I love the fact that he's gone back to simple mis-understood basics. Here's hoping there will finally be a accurate video on poisons on youtube some time in the near future. Vids on kiting, ambushes and other white room tactical scenarios would also be good.
Couldn't agree more. Can we get a video that finally puts the idea of a "surprise round" to bed? I can't believe I still have to have real arguments with real people in 2021 that think different creatures roll for initiative at different times instead of exclusively at the beginning of combat.
@@joeld2925 That's all true. I was specifically referring to experienced DMs, who should know better, that have whichever group of combatants get the drop on the other roll initiative by themselves, take an entire round of combat, and then, at the start of the second round, the opponents finally roll their initiative and get added to the order, even though they were present (and probably attacked) from the very beginning. What is supposed to happen is that any creature who is considered "surprised" simply skips it's first turn without acting, they would still enter initiative order at the very beginning with everyone else. It's especially important to do this correctly if any one of the creatures involved may want or need to use a reaction but may or may not have one available.
I read up on all the rules, listened to Crawford and eventually decided it was all pretty silly. I made my own simplified rules, convinced my DM to use them for my character, and we take care of any eventualities on a case by case basis. So no, I don't know how the rules work anymore :P
“Well if you aren’t you’re in the right plac...” *Me walking off for being in the wrong place* I have had to research this so much Chris because of the contradictions and illogical nature and while I DM I have rewritten some of the rules for simplicity’s sake. Thank you for making a video in one spot so others do not have to read through Reddit posts and misguided tweets for an hour or two looking for answers that should be clear.
I rule that the rider is centered on the mount which means it occupies half of all four squares and the rules state if you occupy half a square you can be reached or reach any adjacent square. This makes it easy to determine if the player has the reach to attack any adjacent square to the mount and the opponents can reach them.
Makes Huge+ mounts a bit useless for melee characters though, since they're 3x3, so the middle is now 10ft from the edge. Maybe that's intentional though.
@@LibertyMonk I haven't run into that yet but I would probably require a reach weapon to attack from the back and still use the same rules but the player would not be able to be targeted by a non-reach weapon. Good point will think on it.
Centered on the mount makes the most sense. So the player has access to each square adjacent to the mount. And consequently anyone next to the mount has access to them as well. The issue of being on a huge or gargantuan mount simply means you, as the rider, can't reach with a melee weapon unless you have a reach weapon and vis versa for those trying to attack you. Which makes perfect logical sense. It would be incredibly hard to attack someone riding an elephant with a longsword.
As much as I appreciate the effort in this video and the explanations the one thing I just kinda do away with for the sake of simplicity is that you just occupy the same space as the creature i,e if it gets hit by a fireball you are too, if it can be attacked by a creature, you can too, I know it isn't the most nuanced thing but goddamn it just tidies mounted combat so much.
Remind folks to play mounted sentinel builds with reach in your game. A medium creature occupying 4 squares is gravy. Whatever works at your table, whatever makes most sense to the group and creates the least mechanical hassle.
Schrödinger’s Mount: you’re both occupying and not occupying every space in the mount. Whenever something happens that would require you to be somewhere for it to happen, there you are
I use this method too. Since there are no "facing" rules, your mount could be looking any direction at any time, meaning your position could likewise change at any time. So you basically occupy any space on the mount.
@@normal6483 While certainly simpler in some ways it has some pretty big tactical consideration. For example a medium character's reach is usually just the 8 surrounding squares. If you take this approach you extend it to 12 surrounding squares. For a reach weapon it gets worse going from threatening 24 squares to 32. And the reverse is true. You also increase the number of enemies that can attack the player. If it works for you go for it. But there's definitely room for abuse and/or unforeseen consequences.
Normal people: If the circles overlap => turns are shared; circles don't overlap => turns are mutually exclusive and as a corollary are sequential. Rules of DnD... Circles overlap alright, but just because they share a turn doesn't mean that they *share a turn*, they in fact have seperate turns. Normal people: Thanks DnD rules. My understanding of these rules couldn't possibly increase /s
I guess my less catty version is that if the circles overlap is the answer, then the turns overlap i.e. the turns are shared is what I understand. When we add to this that the statement that the turns aren't shared, all it does for me is devalue the meaning of words.
Here are two scenarios I believe help explain why the distinction Crawford is trying to make matters: *Example One* Let's say the rider is paralyzed "until the end of their next turn." Does this mean the mount can't move or take an action? No - because they don't share a turn; they only share initiative order within the round. These two turns may happen within the same initiative order relative to other creatures in the initiative order, but _one can end before the other_ if there is nothing more which can be done.
