Im thinking about taking phantom steed for one of my 3rd level spells, and had a few questions about mounted combat in general, and how it would pertain to casting spells.
1.) when moving in combat mounted, when is moving considered vigorous, and when is it violent. It states a moving mount and a galloping mount. I'm thinking it means that moving would be move actions and galloping would be running or charging on the mount, but I'm not sure.
2.) when moving a mount, how does it affect your actions? if I move its standard movement (60ft) does that cost me a move action, or is the character free to do a full round action (such as summoning a monster or casting another 1 rd spell)? Could my mount attack an adjacent creature, move, and then could i cast a spell and still have a move action left?
3.) when riding a horse (or more appropriately a phantom steed)through a dungeon, can you squeeze through doorways and what obstacles would prevent me from navigation the dungeon? For example, can a horse go up and down stair cases? Obviously as I gain levels certain obstacles are by-passable, such as with water walk and flying, but for now, its just a normal phantom horse. My DM has a thing of making things difficult and I'd hate to cast one of my highest level spells with a 10 minute long cast time that lasts a 1/4th of the day to have to leave it because a mount is too unwieldy in the dungeon.
4.) any other good insights would be welcome. I'm trying to weigh the advantages of this spell and would like to make good use of this increased movement within combats for most of an adventure. Most of civilization in this campaign treats magic users as demon spawn, so walking into a mage guild or something to increase my spell capacity is not looking good, so I'm trying to make the most of my two wizard spells per level.
Thanks for any help
Im thinking about taking phantom steed for one of my 3rd level spells, and had a few questions about mounted combat in general, and how it would pertain to casting spells.
1.) when moving in combat mounted, when is moving considered vigorous, and when is it violent. It states a moving mount and a galloping mount. I'm thinking it means that moving would be move actions and galloping would be running or charging on the mount, but I'm not sure.
2.) when moving a mount, how does it affect your actions? if I move its standard movement (60ft) does that cost me a move action, or is the character free to do a full round action (such as summoning a monster or casting another 1 rd spell)? Could my mount attack an adjacent creature, move, and then could i cast a spell and still have a move action left?
3.) when riding a horse (or more appropriately a phantom steed)through a dungeon, can you squeeze through doorways and what obstacles would prevent me from navigation the dungeon? For example, can a horse go up and down stair cases? Obviously as I gain levels certain obstacles are by-passable, such as with water walk and flying, but for now, its just a normal phantom horse. My DM has a thing of making things difficult and I'd hate to cast one of my highest level spells with a 10 minute long cast time that lasts a 1/4th of the day to have to leave it because a mount is too unwieldy in the dungeon.
4.) any other good insights would be welcome. I'm trying to weigh the advantages of this spell and would like to make good use of this increased movement within combats for most of an adventure. Most of civilization in this campaign treats magic users as demon spawn, so walking into a mage guild or something to increase my spell capacity is not looking good, so I'm trying to make the most of my two wizard spells per level.
Thanks for any help
1) Yes, the horse moving anything greater than a single move is violent. If you single move but cast somewhere in the middle it's vigorous. You can cast before or after a single move with no concentration check required.
2) Horse movement doesn't "cost" you anything assuming you make your ride checks. An archer can make a full attack or a caster cast any time during the move. The only time you're restricted is with melee attacks since you cannot make your attack until the mount has reached it's target. If it takes more than a 5' step to do so, then you don't have "time" to take a full attack.
3) With a normal horse you'd make a handle animal check. Since it's a phantom steed, I'd say anywhere it could physically fit you could make it go. It's magic after all. Personally I'd even let it take the stairs, but that's me. Don't think there's anything RAW about that.
4)Phantom steed is a good choice, especially if your adventure involves a fair amount of travel. It only gets better as you level. As far as limited number of spells, don't forget that you can do independent research to learn new spells. I had a wizard in a Ravenloft campaign that really needed Remove curse as part of curing some werewolves. A couple weeks spent and a spellcraft check was enough to learn it. Of course, being a Ravenloft campaign he went a little crazy during the two weeks of isolation, but you probably don't have to worry about that. ;)