Form Up! and Banner on Mount

[pH unbalanced]

OK, just want to make sure I understand how this works. Form Up! says:

Form Up! wrote:

You signal your team to move into position together. Signal all squadmates affected by your commander’s banner; each can immediately Stride as a reaction, though each must end their movement inside your banner’s aura.

So, in order to be affected, your squadmates must start within 30' (or more with other features) of the banner when the command is given, and end within 30' of the banner.

Let's say the banner is on a Mount that gets a reaction. If the Mount moves first (with the banner) that doesn't change who is affected by Form Up!, correct? As long as they were in the aura when the order was given? Just in order to move they need to end up 30' from the banner.

Similarly, if the Mount moves last, such that the Banners aura moves away from squadmates who have used Form Up!, that should be ok. Because the moves were legal when they were made, and the Mount is still in the Banner's aura when it completes movement.

Does that sound right?

[Sanityfaerie]

I think that's true. The only question is whether or not your mount (as a minion) is capable of getting a reaction at all. "Minions are creatures that directly serve another creature. A creature with this trait can use only 2 actions per turn, doesn't have reactions, and can't act when it's not your turn." So you can't use Form Up on anyone else's minion (since it's not that person's turn, the minion can't act) and for your own... well, "doesn't have reactions" could mean "reaction budget per turn = 0" or "is not capable of having reactions" and in this case the two are very different.

Now, if it *does* work, then nothing stops you from doing it more than once in a turn, especially if you're high enough level to get the right feats to hand out reactions to more than one of your squadmates at a time.

There's some other mount-related silliness, though.

Like, the extra action that Battle-Hardened Destrier gets - I'm *pretty* sure that it can still get its attack even after you've had it form up repeatedly, as long as it does it as the last thing it does in the round. I'm not sure if that's intentional or not.

...and, of course, there's the jolly good fun of adding Mountaineering Training to your list of tactics, at which point you can issue a series of orders and charge your horse straight up the mountainside.

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

Minions explicitly can gain extra reactions (up from 0 to 1) under the Remaster description as mentioned in another thread around here.

[Ravingdork]

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

Minions explicitly can gain extra reactions (up from 0 to 1) under the Remaster description as mentioned in another thread around here.

Source please.

[pH unbalanced]

Ravingdork wrote:

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

Minions explicitly can gain extra reactions (up from 0 to 1) under the Remaster description as mentioned in another thread around here.

Source please.

Note the updated language for the Minion trait on this page.

The key change is that minions have 0 reactions (not "no reactions"), and it is specifically called out that they can use reactions if some ability gives it to them.

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

Ravingdork wrote:

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

Minions explicitly can gain extra reactions (up from 0 to 1) under the Remaster description as mentioned in another thread around here.

Source please.

Apologies, wasn't available for a while. The clarification comes from Michael Sayre on the main Commander Feedback thread, so I assumed somebody else would have referenced it by now, but I'm happy to follow up now that I'm available again:

Michael Sayre wrote:

A commander can give reactions to their mount via Drilled Reactions as long as it's one of their squadmates.

There's some confusion because AoN seems to have appended a page attribution pointing to Player Core to the old CRB minion text; the Player Core minion text says-

"Minion
Minions are creatures that directly serve another creature.
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 the effect (page 419); if not otherwise specified, you
issue a verbal command as 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.
A minion has only 2 actions and 0 reactions per turn,
though certain conditions (such as slowed or quickened)
or abilities might give them a reaction that they can use.
Alterations to a minion’s actions occur when they gain their
actions for the round. A minion can’t control other creatures."

[Ravingdork]

Thank you pH unbalanced and Sibelius Eos Owm.

Not a fan of the poor sentence structure though:
"A minion has only 2 actions and 0 reactions per turn, though certain conditions (such as slowed or quickened) or abilities might give them a reaction that they can use."

It really should have been broken up into two sentences. Something like:
"A minion has only 2 actions and 0 reactions per turn, though certain conditions (such as slowed or quickened) can alter their number of actions. Other abilities might also give them reactions that they can use."