PC as Mount?

[Whack-a-Rogue]

This came up in a PFS game last night, and I'm now curious what the rules have to say. The halfling bard decided it would be fun to spend the module riding on my human monk's shoulders. We had a great time and want to make this a reoccurring thing. So, how do I become a mount? Do we need a saddle? Ride checks? Am I considered "combat-trained"? Would the "Mounted Combat" feat be useful? How does movement/attacks/casting/etc affect our action economy? Or is the whole idea just a pipe dream.... :-)

[Kazumetsa]

LOL. I love this idea.

For some reason all I can envision now is a Halfling on a Human's shoulders chicken fighting with goblins stacked 3 high.

I'm not sure at all how the ruling would go for this. Sounds like some tricky houseruling is in order..

[Whack-a-Rogue]

PFS, so houseruling isn't an option. Just wanting to see how I can increase my chances of pulling this off.

[thistledown]

First difficulty I see is that a mount acts on its riders action, while you would have your own initiative score.

OTOH, I've riden on the druid's summoned creatures plenty of times. He moves it, and I just fire from it. So I suppose it'd be more like that.

[Avianfoo]

For PFS, unfortunately, this is a pipe dream as it will vary from GM to GM. Most, I think, will simply disallow it. It's not in the rules, so you can't do it. Which is a bit sad imo.

That said, for home games: Quadruped Synthesist as a mount. It's all by the rules. Except (still) not legal for PFS. :(

[Kazaan]

Hmm, well, just gonna come up with some stuff "on the fly".

First off, "Mounted Combat" acts on the presumption that your mount is an extension of your character, acting as you guide it, either through straight ride checks if it's a "combat-trained" mount, or in conjunction with a Handle Animal check if it's not combat-trained. The idea of the mount and rider acting independently is a bit of an oddity, but it could be workable.

First off, the Monk is hindered if the weight of the riding character puts him over his light load limit so you'll have to track that. If he goes over the limit, he loses Flurry, Fast Movement, Monk AC bonus, and quite a few other things.

Second, the Halfling riding is going to be a bit discombobulated as though he were on a horse that was just running wherever it wanted. At best, this could translate into an attack penalty for the rider. At worst, he's completely disoriented and cannot act. This could probably be handled by a Sense Motive check to be able to "read" where the intelligent mount is going (as opposed to a Handle Animal check for an animal mount). If the rider doesn't pass the check, then he can't "follow" his mount's actions and movements and his turn is spoiled as he re-establishes proper riding balance.

Third, the Mounted Combat feat presumes that you're actually guiding the motion of your mount yourself. Maybe you could throw your weight to "unbalance" the Monk and avoid being hit, but it should either be a harder check or it should have some detriment to the Monk (ie. he's staggered on his next turn). Maybe if your ride check succeeds by at least 5 over the DC, then there's no stagger, but if you succeed by less than 5 or you don't succeed at all, the Monk is staggered and if you fail by 5 or more, the Monk falls prone, something like that.

Lastly, either initiative would have to default to the lowest roll between the two, or you have the option to take your turns separately with movement being done by the Monk and the rider taking his own actions on his own turn. Personally, I'd opt for the latter with the caveat that typically, whoever rolls higher initiative will simply delay his turn so the two can act in tandem.

[Kazumetsa]

Still envisioning chicken fight. >_>

[Whack-a-Rogue]

I figured the Mounted Combat feat was out. Not a problem. I figured on the initiative + encumbrance issues. For combat, maybe Ride checks to stay in the saddle? Concentration checks to cast spells? I figured we'd need an Exotic Riding Saddle at minimum. My main argument is: if a gnome can ride around on a velociraptor without a problem, why can't a halfling ride piggyback on my shoulders? :-)

[DM_Blake]

You would not be a "mount". Just because a character is standing on you or riding on your shoulders, does not make you a "mount".

The idea of "mount" is an unintelligent animal.

The rider of a "mount" needs to make ride checks to get his unintelligent animal to do what the rider wants it to do, usually because the rider cannot speak with and reason with his unintelligent animal. There would be no ride check necessary for a halfling to tell a monk "Hey, let's go over there!"

A "mount" needs to be combat trained because it is an unintelligent animal. If it isn't, it will run from battle or fall back on inefficient self defense and ignore its rider's wishes. A monk carrying a halfling is fully combat trained and intelligent enough to make sound tactical decisions and not run away from ordinary combat dangers.

Be careful not to encumber the Monk. For example, a monk with a 14 STR carrying his own weapons and equipment and adventuring gear and carrying a halfling and the halfling's equipment could easily be carrying more than his 58 pound limit - at which point he loses his monk bonus AC, his WIS bonus AC, and is limited to a max DEX AC of +3. He also loses 1/3 of his movement rate.

Some ride checks would still be plausibly applicable but note that with an unintelligent "mount", the ride check forces the "mount" to do whatever you're tying to make it do, but when riding an intelligent character, you can't force him to do anything - no amount of verbal requests or "guiding with your knees" is really going to make the monk go anywhere the monk doesn't want to go.

Guide with Knees: useless - speaking is a free action.

Stay in Saddle: Applicable whenever the monk moves quickly (runs or charges) or the halfling takes damage.

Fight with a Combat-Trained Mount: Applicable or else the halfling is holding on for dear life and cannot take actions.

