[Pathfinder]Paladin mounts and advancement

[Grey Watcher]

So I was drawing up a Paladin and a few things confused about the rules regarding her mount. Trying to google for answers wasn't as conclusive as I'd hoped, so I thought I'd ask the GitP Hive Mind.

1) Does a creature with the Animal type, but an Intelligence score greater than 2, such as a Paladin's warhorse, gain tricks? Or does gaining human-like intelligence negate the need for them. (You don't need to teach them the "stay" trick, for example, you can just tell them to stay put as you would a human.)

2) When you look up a specific animal on the Animal Companion page (a horse (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/druid/animal-companions#TOC-Horse) for example, it mentions "advancements" at 4th-Level, 7th-Level, or both. Are those bonuses in addition to the one's listed on the main table or instead of them. I think it's the former, but if it is the latter, which columns do these benefits replace?

3) Horses gain the Combat Training special quality. Does that count against their allot of tricks they can learn according to their intelligence and the advancement table, or is that a bonus on top of those?

[Psyren]

This one's actually a toughie due to vague wording. Basically, in PF, Paladin mounts inherit from Animal Companions - but there are no animal companions with 6 Int, so the regular "trick" rules go out the window a bit.

The Paizo Blog (http://paizo.com/paizo/blog/v5748dyo5lc1y) ruled that you would need Handle Animal regardless of an animal's Int, but also mentioned that intelligent companions should be able to act autonomously without instructions. Because you have the "Link" ability, directing your animal is a free action anyway (and pushing it is a move) so in practice, you will seldom notice the difference. And because of the "without instruction" clause, your mount can take several reasonable actions on its own, such as helping you attack your target even if you don't specifically ask it to, or taking AoOs.

Having said that, I would rule as follows: You need tricks until 11th level, but get all the bonuses from your Link and have no max tricks cap. At 11, your mount becomes a magical beast, and you can speak to it normally.

To your questions:

1) Answered above.

2) These are in addition to the table. You can also forgo the additional, animal-specific benefit, and simply increase your animal's Dex and Con scores by 2. But no matter which you choose, you get everything on the table.

3) As there are only 12 tricks total, I'm not certain it matters (You'll be able to learn all of them either way.) But as I mentioned above, once the mount becomes a Magical Beast I would dispense with the tricks system entirely and allow it to understand your speech. Either way, the mount can act on its own more effectively than a real animal or real animal companion.

[Grey Watcher]

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3) As there are only 12 tricks total, I'm not certain it matters (You'll be able to learn all of them either way.) But as I mentioned above, once the mount becomes a Magical Beast I would dispense with the tricks system entirely and allow it to understand your speech. Either way, the mount can act on its own more effectively than a real animal or real animal companion.

12? I count 30 on PFSRD's Handle Animal skill page (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/handle-animal). For calculating number of known tricks, I'm gonna treat the horse as though it had Int 2 until I get a DM ruling that says otherwise. Between the 6 for that, the 3 for being a 6th level Paladin's mount, that can be anything from 9 to 15 tricks depending on whether Combat Training counts against the standard tricks known limit in this case.

Anyway, I'm sorry to nitpick, because your reply really was quite helpful. Thanks!

[Psyren]

My bad on the number of tricks, but I see no reason you couldn't simply scale it with the Companion's Int following the formula given (i.e. 3 tricks per point, then add the bonus tricks in.) So that would give you 18 tricks baseline plus 3 bonus for 21. And then once you hit 11, I would simply dispense with the tricks system entirely since your mount is no longer an animal.

Oh, and to answer your question: Combat Training does count against the cap; it is one of the "Specific Purpose" packages given in the HA skill.

[Grey Watcher]

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Oh, and to answer your question: Combat Training does count against the cap; it is one of the "Specific Purpose" packages given in the HA skill.

The confusion came from combat training being listed in as a "Special Quality" in the 4th Level Advancement section, which is supposedly in addition to whatever else the horse is getting. Hence the confusion whether the horse gets the tricks in that package on top of the ones he's already learning for Int and the generic animal companion.

This board needs an emoticon with swirly confused eyes.