You summon a spirit that assumes the form of an unusually intelligent, strong, and loyal steed, creating a long-lasting bond with it. Appearing in an unoccupied space within range, the steed takes on a form that you choose: a warhorse, a pony, a camel, an elk, or a mastiff. (Your GM might allow other animals to be summoned as steeds.) The steed has the statistics of the chosen form, though it is a celestial, fey, or fiend (your choice) instead of its normal type. Additionally, if your steed has an Intelligence of 5 or less, its Intelligence becomes 6, and it gains the ability to understand one language of your choice that you speak.
Your steed serves you as a mount, both in combat and out, and you have an instinctive bond with it that allows you to fight as a seamless unit. While mounted on your steed, you can make any spell you cast that targets only you also target your steed.
When the steed drops to 0 hit points, it disappears, leaving behind no physical form. You can also dismiss your steed at any time as an action, causing it to disappear. In either case, casting this spell again summons the same steed, restored to its hit point maximum.
While your steed is within 1 mile of you, you can communicate with each other telepathically.
You can't have more than one steed bonded by this spell at a time. As an action, you can release the steed from its bond at any time, causing it to disappear.
Forever. The instantaneous effect is the summoning of the steed itself. For clarity it should say Until Dismissed or Dies, but it isn't that bad.
Unless the DM says otherwise
Why Turtles aren't available on this list ?????
what a shame...... :(
Question: Does a paladin need to have the Mounted Combatant feat to receive the benefits of the feat when using their summoned steed?
It’s a good spell, but it’s not quite that good.
”(Your DM might allow other animals...”
It is important to realize that if you are riding it, it takes your initiative and can’t attack. PHB Mounted rules below:
While you’re mounted, you have two options. You can either control the mount or allow it to act independently. Intelligent creatures, such as dragons, act independently.
You can control a mount only if it has been trained to accept a rider. Domesticated horses, donkeys, and similar creatures are assumed to have such training. 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.
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.
In either case, if the mount provokes an opportunity attack while you’re on it, the attacker can target you or the mount.
The combination of the steed being decently inteligent, being in constant telepathic contact with their rider, and being absolutely loyal to its summoner have me thinking its fine to have this particular mount act as a controlled independent mount. "you have an instinctive bond with it that allows you to fight as a seamless unit." It knows what you want of it because it reads your thoughts, it wants to do anything it can, and it is smart enough to execute plans on its own, all that goes beyond training. As a DM i wouldnt restrict a Find Steed rider using his horse to attack while still controlling it, still cant interject his turn with the horses.
Designers have clarified that you actually pick if it is controlled or not when you mount, and that when independent it will do as you command. So really, it just comes down to if you want it at your same initiative or not. Your best bet is to control it to let it match your initiative, the immediately drop it independent so it follows right after your turn, then use readied actions to attack on the trigger that your mount attacks.
Why is it only for paladins?
At a guess it's because in older editions Paladins had a Celestial mount as a class feature and the devs still wanted to keep that flavoring as an option, but without requiring it during games where having a mount would just be a massive drag. The 3.5 version had some irritating debuffs if the mount died, glad they've done away with that.
Lore Bards can also take this at level 6 through additional magical secrets. They can also get find greater steed at level 10 magical secrets, before the paladin
How come I can't, as an action, bring back a dismissed steed like you can with the find familiar spell?
Guys, our DM believes "communicating telepathically" is a BA. What do you guys think? He wants me to use a BA whenever I order it to attack or make an action... Anything on the rules?
Yup! In the players handbook, communicating is defined as a free action:
"You can communicate however you are able, through brief utterances and gestures, as you take your turn."
And given telepathy a constant connection between you and the mount, and mind reading is way more efficient than speaking, you quite literally work as a "seemless unit" controlling the mount as you might your own hand.
EDIT: To go even further, casting the spell Telepathy takes an action, but after that it is just more communication, you don't spend a BA every time you want to use it until the spell ends.
Just to get it right:
I can at any time unsommon it for an action, but to resummon it costs me another 10 Min and a 2nd level spell slot?
Correct
yes since you can apply any spell that targets just the caster to the mount as well if cast while riding.
So...hypothetically, could you use the "steed" to pull a small wagon?
Yes. It summons a physical mount that shares all properties of the regular stat block for whichever mount type you choose, with the exception of its creature type and INT score. You would have to acquire driving equipment, and if your steed dies or is dismissed it doesn't take that equipment with it. It can serve every function and more that a traditional steed could.
There's find vehicle which is super cool