I just want to chime in as I've been on hiatus for a while. I missed the errata change(s) and all the excitement last couple weeks. It got brought up by a player i GM for last week.
I started playing D&D in 2nd edition and actually got to play up through 3rd and 3.5. I quit playing for years when a lot of the rules fell apart and splat books ate my house. I've been gaming in pathfinder for a couple years now. As I've been playing I've noticed some of the bugs still remain, but at least we have some new ones too ;) Hopefully players aren't too upset that mounted combat, and many things that revolve around it seem really confusing or overtly broken currently. Its been broken since 3rd edition and I'm sort of surprised this dead horse started getting kicked around again....
Maybe something good can come out of this if we start digging and sharing our findings. With more out in the open maybe some of this will resolve its self or help the devs identify where the real problem lies and what the best fixes could be. At the very least it may help GM's and players come to a conclusion themselves as maybe just one bit of info was overlooked and its the missing peace.
Some of the very things being discussed on the forums about mounted combat and feats have been the same problems with mounted combat since 3rd edition. Things were implied as being the "RULE" but never actually printed anywhere. Sections referred to terms that actually didn't exist except in passing. The rules were spread out all over and way worse than Paizo gets accused of i might add. And at times even flat out contradicted other parts of the mounted combat rules . There are a few spots mounted combat never even cover's or touches on, and honestly its probably a good thing. Im actually pretty surprised paizo didn't spend more effort on revising mounted combat in general and carried over as much as they did, being such a good sized portion of mechanics.
A lot of the problems in 3.0 if i recall correctly got twisted and seeded pretty deep into 3.5. It seemed as if designers misinterpreted, edited, misworded, revised, and developed new material with rules that they had slight variations about how they actually worked in game and rushed it to market. After a while it was impossible to actually tell what RAI was. Quite a few gamers in my area and those i spoke with at the time just adopted a lot of house rules, excepted some of the rules, and hand waved others. Over the years to current day, myself probably included,I've just excepted and remember how WE played as actual RAW. Im only human right? Anyway, i will try and post some of things i can remember that caused issues and maybe others can as well.
PFPRD: ride skill
Fight with a Combat-Trained Mount: If you direct your war-trained mount to attack in battle, you can still make your own attack or attacks normally. This usage is a free action.
i noticed this in a thread in the rules forum causing some confusion. it says you attack normally,but no mention why a check is even needed to do this which makes it confusing. in 3.5 it was listed under warhorse, yeah cause thats where cores rules should go, the monster manual... PF did away the warhorse and rebranded it.
PFPRD: Heavy Horse: A heavy horse gains the advanced simple template. In addition, it also gains a bite attack that inflicts 1d4 damage, and its hoof damage increases to 1d6. As with a light horse, a heavy horse can be specifically trained for combat with the Handle Animal skill.
HOWEVER something was not carried over that causes us to lose some understanding.
D&D 3.5-
A horse not trained for war does not normally use its hooves to attack. Its hoof attack is treated as a secondary attack and adds only half the horse’s Strength bonus to damage. (These secondary attacks are noted with an asterisk in the Attack and Full Attack entries for the heavy horse and the light horse.)
*A heavy warhorse can fight while carrying a rider, but the rider cannot also attack unless he or she succeeds on a Ride check.*
In 3.5 a horse wasn't even able to attack AT ALL unless it was war trained and you had to make a DC 10 ride check. IF you failed the check the horse could attack but NOT the rider, hence the wording under "Fight with a Combat-Trained Mount". It refers to a rider being able to attack "normally". This causes a problem in PF because if this was left out on purpose it means "Fight with a Combat-Trained Mount" shouldn't even be in ride at all, you can just do it. Also it was never clarified in D&D, that im aware of, whether this applied to all mounts or just horse.
