This is the language for Animal Companions:
An animal companion is a loyal comrade who follows your orders. 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, and you don’t need to attempt a Nature check. If your companion dies, you can spend a week of downtime to replace it at no cost. You can have only one animal companion at a time.
By RAW, minions cannot take more than 2 actions per turn:
A creature with this trait can use only 2 actions per turn and can’t use reactions.
I am running a certain AP, and I see my player wanting to charge his wolf-riding goblin toward a certain objective by commanding it to Stride 3 times. But I don't see this as possible within the rules.
I'm about to houserule that he can Command the Animal to take 3 actions, just as one can under the normal Command an Animal activity:
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.
Am I right this would indeed be a house rule? I can see the intention of the Minion rules, but using ALL your actions to have your Minion act 3 times seems like it doesn't violate the rule's intention of preventing action-economy abuse by players who have multiple creatures to control.
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RAW you cannot have an animal companion make 3 actions without the ranger feat "Companion's cry". Though I would allow (as a house rule) any "mount" to take actions as a regular mount IE it works together with it's rider shairing their action pool.
This aside using Companion's cry to give a companion you are mounted on 3 actions only costs 2 actions from the master so you could take 3 strides and still have an action to spair.
Only Rangers can do that, and it takes a Feat.
COMPANION’S CRY
RANGER CLASS FEAT
4
Prerequisites an animal companionYou can urge your companion to do its utmost. You can spend 2 actions to Command an Animal instead of 1 when commanding your animal companion. If you do, your animal companion uses an additional action.
Core Rulebook (172)
Gotcha. Well, given the existence of the Ranger feat, I will not house rule this in.
Kinda sucks though. It goes against the lore, imo, that a champion's "Divine Mount" can't do what a normal, trained horse can do.
It would be a house rule to allow a third action for a minion, even if commanded.
It's a pretty reasonable house rule, since it doesn't really mess up the action economy since you're requiring the PC to spend 3 actions to grant the AC 3 actions, rather than 2 for 3. I wouldn't hesitate to allow it. Even with the existence of the ranger feat, it's less efficient (since the ranger feat is 2 for 3) and would affect other classes (like Champion and Druid) that don't get that option. And really, the counting should be based on the marginal effort to get that third action. Ranger feat is 1 PC action for 1 AC action, this house rule would be 2 PC actions for 1 AC action.
As an aside, another RAW way to give an animal companion 3 actions is with haste or another ability that gives a minion quickened - around launch Mark Seifter opined in a Q&A that quickened still affects minions.
Gotcha. Well, given the existence of the Ranger feat, I will not house rule this in.
Kinda sucks though. It goes against the lore, imo, that a champion's "Divine Mount" can't do what a normal, trained horse can do.
I mean a Wolf isn't a Horse...
The Horse Companion can Gallop, which is 100 feet of movement over 2 actions. Moving any further than that is usually a bad idea anyway, as it would leave the rest of your party over a turn away from you.
Gotcha. Well, given the existence of the Ranger feat, I will not house rule this in.
Kinda sucks though. It goes against the lore, imo, that a champion's "Divine Mount" can't do what a normal, trained horse can do.
I think it would be perfectly acceptable to let anyone use 3 actions to give their animal companion (or any animal) with actions in a turn. They are spending all their actions to do so, which is generally worse for them than spending the actions themselves.
I wouldn't let your average character spend only two actions to get 3, since the Ranger feat exists for exactly that. So players would need to make the choice, 2 animal companion actions for 1 of yours, or 3 animal companion actions for all of yours.
Gotcha. Well, given the existence of the Ranger feat, I will not house rule this in.
Kinda sucks though. It goes against the lore, imo, that a champion's "Divine Mount" can't do what a normal, trained horse can do.
I mean a Wolf isn't a Horse...
The Horse Companion can Gallop, which is 100 feet of movement over 2 actions. Moving any further than that is usually a bad idea anyway, as it would leave the rest of your party over a turn away from you.
