Charge, Ride By attack, Overrun, and all that Cavalier stuff

[Akerlof]

I'm starting a cavalier and want to get my rules straight. Either my reading comprehension is bad or my search-fu is bad, but I still can't find answers that are clear to me:

Ride By Attack: "When you are mounted and use the charge action, you may move and attack as if with a standard charge and then move again (continuing the straight line of the charge). Your total movement for the round can't exceed double your mounted speed. You and your mount do not provoke an attack of opportunity from the opponent that you attack."

*This means that if I'm directly in front of my target, I can charge, get my lance attack while 10 feet away, and then my mount can move another five feet and get its charge attack in. Ride By Attack doesn't let me carry through the opponent's square, does it?

*Alternatively, if my charge path doesn't take me THROUGH an opponent's square, I can get my lance attack in when I'm a knight's move away, then keep on truckin' right past the target but my pony doesn't get to make an attack?

*Can I move through an ally's square AFTER I've made my charge attack? I expect that follow through movement still follows the rule of a charge, but am not sure.

Overrun with Ride By Attack
*If my charge path takes me through the opponent's square, can I make my charge attack, the move up to the enemy and my pony make an overrun attempt? If successful, can he keep on moving up to a total of twice his move speed? The rules state "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," but don't say you can continue your charge as far as you want. And if the pony fails the overrun attempt, we stop directly in front of the target.

Attacks of Opportunity
*Against an opponent with reach, a normal charge provokes an AoO when you move out of a threatened square, but Ride By Attack explicitly states "You and your mount do not provoke an attack of opportunity from the opponent that you attack." Does this apply to opponents with reach as well?

*Secondly, until my mount gets Improved Overrun, he will provoke an AoO when he tries to overrun the opponent. I assume Ride By Attack does not eliminate that AoO, but I can use my ride skill to try to avoid the attack? Does the opponent need to make the AoO on my mount or can he take it against me? I'm thinking it has to be the mount.

General mounted combat stuff
*I can use a lance one handed or two handed while mounted, but if I use it one handed I don't get the 1.5x strength bonus, right?

*If I hold the reigns, I don't need to take a free action to guide my mount, the way I would if I were using my knees, right?

So I could gain a free action and AC by wielding a light shield and holding the reigns, at the expense of 1.5 str and Power Attack damage. But I couldn't do that with a heavy shield?

*My mount is considered combat trained, does that mean all six of his base tricks known are taken by the "combat trained" package, so I can only teach him the 1 bonus trick he gets as an animal companion? And do I need to train him in Attack a second time to get him to attack anything beyond the basics, per the Animal Handling skill description?

*Also, carrying capacity. Is the animal companion pony's light load 100 pounds per the bestiary entry, or 75 pounds per the 13 str quadruped rules in the CRB?

[Michael Sayre]

Ride by Attack- Yeah no pony attack here, and it doesn't let you move through your opponents square. It basically just lets you make a melee attack at any point in your mounts movement. Normally your charge would end your movement adjacent to the enemy, this just lets you hit him and keep moving.

Overrun with Ride by- You should be able to resolve your attack with the lance and then overrun with the mount. The wording here is a little strange since it says "as a standard action... taken as part of a charge" but I'm pretty sure the RAI would allow you to hit with your lance and then run right over the enemy (assuming you succeed at your Overrun attempt) and finish out your movement.

Attacks of Opportunity- It says you don't provoke from the opponent you attack, so you don't provoke from the opponent you attack, regardless of reach. Since your mount is the one actually performing the Overrun, he's the one provoking the attack of opportunity (at least that's my understanding). You should be able to use the Mounted Combat as normal to make a Ride check to negate the hit.

General stuff-
Correct, a lance wielded in one hand only gets the standard Strength modifier, not STRx1.5.

You don't need to take the free action, but free actions literally take no time at all, have no limitation on how many you can take in a turn, and don't interfere with other actions, so I don't know why you'd hold the reins when you could be holding a shield and weapon or two-handing a weapon.

Your mount does need the secondary Attack Training to attack unnatural creatures like undead, just like normal.

Ignore anything from the Bestiary, that is for a standard animal of that type, which your Animal Companion is not. Use the carrying capacity for a quadruped of your mount's strength.

[Akerlof]

Thanks for the clarifications.