Having another player mount your beastmaster's companion

[Colbymunro]

My friend and I are playing in a campaign together and we're trying to synergize his Cavalier Fighter and my Beastmaster Ranger. It gives him a more interesting mount with more potential actions and it gives me a more survivable companion while I sit back and take potshots with a crossbow. He's playing a halfling cavalier so he can ride medium mounts. Basically we're trying to understand a few things about the mounted combat rules.

Is controlling a mount an action? It doesn't seem to say that it is, but if not it kind of gives us a way to give the companion two turns by letting me use my action to issue it orders while it isn't controlled, then he takes over control on his turn and uses it to dash or something. This seems especially powerful if he has both the charger feat and I have an animal companion that can knock creatures prone.

If this isn't the case there's an issue with one thing. He's looking at the charger feat, but it makes things difficult for the companion to get an attack off too. Is there any way you can concievably make this work with the ways the rules are written? If i potentially readied my action to give it an order to attack, could he also control the mount to get a dash in at the same time?

Is this too weird of an idea to work? Are there any ways to optimize this further? Love to hear your thoughts on it.

[JackPhoenix]

The companion acts on your initiative, which causes problem for the rider. He'll pretty much have to prepare action to attack, because the mount doesn't move on its turn.

He can't command the companion, you do it on your turn. The companion doesn't get double turns, it does nothing on the cavalier's turn.

[Dr. Cliché]

When I first read the title, I was imagining a very different scenario...

[Naanomi]

Is your mount a pteradon? That doesn’t matter in the rules interactions, but it does modify how cool it is

[ZorroGames]

Climbing on another character’s wild beast... what could the a DM possibly do to make that enjoyable (to the DM)? :smallbiggrin:

[LordEntrails]

It's a companion, not a trained animal. IMO, a companion would not let anyone else use it as a mere trained beast. Sure, it might transport a ranger's allies in time of need, but to be nothing more than a mount? No way.

[Mith]

when i first read the title, i was imagining a very different scenario...

"Bad druid, bad! Try this one more time and i'm gonna fix this problem until the cleric gets greater restoration!"

[bc56]

It's a companion, not a trained animal. IMO, a companion would not let anyone else use it as a mere trained beast. Sure, it might transport a ranger's allies in time of need, but to be nothing more than a mount? No way.

I believe it is the best trained beast possible. The ranger should be able to order it to obey the cavalier like a regular mount.

[Naanomi]

I believe it is the best trained beast possible. The ranger should be able to order it to obey the cavalier like a regular mount.
Seems to be possible to be either way. One ranger has an extra-nasty alligator that he just seemed to bond with; another has spent a lot of time highly training his panther circus style

[Colbymunro]

It's a companion, not a trained animal. IMO, a companion would not let anyone else use it as a mere trained beast. Sure, it might transport a ranger's allies in time of need, but to be nothing more than a mount? No way.

It makes sense with the backstory we're going with, the beastmaster and the cavalier are long time friends and they raised the boar together on a farm. Ultimately the boar has a closer relationship with the beastmaster, but regards the cavalier as a friend as well.

My friend also wants to have his cavalier be crippled (no walking speed) so that factors into the story too.

[Ventruenox]

I'll think on it some and come back to edit this with mechanical possibilities, but for now my suggestion is to collectively approach your DM and figure out what all you can do here. If the Cavalier is dependent on the Ranger's companion for his movement everywhere, that is a narratively compelling reason to houserule some stuff. Maybe just having the boar move on the Cavalier's initiative instead of the Ranger's would be the simplest solution.

One role-playing idea for you to explain why the Ranger bonded with the boar more than the Cavalier: the Cavalier is resentful about being crippled. Love the other two as he may, that bitterness and envy at seeing them able to be totally independent is always present. I've always wondered about how to bring a Caramon/Raistlin dynamic to a campaign without a direct rip-off.

[JackPhoenix]

It makes sense with the backstory we're going with, the beastmaster and the cavalier are long time friends and they raised the boar together on a farm. Ultimately the boar has a closer relationship with the beastmaster, but regards the cavalier as a friend as well.

My friend also wants to have his cavalier be crippled (no walking speed) so that factors into the story too.

Well, that fits with the boar being ranger's companion, because the cavalier wouldn't be able to control the mount while having his hands full to fight if his legs won't work.

[Colbymunro]

I'll think on it some and come back to edit this with mechanical possibilities, but for now my suggestion is to collectively approach your DM and figure out what all you can do here. If the Cavalier is dependent on the Ranger's companion for his movement everywhere, that is a narratively compelling reason to houserule some stuff. Maybe just having the boar move on the Cavalier's initiative instead of the Ranger's would be the simplest solution.

One role-playing idea for you to explain why the Ranger bonded with the boar more than the Cavalier: the Cavalier is resentful about being crippled. Love the other two as he may, that bitterness and envy at seeing them able to be totally independent is always present. I've always wondered about how to bring a Caramon/Raistlin dynamic to a campaign without a direct rip-off.

Unfortunately our DM for this game is not the type to give us literally anything extra or homebrew that he has not personally approved beforehand. Honestly, he's more likely to remove features of the game to make things more "challenging" for us. It can be pretty frusterating, and one of the reasons I picked beastmaster is because he hates them and I wanted to prove him wrong (also I just really like beastmaster). I figured one of the ways to make this work was to improve the survivability of the companion, and my friend had already established he wanted to play a crippled cavalier so it seemed like a good fit. It can be sort of a toxic environment for roleplaying imo, but theres just not enough DMs to go around. Basically we need to make sure the action economy/initiative of this synergy works because if not we'll both be dead in like two sessions.

I absolutely love the Caramon / Raistlin allusion. I'll tell my friend about that for sure!

[KorvinStarmast]

Having another player mount your beastmaster's companion If this is a campaign setting with pirates, I hope you have an all adult group. :smallyuk:

[tieren]

What you are likely to run into is a choice, the boar can act like an animal companion or like a controlled mount.

Under the mount rules its not terribly different than choosing between a controlled mount and an intelligent/independent mount.

If the cavalier controls it for his features the mount will not be able to do anything beast-mastery. If you control it as a companion the cavalier won't be able to control it, and may need to do things on his initiative like readying an attack the next time the boar gets within range of the enemy, which will also eat up the cavaliers reactions.