PF Mount, Handle Animal, Ride, etc questions!?

[Glarnog]

tldr:

Is there an actual RAW source for needing both a Handle Animal check and Ride check? So both you and your War/Combat trained mount can attack in the same round?

Is the Defend trick, passive and always active? If so will the mount attack something within range that is attacking or... threatening to its rider?

What of the wording of the Attack trick, which uses “apparent"? Pretty much my same follow up question above?

Can HA be used against other's mounts, or attack animals or even Animal Companions? What is to keep a character from making a HA check against a charging foe, or a Druid's AC to attempt to get it to stop attacking by the Down Trick or Pushing? Or even to attack it’s owner/master/whatever you want to call it? The existence of the Exclusive trick seems to imply that it’s possible to make a roll against any animal, regardless of it’s ownership or companionship or whatever. I know for characters with Link they get a +4 and can HA quicker, but that’s still not fooll proof. Perhaps a hierarchy based on time with the animal, actually being mounted, having last fed or cared, or trained for it. Or circumstance bonuses? Or something like that.

Are there non Wild Empathy rules for animals and their dispositions? i.e. Can you use HA like Diplomacy or only WE?

If these rules are not actually spelled out? Is there some sort of consensus?

Are there rules for retraining an already trained mount? Can you swap or train over some tricks? Or feats or skills?


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I'm fairly new to PF. I've really been enjoying a new every other week game run by a new DM. After years of 3.5 and a mess of home rules, I've liked taking the time and learning the new to us PF rules along with the DM. It's a pretty fun game. Because the DM is inexperienced with DMing as a whole and PF rules are new to us all, and there seems to be quite a bit of confusion, I want to be able to share as much info and what the prevailing thoughts are so he can make an informed decision. I don’t want to just hit him up with stuff that would favor my character. Trying to be as fair as possible. Plus I want to make sure my Dino doesn’t get jacked or turned on me.

The characters are all goblins. Mine is a rogue (I was originally going to ask for build advice on him), but last session he was able to Dinojack a Triceratops mount. Up until doing some research on mounts I always believed with a war (combat) trained mount a Ride check of the appropriate DC was all you need to have both you and your mount attack in the same round. A main reason most of my characters with ride have ignored HA. Then I was of the mind you needed both HA and Ride. Now I'm not so sure. The Defend trick seems to be always on, or default or passive. So if the rider or owner is being attacked by something with in melee range of a mount without a range attack, I would think the mount would attack as defend. If not I also think the word "apparent" in the Attack trick would mean much the same thing. I am thinking now that if I'm not on my mount I could use a HA to tell it to attack someone specific, if it had more than one target engaged with it or my character, or have my mount charge to the back to try to trample a specific caster or leader not with in the mounts immediate range.

Seems even war/combat trained mounts do not have any feats for armor/barding usage, if they are barded with a zero or better ACP armor are there any negatives I should be aware of?


The way in which I got the mount made me think of HA against others' mounts or them using it against mine? Or even telling a druid or rangers Animal Companion to back down, assuming it has been taught the Down trick and maybe it knows the language the HA order is given in. Or by Pushing.

Would Muleback Cords and Heavyload Belt stack? While utterly useless for combat I kind of like the idea of building an 8 ton goblin fortress on top and around a Triceratops as a light load or up to 25 ton as a heavy load.

Do you have any suggestions for gear for my Triceratops mounts? Magical or mundane? Do you think the magic horseshoes and suck could be customized/modified to work with it’s feet?

UMD seems to be harder to pull off in PF. My goblin is 8th lvl. Max ranks, 12 Chr. Are there any items to help a Tricertops mount change it's size? If not would a custmoized item do it? Woudl that be fair, or broken? Mostly thinking of reducitn it's size to better keep it for adventuring. I know as I out lvl it, it will eventually be too fragile for advetnuring. Though items that let it go up or down a size, would be damn cool.

She has power attack, would she decide when or how to use it? Or would that be part of a ride/ha to tell her how much to use or if at all.

Thanks all.

[Glarnog]

So I guess HA is a pretty big win button when being attacked by animals, even other's ACs?

[jedipotter]

You ''need'' both Ride and Handel Animal, as much as you ''need'' any skill....depends what you want to do. You can just take Ride and ride around on your mount, but you can't teach it any tricks.

A mount can attack any foe in range, just like any creature. No skills are needed for that.

In general, Defend is always active. Unless you give the animal another command like 'stay'.

The animal will Attack anything you tell it too, if so trained.

There is a huge vague area for the ''apparent'' part. The animal would need to know your being attacked to defend and would be need to be able to identify a foe. This can be harder then it sounds as animals are not omnipotent. An animal can recolonize a physical attack easy enough, but it likely won't know a touch attack is an 'attack'. And will have a hard time will spells in general. For example, a mount would not react to a spell like charm person or phantasmal killer at all.

The skill does not say anything, but common sense says only the owner/master/trainer can use Handel Animal on the animal. This is very true in the real world. You can say ''attack'' to a guard dog and it will utterly ignore you. And if you say you can handle others animals, it might not work out so good. After all, you don't know what tricks the animal knows, so you could be spending a full round action to get the animal to do something.

Diplomacy does not work on animals.

No retraining rules that I have seen.

[Glarnog]

While I appreciate your reply I do not agree with your common sense and real world statements. The Exclusive trick in the game would imply that any one can make a HA check on any animal that does not know that trick. And for real world situations I know of dogs carrying out sic commands given by a stranger to the dog. I do agree the character would be gambling with wether the animal knows the trick that it's trying to get the animal to perform.

"Exclusive Trick: The animal takes directions only from the handler who taught it this trick. If an animal has both the exclusive and serve tricks, it takes directions only from the handler that taught it the exclusive trick and those creatures indicated by the trainer's serve command. An animal with the exclusive trick does not take trick commands from others even if it is friendly or helpful toward them (such as through the result of a charm animal spell), though this does not prevent it from being controlled by other enchantment spells (such as dominate animal), and the animal still otherwise acts as a friendly or helpful creature when applicable."

Shame the rules don't actually spell these things out. I'm not DMing, so I guess not my problem. :)