The odd thing is that a charging mount with rider ought to be able to bring to bear both a lance (or sword) and the mount's trampling charge but this would seem to be prohibited even though it is thematically appropriate.
It is not prohibited at all. The Ready action allows you to do this.
Character's turn: Ready an Attack when in range of enemy, Mount's turn: Mount moves near enemy. Character attacks. Mount attacks. Mount perhaps moves away from enemy,
God this is so fundamentally unsatisfying. What needs to happen is that the mounted character needs to be able to move on their turn using the mount's speed. Why the designers didn't add that simple instruction into the rules is beyond me, as it would have fixed everything. The mounted combat rules are so wonky that they never actually grant the rider the ability to share the same space as the mount, even though of course they must. But to elaborate on this, when you have a medium-sized character riding a large-sized mount, which of the four squares would you put them rider on in a gridded battle map?
I watched a whole video exploring options for handling this. IIRC, here were the suggestions; all have upsides and downsides:
The rider can effectively use their movement to be in any of the 4 squares, but must always be in one for mechanics purposes.
This leads to a lot of absurdity if you pay too much attention to where the rider is dancing around to, but on the other hand, this literally is how Native American cavalry would fight.
This lets the mount rotate to give the rider free movement, enabling shenanigans like getting out of reach without provoking an OA.
The rider functions as if the rider were also large - you just measure all distances to and from the mount and resolve the rider using those measurements.
This leads to maximum absurdity in terms of immersion, but iirc has the fewest rules headaches - once you accept the paradox of the temporarily large rider, everything else becomes consistent, if weird.
The paradox introduces its own shenanigans, like how mounted spellcasters with AOEs centered on themselves now emit a larger AOE.
The rider is statically assigned to a grid square and can't change it.
This has the same problems as number 1 and doesn't really add any upsides.
PHB Chapter 9 provides the baseline rules for a mount :.
The initiative of a controlled mount changes to match yours when you mount it. It moves as you direct it, and it has only three action options: Dash, Disengage, and Dodge. A controlled mount can move and act even on the turn that you mount it.
If controlled, its initiative "matches your own," which doesn't specifically say but strongly implies that it acts on your turn, to allow you to ride around during your turn on it; and its menu of actions shrink down to just Dash, Dodge, or Disengage no matter what other actions or attacks it would ordinarily have as a creature. There's no indication that urging your mount to use that Dash, Dodge, or Disengage takes any sort of action of the rider, btw, just kind of part of generally controlling it as a rider... remember that for later.
PHB Chapter 9 provides that the baseline rules for an "independent" mount, it basically just acts like a totally separate creature with its own initiative, normal action menu, and independent decision making process as an NPC (the DM may or may not let you the player control that independent creature, but the PHB doesn't seem to think they should).
An independent mount retains its place in the initiative order. Bearing a rider puts no restrictions on the actions the mount can take, and it moves and acts as it wishes. It might flee from combat, rush to attack and devour a badly injured foe, or otherwise act against your wishes.
Next look at the Find Steed spell, which Paladins use to summon a magical intelligent mount. It doesn't provide any special rules for how to command it as a mount or when it takes its turn, so presumably it has the same options of being controlled (acting on your turn, limited actions) or independent (acting on its own turn, full actions)... but probably with an implied assurance that the player really will be able to make its decisions for it on its turn due to your "instinctive bond with it that allows you to fight as a seamless unit," (not to mention the outright telepathy with it that the spell grants you).
Now look at Conjure Animals, which can easily summon you a horse that will serve as a mount, but will take "no actions" on its own turns if independent unless ordered to do so (other than "defending itself," whatever that means). Probably not that different from a Find Steed horse, other than lacking telepathy: by default takes its own turn, but if ridden, probably works like a normal controlled or independent (but player directed) steed.
Now look at a Beastmater Ranger's Animal Companion.
The beast obeys your commands as best as it can. It takes its turn on your initiative. On your turn, you can verbally command the beast where to move (no action required by you). You can use your action to verbally command it to take the Attack, Dash, Disengage, or Help action. If you don't issue a command, the beast takes the Dodge action. Once you have the Extra Attack feature, you can make one weapon attack yourself when you command the beast to take the Attack action.
