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Is there any advantage to fighting mounted? Am I missing anything? It seems that the rules on page 478 list only a disadvantage (-2 reflex).
This may ewxplain the downfall of Taldor, though.
The mount generally has a higher speed than the rider. There is also the possibility of the mount providing cover to the rider, depending on angle of attack, also from page 478.
You do indeed need the feat if the mount is you animal companion. Just because you companion can move on its own does not mean you can stay on without making a ride check if you are not trained in riding. So in combat it would be this.
Companion action: move
Rider action without feat: command animal...I use athletics in combat, but technically you would make the command animal action. On a fail you fall off. Why wisdom is important for this is unknown, hence I use the athletics skill. I also only make the player make a check if the animal strides or steps.
Companion action: strike, strike
Rider action: strike, strike (do not share multi attack, because it is a companion)
Companion actions With feat: stride, attack, attack
Rider action with feat: strike, strike, strike. You could also, strike, cast a spell or cast a spell, strike, or strike, dismount, stride.
Ride checks aren't anywhere in the rules as far as I know. What you mean seems to be "you need the Ride feat if you play with this house rule I made up." Which is fine if you want to suggest a house rule but you're framing it as something else. Not sure if you are intending to.
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You seem to be reading "support" as any action other than stride when it is actually a specific action available to animal companions, the details of which depend on the type of animal.
I believe the mount ability is kind of like the concentrate tag on actions, in that it doesn't have any extra effect outside of that rule that refers to it.
So if you have a player riding an animal companion which is a large bear, for example, it would go something like this:
The rider uses one of their two actions to command their companion, allowing the companion. The companion can now take two actions, because an animal companion gains two actions when commanded. If one of these actons is step or stride, the rider moves with them. If one of the actions is strike, the MAP from that strike will apply to the rider, if they strike afterward. If the player tries to get around the sated attack penalty by using the bear's support action, to allow it to deal damage any time the rider hit an enemy in the bear's reach without an extra attack roll (while keeping in mind the restrictions of that action), then they would need to dismount as their first action, before commanding the bear.
If the bear had a climb speed, it would be unable to use that speed while the rider is on it, because it does not have the mount ability.
So, let's see:
Command an animal:
- Spend a command action, make a check, on success:
- Mount performs one action as ordered on its turn.
Ride feat:
"When you Command an Animal you’re mounted on to take a move action (such as Stride), you automatically succeed instead of needing to attempt a check."
That's pretty clear.
"Any animal you’re mounted on acts on your turn, like a minion."
Now here things get FAQ worthy.
Does this imply that with the mount feat you get two mount actions for one command action ("like a minion" modifies "act") or does it mean only that the mount acts on your turn ("like a minion" modifies "acts on your turn")?
I think it more plausible from the text itself, that the latter is the case. When mounted, you trade actions one for one. The Ride feat only helps you coordinate better and autosucceed.
So basically, being mounted let's you use the mounts speed, gives a -2 to reflex and "if the mount is in the way" +2 to AC. The latter seems dubious to me. Is the mount in way of an adjacent infantrist? They would have to fight upwards, but "in the way"? Not so much. So this is completely to GM interpretation.
Finally, a warhorse, being a level 2 creature is pretty soon going to be much more vulnerable than it's rider.
I do not believe there is any implication of all animals getting two actions from command animal, like a mount. Animal companions gain two actions from command animal, instead of the normal one, but i believe that a purchawed horse would only be able to act twice if the rider used 2 command options. That is how the example on page 478 reads.
Mounted CombatYou can ride some creatures into combat. As noted in the Mount specialty basic action (page 472), your mount needs to be at least one size larger than you and willing. Your mount acts on your initiative. You must use the Command an Animal action (page 249) to get your mount to spend its actions. If you don’t, the animal wastes its actions. If you have the Ride general feat, you succeed automatically when you Command an Animal that’s your mount.For example, if you are mounted on a horse and you make three attacks, your horse would remain stationary since you didn’t command it. If you instead spent your first action to Command an Animal and succeeded, you could get your mount to Stride. You could spend your next action to attack or to command the horse to attack, but not both
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"Any animal you’re mounted on acts on your turn, like a minion." is not the same statement as "Mounts act like minions"
The example I quoted above from page 478, shows the rider needing to take a second action to get the mount to take a second action.
While I can agree that cavalry without animal companions end up being much less effective than they would be in an accurate simulation, seeing that something doesn't work well doesn't mean it isn't the rule, just that it's a rule you may want to override at your table.
