Minions acting on your turn: order of actions.


Rules Discussion


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Minions are creatures that directly serve another creature. A creature with this trait can use only 2 actions per turn and can’t use reactions. Your minion acts on your turn in combat, once per turn, when you spend an action to issue it commands. For an animal companion, you Command an Animal; for a minion that’s a spell or magic item effect, like a summoned minion, you Sustain a Spell or Sustain an Activation; if not otherwise specified, you issue a verbal command, a single action with the auditory and concentrate traits. If given no commands, minions use no actions except to defend themselves or to escape obvious harm. If left unattended for long enough, typically 1 minute, mindless minions usually don’t act, animals follow their instincts, and sapient minions act how they please.

So a strict reading of this implies that your minion's actions occur during the action you spend commanding it. Which would mean you can't take your other actions between the minion taking its two actions. Is that the case?

Example A: You command your mount to stride up to the enemy, which you then strike. Can your mount then move away as its second action? Or is it's turn over because you acted again?

Example B: As above, you command your mount to stride up to an enemy and then you strike it, but your mount still has movement left. Can it use that movement to move away from the target?

Example C: Your horse acts as in Example B, but is using its Support Benefit. Can it continue its movement past the enemy?

Basically trying to figure out of the base system supports something like the PF1 Ride By Attack.


i believe RAW your mount has to take both of its actions before you take yours.

edit:

now that i think of it though:

you CAN "ride by attack" by spending 2 actions to ready an attack "after your mount moves next to the target" and using your 3rd action to command it to move+move


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
shroudb wrote:

i believe RAW your mount has to take both of its actions before you take yours.

edit:

now that i think of it though:

you CAN "ride by attack" by spending 2 actions to ready an attack "after your mount moves next to the target" and using your 3rd action to command it to move+move

Yeah, though I doubt most folks ever would. Not unless they have a really potent single action attack. Maybe Twin Takedown?

Anyone think it would be particularly problematic to allow the above to occur even it isn't RAW? Seems fine and thematic to me and presents a good way to mitigate the low HP of the mount.


Captain Morgan wrote:
shroudb wrote:

i believe RAW your mount has to take both of its actions before you take yours.

edit:

now that i think of it though:

you CAN "ride by attack" by spending 2 actions to ready an attack "after your mount moves next to the target" and using your 3rd action to command it to move+move

Yeah, though I doubt most folks ever would. Not unless they have a really potent single action attack. Maybe Twin Takedown?

Anyone think it would be particularly problematic to allow the above to occur even it isn't RAW? Seems fine and thematic to me and presents a good way to mitigate the low HP of the mount.

jousting weapons are also cool for a single attack, especially if you take into account a horse increasing it even further.

As for allowing it without a ready, persoanlly, as a GM, i would allow if a player asked for him to attack (or do any other ONE action) in between a double move of the horse, but no more than that. I think that a "2 action activity" as an example, or "2 strikes" wouldn't be a "ride-by-attack", but rather a "ride, stop and do your stuff, ride away", and this doens't messes with me right somehow.

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