Cover: Applicable. The monk might not like being a human shield, but this should work - he can be used as soft cover if the halfling was standing on the ground so this is not really any different.

Soft Fall: Applicable.

Leap: Useless - speaking is a free action, just tell the monk what he should do.

Spur Mount: I suppose you could do this, but the monk's next flurry of blows might be aimed at the halfling. I can see applications for rules abuse here where a monk allows a halfling to deliberately hurt the monk so the monk can move 10' faster - why does the halfling have to be riding, can't he just stand on the ground and stab the monk to make him move faster? Why does it have to be a monk? Heck, applying this rule logically allows a group of people to run 10' faster each round (until fatigued) by stabbing each other for a d3 damage every round.

Control Mount in Battle: useless as the monk is not an unintelligent animal and the monk is trained in battle.

Fast Mount or Dismount: Applicable if the halfling wants to use his own actions for this, or the monk can just grab him and put him on the ground or on his shoulders.

As for action economy, if the halfling doesn't ride the monk, they each get actions. If one is riding the other, they each get actions. That doesn't change, although if the halfling fails his ride check, he'll lose some actions as he desperately clings to the monk to not fall.

As for the Mounted Combat feat, this seems to be the biggest gray area. It might actually be applicable this this is dubious - the feat itself applies to "mounts" but a PC is not a mount. In any case, this ultimately seems like a bad idea. Allowing it opens a big door for abuse - any character could hire a npc gnome jockey (expert rider) to ride his shoulders and make one attack miss every round. This feat is intended to keep fragile horses alive when high level PCs are charging into combat with monsters that could kill a horse with one big attack. It's not meant as a tool for clever PCs to avoid attacks against them.

Finally, a saddle (but not a horse's saddle) would still be required to avoid the ride check penalties. Some kind of "papoose" type thing might be useful.

[james maissen]

Whack-a-Rogue wrote:

This came up in a PFS game last night, and I'm now curious what the rules have to say. The halfling bard decided it would be fun to spend the module riding on my human monk's shoulders. We had a great time and want to make this a reoccurring thing. So, how do I become a mount? Do we need a saddle? Ride checks? Am I considered "combat-trained"? Would the "Mounted Combat" feat be useful? How does movement/attacks/casting/etc affect our action economy? Or is the whole idea just a pipe dream.... :-)

There is a difference between being carried by something and riding that something as your mount.

Notice that in the evolutions for Eidolons there is an option for 'mount'. This should help you understand that even if something is capable and naturally carries things the designation of 'mount' is special under the rules.

If you were riding a 'mount' then the mount would act as directed during your turn, and you could intersperse actions between one another.

Meanwhile if you are being carried by another PC, then their initiative is completely separate from yours as normal.

As far as mounted combat and other ride feats go, this is a non-starter. Period.

As to you being dislodged from being carried by another.. that depends on how you are being carried. If you are merely balancing on the other character, in an item they are carrying, or if they are actively carrying you in hand.

It is perfectly reasonable, although not standard (and thus confusing for a GM first handed it) for one character to be able to direct the transportation of another.

This could be because one character is driving a cart the other is on, one character dimension doors the pair somewhere, the other is on a floating disc spell cast by the first character, the first character bull rushes the other, or a myriad of other ways and means.

The trick to this being legal and not overpowering is to realize that you do not share the same initiative score, but rather are both independent.

I would suggest that you delineate the pertinent rules, print out copies of each of the relevant pages out from .pdfs or the like, and have a very brief conversation with the GM right before the game about this. Make sure that it is clear that you are having fun with this, and are not trying to gain unfair/illegal advantage here. This way the judge is not caught flatfooted by this strange situation while they are busy juggling other things.

-James

[Whack-a-Rogue]

James, and DM_Blake, this is exactly what I was looking for: how to take a weird fun idea and make it playable. Powergaming's the last thing from my mind here. I'll definitely print out some references, talk beforehand with the GM, and expect to get shot down occasionally. Now for the all-important question: Profession(mount) or Profession(horse boy)? ;-)

[james maissen]

DM_Blake wrote:

The idea of "mount" is an unintelligent animal.

This is not quite true.

Many mounts can be intelligent. Improved familiars, paladin mounts, and eidolons all leap to mind.

I think the distinguishing characterization is that a mount is not independent.

This is why a quadruped eidolon is not a mount even when the summoner (or someone else) is 'riding' them unless they have paid for the evolution allowing such.

I would not allow a character being carried by or balancing on another character to be able to take cover anymore than I would let a character sharing the same square as another do so. There is a reason why this is a ride check, as it involves controlling the creature being ridden... and that is not the case here.

Likewise I would not suggest that the ride skill be allowable at all when the 'mount' is not a mount, and the 'rider' has no such control. Would you allow say a ride check when falling off a bridge or anything other than a mount?

-James

[Avianfoo]

If I were to have to make a ruling for this it would be the following:

The PC doing the carrying (the 'mount') will at very least have to be able to carry the other PC, including all consequences from carrying the extra weight.

The PC being carried would at very least suffer from violent motion for being carried and all that entails. (concentration checks etc.) Also at least some check to remain on the other PC unless some sort of "saddle" or harness is used.

But as I said earlier each GM will rule differently.