@Hammerjack
Any animal you'r acts on your turn, like a minion. (behaves like a minion). I.e. it would seem to imply you can easily interpret that once you mount them, they act like your minion. [Note: that this is with the Ride feat, not simply ride skill] At a minimum, the 'act as a minion' would seem to imply at a minimum that its 'act'ions behave like a minion. Which minions trade 2 for one. With that rule, you might be able to argue that that sentence doesn't guarantee they don't require a roll, but since the ride feat takes care of that in its other sentence, that alleviates that potential concern.
Note the Mounted Combat paragraph describes what happens by default when you ride a creature. It says, your mount acts on your initiative. It does not mention like a Minion, because being mounted does not grant you the benefits of the creature being treated as your minion. This seems to add to the intention.
Note: looking at the example mentioned, it is clear that mounted combat can cause the need for a 1 player action traded for 1 mount action. However, it isn't saying that is the case for with ride. It seems clear you can have a character riding a creature into combat without having the Ride feat itself. In which case the animal, while mounted, is not acting like a minion, but instead is only acting on your initiative, and you command it to make movements in sync with your own movements.
Animal companions however start as minions, so they have the behavior that you pay one action, without a skill roll to cause the animal to spend two actions. So for an animal companion, you don't need the ride skill, to get the two for one action economy, nor the lack of a skill roll to successfully command your minion.
If I am right, only the Horse animal companion currently offers the Mount special ability. This means only Horses, Ponies or other similar equine are allowed to be treated as 'Mounts', meaning when mounted, they are the only ones allowed to used special movement capabilities, or allowed to used their 'support benefit' while currently being mounted. I agree with what some others said, about this being a real damper on fantasy creature mounts, especially when creatures like goblins are supposed to commonly ride other animals as mounts. I hope they revisit this and provide the trait, or variant alternative to the trait to other viable animals in the not too distant future?
Actually, this brings up an interesting question. If an animal companion is carrying a rider (or carrying a creature on its back), and the animal companion is not controlled by the rider, but instead their companion (non-rider), can the animal companion act on its own turn, and use its support action to assist their companion, and use its natural movements?
So we definitely disagree about our readings of the Ride feat.
I think at least there's no argument about the base action economy of a purchased mount, without the ride feat (1 rider action spent for 1 action taken by the mount) or the action economy of riding an AC (always a minion, gets 2 actions when the rider spends 1). Or am I incorrect about that point of consensus, and there is a disagreement there?
So we definitely disagree about our readings of the Ride feat.
I think at least there's no argument about the base action economy of a purchased mount, without the ride feat (1 rider action spent for 1 action taken by the mount) or the action economy of riding an AC (always a minion, gets 2 actions when the rider spends 1). Or am I incorrect about that point of consensus, and there is a disagreement there?
It sounds like I agree with you on cash purchased animal and Animal Companions mechanics then. Somehow I got the impression you were indicating that Animal Companions when ridden were one for one when mounted, I apologize if I got that part wrong.
We can certainly agree to disagree on the ride feats intended mechanics.
Okay, I'm Home. Lets break this down starting with rules as writen. Also, the ride check is called "Command Animal" now. How did you misunderstand that? And if you mess up, your mount misbehaves in some manner which can cause you to make a check to stay on. Thats a ride check, regardless what skill you actually use. you could use reflex, or athletics, or Nature, or Acrobatics. the end result will be the same. you fail to "ride" your mount.
What you're describing is if the Animal uses the "Buck" action, which is pretty specifically defined in the bestiary as calling for a reflex save from the rider. I think allowing an acrobatics or athletics check instead would be reasonable, although personally I'd only allow it if the character had Rapid Mantel or whatever the other feat is for skill substituting on "Grab Edge" reactions.
Animal companions don't have reactions, so technically they can't use Buck, silly as it may be. They also are going to almost always be helpful to you, which means you can't actually critically fail at a check to Command them because you treat your degree of success as one better.
Now, something you have pointed out that I missed is that as written you still need to roll a Nature check to Command an Animal. (Allowing another skill to be used for this seems to be purely a house rule.) However, I'm pretty confident that's a mistake, because the animal companion entry references the "Handle an Animal" action from the playtest which was removed from the final game. Handle an Animal was basically the skill check you had to roll to get a critter's attention, and Command an Animal was the follow up action that required no check. So I'm reasonably sure that much like the playtest you aren't supposed to roll a check to give an animal companion basic attacks and they just forgot to update the text there.
