Using a human as a mount

[willuwontu]

I'm using a kitsune with superior shapeshifter who is permanently in their tiny fox form (they're an amnesiac psychic who forgot they were a kitsune, and think that they're a fox awakened by a druid). I plan on having them ride on the shoulders of a player outside of combat.

In combat, would it be possible for them to treat the play as a mount?

I see nothing that would stop me from doing so since a human meets all the requirements for being the mount.

[willuwontu]

I take it there wouldn't be any issues.

[Wonderstell]

Try googling the subject. It's a hotly debated topic.

"Pathfinder player as mount"

[Azothath]

Pantomime Horse vigilante

[maouse33]

Azothath wrote:

Pantomime Horse vigilante

Spoiler:

"I'm so bleeding happy" - a line often overlooked and assumed to mean "I'm so bloody happy"... but think about horse sex for a minute and you know why the writers changed the line.

Warned you.

Annnnnyway.... The only thing I can think that would preclude a PC (or NPC) from being a mount is that they are not combat trainable. So every time you get in a fight, they try to buck you off because of say "self preservation" and the like.

"An animal is a living, nonhuman creature, usually a vertebrate with no magical abilities and no innate capacity for language or culture."

[LordKailas]

aww.. and here i was hoping it was about someone trying to recreate the situation from the story "The Silk and the Song". But anyway, handle animal states.

Handle Animal wrote:

Low Intelligence Non-Animals You can use this skill on a creature with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2 that is not an animal, but the DC of any such check increases by 5. Such creatures have the same limit on tricks known as animals do.

So, if you feeblemind the human in question you could then train them using animal handling to have "combat training" for a dc: 25.

Then you can remove the feeblemind and since it's all muscle memory you should be good to go.

[Dajur]

You may have issues doing this OFFICIALLY, but I doubt many people would have a problem with it.

[pauljathome]

As a GM I allow it out of combat but NOT in combat. In combat, you get too many issues relating to initiative, who decides what the mount does, etc. You can get some REALLY abusive situations where suddenly the rider's +10 initiative carries over to the +0 initiative mount.

In an AP there was a hilarious situation where we had EVERY size category from tiny to Huge all riding the next larger size (yes, the bottom of the pyramid was Gargantuan IIRC). Which illustrates how silly it would be in combat :-)

[blahpers]

maouse33 wrote:

Azothath wrote:

Pantomime Horse vigilante

** spoiler omitted ** Warned you.

Annnnnyway.... The only thing I can think that would preclude a PC (or NPC) from being a mount is that they are not combat trainable. So every time you get in a fight, they try to buck you off because of say "self preservation" and the like.

"An animal is a living, nonhuman creature, usually a vertebrate with no magical abilities and no innate capacity for language or culture."

Pff. You don't ride a human. You ride the half-orc, of course.

[Azothath]

training them is the issue - they learn bad habits and it takes forever to train around it as they never forget the behavior.

[blahpers]

Now I'm having flashbacks of Black & White.

[maouse33]

blahpers wrote:

maouse33 wrote:

Azothath wrote:

Pantomime Horse vigilante

** spoiler omitted ** Warned you.

Annnnnyway.... The only thing I can think that would preclude a PC (or NPC) from being a mount is that they are not combat trainable. So every time you get in a fight, they try to buck you off because of say "self preservation" and the like.

"An animal is a living, nonhuman creature, usually a vertebrate with no magical abilities and no innate capacity for language or culture."

Pff. You don't ride a human. You ride the half-orc, of course.

I know it says nonhuman, but I believe it intends non-humanoid... orc is a humanoid with orc subtype... so that's out as well. But you know, RAW versus RAI and what what. Ride on!