To anyone who sees this, thank you simply for paying it notice. Created an account just because I had to ask a question. Sorry if the answer to it is already considered obvious, but I cannot for the life of me find such an exact answer after scouring the messageboards for hours.
If you are riding a mount and have already had it use its standard action on your turn, can you still have the rider use the rhino charge feat in order to ready a charge as a standard action, then have the mount and rider still charge together when whatever condition you've set for the readied action is met, before the start of your next turn? I'd imagine that the answer might be no, as it could be considered a way for the rider to cheat an extra action out of his mount, but wanted to make sure. Perhaps the fact that I might just be the only person to ask this question might be testament to how silly it is, but still.
Thank you again for your time
There's this FAQ which says you and your mount both take the charge action when doing a mounted charge. Which implies that the mount needs an action available to do so. Exactly how this interacts with a readied charge (via rhino charge or vigilant charger) is (like a lot of the mounted rules) totally unclear. It might not work at all, even if the mount hasn't used a standard action in its turn yet. It might require the mount to have not used a standard action yet. I don't think that it'd work to cheat an action out of the mount but I could be wrong.
Thank you for the responses, it is much appreciated. Feel kind of silly that I couldn't find the proper FAQ, but it is good to see.
And ya, while I figured both rider and mount need to make the charge together, Rhino Charge seemed like it might be an odd twist on the rule. Or maybe that's just me. Still, gotta admit I didn't realize that the rules on whether or not you could even use rhino charge with a mount were unclear. The general consensus I've started to get about mounted combat is that the rules tend to be a fair bit debatable in some places. Particularly when you throw charging into the mix, as ranged mounted combat doesn't seem to raise nearly the same number of questions about rider-mount concurrent actions.
Really just wanted to find out how far I could push a certain charge build I've been thinking about, to see if there was a way to activate both lightning stance (with help from mocking dance) and archon justice (the mount has hands, as necessary) in the same turn as a charge, for maximum protection to both rider and mount while still remaining on the offensive. Seems the build might have finally hit its limit, but I guess there might still be some point in having both archon style and lightning stance, for the sake of alternating protection between who needs it most at any given point in time.
Or maybe it'd be better to replace the lightning stance tree with toughness/improved toughness for more hp, with an extra feat to spare. But now I'm rambling. xD
EDIT: If the number of feats required to pull that off doesn't seem to add up, I should note that the mount is a cohort, not an animal companion. Yes, it's a weird build and yes, I understand that the leadership feat tends to get banned by GMs for very good reason. It wasn't intended to be a balanced build, just a creative one.
If both mount and rider have a means of readying charges and both do so it'll definitely work. Vigilant charger has a better prerequisite feat IMO; bull rush isn't as useful as all that to me.
Ya, was looking at my overall build again and ditching bull rush might be the better option. If I was going with some kind of cavalier it'd make a bit of sense, once you get the ability to do bull rushes at the end of charges, but even the value of that is a bit situational. Alas, went roughrider fighter for as many feats as possible/no wasted bonus feats, and the build is already pretty busy with trying to maintain high damage, mobility, defence and overrun.
And I totally forgot about vigilant charger after disregarding it as rhino charge with a very specific trigger, but not having to waste a feat is tempting. I suppose that a GM could screw you if they did the meta-game thing and constantly avoided your trigger - though I'll concede at least some enemies should probably know better than to make a beeline towards cavalry - but I'd like to think most GMs prefer having players get to use their toys every now and then rather than insist they stay in their box.
Kind of sucks if both rider and mount need a way to ready charges, but the cohort already has combat expertise, so at least it would only cost them the extra feat I'd have from ditching the lightning stance tree. Kinda wish pazio had a more solid answer, but I wouldn't disagree with my GM if that's the conclusion they came to.
And oooh, just realized I could combine wheeling charge with a readied charge, meaning so long as I can make the charge using one 90 degree angle turn, I can let the squishy caster 50 feet away be the far more obvious bait. That's actually pretty cool. xD