needs to have those two feats for them to be effective.
To sum it up, yes. You can use those three feats together when you make a charge. But the key here is that one leads to another. You make a Ride-By Attack, which is a hit-and-run charge. You charge up to someone, and can make overrun (and trample) attacks against anyone along the way. If any of the overruns fail, you stop your movement and your charge is interrupted. If you make it to the charge's target, you can make a Spirited Charge attack which deals double damage (triple with a lance). Then you move through the enemy's square, allowing you to make a free overrun attack (with the benefits of Trample if you have it) and can run away without provoking an attack of opportunity. Note that while Ride-By Attack says you don't provoke attacks of opportunity for moving through the space threatened by the enemy, you DO still provoke an attack of opportunity for making an overrun attack unless you or possibly your mount have the Improved Overrun feat.
You might also want to think about the Unseat feat, since it lets you toss a free bull rush on top of a mounted charge attack. Seriously, mounted combat is all about charges with lances. It's the only way to really play it. All the feats and special options do stuff with charges.
Thanks for the reply and confirmation on how it works. The bbeg will not be using a lance. I want to whip up on them some, but I think the lance would be a bit much. I just want to knock them about for a bit. You know, soften them up a little.
I don't mean to necromancy this thread, but I have a similar question. We've got a new player in the group who is playing a cavalier and we are trying to figure out how everything works for him. First off, he's got ride-by attack, trample, spirited charge, and charge through, as well as the cavalier 11th level ability that lets him get a free combat maneuver check vs their target.
So best we can figure is if he charges, charge through allows him to overrun someone between him and his target, trample allows his mount to get a hoof hit on that target. The question for this part is, who has to make the overrun check? The mount or the cavalier? Does the cavalier need the charge through feat to keep going or does his mount? Which one is technically charging here?
Continuing on with his action, he then can continue his charge to his target, hits him for triple damage (lance + spirited charge), and then get a free CMB check to sunder/trip, etc. Then he rides away due to ride-by attack. He then turns around and does the whole routine again next turn.
Since the mount is making the movement it is the one making that Charge, as a result it also needs to have the feat.
That seems to make sense intrinsically, but the fact that cavalier seems to be able to apply his class abilities when his mount is charging doesn't make much sense to me if that's the case.
I'm still troubled:
...You must have a clear path toward the opponent, and nothing can hinder your movement (such as difficult terrain or obstacles). You must move to the closest space from which you can attack the opponent. If this space is occupied or otherwise blocked, you can’t charge. If any line from your starting space to the ending space passes through a square that blocks movement, slows movement, or contains a creature (even an ally), you can’t charge. Helpless creatures don’t stop a charge.
Seems like you can't have any obstructions in your path
As a standard action, taken during your move or as part of a charge, you can attempt to overrun your target, moving through its square....
RAI - to me, says, the opponent your attacking (ie. the Ogre; NOT the goblins running around the battle ground.
When you attempt to overrun a target, it can choose to avoid you, allowing you to pass through its square without requiring an attack....
I can see this working if all the underlings avoid you and allow you to attack the ogre, otherwise, whichever goblin gets in your way becomes you target.
Thoughts?
This is dicey, and I've gone rounds in other threads about this stuff. Bear in mind that the rules are sometimes misleading with their use of pronouns: "you" usually refers to both the player and pc, because the distinction rarely matters; however, when "you" are playing two characters (i.e., the pc and the mount), take care to determine which party any given rule or feat pertains to. Master Drow has the right of it. Overrun is performed by whichever party is using its move action. If mounted, the mount uses its move action and so performs the Overrun maneuver, not the rider. The same is true for Charge Through, as it is the mount performing the charge. Some vehemently disagree with this, even though said detractors have to essentially make up rules and read between the lines to make it so. What makes Trample special is that, specifically, the rider takes the feat. Look carefully through the pertinent sections in the rules. They are surprisingly short and simple, even though they are often criticized for being complicated, and clarifications from devs are posted all over these forums. I believe the main complication stems from the fact that most players intuitively want to treat the rider and mount as a seamless unit, so they are relunctant to read and follow the rules as written because they simply don't feel right.
I've seen this go back and forth a few times. My best advice is to google "Rules of the Game Mounted Combat" and review the articles there. It's a comprehensive article and one that I don't think has yet to have been replicated anywhere in terms of both depth and quality.
The basic concept behind it is that the rider and the mount "act as one." It simplifies a number of rules questions and quandaries.
It doesn't solve every issue, but it does go a way towards it.
It's my hope that Paizo eventually adopts an "act as one" baseline when working with the mounted combat rules. It would need some exploration and refinement, but as a baseline and means of streamlining, it works well.
Skip's article is an excellent reference, though one must translate the 3.5 wording to Pathfinder. It does indeed obviate many perceived quandaries. They are not alternate rules, however, as all the "act as one" stuff is consistent with the rules as written in Pathfinder. The way he explains Overrun, for example, supports the reading both Drow and I espouse. That is to say, it seems that Pathfinder has already adopted this "act as one" baseline, but many players want them to "act even more as one." Mostly, it's common for players to want to use their pc's Feats when mounted on their store-bought mounts, which would somewhat nerf the benefits of gaining a Special Mount who gains Feats as per the Animal Companion rules.
First to be clear pf mounted combat rules make my head hurt but here goes. Im of the opinion that the intent is for most mounted combat feats to have the rider making the decisions and thus using his skills. When the rules where written onl 3 classes could get an ac and of those 3 one is likely to not bother.
I would asume the bulk of creatures ride normal horses which would make mounted combat impossible if the horse needed the feats.
However the actual raw is a hirrid mess.
So, you would use the rider's CMB for maneuvers even when s/he has no actual physical contact with target? The actual RAW really is much more straight forward than you seem to think. How many times do the devs have to essentially repeat the rules in all caps before we believe them?
Yes, because otherwise If i am doing core only and not playing a Paladin, ranger or a Druid then i would be wholly incapable of doing any mounted combat.
And no the raw is (expletive) horrible, Its explained poorly They have parts of mounted combat not actually listed under mounted combat etc. I have no idea if i am correct. What i was simply stating is that, a Fighter with no Animal companion and just using the core rulebook is basically unable to do mounted combat if you assume your mount needs the feats. Because unless hes high level with a magic cohort mount his mount cant get them.
With a decent Ride skill, you can do plenty with a war-trained mount. You still get the +1 against medium creatures for "higher ground," all the abilities listed under the Ride and Handle Animal skills are available, and you still have a great advantage in the open field. Your mount doesn't have Improved Overrun? At least you can still avoid the AoO on a Ride check. Those are nice options. A Special Mount is available via feats or character classes, and are "paid for" with character creation resources. Why should an animal bought on the open market for a few hundred gp be as effective as the Special Mount that is meant to be "special" and accounted for in the cost of the character? You may as well suggest that everyone should be able to use wands. Do you believe it's unbalancing as is or just difficult to understand? It's just a few sentences of rules. Where is the ambiguity? Specific examples would help.
That said, it sure would be nice if everything we needed to know about mounted combat were in one place. The Skip Williams articles previously linked are the closest thing we have to that. Luckily, they are fairly easy to understand. YMMV.