Mounted combat with your Animal Companion

[Yesterday's Hero]

I've re-read the rules many times and searched the forums, but I can't seem to find a definitive answer to this.

If I'm riding my animal companion, how many actions do we have?

3 total? (as per the Mounted Combat Rules)

3 for me and 2 for my animal companion if I spend 1 action to command it and none if I don't? (as per the Animal Companion rules)

And what happens if I'm a 4th lv druid and take the feat that grants the AC an action even if you don't command it?

Aside from these corner cases, I'm loving the new action economy!

[Angel Hunter D]

Replace "animal companion" with "horse" and you have a question, riding anything else gives you 2 actions and it has 2 to move with (ground speed only)

[Bardarok]

You always have 3 actions.

Your mount by default has no actions.

Riding a mount is trading your actions for mount actions at different rates depending on your level of training.

With just the nature skill
You trade your actions for mount actions 2 for 1 or 3 for 2

Examples:
[A] Handle Animal
[A] Command Animal -> Mound Strides
[A] Rider Strikes

[A] Handle Animal
[A] Command Animal
[A] Command Animal -> Mount takes two action activity

With the ride feat
You no longer need to handle animal to get a mount to obey you so you can trade actions 1 for 1

[A] Command Animal -> Mount Strides
[A] Rider Strikes
[A] Rider Strikes

Animal Companion
Animal Companions are minions which use different rules. Now you can spend your actions for theirs at a 1 to 2 ratio but only once per turn. There is an inconsistency in the rules here where this is better in most situations than the ride feat but specifically if you want to make a horse for example gallop then stride you cannot do that with an animal companion because they can only ever have 2 actions on a turn as minions. Strange.

[A] Command -> Mount get's two actions maybe Stride then Strike
[A] Rider Strikes
[A] Rider Strikes

Advanced Animal Companion
If you don't take the command action they still get a single actions so now you can trade 0 for 1 as well as 1 for 2

No command on riders part animal strides
[A] Rider Strikes
[A] Rider Strikes
[A] Rider Strikes

[Yesterday's Hero]

Thanks for the comprehensive reply.

Bardarok wrote:

Animal Companion
Animal Companions are minions which use different rules. Now you can spend your actions for theirs at a 1 to 2 ratio but only once per turn. There is an inconsistency in the rules here where this is better in most situations than the ride feat but specifically if you want to make a horse for example gallop then stride you cannot do that with an animal companion because they can only ever have 2 actions on a turn as minions. Strange.

[A] Command -> Mount get's two actions maybe Stride then Strike
[A] Rider Strikes
[A] Rider Strikes

Follow-up question. If you command the AC like you said above could you take your remaining actions in between it's actions?

Example:

[A] Command -> Mount get's two actions, it uses 1 of them to Stride
[A] Rider Strikes
[A] Mount uses remaining action to Stride
[A] Rider Strikes

[Bardarok]

I don't think so RAW. Though it seems reasonable RAI.

[Zarkias]

I am very interested by the answer about mixing actions of AC and PC.

I raised many related concerns here