[Druid] Mounting Animal Companions without Mount Special Ability and Work Together

[kuey]

There seems to be a contradiction here and want to see what everyone else thinks is the intended reading.

In the second para in page 284, it says, "You or an ally can ride your animal companion as long as it is at least one size larger than the rider. If you do, it can use only its land Speed unless it has the mount special ability. In addition, if someone is riding your animal companion and it doesn’t have the mount special ability, it can’t use the Work Together action."

But under the Work Together action description, it says, "Your animal companion assists you. You gain the benefits listed in your companion’s Work Together Benefit entry. Your companion can use its other action only to move in order to get into position to take advantage of the Work Together benefits; if your companion doesn’t have the mount special ability and you are riding it, it can’t use any other actions this turn at all."

So the first says that without the mount special ability, it can't use the Work Together action. But the second implies that if you are the one riding it, the animal companion can use the Work Together action.

Either I read it as the latter being a more specific ruling and so trumps the general ruling from earlier. Or there's a typo with the first, and it should have been "if some other than yourself is riding your animal companion...".

[Angel Hunter D]

I've been over this and it looks like using the semicolon there is to indicate they are talking about moving only. IE. it can only move unless it has the Mount ability. Which is unfortunate and not really fun, Work Together looked to be a good way to differentiate mounts and different mounted styles for about 1/2 a second.

[kuey]

Hmm, I read it differently from you. The part before the semi-colon says the animal companion can use its other action only to move. Then to be more specific, if the animal companion doesn't have the mount ability, it can't even use its other action. In both cases, the "other action" is referring to the other action after using Work Together. Otherwise, it would be strange to have all these descriptors under the Work Together entry.

[Angel Hunter D]

That's what I thought too, but I was talking to a guy that does game design and knows his grammer and says it's that way. I'd love to read it your way though, that'd be so much more fun.