Interestingly, its default state while not being ridden as a controlled mount is to "take its turn on your initiative".... is this the same as a controlled mount's initiative that "matches your own" and lets it act on your turn? Or is this more like the Steel Defender's "shares your initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours"???? Hmmm. You'll also notice that commanding it to Dash or Disengagetakes your action.... just when it's off on its own, or even when you're riding it as a controlled mount (which recall ordinarily lets you do that with no action)??? Troublesome.... and as an independent mount, the Beast Companion really freezes up, with the feature providing that it will choose to do nothing other than take the Dodge action, while other mounts like a Warhorse would have no problem bucking around and making hoof attacks.
They've recently tried to "fix" the Beast Master, providing a new "Primal Companion" optional variant for it in the Tasha's Cauldron of Everything sourcebook. Did it fix Companions as mounts?
In combat, the beast acts during your turn. It can move and use its reaction on its own, but the only action it takes is the Dodge action, unless you take a bonus action on your turn to command it to take another action. That action can be one in its stat block or some other action. You can also sacrifice one of your attacks when you take the Attack action to command the beast to take the Attack action. If you are incapacitated, the beast can take any action of its choice, not just Dodge.
Well now, the Beast by default acts DURING your turn, not just on your initiative count on its own turn. It also isn't locked to a limited menu of actions... There's a weird decision you need to make if riding it: it already acts on your turn like a controlled mount no matter what, but it will be able to take unrestricted actions by giving it a command using your bonus action if you're riding it as an independent mount, or a more limited menu of actions using no action if you're riding it as a controlled mount. Odd.
So now let's turn to the Battlesmith's Steel Defender... surprise surprise, it doesn't work like a Beast Companion, a Primal Companion, or a Find Steed, or a normal horse!
In combat, the defender shares your initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours. It can move and use its reaction on its own, but the only action it takes on its turn is the Dodge action, unless you take a bonus action on your turn to command it to take another action. That action can be one in its stat block or some other action. If you are incapacitated, the defender can take any action of its choice, not just Dodge.
By default, the defender has its own turn, but as discussed, riding it as a controlled mount would arguably make it act on your turn. Its a little weird that this feature was released around the same time as the Primal Companion feature in Tasha's because the decision tree on riding this Defender is totally different. The Primal Companion was going to be on your turn either way, so riding it controlled vs. independent came down to whether you wanted to be able to order it to Dash/Disengage/Dodge using no action but give up ability to attack (controlled), or the ability to let it attack etc if commanded with bonus actions (independent). For the Defender, the tree instead comes down to whether you want the Defender to move on your turn and have limited actions without taking your action to command (controlled), or act on its own turn and have a fuller menu of actions that you can command with a bonus (independent).
If you're confused as to why there'd be.... four different versions of riding a horse/Companion/Defender? Yeah, you're not alone, it makes no sense that "how do I ride a mount?" should be this complicated or inconsistent. Most DMs probably don't try to play this RAW, I would imagine.
Thanks for this analysis! This is way crazy and time to break out the house rules.
I agree, these mounted rules aren't particularly clear. "changing initiative to the riders" might imply that it's supposed to act on your turn, but in all other cases people with the same initiative still have their own separate turns. So they could have worded that better.
And assuming that they do mean "acts on your turn" and this implies you get to use their movement instead of your own, then it seems to me that a controlled mount is potentially a better option than an uncontrolled one (except if the mount has really good attacks, like a dragon).
Consider the following: Melee Fighter riding a Riding Horse (60ft speed) as Controlled mount. Starting 30 feet from an enemy, the fighter directs the horse to take the disengage action, moves 30 feet to the enemy on his turn. The fighter then uses his action to Attack (possibly with Extra Attack as normal). The horse then completes its move and returns to the previous position. The enemy gets no OA because the Horse used disengage.
Now as an Independent mount: Fighter has to Ready an attack on his turn in order to get a single attack on the horses turn. The horse does the same actions on its turn (disengage and move). Alternatively, the horse might move and attack, but it's only got one attack and it's not the best. (+5, 2d4+3 damage). At low levels, before the fighter gets extra attack, it might be worth it to do this. Of course, if standing toe-to-toe with an enemy, the fighter can take his full action from horseback, and let the horse do the same attack, and that could be worth it (although at some point, the horse might prefer to Dodge, given the deadliness of higher level combats).
