"Guide with Knees: You can guide your mount with your knees so you can use both hands in combat. Make your Ride check at the start of your turn. If you fail, you can use only one hand this round because you need to use the other to control your mount. This does not take an action."
What if I don't care to control the mount?
In this case I have a heavily armored halfling on a riding dog. After ACP ride is only +2 so failing a DC5 ride check could still happen 10 % of the time, and given that this has to be rolled every round that is a fairly real chance of not being able to use both hands.
However, what about rounds in which I'm not telling the mount to do anything? Do I still have to roll?
He's in a military saddle and thus fairly confident to not fall out. The dog is very well trained and fairly independent and the Halfling trusts him a lot (Handle Animal +10 and a good relationship between the two).
I imagine it would be similar with a goblin on a warg, where the warg is really the one in control and the goblin is just hitching the ride, accepted only for his usefulness in making the warg even more dangerous. I doubt the Goblin would have to do much guiding, though I could see him having to hold on to not fall of when the mount does something unexpected...
I'll side track even further for a moment before coming back: Flanking.
Imagine a huge demon battling a dangerous paladin. Now this harmless thing tries poking the demon from behind. I'd say the demon could choose to ignore the small thing and focus on the paladin thereby denying flanking bonus to the paladin (but potentially inturn loosing his dex bonus to armor versus attacks from the ignored one). -- What matters here is that he gave up control (i.e. seeing what both are doing and being prepared against attacks from either side, as good as possible) in order to avoid a penalty.
If I give up control of the mount for that round, would I still have to roll in order to use both hands?
If the creature is intelligent and can be ordered via speaking then I believe you can.
I'm sure you could teach a dog to charge as a trick too, so that may work, though a ride check to stay on while charging may come into play.
In any other situation I can't see you being able to just not make a check.
Well, if you're not trying to get your mount to move I guess it's not necessary to make the check. He's just standing there.
Do be careful though, unless your mount is combat trained it will panic and it is a DC 20 ride check to control it to do anything else.
Your mount also can't make any attacks, unless you make the DC 10 ride check that allows it to do so.
Normal riding dogs usually are combat trained http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2lpzs?Riding-dogs-are-combat-trained-right
@Claxon - The character need to make the Ride check if he want do some fighting, too: "A riding dog can fight while carrying a rider, but the rider cannot also attack unless he or she succeeds on a DC 10 Ride check."
@Hydromancer I specifically want the character not to talk, order, control, gesture, guide or influence the mount. Most cases this will be the mount just standing there, but it also includes the mount deciding on his own to charge here or there, attack this guy or that guy.
I feel if the mount is left to decide independently on what to do, no ride check would be necessary to guide it with knees.
However, I agree that the ride check to be able to attack still applies.
Normal riding dogs usually are combat trained http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2lpzs?Riding-dogs-are-combat-trained-right
@Claxon - The character need to make the Ride check if he want do some fighting, too: "A riding dog can fight while carrying a rider, but the rider cannot also attack unless he or she succeeds on a DC 10 Ride check."
@Hydromancer I specifically want the character not to talk, order, control, gesture, guide or influence the mount. Most cases this will be the mount just standing there, but it also includes the mount deciding on his own to charge here or there, attack this guy or that guy.
I feel if the mount is left to decide independently on what to do, no ride check would be necessary to guide it with knees.
However, I agree that the ride check to be able to attack still applies.
Not quite. The character can either make his attacks with his mount doing nothing and need to make no checks. If he orders his mount to attack, he then needs to make the check to also be able to attack. Sorry, I worded my initial post in a way such that I was prioritizing the idea of your character making an attack not the animal.
As far as whether or not the riding dog is trained, it will depend on where you acquired him. If it is an animal companion it must be given the combat trained purpose. This is really isn't a big deal to achieve, just something you should be aware of. They are not necessarily automatically combat trained but you can certainly get one that is.
However, you do have one problem. The mount cannot choose on it's own to attack, move, or do anything else without you having to make the appropriate ride checks. He will stand there like a stick in the mud unless you give orders to do something else. Otherwise, you get around limitations deliberately built into the system.
