Sprite Corgi Mount and Cavaliers

[Steven Bartalamay]

I want to make a sprite cavalier charger for society play. (The idea of a tiny sprite riding around the dungeon stabbing the baddies just delights me so...)

How would the ancestry feat Corgi Mount and the Cavalier Dedication interact? Can I choose my corgi as my animal companion? If so, does the corgi still get the familiar benefits?

For the benefit of this discussion, I will be listing the feats below. As spoiler text.

Corgi Mount:

The smallest of fey have ridden corgis as mounts since time immemorial, leading to a pattern on corgis’ backs called a “faerie saddle.” You have formed a magical connection with a corgi that can serve as your mount. Your corgi familiar is Small rather than Tiny, and it’s appropriate for use as your mount, unlike most familiars. It has the scent ability, which counts against your limit for familiar and master abilities as normal. Furthermore, it can never gain a familiar ability that grants it any Speeds other than a land Speed. If you’re a pixie, you can’t ride a corgi due to your Size, but you can take this feat to gain a corgi familiar.

Cavalier Dedication:

You gain a young animal companion (Core Rulebook 214) that serves as your mount. You can choose from animal companions with the mount special ability, as well as any additional options from your pledge, as determined by your GM. You must choose an animal companion that’s at least one size larger than you, but if the animal usually starts as Small, you can begin with a Medium version of that animal (changing
no statistics other than its size).

Special You cannot select another dedication feat until youbhave gained two other feats from the cavalier archetype. Thisbrestriction is waived if you have pledged to the organizationbassociated with the other dedication feat. For example, if youbare pledged to a Hellknight order, you could take Hellknightbdedication feats without needing to gain other feats from the cavalier archetype first.

[Lucerious]

The corgi is a familiar not an animal companion. I would find a way to make it work at my table because heck yes!, but sadly it doesn’t.

[pauljathome]

Depending on what you're trying to accomplish, the corgi might be sufficient. My warpriest is doing just great with the vastly increased mobility. Ad a sprite with a reach weapon should be quite viable (albeit not absolutely the best).

If you go this route, be aware that the rules on familiar mounts are quite unclear. In particular, it is not clear whether or not a Corgi with the independent familiar ability can use it's free action to move while mounted. Basically, the rules on mounted combat and the rules for independent contradict each other (same is true for mature animal companions).

PFS GMs DO differ on their rulings.

[Cordell Kintner]

You can not choose a familiar as your animal companion, their stat blocks are way too different. It would require some major homebrew to make work.

[Arachnofiend]

Even if you ruled that you can choose the corgi as your "mount" most of the cavalier's benefits just would not work with it. This character is pretty doable without the archetype though, the Independent familiar ability replaces the action economy boons you get from cavalier which are the main draw of the archetype (other than getting a mount if you otherwise would not have one obviously).

[Steven Bartalamay]

All right. So far, it appears that the best route for this would be to take Corgi Mount at level 1, then at 12 XP, use the 'free respec' to change the ancestry feat and choose Cavalier Dedication to upgrade the familiar to an animal companion. That would provide a sturdier mount, as well as give it some combat utility.

[Alchemic_Genius]

If you want to do cavalier, there's nothing saying you can't just be a cavalier, ask the DM nicely if you can take a wolf, and say it's a corgi

If all you want is a buddy to ride, familiar master provides you a way to enhance the corgi mount. It'll be weaker than the doggo companion, but require less feats; that said, valet and manual dexterity can give it utility the companion can't get. 2 feats gets you 6 abilities; I'd recommend Scent (mandatory), Independent, Tough, Damage Avoidance, Fast Movement, and Manual Dexterity, and load pupper up with some handy alchemist items, like a smokestick, or a barrel of whiskey- I mean healing potion. If you don't want hands on your dog, fluff it as being really good with its mouth and paws

[Gortle]

You have several ways forward. At the risk of repeating what you already know let me enumerate them:

1) Take the Corgi as a familiar and use it as a mount. Roleplay a Cavalier but don't bother taking any Cavalier feats and thereby avoid all rules problems
Boost your Corgi with an Enhanced Familiar feat. I think you will probably want to pick up Indepedent , Tough, and Fast Movement from the familiar abilities. But there is some other cool stuff there as well.
The problem is that you don't have an animal companion, just a mount and a familiar. So some rules elements will work differently.

2) Retrain your ancestry feat to something else at level 2 and just be a Cavalier. Go heavily into the Cavalier feats. Start with an animal companion of Wolf which explicitly states can be used for any dog, ie a Corgi.

The first problem is that your Corgi gains size as it gains feats. The first size gain from Cavalier Dedication is optional for you as you don't need it for the Corgi to be big enough to ride so you can ignore it. The second size gain from Impressize mount is not optional. So you will end up with a size medium Corgi. Probably OK.
The other is that when you gain your Corgi via this method doesn't have the mount ability (unless your GM intervenes) so you can't count on it in PFS play. The restrictions aren't too bad, you can live with that

3) Rely on the good will of the GM to make some compromise rule and bring it together. A tough ask for PFS. Personally if you wanted to take a combined approach of Corgi Ancestry Feat and Cavalier Dedication - I don't think it unreasonable to rewrite the Corgi Mount ancestry feat to effectively transmute the familiar into an animal companion Wolf with the mount trait and have no other effect with Cavalier Dedication. But that is clearly a house rule.

Edit: Personally I'm with the previous poster. The familiar is more flexible and cheaper featwise. Roleplay being the Cavalier. Your mount can't fight directly then, but that is OK. You can still do cool things like lance charge.