paizo.com Recent Posts in FAQ on Mounted Charge - How does a mounted lance charge work?paizo.com Recent Posts in FAQ on Mounted Charge - How does a mounted lance charge work?2018-10-09T00:53:12Z2018-10-09T00:53:12ZRe: Forums: Rules Questions: FAQ on Mounted Charge - How does a mounted lance charge work?Iron Gianthttps://paizo.com/threads/rzs2q7oz&page=3?FAQ-on-Mounted-Charge-How-does-a-mounted#1042014-08-13T17:05:25Z2014-08-13T17:05:25Z<div class="messageboard-quotee">Kastar wrote:</div><blockquote><p> This thread is almost a year old now, and, as far as I can find, there's still no FAQ on mounted combat. There have been a large amount of threads on mounted combat, all generally asking the same questions, usually triggered by the disgraceful mess that is the Ride-By Attack feat, which does not contain half a sentence that is not somehow at odds with either the RAW for charging or for mounted combat.</p>
<p>Some of the biggest problems, as highlighted in this thread, and others:</p>
<p>1) RAW, a lance is useless. As pointed out in this thread, your mount charges, meaning it has to end its movement next to an opponent, from where you cannot attack with a reach weapon, such as a lance. Charge always mentions an "opponent", so unless you can somehow make your mount go full Don Quixote and have it view an empty space as its mortal enemy, it must end its charge next to an actual creature, unless it has reach itself. So, no charge attacks with a lance.</p>
<p>2) Ride-By Attack screws with everything. The wording is ridiculous, as <i>you</i> never charge while on a mount. Your mount charges, and when it does, you are considered charging for the purposes of your AC and the attack you make after your mount completed its movement, as per the normal mounted combat rules. Even so, Ride-By Attack is rather clear on what kind of effect it has on you. You get to attack at any point during the charge. But what about your mount? It says you attack, "and then [you] may move again". But you never were moving. Your <i>mount</i> was <i>charging</i>. So what happens after the attack? Is it still charging? Did it have to charge at a creature to begin with? Does this have to be the same creature you attacked? Even disregarding the mess of point 1), does it get to attack at any point when the rider uses Ride-By Attack?</p>
<p>3) Trample, Overrun, Charge Through, etc... Especially Trample is just silly stupid, possibly even more so than Ride-By Attack. While on a mount, you never move, you never charge, you never overrun. These are things... </blockquote><p>I think you hit on the big ones. Wheeling Charge has a few unanswered questions, as seen <a href="http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2rby7?Many-questions-about-mounted-combat#31" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">here</a>, but clearing up ride-by attack should also clear up that one a bit (assuming that they work in harmony). It would also be nice to expand #3 get a bit of clarification on all feats with movement/attack combinations. Charging hurler, Lunge (implied movement), Spring Attack, Combat Patrol, Step Up, Dragon Style,etc.
<p>Every time I start digging back into the mounted combat rules I end up with another question. I just now realized that a rider can technically Coup de Grace after a mount has double moved. I'm not so sure that's what the designers had in mind.</p>Kastar wrote:This thread is almost a year old now, and, as far as I can find, there's still no FAQ on mounted combat. There have been a large amount of threads on mounted combat, all generally asking the same questions, usually triggered by the disgraceful mess that is the Ride-By Attack feat, which does not contain half a sentence that is not somehow at odds with either the RAW for charging or for mounted combat.
