Playing a Mount

[Randrew]

We used to joke in my group about playing as another player's mount. One of our players even did it recently as an awakened riding dog. The idea continues to tickle me, so what do you think, Playground? If you were going to build a PC mount, how would you go about it?

My first impulse would be to play the Force of Nature Druid (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=58604) put together by Fax Celestis, probably using the original bonus to speed instead of replacing it with Pounce. Race-wise, I'd be pretty uncreative and stick with some manner of awakened horse. I'm usually quite vanilla with my species choices.

[mootoall]

Be a Druid. Turn into a bear, have your mounted feat-based Bear Warrior Barbarian ride on your back, while you ride on the back of another bear, while summoning bears. Bearly playable, but it works.

[DarkestKnight]

I have to say seeing a mounted combat character on the back of a mobility based centaur (or other Tauric creature) would be so sweet. actually both going mounted charge happy would be pretty neat. Also shape shifting for a mount is awesome, so druids are kosher for that. it would depend on who was riding the mount i guess. would be different if it were a barbarian or a wizard. that's my two bits anyways.

[Fax Celestis]

I had a friend of mine play my familiar once. It worked out pretty well. As far as race goes, I'm a big fan of worgs. They're only LA +1!

[Curmudgeon]

Do note that a lot of stuff you're used to will just stop working.

Mount wants to ready an action? Too bad; it's required to act on the rider's initiative, so Delay and Ready aren't available.
Many mounted combat operations are dependent on having a "war-trained mount", which is dependent on Handle Animal being used. Unless you're going to go through long-duration Polymorph shenanigans to turn the mount PC into an animal (which also requires getting their INT down to no more than 2), you can't use Handle Animal on another character.
The Ride skill's Control Mount in Battle (required every time when the mount isn't war-trained) uses up a move action by the rider, and it sucks when you fail your check:
If you fail the Ride check, you can do nothing else in that round. You do not need to roll for warhorses or warponies.

[Fax Celestis]

Enh, I'd say that those can be bypassed if you have an intelligent mount who is capable of making their own decisions. It'd be a case-by-case DM-decision, though.

[Randrew]

Be a Druid. Turn into a bear, have your mounted feat-based Bear Warrior Barbarian ride on your back, while you ride on the back of another bear, while summoning bears. Bearly playable, but it works.
I really want to do this now.


Do note that a lot of stuff you're used to will just stop working . . .
I can't imagine a Ride check for Control Mount in Battle would be required for a sentient creature unless it failed a Will save against a fear effect. That seems as though it would be a simple argument to make to any GM. Two players acting with a single Initiative leads to an interesting dynamic, but as long as they're working together, it works quite well (and is really funny when they don't).

[Curmudgeon]

I can't imagine a Ride check for Control Mount in Battle would be required for a sentient creature unless it failed a Will save against a fear effect.
A Ride check indicates that you're successfully using your body motions to direct the mount. That's a very efficient communication system with excellent control if your mount understands you. The alternative is:

"Go over there."
"Which there? I can't see where you're pointing when you're on my back."
"To the left."
"The guy a little to the left, or the one way left?"
"Actually, right between them. I want to get to the spellcaster in the back."
"But that's going to let both those guys attack when we move past!"
"Hey, I'm the rider here! You're supposed to follow my lead!"
...

[Randrew]

That's an excellent point. I would suggest both members of that partnership take the nonverbal communication as a language.

[Urpriest]

A Ride check indicates that you're successfully using your body motions to direct the mount. That's a very efficient communication system with excellent control if your mount understands you. The alternative is:

"Go over there."
"Which there? I can't see where you're pointing when you're on my back."
"To the left."
"The guy a little to the left, or the one way left?"
"Actually, right between them. I want to get to the spellcaster in the back."
"But that's going to let both those guys attack when we move past!"
"Hey, I'm the rider here! You're supposed to follow my lead!"
...

At that point you're just houseruling based on reasonability though. IIRC 3.0 sources were relatively clear that sentient creatures didn't require those checks, and nothing in 3.5 directly contradicts them.

The FAQ, while not rules, is food for thought, and at the very least makes any arguments based on reasonability a wash:

Does a paladin who gains a special mount other than a
warhorse (such as a hippogriff or unicorn) need to train the
creature for combat with the Handle Animal skill, or is the
special mount automatically considered combat trained?
According to page 75 in the PH, you can’t use Handle
Animal on a creature with an Int higher than 2, so it’s
impossible for the paladin to use this skill to train her special
mount (since they typically have an Int of 6 or higher). Instead,
such creatures are intelligent enough to follow your commands
by normal communication. You don’t have to train a creature
of this Intelligence for combat; you can simply ask it to do
what’s needed.

As a related point: nothing stops an intelligent creature from simply carrying you if it has the carrying capacity to do so. You're not riding it, it's simply carrying you from place to place on its back.

[Feytalist]

It still doesn't clear up many of the other mounted combat-related problems.

What happens on initiative? What if the mount charges? What if the rider wants to charge? Does the rider get a full attack if the mount moves in its turn?

Sure, you can houserule all that, but it ends up being a whole slew of additional houserules, which can get messy very quickly.

[Coidzor]

It still doesn't clear up many of the other mounted combat-related problems.

What happens on initiative? What if the mount charges? What if the rider wants to charge? Does the rider get a full attack if the mount moves in its turn?

Sure, you can houserule all that, but it ends up being a whole slew of additional houserules, which can get messy very quickly.

Those are independent of an intelligent mount, the intelligent mount just makes it so that you can't ignore them and have to address them somehow.

[Victoria]

A lot of rule 0 seems like it might come into play with this. On the rider's own turn, presumably on the same initiative count as the mount's, according to the RAW, speaking is a free action (though the DM can overrule this if you, as an extreme example, try to deliver a long speech as a free action). Provided any verbal commands are concise enough to not have the DM try and say that you don't have enough time within your turn to communicate such a detailed command, provided the mount controlled by a player can understand the command and is willing to carry it out, there's no reason to say they can't just do it, without the need for any kind of check.

[Feytalist]

Those are independent of an intelligent mount, the intelligent mount just makes it so that you can't ignore them and have to address them somehow.

My point is that when one character is playing the intelligent mount, two players are essentially playing the same entity. Some confusion is bound to arise from that.

Simply having an intelligent mount is fine. Every special mounted paladin ever has that, after all.