In an upcoming game I'd like to help a friend's animal companion rage in melee while his PC casts spells or shoots stuff with a bow. I'm not quite sure how the Ferocious Mount rage power is supposed to work though.
The primary question which bothers me is whether the “mount” in question has to one gained from a class feature such as Bestial Mount. Can you buy a heavy warhorse in town and make it rage? Can you ride on the Druid’s animal companion and make it rage? Nothing in the rage power implies you can’t use it on a mount which isn’t one of your class features, but I wonder what the RAI might be.
The wording of the power also seems a little vague to me. For instance, it says it can be used "While raging and mounted", but then it says the mount gains the benefits of the barbarian's rage "as long as the barbarian is mounted or adjacent to it" Maybe you need to start raging while on the mount but only need to remain adjacent to the mount to maintain the rage. That would be a little odd, but it is the best interpretation I can come up with so far from just the RAW.
I was wondering the same thing... any help on this would be greatly appreciated.
Another question I had was in order to make a mount attack
don't you need to make a handle animal check which is a Cha based skill
so how can you do that while raging?
Thanks for any info!
The power does what it says it does.
Benefit: While raging and mounted, the barbarian’s mount also gains the benefits of rage (including greater rage and mighty rage) as long as the barbarian is mounted or adjacent to it. While her mount is raging in this way, she must spend one additional round of rage per round. She can elect not to pay this cost, in which case her mount does not rage.
Anything the barbarian mounts, will gain the benefits of rage, no matter whose mount that might be. (Please do not attempt this at nearest brothel.)
The "adjacent" part, I assume, is to cater for the barbarian quick dismount and mounting or falling off the mount for whatever reason, so that the rage may continue to affect both barbarian and mount.
While mounted a raging barbarian can make a Ride check instead of Handle Animal to make his mount attack.
My plan is to make our Druid's animal companion rage. Based on the feedback so far it sounds like that should work since folks seem to agree that the "mount" doesn't have to be one which the raging Barbarian has gained from a class feature. The "adjacent" part is still a little confusing, but I don't think the DM is inclined to be strict about it anyhow.
As an aside, the powerful mounts such as mastodons which can be purchased from Animal Archive kind of bother me. I guess the DM is supposed to decide what's "right for the game", but I wish there were some guidelines on what mounts might be appropriate for PCs of a certain level, perhaps based on CR and special abilities such as flight, trample, pounce, etc. Maybe I'll think up some house rules for it.
One thing I'd never considered up until now was a non-Druid using a scroll of Awaken to get an NPC ally. I'd think that should be fine if the game were one which allows the Leadership feat and the PC were willing to take the Awakened creature as a cohort. If not it seems like an awful lot of power to gain for a little gold and a Use Magic Device check.
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True, true.
Good idea of guidelines on what mounts are appropriate. I'm actually putting together a guide for mount/mounted combat and that would be a good thing to include.
One idea is a mount should be no more powerful than what a druid could get for that level. Another idea is to go with the pathfinder society rules.