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Frosty
2010-10-05, 07:12 PM
Alright class. Assume a frictionless Cavalier wielding a Lance atop her trusty mount in aperfect vacuum, wanting to charge some baddies.

We all know that Cavaliers love to charge, and often-times using a Lance from the back of their mounts. Charging has many known limitations, of course, such as having another creature in the way. Being able to bulldoze over a creature in the way would be terrific , and having the Charge Through feat is terrific for that.

Benefit: When making a charge, you can attempt to overrun one creature in the path of the charge as a free action. If you successfully overrun that creature, you can complete the charge. If the overrun is unsuccessful, the charge ends in the space directly in front of that creature.
The question is, should the Cavalier take the feat or should her mount (with 3 int or more. It works in Pathfinder. Your Animal Companion-type creatures can have more than 2 Int) take the feat?

Here's another feat that begs the same question: Rhino Charge.

Benefit: You may ready a charge, though you may only move up to your speed on the charge.
The cavalier likely be the one making the attack at the end of the charge (since the mount only has 5ft of reach but the cavalier has 10 with the lance), but they are both technically charging? So who should take the feat?

I guess the core question becomes this: When you are riding a mount in combat, who really does the charging? Is it my mount who readies an action to charge (and I'm just along for the ride...and the lance-skewer at the end) or is it really me who does it and my mount just moves me (but also gets to attack)? Does the mount even get to attack? When I wield a lance I have more reach than my mount, and the charge in theory stops once I've attacked with my lance. I guess if I have Ride-by-Attack we can keep going and my mount can also get a Bite attack or something as we go by and it still counts as a charging attack for the mount?

I'm hoping to have my mount take: Power Attack, Improved overrun, Charge Through, Improved Bullrush, Rhino Charge, and Greater overrun.

That way I can have my mount ready an action to charge, charge during an opponent's action, bowl over an enemy on the way, get an AoO (both me with my lance and my mount) on that enemy, skewer the target, and if the target is still alive at that point, try to use Bodyguard and In Harm's Way to protect my ally.

Fax Celestis
2010-10-05, 07:14 PM
You take the feat, and you guide your mount. Also you should take this feat (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/trample-combat---final) if you plan on doing it a lot.

Frosty
2010-10-05, 07:17 PM
You take the feat, and you guide your mount. Also you should take this feat (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/trample-combat---final) if you plan on doing it a lot.
Which feats? All of them? Especially on the Charge Through feat, the image I'm getting is the charger pushing someone down and running past (or over) them as they rush to the intended target. In this case the Cavalier is just sitting atop her horse, aiming her lance carefully, and it's the horse who actually does the pushing-to-the-ground and such.

OzymandiasVolt
2010-10-05, 07:20 PM
The cavalier is the one charging. The mount just provides faster movespeed and benefits from any feats or class features requiring that you be mounted.

Fax Celestis
2010-10-05, 07:21 PM
Doesn't matter. You're directing the mount. Otherwise feats like Trample wouldn't work.

OzymandiasVolt
2010-10-05, 07:25 PM
Incorrect. It's an abstraction. Trample works by letting you make a trample during overrun (an overrun that YOU are attempting while mounted). While you're mounted (there's the flag that gets tripped). The second effect is letting your mount make an attack against the target.

The mount replaces your move speed, but the rider is the one taking actions.

Frosty
2010-10-05, 07:26 PM
Doesn't matter. You're directing the mount. Otherwise feats like Trample wouldn't work.
I get that I can give my mount directions (and the Trample feat specifically says I have to take it, not my mount), but isn't my mount *also* charging? I mean, it *can* also make its own attacks right?

So like I said, I'm just trying to see if my mount also counts as charging. I think I can see how Rhino Charge should be taken by the rider (since she makes the decision to ready the charge), but Charge Through looks like it's just done as part of the charge by any participant of the charge.

Incorrect. It's an abstraction. Trample works by letting you make a trample during overrun (an overrun that YOU are attempting while mounted). While you're mounted (there's the flag that gets tripped). The second effect is letting your mount make an attack against the target.
So if *I'm* the one overruning, does that mean if I don't have Improved Overrun I 'd provoke an AoO?

Fax Celestis
2010-10-05, 07:27 PM
Nono, what I meant is that the Trample feat specifically calls out you making an overrun while mounted. If your mount was doing the overrun, and not you, then the feat would literally do nothing.

I get that I can give my mount directions (and the Trample feat specifically says I have to take it, not my mount), but isn't my mount *also* charging? I mean, it *can* also make its own attacks right?
I've always played it this way.