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Keep in mind also that if it's a standard issue combat trained dog, and not something you've trained yourself, it likely won't have the Attack Trick trained twice, which means it'll need a DC 25 Handle Animal check (and a full round action) to get it to attack unnatural creatures such as Outsiders, Undead and Aberrations.
Other than that, it's a nonsentient Animal with an Intelligence of 2. It can't make its own choices. Pathfinder abstracts this by making you do Ride and Handle Animal checks.
Yep, he's in fact trained for riding and combat. He was used to hunt Goblins by the former owner (who runs the stables in Sandpoint). Didn't consider the animal companions requiring training aspect, but he's just a purchased riding dog (for now - he might ascend to be the oradin's "steed" later), so we're good on that front.
While you could say the mount is equipment, I'd classify him as an NPC. He's got a personality, relationships etc. As such I doubt he would exclusively just stand around dumbfounded in the heat of combat, although surely that'll happen some of the time, and I'm okay with that possibility. However this isn't a PFS game, and we focus on story over mechanics. The DM has at times described the Dogs behaviour outside of fights. In fights he'll probably have enough other things to do, maybe we'll come up with a random roller for the dogs behaviour in battle when not attended to, but sofar it always seemed fitting.
As per Defend Trick, he is trained to defend the character (and is ready to defend if no threat is present), even without any command being given. Surely he wouldn't just stand there and do nothing, if there is a monster in front of us.
@Nefreet: The nonscentient status was new to me, but you are correct, as seen here: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateCampaign/campaignSystems/compani ons.html
About them it says "In general they're GM-controlled companions. You can direct them using the Handle Animal skill, but their specific behavior is up to the GM." - it's not that they can't make decisions, it's that you can't make them for them.
However, this wasn't meant as a discussion about animals in pathfinder, it's a rule question, namely whether you still have to roll for guiding with knees (DC5) if you don't give a hoot what the animal does, thus when you aren't actually guiding - just to use both hands.
How would you rule on that?
Obviously in your home game you can come up with any house rules you want.
The rule is that a mount not being controlled won't do anything.
This actually makes sense for a trained mount. If you were to climb on an untrained creature, it would be sensible that it would charge off without any orders, but that is entirely different than what you are describing.
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Yep, he's in fact trained for riding and combat.
But, does it have the Attack Trick trained twice? Most purchased animals do not, including dogs.
"Guiding with the knees" is only needed if you're trying to move your mount to a specific point. If your mount is already moving there because you issued it an Attack command then I imagine you wouldn't need to make the Ride check.
Keep in mind, though, that commanding such a dog to attack requires a move action of your own, since it's not your Animal Companion.
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The system assume proper input of resources to make mounts usable.
The OP has purchased a riding dog (it's not even an animal companion) and it now basically suggesting that he should get freely what others have to invest for with handle animal and ride skills. It's an attempt to game the system. The fact that if he issues the command and fails the check he can fail to do what he wants, but if he "lets" the dog do it then it works out is absurd.
I'll agree that the mount doing nothing is just as absurd as not forcing the same checks if the mount acts, even without the rider telling it to.
Generally it's not a problem because the DCs are low, but the OP has a low modifier due to a low dex/high ACP/low skill ranks or some combination thereof.
"Guide with Knees: You can guide your mount with your knees so you can use both hands in combat. Make your Ride check at the start of your turn. If you fail, you can use only one hand this round because you need to use the other to control your mount. This does not take an action."
What if I don't care to control the mount?
** spoiler omitted **
No roll = no using two hands. Period. Pretty simple. If you do not guide the mount it acts as it would when threatened due to training when not controlled. It would probably remove itself from combat to a position of safety or if combat trained attack on it's own to the best of it's ability, which without a roll usually precludes your own attacks.
Okay, let's remove all context info for a second.
@Gilfalas: You're saying no roll = no using two hands but then go on to say, that if I don't guide it, it runs away. That is a completely different statement, and one I could potentially be fine with.