A horseback archer is even more deadly, depending on interpretation. Controlled : Disengage and Move 60 feet without OA's for free, and pepper the enemy at any range you prefer, with the ability to break up your Attack as you see fit. Independent: Same as Controlled, with the added possibility of having the mount engage in melee for you. This also brings up the question of what space you are "in". If you can choose to be in any of the 4 spaces that the mount occupies, then the archer can shoot at a creature "on the other side" of their mount without disadvantage.
(As an aside, a rogue on an independent mount always gets the possibility of sneak attack, because he brought his own ally along with him. Although Cunning action is vastly less useful, since he's got a move of 0 while mounted, so Disengage and Dash give no benefit to the rogue, and it's a bit hard to hide on horseback.)
Another thing that is unclear -- if you switch between controlled and independent multiple times, what happens to the mounts initiative? Does it change to match yours and then revert to a different position later, and then switch back to yours? Note that it says "The initiative of a controlled mount changes to match yours when you mount it " which sort of implies you make this decision at the time of mounting, and maybe it doesn't change? (This doesn't make sense to me, since there's the concept of "giving a horse its head", which suggests that riders can make this decision while riding. They don't get off the horse and get back on in order to switch between independent and controlled). It seems that the least disruptive game play thing is to let an independent mount go immediately after the PC if it has been previously controlled (rather than return to its previous initiative).
Which then brings up the next point. How often can you switch between Controlled and Independent? If I control the mount and immediately use it's move and disengage and my action on my turn, and then "give the horse its head" at the end of my turn, does the horse now get its own turn on its own initiative (right after mine)? (That would be a bad game design decision, I think most would agree).
This leads me to wonder if the "controlled/independent" decision, for game reasons, should only be made on mounting, and cannot be changed. Or, alternatively, only at the start of your turn (which seems like a decent compromise to avoid the double-turn problem).
OTOH, if by "acts on your initiative" they do mean the horse takes its full turn either right before or right after you, and you can't break up your attacks with it's move, then that becomes less powerful (and probably that's a good thing). But it does reduce the distinction between controlled and independent, because you'll only be able to do the ready/move/single attack/move pass in both cases. Archers are still pretty powerful on horseback, regardless of which interpretation. They can effectively get a free disengage and move 60 feet and then their own full turn to rain arrows from their new location.
My thoughts from raw, podcasts and talking to other dms and the like.
A trained warhorse, could act independant attacking in combat, or controlled, with reduced action options as per phb page 198.
And as per the podcast by Jeremy, switch from round to round as desired by the player from controlled to independent. Mindful of initiative abuse.
The advantage or disadvantage of a controlled mount is you get to steer and move it on the mounts initiative, but lose its attack option. Consider it in a docile state. Plus you can't have the horse move , you act and then the horse move again. They share your initiative not a simultaneous initiative, you need to set who is first or second. Like 2 players rolling the same initiative. If you are first, you could ready an action to attack when in range and control your horse to move into melee, once you attack your mounts turn is over until next round. On the second round, you could have your normal actions, then the horse on his turn could disengage and move. Handy thing for a controlled mount situation.
The advantage or disadvantage of an independent mount, is you may not go in the direction you like but the mount could move, attack, move. Hopefully leaving you close enough to melee on your turn but not guaranteed. You are at the whim of the independent mount. Plus opening you or the mount up to opportunity attacks. All this for the mount to be able to attack as per there stat block.
Things would vary depending on the traing of the mount, from a mule, a rented riding horse, to a riding horse you have some bond with, and may well come down to the dm requiring animal handling or such, to urge the independent mount to a course of action.
In the case of special mounts like a dragon, it would probably act as per the dms thoughts on there mood and whims, but the dm may give you some control.
As in a find steed which is a loyal ally, bonded cohesive fighting unit, that doesn't suffer a true death. With telepathy, you would be getting close to the best of both worlds, but yet it is a spirit with some autonomy and the dm could be in there rights for the spirit to say no I'm not going to trigger that trap, I still feel pain, and if you really loved me you wouldn't make me. But of course I'll ride into the front line with you on my back while kicking the bad guys and staying close to melee so you can do your thing. Because we are a cohesive fighting unit. And you told me to telepathically.
