I bet this had been asked a few times when Howl of the Wild had come out, but I wasn't able to pull anything up when I searched.
The Centaur Weapon Familiarity states they're excellent jousters, and even specifically gain the lance as a weapon proficiency.
However, from what I could find, they do not count as 'mounted' for the purpose of the lance's 1H requirement. I find that kind of absurd that they essentially have the same profile as a mounted rider, except for the horse's head in the front, and yet they don't get to use this property. Jousting usually includes a shield in the off hand to catch other's lances, so not allowing them to do so would basically mean they get skewered pretty much every time.
Feels really bad to include all these aspects leaning towards that specific playstyle, yet block off a critically important feature of *jousting*.
Is there something I'm missing?
If I'm not, does anyone have any feedback about houseruling this? Like, did it have any overpowered effect on that character's gameplay?
Envisioning a Ponygait Centaur mounted on a horse and using a Lance does indeed look rather absurd.
It does feel like an oversight in the Centaur rules. They should have a note saying that the character counts as mounted for most abilities (up to GM discretion) that require being mounted, such as the Jousting trait.
I mean, that's kinda what I'm leaning towards for houserule if I can't find any official confirmation for/against.
Either way, I'd be glad to hear from anyone on this.
Challenge a centaur to a horse race.... proceed to ask them where their horse is.
Huh, I didn't realize paizo's rules were written by House Thrune. :p
And it's not treating any 2H weapon as a 1H one. It's specifically for a weapon DESIGNED for the physical arrangement they have, and REINFORCED by statements about them in the book. If they wanted to prevent this confusion a short sidebar about it would have been fine, even it was an 'we won't because it's unbalanced', it would have been better than this frustrating, awful-feeling nebulousness.
Challenge a centaur to a horse race.... proceed to ask them where their horse is.Huh, I didn't realize paizo's rules were written by House Thrune. :p
And it's not treating any 2H weapon as a 1H one. It's specifically for a weapon DESIGNED for the physical arrangement they have, and REINFORCED by statements about them in the book. If they wanted to prevent this confusion a short sidebar about it would have been fine, even it was an 'we won't because it's unbalanced', it would have been better than this frustrating, awful-feeling nebulousness.
There is no nebulousness here. A creature needs to be mounted to get the benefits of the Jousting trait. Is the centaur mounted? No. Then they don't get the bonus. Is it weird when the creature is, essentially, a man on a horse, but all in one? Yes, absolutely.
If you want a way to be able to use the Jousting trait's main bonus (the extra damage on movement) you can always use a Harnessed Shield .
Or as you pointed out, change it. As NorrKneten pointed out, d6, Reach, deadly d8 in one hand is a very solid weapon, and Centaurs, because they aren't mounted, would not lose the Reach (which people mounted on large or bigger creatures do). So...it's slightly iffy, but the game won't implode if you or your GM allows it.
Yeah, you aren't missing anything. Centaurs simply dont have any special rules for lances like that.
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There is no nebulousness here. A creature needs to be mounted to get the benefits of the Jousting trait. Is the centaur mounted? No. Then they don't get the bonus. Is it weird when the creature is, essentially, a man on a horse, but all in one? Yes, absolutely.
If you want a way to be able to use the Jousting trait's main bonus (the extra damage on movement) you can always use a Harnessed Shield .
Or as you pointed out, change it. As NorrKneten pointed out, d6, Reach, deadly d8 in one hand is a very solid weapon, and Centaurs, because they aren't mounted, would not lose the Reach (which people mounted on large or bigger creatures do). So...it's slightly iffy, but the game won't implode if you or your GM allows it.
I guess *I* find a lack of definitive answer for a situation that has come up multiple times to be a nebulous response.
I agree that with the benefits of jousting, the lance is a solid weapon, otherwise it's not really worth writing about. You're right, it just feels really weird. Thank you for pointing out the Harnessed Shield!
So maybe it's just the Reach trait that's the problem as far as people's perception of balance goes. I know I wouldn't want to have another flickmace situation going on.
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I think part of the concept between the Jousting trait, both mechanically and lore-wise, is that when mounted, you don't worry about moving yourself, as you just direct your mount to go the desired direction and it focuses on that. You instead focus on using your body to leverage the long lance in the appropriate direction to make the best use of the lance to turn the momentum of your mount into damage to an opponent.
As an example, this means you are almost assuredly investing in an action to command a minion you are riding. That helps eat up an action, keeping you from doing three strikes (not that the third would be effective normally).
For a centaur using a lance, they wouldn't have the benefit of being able to focus on simply pivoting the lance, they also have to focus on balancing their body, and charging forward, just like it were any other weapon. The are focused on factors all over their body.
Not sure it would matter a whole lot, but also human riders on a horse, are back closer to the center of mass, which is likely good for balance and leverage of a weapon like a lance. A centaur on the other hand, has their human-like torso at the front of their body, which might make certain aspects of their leverage harder for them.
I think that said, it isn't unreasonable that they by raw, would not benefit as if being mounted for purposes of the Jousting trait. However, to let centaur pc's lean into that sort of a concept, it seems quite easy to be something which could be enabled by a centaur ancestry feat. As someone mentioned, it would even further benefit them as they wouldn't be losing the reach trait by using it on a mount.
"Losing the reach trait when mounted" is a bit inexact of language and somewhat misleading. Mounted attack rules.
A small character on a medium size mount using a reach weapon does not lose any reach from their Reach trait weapon.
A character on a Large or Huge mount will only be able to attack adjacent spaces to the mount with a 10 foot reach and can attack spaces up to 10 feet away with a 15 foot reach.
It is unspecified what effect on reach occurs for a Gargantuan mount, or for a reach larger than 15 feet such as a weapon with an Extending rune.
So simply saying that Reach trait is blanket ignored when mounted is not accurate.