1 for 1 trading of actions means being mounted sucks, as per KutuluKultist's original post. You're spending a bunch of money to purchase, and maintain a mount; equip it; and possibly a feat to ride it. That's utterly terrible if they offer little benefit in combat.
They do offer a benefit in combat, though. 40 foot speed is way better than 25, and if you're heavily armored or a dwarf it literally doubles your speed. They also let you utilize the Jousting trait on a lance, though the lance is at a weird point where it versatile but can't utilize all of its abilities at the same time. (Loses reach when mounted. Loses damage when one handing it.) You also can get an AC bonus sometimes. For something which just costs money rather than feats that seems pretty good.
The real problem is that a purchased mount won't scale with your level and will get one shotted eventually. But that's also part of why if your concept is "mounted character" you're probably taking a feat to get you an animal companion.
But your purchased animal not leveling with you brings us to...
From a simulationist point of view it would be even worse. Mounted combatants (cavalry) were the terror of the infantry. The phalanx died in part because of the stirrup.
You're assuming that combat between armies uses the encounter mechanics as written. Which isn't a very safe assumption-- mass combat rules were their own thing in PF1. But more importantly, it feels difficult to use real world comparisons because the real world doesn't have high level humans. A Pathfinder human can pretty easily wrestle a horse to the ground. Now, a random soldier probably won't be a high level character, but all it takes is one decently leveled Fighter with a halberd
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I think at least there's no argument about the base action economy of a purchased mount, without the ride feat (1 rider action spent for 1 action taken by the mount) or the action economy of riding an AC (always a minion, gets 2 actions when the rider spends 1).
I am basically with you, but I have a question — can a character riding an ordinary mount spend multiple actions to have his mount perform activities?
For instance, a Horse has the Gallop activity by which it uses two actions to stride twice with a +10 foot bonus to its speed. Can a rider spend two actions to have his ordinary Horse undertake that activity?
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From Command an Animal, on page 249:
"Most animals know the Leap, Seek, Stand, Stride, and Strike basic actions. If an animal knows an activity, such as a horse’s Gallop, you can Command the Animal to perform the activity, but you must spend as many actions on Command an Animal as the activity’s number of actions. You can also spend multiple actions to Command the Animal to perform that number of basic actions on its next turn; for instance, you could spend 3 actions to Command an Animal to Stride three times or to Stride twice and then Strike."
So I would say that answer is unambiguously yes, you can spend two actions to have the horse gallop.
Also, if we want to talk about dedicated cavalry, what we should be looking at is someone with a mount from a class feat or feature. Most likely a champion or by converting the cavalier archetype from the playtest. And they are probably wearing heavy armor, as well At which point, their animal companion provides:
-Quadruple their base move speed for a single action. Becomes even faster once you get Gallop.
-On a charge with the support benefit, you deal d12 level damage while one handing a lance and getting deadly d8, potentially allowing a shield in the other hand. If you two hand the lance you do better than d12 damage.
-You can trade a third attack for your mount striking twice at an admittedly lower attack bonus.
- Eventually you can give your mount an action without commanding it, thereby greatly improving your action economy when you need to move.
-You have a potential agro magnet that can take some hits so you don't have to. Whether an enemy goes for your horse will vary by encounter, but I'd say mindless undead going for the biggest creature seems like a fairly safe bet.
- Occasional AC bonus.
That's a pretty sizable list of advantages really. It is also a lot of investment if you want to have the best horsie you can have. But a single feat is all you need for a lot of that stuff. There are also some trade-offs of course, but there's certainly enough to justify making a dedicated mounted character.
From Command an Animal, on page 249:
"Most animals know the Leap, Seek, Stand, Stride, and Strike basic actions. If an animal knows an activity, such as a horse’s Gallop, you can Command the Animal to perform the activity, but you must spend as many actions on Command an Animal as the activity’s number of actions. You can also spend multiple actions to Command the Animal to perform that number of basic actions on its next turn; for instance, you could spend 3 actions to Command an Animal to Stride three times or to Stride twice and then Strike."
So I would say that answer is unambiguously yes, you can spend two actions to have the horse gallop.
Actually that passage illustrates my biggest problem with the minion/animal companion rules. An animal companion has the minion trait - it can ONLY take 2 actions/turn. Thus a non-animal companion mount is actually much faster: It can take 3 actions. Compare, for example, 2 horses: the AC can take 2 action to gallop for a 100' move; the non-AC mount can be commanded to Gallop for 2 actions and then further commanded to stride for a total move of 140'...