Some of the biggest problems, as highlighted in this thread, and others:
1)...Iron Giant2014-08-13T17:05:25ZRe: Forums: Rules Questions: FAQ on Mounted Charge - How does a mounted lance charge work?Kastarhttps://paizo.com/threads/rzs2q7oz&page=3?FAQ-on-Mounted-Charge-How-does-a-mounted#1032017-08-13T23:53:17Z2014-08-10T15:50:20Z<p>This thread is almost a year old now, and, as far as I can find, there's still no FAQ on mounted combat. There have been a large amount of threads on mounted combat, all generally asking the same questions, usually triggered by the disgraceful mess that is the Ride-By Attack feat, which does not contain half a sentence that is not somehow at odds with either the RAW for charging or for mounted combat.</p>
<p>Some of the biggest problems, as highlighted in this thread, and others:</p>
<p>1) RAW, a lance is useless. As pointed out in this thread, your mount charges, meaning it has to end its movement next to an opponent, from where you cannot attack with a reach weapon, such as a lance. Charge always mentions an "opponent", so unless you can somehow make your mount go full Don Quixote and have it view an empty space as its mortal enemy, it must end its charge next to an actual creature, unless it has reach itself. So, no charge attacks with a lance.</p>
<p>2) Ride-By Attack screws with everything. The wording is ridiculous, as <i>you</i> never charge while on a mount. Your mount charges, and when it does, you are considered charging for the purposes of your AC and the attack you make after your mount completed its movement, as per the normal mounted combat rules. Even so, Ride-By Attack is rather clear on what kind of effect it has on you. You get to attack at any point during the charge. But what about your mount? It says you attack, "and then [you] may move again". But you never were moving. Your <i>mount</i> was <i>charging</i>. So what happens after the attack? Is it still charging? Did it have to charge at a creature to begin with? Does this have to be the same creature you attacked? Even disregarding the mess of point 1), does it get to attack at any point when the rider uses Ride-By Attack?</p>
<p>3) Trample, Overrun, Charge Through, etc... Especially Trample is just silly stupid, possibly even more so than Ride-By Attack. While on a mount, you never move, you never charge, you never overrun. These are things <i>your mount</i> does. The trample feat is just entirely unplayable, making sense neither when you take it nor when your mount takes it. There are also numerous threads with endless discussion of how exactly overrunning on a charge is supposed to work (even without a mount), or whether Charge Through actually does anything at all, which adds another layer of confusion and discussion to the already messed up mounted charging rules.</p>
<p>By the way, somewhat ridiculously, with the current RAW, the only way to actually make charged-up attack with a lance is if you let your mount charge, then overrun, stopping its charge 10 feet behind the overran/trampled enemy, then swing your lance backwards and attack, gaining the charge bonuses from the RAW on mounted combat, and thus dealing double damage with a lance by way of poking your opponent in the opposite direction your mount was charging in. Seems like a hell of a poke.</p>
<p>All this can of course simply be house-ruled, but PFS screws with that, too. So the halfling beastrider I'm thinking about will function more or less completely different based on what DM I'm playing with next week? No thank you.</p>
<p><b>There's threads going back to 2011 (at least), asking for clarification on these issues</b>. The only thing we have so far is <a href="http://paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9ru6" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">this FAQ entry</a>, which manages to confuse everything even more. The wording used in that FAQ entry simply does not make sense. What is the difference between a mounted charge and a charging mount with you on top of it? Where does a mounted charge end, at the closest square for the rider or the closest square for the mount? I can attack on a mounted charge, but not on top of a charging mount? I'm sorry to say that this FAQ post is simply terrible. The rules are confusing and convoluted and need to be <i>pruned and cleaned up</i>. While obviously not the intent, this FAQ post unfortunately adds extra exceptions and complexity, which raises even more questions and solves none.</p>
<p>In order for mounted combat and mounted charging to work in a way that doesn't result in hours of discussion everytime a cavalier comes to the table, all of the following things need to be addressed:</p>
<p><b>1) Charge:</b> Since a double move is possible as a full-round action anyway, it seems that a simple solution would be to remove the requirement to charge to a square threatening an opponent. So you'd move at least 10 feet, at most your speed, in a straight, unblocked line, without difficult terrain in your path. Otherwise, no charge. When you stop moving, you <i>may</i> make an attack against an opponent within reach, with the charge bonuses. The movement of your charge does not provoke AoO's from this opponent. You have a -2 AC until your next turn.<i> The end</i>. Don't want to attack? Congratulations, you just made a very restricted double move. Not quite broken, I'd say.
