With mounted combat, the simple ruling that I have used is that riding a mount during combat consumes your move action.
In effect, riding a distance on a mount happens in place of your movement.
I'm reasonably flexible on this though, so a character might run half of their movement and then make an appropriate Animal Handling check to vault onto the mount and move further on that mount in the same round.
As you have spotted though - there just aren't any detailed rules for mounted combat within D&D - it always opts for the simpler way to deal with something, which is why I have gone for the ruling above.
Okay, here we go. Going to answer your question as directly as possible with the rules as written:
You share the same initiative, but it still has to go before or after you. Can that change? You share the same initiative, and you can intersperse your and your mount's actions in whatever way you wish - you do not pick one that goes "before" and one that goes "after" - except in the case of your mount being independent (such as if you were riding an intelligent creature like a dragon), which would roll its own initiative to use because you aren't telling it what to do, it's doing what it wants with you on its back.
Some situations: (getting on or off your mount) Once during you move, you can mount a creature within 5 feet of you or dismount. Doing so costs an amount of movement equal to half your speed. This makes it possible to get some extra distance by hopping on or off a mount, but stops it from being much of an abuse to do so.
The rider can take a ready action, but not the horse? If you are controlling your mount, it has no reason to take a ready action - you are on its back and capable of taking a ready action of your own while having your mount use one of the three actions it is limited to as a controlled mount (Dash, Disengage, and Dodge). If you are riding an independent mount, it can use a ready action.
So if I go 1st in initiative but would have to move to atk I can only ready an atk for when my horse moves. That is the case when riding an independent mount, but not while riding a controlled mount. If you are riding a horse, which works best as a controlled mount, on your turn you can direct the horse to move into position and make your attacks as you normally would - like you used your own movement to get into position.
The horse goes first and moves in > def act or nothing since it cant take the ready act ? > Multiple atk from the rider > possible movement from the rider> end Again, a controlled mount like a horse isn't taking its turn separate from the character riding it. So it would be horse+rider go at the same time > horse moves in > dodge action to help its chances of long-term survival > multiple attacks from the rider > rider could dismount and have half their speed left to move on their own if they wanted > end of singular turn that the horse+rider share.
It is only when riding a creature that you aren't in control of as a rider that things get complicated, because only then do you have two separate turns that need to be coordinated - but the benefits of such a mount can often outweigh the downsides of that arrangement (I mean, if your mount has an attack routine or breath weapon like a dragon, it's kind of still a good deal to ride one even though you might have some tricky situations coordinating actions).
What I wanted to clear out is if I can move the horse to the enemy, make my attaks and then let the horse disengage away again, like what a footsoldier usually can do by splitting up his movement, except with the dodge part of course. Or did I missinterpret that part? I thought a horse can move and ALSO has a dodge/dash/diseng action?
I think you are doing right. Among the rider's turn, the horse's action (dodge, dash, disengage) and the movement (mount movement, which is in common), you can order those however to desire. It is like rider and mount have a "shared" turn.
The rider and mount never share a turn. From Initiative:
The DM ranks the combatants in order from the one with the highest Dexterity check total to the one with the lowest. This is the order (called the initiative order) in which they act during each round. The initiative order remains the same from round to round.
If a tie occurs, the DM decides the order among tied DM-controlled creatures, and the players decide the order among their tied characters. The DM can decide the order if the tie is between a monster and a player character. Optionally, the DM can have the tied characters and monsters each roll a d20 to determine the order, highest roll going first.
When you get on your controlled mount, its initiative changes to match yours and you decide the order in which you'll take turns for the rest of the combat.
I verified this with Jeremy a while back, just to be sure:
This means you can't do drive-by attacks with Extra Attack on a controlled mount. The only way to use Extra Attack is on your own turn, so the mount would have to go first, move you into range, and ready an action to keep moving after you attack, but controlled mounts can't take the ready action. You can still do a single drive-by attack by having the mount go second with Disengage and readying an attack for when the mount passes next to the enemy.
Being able to use Extra Attack while staying out of melee range while using a 1d12 weapon (lance) without giving up your shield, plus the Mounted Combatant feat (advantage against creatures smaller than your mount) would be very powerful.
