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As the title.
Currently GMing a game and wondering if the Sprite player riding their Corgi can Command it to Stride twice for 50 feet of movement and still have two actions left to use for other things. This seems really good (especially considering the ancestry's low base speed), so it raised a flag for me.
Most animals know the Drop Prone, 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.
Am I wrong to suspect that 50 feet of movement for a single action seems... less balanced compared to nearly every other character option? Help!
Cheers.
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This is really strong but these are the rules.
Now, the Corgi is a Familiar with 5 hps per level, so if anyone decides to attack it the Sprite is on the ground.
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Keep in mind familiars (or at least the corgi mount) get's it's master's AC and Saves IIRC correctly, so on the right class chassis it can be pretty tanky. Plus there's lifelink master/familiar ability. And also Tough.
But the other thing to keep in mind is, the Corgi can't attack and doesn't do anything except provide movement.
I built a sprite character just to lpay with a corgi mount because it sounded fun. Keep in mind I could have chosen another ancestry with better movement speed. And I built a fighter with it. I could have picked up sudden charge which lets you move twice your speed and attack for two actions. So commanding your corgi to move twice for one action is about as effective as sudden charge, but has slightly more flexibility. And in the case of many melee characters, you wont want to move more than once.
So maybe the flexibility of the corgi mounts command is a bit better than sudden charge, a level 1 feat, but I don't think it's breaking things.
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Corgi Mount wouldn't be using the Command an Animal action. They would be using the Minion trait.
With Command an Animal (for a normal mount that you bought at a stable or something like that), you would be trading one action of yours for one action of the mount. So you could have them Stride twice, but it would cost you two actions.
With a Minion like an Animal Companion or Corgi Mount, you do indeed trade one action from the character for two actions from the Minion. So one action to have them stride twice. Which does leave the character with two actions left to cast a spell with.
Corgi Mount is probably the weakest of the options. Familiar's don't have much in the way of HP and if they are being used as a mount, then they are much less likely to have their presence on the battlefield ignored by enemies or AoE effects.
Animal Companion is better because they have relevant HP as well as AC.
Summoner with Steed Form can do similar - two actions on Stride from Eidolon and two actions (including a 2-action activity such as spellcasting) from the summoner. With the added benefit (!) that an AoE they get caught in will only affect their HP once instead of hitting both the character and the mount separately.
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Summoner with Steed Form can do similar - two actions on Stride from Eidolon and two actions (including a 2-action activity such as spellcasting) from the summoner. With the added benefit (!) that an AoE they get caught in will only affect their HP once instead of hitting both the character and the mount separately.
This is not possible with only the Steed Form feat. Remember, while mounted, the eidolon's movement gains the Tandem trait and therefore cannot be included inside of other Tandem actions.
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Animal Companion is better because they have relevant HP as well as AC.
This isn't quite true, especially not for the corgi mount.
Familiars take on their master's AC and saves. So a fighter with a corgi mount has a relative high AC familiar and if their master takes a feat to improve their own save, their familiar benefits too. Likely your familiar will end up with at least two good saves, same as the player character.
In fact, I think generally speaking your familiar will have better AC than an animal companion would.
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So maybe the flexibility of the corgi mounts command is a bit better than sudden charge, a level 1 feat, but I don't think it's breaking things.
Sudden Charge is an option. A character mounted on a Minion can only move that way.
It saves an action (and sometimes has better speed) when you Gotta Go Fast, but when you Gotta Go Faster and need three Strides you can't do it at all.
That's fair to point out.
While the corgi mount might have faster than sprite speed (most ancestry do have 25ft speed) the mounted sprite can only stay mounted and get moved twice. If they needed to move further in one turn, they would have to dismount and walk. So while they have increased flexibility compared to Sudden Charge's 2 action cost for double stride and an attack versus 1 action for two strides, they have decreased flexibility in the sense that they can't spend all their actions to move and they have someone they have to worry about protecting.
Animal Companion is better because they have relevant HP as well as AC.This isn't quite true, especially not for the corgi mount.
Familiars take on their master's AC and saves. So a fighter with a corgi mount has a relative high AC familiar and if their master takes a feat to improve their own save, their familiar benefits too. Likely your familiar will end up with at least two good saves, same as the player character.
In fact, I think generally speaking your familiar will have better AC than an animal companion would.
The point was the HP.
Both familiars and animal companions have reasonable defenses - AC and save values. But familiars have really low HP. Animal companions have relevant HP as well as defenses.
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The biggest issue of the Corgi Mount is that it's small while the Sprite has no reach. So you suddenly can't attack anyone without a Reach Weapon.
Another issue is that you can only move once per round. If you need to move to get to an opponent (even one that is less than 25 feet away), you command your Corgi. But if you slay the opponent, you can't move again. You can end up losing actions also with a Corgi Mount.
Now, if you don't go for a melee build, it's very strong. But at the same time ranged builds are less dependent on movement.
Animal Companion is better because they have relevant HP as well as AC.This isn't quite true, especially not for the corgi mount.
Familiars take on their master's AC and saves. So a fighter with a corgi mount has a relative high AC familiar and if their master takes a feat to improve their own save, their familiar benefits too. Likely your familiar will end up with at least two good saves, same as the player character.
In fact, I think generally speaking your familiar will have better AC than an animal companion would.
The point was the HP.
Both familiars and animal companions have reasonable defenses - AC and save values. But familiars have really low HP. Animal companions have relevant HP as well as defenses.
True-ish. You can get toughness familiar ability for an additional 2 hp per level. It's definitely worse than focused martial classes, and slightly worse than "secondary" martial classes like bard or cleric, but possibly with higher AC depending on what class your playing as the master. You also have life link, but at that point you're sacrificing your own HP.
Ultimately I guess my point is the corgi mount is good for a sprite (IMO) and the corgi has some decent flexibility/action economy benefit but it also has some liability that if you had played another ancestry with faster base speed wouldn't have to worry about. To me I think it all balances out.
The biggest issue of the Corgi Mount is that it's small while the Sprite has no reach. So you suddenly can't attack anyone without a Reach Weapon.
This is one issue that I thought about when building my sprite character that does make things really difficult. You are forced to use a reach weapon (assuming you go melee) and it's a little unsatisfying.