Lastly if your riding your druid friend, as a horse, while definitely capable of independent action like a dragon, I see no reason if the druid or dragon so agreed, could act as controlled. But an obedient independent mount offers more options than a free willed independent mount. As both your druid friend and dragon may not be willing to sacrifice themselves for you. And begin to ascert there independence at any time they deem fit.
Which brings me to my last quandry, just how much is the found steed willing to die for the paladin. Can there independent nature be controlled by the paladins command , thus giving the paladin a controlled , yet independent mount. Or will that marauding dragon scare the spirit to bolt, or that thunderclap startle him, a near miss fireball spook him?
I thought of a better example , but interested in other players thoughs.
I think that a mule if hit in combat (possibly triggering a moral check so to speak) would be more than likely to flee, a riding horse likely,
A warhorse unlikely, a found steed not very likely, especially as it is not a true death if killed, brings the question of a fey sprits autonomy, fear of psuedo death, ability to feel pain etc
As for the greater steed definitely not, as a player has control over it, not to be confused with the mount status as controlled or independent.
Control being who it attacks, control that it won't run in combat. Meaning total hands off for the dm.
A second example would be to leap through fire, knowing it will take some fire damage, mule won't go near, riding horse maybe, War horse likely to obey,
Found steed, becomes unclear but highly likely, greater steed has no choice it is player controlled.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I watched a whole video exploring options for handling this. IIRC, here were the suggestions; all have upsides and downsides:
Thanks for this analysis! This is way crazy and time to break out the house rules.
I agree, these mounted rules aren't particularly clear.
"changing initiative to the riders" might imply that it's supposed to act on your turn, but in all other cases people with the same initiative still have their own separate turns. So they could have worded that better.
And assuming that they do mean "acts on your turn" and this implies you get to use their movement instead of your own, then it seems to me that a controlled mount is potentially a better option than an uncontrolled one (except if the mount has really good attacks, like a dragon).
Consider the following:
Melee Fighter riding a Riding Horse (60ft speed) as Controlled mount. Starting 30 feet from an enemy, the fighter directs the horse to take the disengage action, moves 30 feet to the enemy on his turn. The fighter then uses his action to Attack (possibly with Extra Attack as normal). The horse then completes its move and returns to the previous position. The enemy gets no OA because the Horse used disengage.
Now as an Independent mount: Fighter has to Ready an attack on his turn in order to get a single attack on the horses turn. The horse does the same actions on its turn (disengage and move). Alternatively, the horse might move and attack, but it's only got one attack and it's not the best. (+5, 2d4+3 damage). At low levels, before the fighter gets extra attack, it might be worth it to do this. Of course, if standing toe-to-toe with an enemy, the fighter can take his full action from horseback, and let the horse do the same attack, and that could be worth it (although at some point, the horse might prefer to Dodge, given the deadliness of higher level combats).
A horseback archer is even more deadly, depending on interpretation.
Controlled : Disengage and Move 60 feet without OA's for free, and pepper the enemy at any range you prefer, with the ability to break up your Attack as you see fit.
Independent: Same as Controlled, with the added possibility of having the mount engage in melee for you. This also brings up the question of what space you are "in". If you can choose to be in any of the 4 spaces that the mount occupies, then the archer can shoot at a creature "on the other side" of their mount without disadvantage.
(As an aside, a rogue on an independent mount always gets the possibility of sneak attack, because he brought his own ally along with him. Although Cunning action is vastly less useful, since he's got a move of 0 while mounted, so Disengage and Dash give no benefit to the rogue, and it's a bit hard to hide on horseback.)
Another thing that is unclear -- if you switch between controlled and independent multiple times, what happens to the mounts initiative? Does it change to match yours and then revert to a different position later, and then switch back to yours? Note that it says "The initiative of a controlled mount changes to match yours when you mount it " which sort of implies you make this decision at the time of mounting, and maybe it doesn't change? (This doesn't make sense to me, since there's the concept of "giving a horse its head", which suggests that riders can make this decision while riding. They don't get off the horse and get back on in order to switch between independent and controlled). It seems that the least disruptive game play thing is to let an independent mount go immediately after the PC if it has been previously controlled (rather than return to its previous initiative).