OzymandiasVolt
2010-10-05, 07:28 PM
But...and you said...fff now I'm confused. (Oh wait, you were talking to HIM when you said it didn't matter. Everything makes more sense now. Oops.)

Fax Celestis
2010-10-05, 07:29 PM
But...and you said...fff now I'm confused.

Poor phrasing. What I meant was that the feat specifically counts you and your mount as one contiguous unit for feats and combat actions, and nothing anywhere indicates that it should normally be otherwise.

Frosty
2010-10-05, 07:30 PM
I've always played it this way.
Then how is it illogical that your (intelligent) mount is the one that learns how to bull people over as part of charging towards the primary target? It's really not the cavalier at all.

Fax Celestis
2010-10-05, 07:38 PM
It's not illogical, it's just easier.

John Campbell
2010-10-05, 09:34 PM
I'm pretty sure that the people at WotC who wrote half of the mounted combat rules had never actually read the other half, and Pathfinder, if anything, made things worse, because they left most of the mounted combat rules unchanged but changed a lot of related rules.

As the rules are written, the mount and the rider each get separate actions, and use them separately during the rider's turn. During a mounted charge, it's the mount's full-round action that's being used to charge. The rider merely has the option of making an attack at the end of the charge and so gaining the benefits thereof. (The rider always takes the disadvantages of charging, even if he doesn't make the attack.) The rider can't make more than one melee attack if the mount moves more than 5' (note: not necessarily a five-foot-step), but he seems to be allowed to use his actions in any other way he wants, before, during, or after the mount's actions, and specifically including making ranged full-attacks while his mount is doing whatever else.

However, the descriptions of many mounted combat feats and abilities don't really make sense in this context. For example, by a literal reading of the rules, Spirited Charge does nothing, because when you make a mounted charge, you're not using a charge action. The charge action is your mount's; you're just making a standard single attack, and possibly even using your move action for something else.

They don't seem to have considered scenarios more complicated than making a lance charge from the back of a bog-standard horse, either. For example, if the rider has Trample, the mount gets to make a hoof attack against anything that they overrun (and in Pathfinder appears to have done away with the mounted overrun rules, so that, nonsensically, it's the rider making the overrun check, not the mount). This is weird enough before you realize that there are mounts right there in the basic equipment list that don't have hooves. What kind of attack does a riding dog get if the rider has Trample? Its bite? A size-appropriate slam? Nothing at all?

(Hell, they're not even consistent about whether you get double lance damage in any mounted charge or just when charging on horseback.)

And when you get into scenarios where the mount's getting advanced hit dice and the feats that come with them (paladin mount, rideable animal companions, etc.), gods help you, because the rules don't. For example, who needs to have Improved Overrun to get the relevant bonuses on a mounted overrun? AFAICT, it's the mount in 3.5, but the rider in Pathfinder. But that's just my best guess.

Frosty
2010-10-05, 10:22 PM
I posted the same post over at the Paizo forums...and I'ev gotten very few responses. I think nobody over ther eknows either, although they've efectively said, "use logic" in less concise ways.

Eh, I'll probably end up going with the mount takes the Overrun feats but it's the rider who readies an action to spur the mount into performing the action.

Rider gives command, but mount decides how to do it.

Forged Fury
2010-10-05, 10:33 PM
Just don't try to pull off a classic calvary overrun of a skirmish line. It's basically impossible under the rules thanks to a horse being large sized (taking up two squares abreast) and overrun only allowing you to target one enemy with it.

Frosty
2010-10-05, 11:17 PM
I'd probably houserule it as thus: If you are attempting to Overrun multiple creatures at once thanks to being larger than the target, then you make your CMB check against the highest CMD of the target group, at a +1 bonus for every target beyond the first. It's kind of like getting an Aid Another.

+1 may not sem like much, but in pathfinder it's big when it comes to CMD, seeing as how the Horse's size bonus to the CMB is only +1.

Forged Fury
2010-10-06, 06:23 AM
In fairness, it is actually not that difficult to do when considering large versus medium sized, since a horse could theoretically "squeeze" into the space of the defender on a successful overrun. It does generally become impossible when you have something Huge sized trying to overrun an infantry line composed of Medium sized creatures.

Frosty
2010-10-06, 01:32 PM
In fairness, it is actually not that difficult to do when considering large versus medium sized, since a horse could theoretically "squeeze" into the space of the defender on a successful overrun. It does generally become impossible when you have something Huge sized trying to overrun an infantry line composed of Medium sized creatures.
I think mostly a Huge sized creature would try to walk OVER them or maybe make a Jump Check (and take the AoOs)