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<b>2) Overrun:</b> tied closely to charging, this simply needs to get a clarification on what it does with your remaining movement after the overrun attempt is succesful, especially on a charge. And even though I don't think there is any confusion about this, stating specifically whether or not one can still attack after overrunning on a charge would <i>really</i> help alleviate a lot of discussion.
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<b>3) The Mounted Charge (and the lance):</b> If the changes to charge would be as written above, the mounted charge would already become a lot less confusing. Your (reachless) mount can simply run straight to 10 feet away from an opponent and not attack, and you would get a lance attack with a charge bonus. It'd be a bit weird from a realism point (seems like your extra lance damage would come from you crashing into your opponent), but there would be no RAW issue. If the charge rules are <i>not</i> changed, or changed differently, clarification is required on how reach weapons, and specifically the one <i>designed for mounted charging</i> are supposed to work on a mounted charge.
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<b>4) The Ride-By Attack and Trample feats:</b> These simply <i>need</i> a rewrite. The alternative would be rewriting everything else related to charging, mounted combat, and overrun, and that's simply a Bad Idea. For Ride-By specifically, there seem to be two "schools of thought" as to its intent: either your mount charges, and you may make your charged-up attack <i>during</i> its charge instead of at the end, and neither you nor your mount provoke AoO's for movement from the target of your Ride-By Attack. Or, you perform a normal charge, after which your mount may move what remains of its double speed as a free action, provoking no AoO's from the opponent you may have attacked at the end of your charge. Trample... Hell I don't even <i>know</i>. Just get rid of it for the rider, give it to the mount, adjust the wording accordingly.
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<b>5) Pounce:</b> What, Pounce? There are no problems with Pounce! Well no, but apparently, one of the reasons the Mounted Combat rules are such a mess are because of RAGELANCEPOUNCE. In order for RAGELANCEPOUNCE not to be possible add a provision to Pounce abilities (there aren't that many) that they can't be used while you are riding a mount. Done, no more GM tears. It's logical from both a "realism" as from a game balance point of view. "But now Pounce is worthless", said exactly no-one. Pounce is tasty enough, it really doesn't need the extra cheese, and if that's the reason that mounted combat can't get cleaned up, then just fix Pounce first.</p>
<p>I really hope these things get addressed in a clear, official FAQ, errata, or blog post. Cavaliers, Pally's and others deserve it. So do GM's.</p>This thread is almost a year old now, and, as far as I can find, there's still no FAQ on mounted combat. There have been a large amount of threads on mounted combat, all generally asking the same questions, usually triggered by the disgraceful mess that is the Ride-By Attack feat, which does not contain half a sentence that is not somehow at odds with either the RAW for charging or for mounted combat.
Some of the biggest problems, as highlighted in this thread, and others:
1) RAW, a lance...Kastar2014-08-10T15:50:20ZRe: Forums: Rules Questions: FAQ on Mounted Charge - How does a mounted lance charge work?VDWhttps://paizo.com/threads/rzs2q7oz&page=3?FAQ-on-Mounted-Charge-How-does-a-mounted#1022014-04-08T19:09:39Z2014-04-08T19:09:39Z<p>I'll FAQ everything in this thread, I swear. I'm GMing a lance wielding summoner that is an absolute terror on the back of his pouncing Eidolon. Four attacks at 5th level on a charge, yikes!</p>I'll FAQ everything in this thread, I swear. I'm GMing a lance wielding summoner that is an absolute terror on the back of his pouncing Eidolon. Four attacks at 5th level on a charge, yikes!VDW2014-04-08T19:09:39ZRe: Forums: Rules Questions: FAQ on Mounted Charge - How does a mounted lance charge work?Gausshttps://paizo.com/threads/rzs2q7oz&page=3?FAQ-on-Mounted-Charge-How-does-a-mounted#1012014-04-08T18:56:33Z2014-03-03T21:36:50Z<p>FAQ'd, the mounted charge rules are a mess and contradictory.</p>FAQ'd, the mounted charge rules are a mess and contradictory.Gauss2014-03-03T21:36:50Z