Mark this as the second time that JC has made an official ruling that I think doesn't actually make any sense... and we might want to have someone who has the most recent printing of the PHB double-check and make sure there isn't stealth-errata to mounted combat invalidating this call like there is for his previous statements on how long rests work.
Mark this as the second time that JC has made an official ruling that I think doesn't actually make any sense... and we might want to have someone who has the most recent printing of the PHB double-check and make sure there isn't stealth-errata to mounted combat invalidating this call like there is for his previous statements on how long rests work.
Don't. Just don't go there.
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I'm not, I promise. Just pointing out the warning flag of a potential trend developing. Definitely not wanting to rehash that particular dumpster-fire of a discussion.
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D&D Beyond FoundersWith mounted combat, the simple ruling that I have used is that riding a mount during combat consumes your move action.
In effect, riding a distance on a mount happens in place of your movement.
I'm reasonably flexible on this though, so a character might run half of their movement and then make an appropriate Animal Handling check to vault onto the mount and move further on that mount in the same round.
As you have spotted though - there just aren't any detailed rules for mounted combat within D&D - it always opts for the simpler way to deal with something, which is why I have gone for the ruling above.
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Okay, here we go. Going to answer your question as directly as possible with the rules as written:
You share the same initiative, but it still has to go before or after you. Can that change? You share the same initiative, and you can intersperse your and your mount's actions in whatever way you wish - you do not pick one that goes "before" and one that goes "after" - except in the case of your mount being independent (such as if you were riding an intelligent creature like a dragon), which would roll its own initiative to use because you aren't telling it what to do, it's doing what it wants with you on its back.
Some situations: (getting on or off your mount) Once during you move, you can mount a creature within 5 feet of you or dismount. Doing so costs an amount of movement equal to half your speed. This makes it possible to get some extra distance by hopping on or off a mount, but stops it from being much of an abuse to do so.
The rider can take a ready action, but not the horse? If you are controlling your mount, it has no reason to take a ready action - you are on its back and capable of taking a ready action of your own while having your mount use one of the three actions it is limited to as a controlled mount (Dash, Disengage, and Dodge). If you are riding an independent mount, it can use a ready action.
So if I go 1st in initiative but would have to move to atk I can only ready an atk for when my horse moves. That is the case when riding an independent mount, but not while riding a controlled mount. If you are riding a horse, which works best as a controlled mount, on your turn you can direct the horse to move into position and make your attacks as you normally would - like you used your own movement to get into position.
The horse goes first and moves in > def act or nothing since it cant take the ready act ? > Multiple atk from the rider > possible movement from the rider> end Again, a controlled mount like a horse isn't taking its turn separate from the character riding it. So it would be horse+rider go at the same time > horse moves in > dodge action to help its chances of long-term survival > multiple attacks from the rider > rider could dismount and have half their speed left to move on their own if they wanted > end of singular turn that the horse+rider share.
It is only when riding a creature that you aren't in control of as a rider that things get complicated, because only then do you have two separate turns that need to be coordinated - but the benefits of such a mount can often outweigh the downsides of that arrangement (I mean, if your mount has an attack routine or breath weapon like a dragon, it's kind of still a good deal to ride one even though you might have some tricky situations coordinating actions).
The rider and mount never share a turn. From Initiative:
When you get on your controlled mount, its initiative changes to match yours and you decide the order in which you'll take turns for the rest of the combat.
I verified this with Jeremy a while back, just to be sure:
"A rider and a controlled mount have separate turns, but they have the same initiative, which means you decide which one goes first."
This means you can't do drive-by attacks with Extra Attack on a controlled mount. The only way to use Extra Attack is on your own turn, so the mount would have to go first, move you into range, and ready an action to keep moving after you attack, but controlled mounts can't take the ready action. You can still do a single drive-by attack by having the mount go second with Disengage and readying an attack for when the mount passes next to the enemy.
Being able to use Extra Attack while staying out of melee range while using a 1d12 weapon (lance) without giving up your shield, plus the Mounted Combatant feat (advantage against creatures smaller than your mount) would be very powerful.
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Mark this as the second time that JC has made an official ruling that I think doesn't actually make any sense... and we might want to have someone who has the most recent printing of the PHB double-check and make sure there isn't stealth-errata to mounted combat invalidating this call like there is for his previous statements on how long rests work.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
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