I strongly dislike that Animal Companions aren't allowed their natural reactions either. I don't know that it would be horrible, although potentially house rule area, to allow after commanding a minion, to follow up with a second player's action to do a command an animal to give the animal companion access to its third action to do something more, or access a three action activity. [minions then by default have two actions when they act, but a third action can be enabled by spending and extra action directing it]
I think I'd prefer a interpretation that an animal companion or other minion is always basically, passively spending an action 'awaiting orders and preparing support effect. That way, if you use a second action to access that third action for the companion, they perhaps wouldn't get to provide their support action that round? Seams reasonable enough interpretation that doesn't seem unreasonable. Alternately, view Animal Companions' support activity might be considered their reaction. And if you want them to be trained to use their support ability, they can't use their natural reactions. However, if you forego the support action training, they might be trained to utilize their natural reaction if they have one.
From Command an Animal, on page 249:
"Most animals know the Leap, Seek, Stand, Stride, and Strike basic actions. If an animal knows an activity, such as a horse’s Gallop, you can Command the Animal to perform the activity, but you must spend as many actions on Command an Animal as the activity’s number of actions. You can also spend multiple actions to Command the Animal to perform that number of basic actions on its next turn; for instance, you could spend 3 actions to Command an Animal to Stride three times or to Stride twice and then Strike."
So I would say that answer is unambiguously yes, you can spend two actions to have the horse gallop.
Actually that passage illustrates my biggest problem with the minion/animal companion rules. An animal companion has the minion trait - it can ONLY take 2 actions/turn. Thus a non-animal companion mount is actually much faster: It can take 3 actions. Compare, for example, 2 horses: the AC can take 2 action to gallop for a 100' move; the non-AC mount can be commanded to Gallop for 2 actions and then further commanded to stride for a total move of 140'...
Yeah they should have made Companion's Cry a default action, IMO. Rolling nature as your second action to give your pet a third would have also been fine.
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If you are riding a horse there is a special movement advantage for doing so. This seems to be a reward for riding a boring mount. Developers should learn that many (most?) players aren't interested in doing things in a fantasy game that they can do in real life. I can ride a horse in real life.
as a city boy the idea of riding a horse is already pretty fantastical to me, lol
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Actually that passage illustrates my biggest problem with the minion/animal companion rules. An animal companion has the minion trait - it can ONLY take 2 actions/turn. Thus a non-animal companion mount is actually much faster: It can take 3 actions. Compare, for example, 2 horses: the AC can take 2 action to gallop for a 100' move; the non-AC mount can be commanded to Gallop for 2 actions and then further commanded to stride for a total move of 140'...From Command an Animal, on page 249:
"Most animals know the Leap, Seek, Stand, Stride, and Strike basic actions. If an animal knows an activity, such as a horse’s Gallop, you can Command the Animal to perform the activity, but you must spend as many actions on Command an Animal as the activity’s number of actions. You can also spend multiple actions to Command the Animal to perform that number of basic actions on its next turn; for instance, you could spend 3 actions to Command an Animal to Stride three times or to Stride twice and then Strike."
So I would say that answer is unambiguously yes, you can spend two actions to have the horse gallop.
Yes, if all you're doing is moving, a non-minion mount can move 3 times per round. However you have to use all three of your actions to command the mount to move three times, so you can do nothing else during your turn.
A minion can only move twice per round, BUT you only need to spend one action to command it to do so-- meaning you have two actions left with which to cast a spell, attack, recall knowledge, raise a shield, etc. Plus animal companions can Support you, or attack, and they gain other abilities as you level up. Also they tend to have more HP than ordinary mounts.
So if all you're interested in is running away from a battle as fast as possible, then yes, a mundane mount can flee 50% faster than a companion mount (assuming it has the same base movement speed). However if you plan to actually participate in encounters, companion mounts are far superior.
Here's how I see it.
Default: Spend 1 action, and it might do 1 action (roll Nature vs Will).
Ride: Spend 1 action, it does 1 action (No roll).
Companion: Spend 1 action, it does 2 actions.
Also: -2 Reflex, share MAP penalty, share space (extra reach), can't use your special movements, and possibly get Support Benefit (bonus damage for horse).
I don't see the limit on the number of actions it can take though.
Your animal companion has the minion trait, and it gains 2 actions during your turn if you use the Command an Animal action to command it; this is in place of the usual effects of Command an Animal
Same rule for Familars
Familiars have the minion trait (page 634), so during an encounter, they gain 2 actions in a round if you spend an action to command them
Is there some rule that says minions only get 2 actions max?
Or at least 3 actions? Because I can see 6 actions here...
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Minion (trait) 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.