The thing i remember causing the most problems/confusion was charging in general. In 3.5 it simply said a mounted charge was just like a normal charge but the player used the mounts movement rate. First off a mounted charge isn't like a charge AT ALL. You have two separate beings with two separate action economies who happen to share one movement. What this inadvertently created (or maybe on purpose who the heck knows) in 3.5 you could have the following:
1) Rider on a charging mount: the mount is the one charging but the way mounted charge is worded is BOTH get the benefits/penalties of the charge. The rider also still got his own move action and could use it for a number of things and could take a standard action at the end of a charge. which also made vital strike and some other feats feasible at the end of the charge. This also created some wonky conditions because the rider technically would have moved but NOT taken a MOVE ACTION, like riding a vehicle.
2) Charging rider on a mount: This is where the rider takes the full round action using the mounts movement. The mount could take a standard action at the end of the charge or not. This is usually what my players did just because it was more believable. The rider held the lance and the mount simply ran forward and the rider struck. My players had a REALLY hard time excepting that for a mounted charge the horse had to rear and kick at the end of a charge, this goes against everything we've ever seen and would probably actually throw the rider.
3) Mounted charge: This is where the rider and the mount both charge and to what the PF errata has been changed too. The only problem with this is that if a player fails his DC10 check to "fight with mount" he can't actually perform this action.
Obviously if anything should be gained is that charging with a mount involved is NOT "just like" charging. With the above examples of charging involving a mount is also where a lot of mechanics break down. A lance for example is worded to function "from the back of a charging mount", example 1 OR example 3. Other feats are worded to work with other examples or simple state "while charging", while who is charging exactly? While it may be easy to rule that example 3 is a TRUE mounted charge some feats and class powers may have to be changed themselves to reflect this. And here is the real problem with example 3. That somehow if a your mount doesn't stop at the end of a charge and rear up and kick at the end its not a TRUE mounted charge and hence your lance wont do double damage....I know right?!
while we are at it its never stated how exactly an animal can charge to begin with since its a "special attack". It not a trick under handle animal. Does this mean my horse can disarm or sunder too? i would have preferred charge to be a trick as this would explain more. bull rush and other special attacks are later listed as expanded tricks in 3.5.
found this hidden in 3.5 under the animal subtype.
Proficient with no armor unless trained for war.
It Seems if as if animals were trained for war they gained armor proficiency.
I looked in PFPRD and it looks like this was carried over! i know i've seen it answered that animals trained for war DONT have proficiency in armor but thats not what the PRD says under animal type.
I think most of your problems with mounted combat are due to you referring back to 3.5 & 3.0.
Use the PF mounted combat rules.
If you want your mount to also attack, you need to make a ride check.
What kind of ride check you need to make depends on...
1. What training, tricks and feats the mount has.
2. What kind of creature you are attacking.
3. What class abilities, feats, and other abilities the rider has.
Mounted charge is now the rider & mount both use a full round action to charge together as one.
I believe you can swap out one of a horse's feats with light armor proficiency.
This is all just off the top of my head here.
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found this hidden in 3.5 under the animal subtype.
Proficient with no armor unless trained for war.
It Seems if as if animals were trained for war they gained armor proficiency.
I looked in PFPRD and it looks like this was carried over! i know i've seen it answered that animals trained for war DONT have proficiency in armor but thats not what the PRD says under animal type.
But what kind of armor proficiency do they get? Light? Medium? Heavy?
I think the line means that unless they're war-trained, they cannot have armor proficiencies at all.
Heavy Armor Proficiency requires Medium Armor Proficiency as a prerequisite.
Medium Armor Proficiency requires Light Armor Proficiency as a prerequisite.
Light Armor Proficiency has no prerequisites.
Any creature can take Light Armor Proficiency.
Here is the answer you seek from the FAQ.
Handle Animal: Does training an animal using Handle Animal to be Combat Trained (pg 98 in the Core Rulebook) grant it Light Armor Proficiency?
No, using Handle Animal to train an animal, or mount, in this way does not grant it a free bonus feat. It is not unreasonable, however to assume that an animal specifically designed to be ridden (such as a horse or dog) could be purchased with Light Armor Proficiency as one of its feats (swapping out Endurance or Skill Focus respectively) for the same cost.