Not a great example. Champions are normally restricted to companions with the mount ability, so The Rot Grub is comparing generic horse vs. Divine Ally horse. Generic horses/ponies also have Gallop. The whole issue here is that animal companions, despite being better than normal animals in many ways, are inherently slower than a 30gp warhorse due to action economy. Think of the flip scenario, where the party is level 20, on generic horses they bought for basically nothing, and your champion can't keep up with a level 20 flying celestial horse.
Also, dromaeosaur companions are just as fast as a galloping horse companion, and a small druid could ride one starting at level 4 (6 for ranger). By contrast, a horse animal companion can't gallop until it's nimble/savage at level 8 for druid (10 for ranger/champion). Not being a mount, the dromaeosaur can't also support you on its turn, but that's a fairly insignificant restriction. Wolves are just as fast as horse companions until gallop.
The real benefit of horse as a companion choice is they start large enough to ride for both small/medium PCs.
Gotcha. Well, given the existence of the Ranger feat, I will not house rule this in.
Kinda sucks though. It goes against the lore, imo, that a champion's "Divine Mount" can't do what a normal, trained horse can do.
I mean a Wolf isn't a Horse...
The Horse Companion can Gallop, which is 100 feet of movement over 2 actions. Moving any further than that is usually a bad idea anyway, as it would leave the rest of your party over a turn away from you.
Not a great example. Champions are normally restricted to companions with the mount ability, so The Rot Grub is comparing generic horse vs. Divine Ally horse. Generic horses/ponies also have Gallop. The whole issue here is that animal companions, despite being better than normal animals in many ways, are inherently slower than a 30gp warhorse due to action economy. Think of the flip scenario, where the party is level 20, on generic horses they bought for basically nothing, and your champion can't keep up with a level 20 flying celestial horse.
Also, dromaeosaur companions are just as fast as a galloping horse companion, and a small druid could ride one starting at level 4 (6 for ranger). By contrast, a horse animal companion can't gallop until it's nimble/savage at level 8 for druid (10 for ranger/champion). Not being a mount, the dromaeosaur can't also support you on its turn, but that's a fairly insignificant restriction. Wolves are just as fast as horse companions until gallop.
The real benefit of horse as a companion choice is they start large enough to ride for both small/medium PCs.
That's only true in Encounter Mode, where again, needing, or wanting, to move more than 100 Feet is going to be a fairly rare thing.
Sure your own campaigns will vary, but very few of the official AP maps are even 100 feet total in a given encounter area. Yes, the map of the dungeon or forest in its entirety is over 100 Feet, but most of the actual Encounters take place in rooms/areas less than 60 Feet across.
In all other modes, movement for the Companion is exactly the same as for other animals of its kind.
At no point is it actually slower than the other animals, it just has a different Action Economy.
The Encounter rules are not really designed for chase scenes, or long distance travel.
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That's only true in Encounter Mode, where again, needing, or wanting, to move more than 100 Feet is going to be a fairly rare thing.
Agreed that it comes up less often than other scenarios. It's still relevant, though, just as it is with my party's elven monk with (currently) 70 speed.
My point was that your example ignores the core complaint, which is more about verisimilitude and a sense of "fairness" than practicality. The Rot Grub's proposed house rule addresses those with little to no impact on anything else. Dismissing the complaint doesn't change it. The discrepancy in actions/speed/options does, as the post you originally replied to said, "kinda suck."
Agree with Rico. Even if it's an edge case, it's an edge case that doesn't really need to be there and doesn't add any value to the game.
I generally just house rule anyone can give an animal companion 3 actions by using 2. Animal companions have enough verisimilitude issues with their reduced action economy (I'm OK with it, but it definitely required some reflection to get there) and I don't think doing this needs a feat tax.
Honestly, I thought you could do it by RAW until that feat came into play.