IMO, if you reallyreally wanna have some fun in in D&D with mounted combat, play a Cavalier Fighter with the Mounted Combatant feat and have someone else in the party play a Centaur Rune Knight Fighter with the Sentinel feat. Let that sink in, the Centaur goes Large and the Cavalier saddles up and has all the benefits of an intelligent Mount with none of the drawbacks of it being run by the DM. Whenever an attack would hit the Centaur the Cavalier can redirect and that’s when Sentinel kicks in.
Or, another fun alternative would be to play as a Kobold Rogue with Mounted Combatant and Sentinel let the Centaur’s move proc the OA to proc your Sentinel so you can almost guarantee the second sneak attack per round because of Pack Tactics. And since the Kobold is small the Centaur can skip Rune Knight and stay Medium and maybe go Monk or something with ridiculous movement.
Another one I like is a Kobold Battle Master with Mounted Combatant and the Goading Attack and Maneuvering Attack Maneuvers, on a Centaur Ancestral Guardian with Sentinel. Think about that for a minute. Mounted Combatant on the Kobold gives the Barbarian with Danger Sense something somewhat better than Evasion, making the tank even tankier. The Ancestral Protectors combine with the agro feature from Mounted Combatant. The Fighter can use the Maneuvering Attack to trigger the Centaur to move and proc an OA to proc the MC redirect to proc the Sentinel Attack. And between them they have so many HP and high AC that they can pick and choose when to do what.
Or how about a Kobold Battle Master with Mounted Combatant on a Centaur Thief with Sentinel. The Kobold’s Mounted Combatant gives the Centaur a boost to their Evasion, and Second Story Work negates the detriment from Equine Build. The Battle Master can use Maneuvering Attack to get the Rogue to move to proc the OA which the Fighter redirects which procs the Thief’s Sentinel Sneak Attack.
Or a Kobold/Lightfoot Ancestral Guardian with Mounted Combatant on a Centaur Thief with Sentinel is hat just parks next to the BBE.
Or the Centaur is a Bladesinger with War Caster and a Kobold Ancestral Guardian rider!
You can have a lot of fun with Mounted Combatant and two PCs if you try a little.
The Ancestral Guardian/Cavalier combo is good for giving enemies an impossible choice between two tanks that punish for not being attacked.
Kobolds are good at having pack tactics, but often if won't do more than negate their Sunlight Sensitivity. A better way to utilize Pack tactics is to have rider or mount be a Totem (Wolf) Barbarian, to give everyone else Pack Tactics.
A centaur who is being ridden by a Mounted Combatant is one of the hardest to damage PCs you can ever hope to design. They straight up cannot be attacked without the rider's consent, and also benefit from a free Evasion feature from the rider as well. So putting aside the usual catch-22 or mutual synergy stuff... you can also easily just have the Centaur be a Con 8 Dex 8 caster who would ordinarily fall over in a stiff breeze and be dead weight, but who somehow is nigh invincible when being ridden. If you ever wanted to pull off a complicated Wizard/Cleric/Bard three-stat-caster multiclass... Centaur is probably the only race that can reasonably get away with that, with a rider rendering their HP, AC, and Concentration saves irrelevant.
If the Kobold is a no go for you, then I suggest the Lightfoot who can hide behind the Centaur with Natural Stealth. Or the Draconic Kobold, that Draconic Roar would certainly be handy.
Oohh! What about a centaur Hexblade with a Paladin as the mount?
I'm going to say the PC centaur being mounted on a larger creature while packing a halfling/gnome/goblin/kobold on its back is the most ludicrous example I can think of.
I gotta say, I’m surprised. Some of the folks active in this forum usually come up with some pretty interesting combos at times. (I lurk.) I expected to see some ideas posted that I would have never imagined.
Inspired by the ideas that popped up in this thread (https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/general-discussion/119196-is-there-any-feature-that-specializes-in-mounted?comment=16), I wanted to know from the hivemind what is the most unbelievably twisted combination youse all could come up with for a PC with the Mounted Combatant feat riding a Centaur PC. Here are some of mine that I came up with in there 👆to get the ball rolling:
I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with.
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Looks like you covered several.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
If the Kobold is a no go for you, then I suggest the Lightfoot who can hide behind the Centaur with Natural Stealth. Or the Draconic Kobold, that Draconic Roar would certainly be handy.
Oohh! What about a centaur Hexblade with a Paladin as the mount?
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
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I'm going to say the PC centaur being mounted on a larger creature while packing a halfling/gnome/goblin/kobold on its back is the most ludicrous example I can think of.
I gotta say, I’m surprised. Some of the folks active in this forum usually come up with some pretty interesting combos at times. (I lurk.) I expected to see some ideas posted that I would have never imagined.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Centaur: "Agh! Dude, seriously?! Right in my ear."