Which then brings up the next point. How often can you switch between Controlled and Independent? If I control the mount and immediately use it's move and disengage and my action on my turn, and then "give the horse its head" at the end of my turn, does the horse now get its own turn on its own initiative (right after mine)? (That would be a bad game design decision, I think most would agree).
This leads me to wonder if the "controlled/independent" decision, for game reasons, should only be made on mounting, and cannot be changed. Or, alternatively, only at the start of your turn (which seems like a decent compromise to avoid the double-turn problem).
OTOH, if by "acts on your initiative" they do mean the horse takes its full turn either right before or right after you, and you can't break up your attacks with it's move, then that becomes less powerful (and probably that's a good thing).
But it does reduce the distinction between controlled and independent, because you'll only be able to do the ready/move/single attack/move pass in both cases. Archers are still pretty powerful on horseback, regardless of which interpretation. They can effectively get a free disengage and move 60 feet and then their own full turn to rain arrows from their new location.
My thoughts from raw, podcasts and talking to other dms and the like.
A trained warhorse, could act independant attacking in combat, or controlled, with reduced action options as per phb page 198.
And as per the podcast by Jeremy, switch from round to round as desired by the player from controlled to independent. Mindful of initiative abuse.
The advantage or disadvantage of a controlled mount is you get to steer and move it on the mounts initiative, but lose its attack option. Consider it in a docile state. Plus you can't have the horse move , you act and then the horse move again. They share your initiative not a simultaneous initiative, you need to set who is first or second. Like 2 players rolling the same initiative. If you are first, you could ready an action to attack when in range and control your horse to move into melee, once you attack your mounts turn is over until next round. On the second round, you could have your normal actions, then the horse on his turn could disengage and move. Handy thing for a controlled mount situation.
The advantage or disadvantage of an independent mount, is you may not go in the direction you like but the mount could move, attack, move. Hopefully leaving you close enough to melee on your turn but not guaranteed. You are at the whim of the independent mount. Plus opening you or the mount up to opportunity attacks. All this for the mount to be able to attack as per there stat block.
Things would vary depending on the traing of the mount, from a mule, a rented riding horse, to a riding horse you have some bond with, and may well come down to the dm requiring animal handling or such, to urge the independent mount to a course of action.
In the case of special mounts like a dragon, it would probably act as per the dms thoughts on there mood and whims, but the dm may give you some control.
As in a find steed which is a loyal ally, bonded cohesive fighting unit, that doesn't suffer a true death. With telepathy, you would be getting close to the best of both worlds, but yet it is a spirit with some autonomy and the dm could be in there rights for the spirit to say no I'm not going to trigger that trap, I still feel pain, and if you really loved me you wouldn't make me. But of course I'll ride into the front line with you on my back while kicking the bad guys and staying close to melee so you can do your thing. Because we are a cohesive fighting unit. And you told me to telepathically.
Lastly if your riding your druid friend, as a horse, while definitely capable of independent action like a dragon, I see no reason if the druid or dragon so agreed, could act as controlled. But an obedient independent mount offers more options than a free willed independent mount. As both your druid friend and dragon may not be willing to sacrifice themselves for you. And begin to ascert there independence at any time they deem fit.
Which brings me to my last quandry, just how much is the found steed willing to die for the paladin. Can there independent nature be controlled by the paladins command , thus giving the paladin a controlled , yet independent mount. Or will that marauding dragon scare the spirit to bolt, or that thunderclap startle him, a near miss fireball spook him?
I thought of a better example , but interested in other players thoughs.
I think that a mule if hit in combat (possibly triggering a moral check so to speak) would be more than likely to flee, a riding horse likely,
A warhorse unlikely, a found steed not very likely, especially as it is not a true death if killed, brings the question of a fey sprits autonomy, fear of psuedo death, ability to feel pain etc
As for the greater steed definitely not, as a player has control over it, not to be confused with the mount status as controlled or independent.
Control being who it attacks, control that it won't run in combat. Meaning total hands off for the dm.
A second example would be to leap through fire, knowing it will take some fire damage, mule won't go near, riding horse maybe, War horse likely to obey,
Found steed, becomes unclear but highly likely, greater steed has no choice it is player controlled.