@Claxon: Let's not jump to conclusions and assume for a moment, that I'm not trying to game the system. Let's assume I'd be fine with the mount running away, or doing nothing, or whatever else is appropriate. It has a bite that does more damage than my attacks (small halfling...) it's a little embarassing anyways to have a "piece of equipment" steal the glory, and I don't play to "win" - I take that as a given - I play for the drama and to find out how the characters are going to pull it off. ;)
Part of the storytelling though is the running the game. Obviously giving up control over the mount would put the animals behavior even more so than usually in the GMs hands (which could be annoying if he's very busy, which especially in battle would be the case for most). And further, if done well the consequences of not guiding probably would depend on the context, making it more complicated again. Thus it might not be all that feasable to do so in session...
However, I'd like to think for a moment about the Goblin scario again. A warg has a really high intelligence, and it's described that they sometimes carry Goblins into battle for added dangerousness. The Goblin would typically have little control over where the warg goes and what the warg does, he just uses the ride he hitched to spread chaos and do his opportunistic acts of mischief like slashing open people as the warg runs by them. Since the warg cares little for the Goblin the ride might be rough, so much so that he will have to do ride checks (DC 10) whenever the warg attacks, if he wants to accomplish anything at the same time. Question is, given that there's no controlling the warg going on here, would he also have to do the DC 5 check for guiding with his knees if he wants to use both hands? --- I would argue not, due to the wording of "controlling his mount", though I wouldn't mind the actual check, given the mental image of the goblin trying to balance on that warg thing (with a -5 penalty if riding bareback) while fiddling around with that two handed pole arm he's using to poke longsharks with.
So with all that in mind, the question is if I don't controll the mount, can I use two hands (at the cost of having literally 0 influence of what the mount does)?
It seems to me the answer is "yes, at a cost".
Guide with Knees rules again
@Nefreet said he'd only ask for a guide with knees check when the mount is moving, though the rules don't mention movement, as far as I can tell. They just require the check at the start of the turn, if you intend to use both arms (such as when riding with shield and lance, or what not) AND "need" to stay in control over the mount.
@Dave Justus said the rule is it would do nothing. That sounds like yes, I could not guide it, right?
@Claxon You said "The fact that if he issues the command and fails the check he can fail to do what he wants, but if he "lets" the dog do it then it works out is absurd.
I'll agree that the mount doing nothing is just as absurd as not forcing the same checks if the mount acts, even without the rider telling it to."
The Handle Animal bonus in this case is +10, thus even on a 1 it'll work unless the animal is injured - at which point if I didn't guide it with my knees I wouldn't complain about the GM having it run away. I'd then spend the move action for handling in the next round to get him back into battle. That'd be fun! :) --- The second part sounds like you'd like to force me to roll a ride check if the animal acts for mechanical-game balancing reasons. I wouldn't have a problem with that, as with the goblin example it could reasonably be reskinned: Holding onto an allied animal acting freely as (given it's training) it wants to could be just as difficult as controlling one.
But another context for the original quesion: Shooting the bow requires two hands, thus if controlling the mount you'd need to roll to guide.
People have said above that if you don't guide the mount it won't move, but I'd say the guiding could include keeping it steady (i.e. preventing it from moving when you don't want to). Thus the animal if not guided could start moving causing you to get appropriate penalties to hit if shooting while in motion.
Does anyone else (still, if at all) think this is actually an interesting question or are you more like "Just wear a light armor so your bonus is +4 thus autosuccessing and quit bugging us!"?
Then you spend your entire round holding on for dear life, as your mount reacts instinctively to the danger situation it's in, or it just stands there like a post depending on what type of creature your mount is.
What if I don't care to control the mount?** spoiler omitted **
If I hold on for dear life I'll need both hands. If it's just standing there, I don't see why. - Soon enough ride will be high enough to make this question a non-issue since the character will even be in control when rolling a one.
Still I guess barring houserules RAW not controlling the mount simply isn't an option, when using two hands: CAN guide your mount with knees in order to use both hands. NEED to use the other hand to control the mount (if you failed the check)... NEED doesn't suggest choice, but I guess that's only after you fail the check. CAN suggests choice, but here the choice is whether to guide or not in a way ("so you can use") suggesting you cannot use both hands otherwise.