*Example Two* Let's say we have a firbolg rogue with the sentinel feat mounted on a controlled riding horse. A kobold spy (who hoped they wouldn't be spotted in the bushes) readies an action to expend their movement to get away from the rogue if they enter melee range, just in case. The rogue has surreptitiously spotted the kobold with their very high passive perception and directs their mount to use its movement to approach. The readied action is triggered by the mount's turn, interrupting it, and the kobold turns to run. This triggers the rogue's opportunity attack, a sentinel feature (bringing the fleeing creature's movement to zero), and sneak attack - all triggered from the mount's movement, therefore _as a part of the mount's turn._ This does not happen "on" the rogue's turn even though it happens to occur within the same window of time. (If you happen to be familiar with event handling in programming, this is exactly like that.) Now the rogue uses their action to attack _with their own turn,_ also triggering sneak attack damage - because sneak attack triggers "once per turn," not "once per round." This isn't any different from any other time that the rogue gets sneak attack on an attack of opportunity, because they still have to expend their reaction to get it. It isn't broken. *But it wouldn't be possible RAW if the mounted combat rules said that the character and the mount "share a turn."*
Pragmatically, will it feel like they "share a turn" much of the time? Sure. Much of the time, will there be any reason to make a distinction at the table? No. Are there rule interactions where the PC's turn and the mount's turn need to be understood as distinct chains of events, even if they overlap in time? Yes. That is both why Crawford's very precise language is useful and why people who are not hearing the precision or employing it themselves are muddying the waters.
I really appreciate you doing Crawford's due diligence for him. Great video, so many of these questions I've had in the back of my mind for ages but I generally just avoided mounted combat so I didn't need to bother.
As far as I understand this is how I rule his words: - beast and player have their own actions as their turn rules, but when mounted they can use them at the same time, Ej. beast have a movement and can use the disengage action, PC use it's action to move in the mount squares and can use it's action to attack. All of this happen like it is the same creature, but counting the turn resources of each one separated. - the mount have it's initiative turn, he can use it to split his actions between the two initiatives if is mounted (ej. Creature use it's action to kill a bandit, a PC mount it and now have a shared turn with PC, it can use it's movement to aid the PC, but since it already used it's action he can't use a dash or disengage till this are spender resources they recover at the end of the round. - if the mount is intelligent they will use their own initiative to do their normal actions like spellcasting and movement, if it allow to be controlled he can't use actions other than the dodge, disengage or dash in that turn. If the mount is unintelligent they would most of the time not have an initiative and could be only used with the controlled rules.
On a large mount, a medium sizes character can occupy any of the 4 squares. For some players or DMs, this causes confusion as they imagine the medium character hopping around from the tip of the nose of the mount all the way to its hindquarters. I imagine it as the mount rotating and the relative position of the rider changing. With that said, this is one of those situations where, because we have real life parallels (unlike magic spells), players feel like the rules have to "make sense". The rules just describe how to play and if describing them gets in the way of fun, bend them as a DM. Few players demand "realism" when they spend 6 seconds crafting a magnificent illusion much larger than a house with fine detail, but they might balk if the Orc Warg Rider is allowed to occupy a square that doesn't advantage the player.
"Making sense" is way too overrated and should be eschewed in favor of whatever is fastest and easiest for everyone to agree on and to actually use in practical gameplay. It's the same reason that playing on a grid makes the game's world non-Euclidian with 5e's rules and there is no difference between circles and squares.
A medium creature occupying one square of a Large creature, and potentially moving around the mount, does give the possibility of reflecting things like trick riding. Partial Cover, reach, base contact, and other combat factors could give a character a great deal to play around with, tactically.
@@dylandugan76 yeah. Making sense is also punitive to martial classes as they "have to make sense" whereas caster can do stuff that could not happen in the real world. Just have fun and listen to your DM. :)
The house rule we play with in my games (both as a dm and player) is that the rider can lean on the mount and attack from any of the squares, but you can also be hit in any of the squares. It’s a Schrodinger’s mount where you are and are not in every square until an attack happens, and then you’re there. Real complicated way of saying the rider occupies the same spaces as the mount they’re riding
What a crazy coincidence you posted this today. The group I GM for has a small race battle Smith artificer and they just hit level 3. And then I find out hes gonna ride his steel defender into battle....and I realize I dont know mounted combat rules AT ALL
For the "Grid" issue, I tend to just have the rider's size now be the Mount's size for attacking/opportunity attacks. This removes all confusion about the whole thing and removes shenanigans. I also remove the lances requirements of having disadvantage if anything is within 5 ft as its notably a mounted weapon. I'd also include this for mounted archers/spellcasters if the enemy doesn't have reach. But that last one needs more testing because I've only ever seen melee use mounts.
Great video as usual Chris. You largely came to the same conclusions I reached in my own research. However, I prefer the character occupying the center of the mount and thus essentially becoming the size of the mount. Remember that the space occupied by a creature is just representative of the area it has immediate influence over. The additional mobility of being mounted would translate to the ability for the character to influence a large sized area and therefore be susceptible to attacks within that area. Having the character occupy a corner of the mount seems too clunky and unrealistic to me.
I would make a follow up video to this (mostly for DMs) discussing the value of letting players treat mounts as side kicks. If a character's design is based around being mounted then they might have a specific attachment to a mount that they wish to keep for the campaign. If they don't have access to phantom steed or find steed, then I think it's worth the DM's time to concider making their mount a sidekick. Being a sidekick had the immediate advantage of increasing a mount's hit points in proportion to the player's level. Large size creatures typically have d10 hit dice, and medium d8s. Add on to this the ASIs (no feats by RAW) that the sidekick gets and their HP, AC, or attacks (in the case of bears or such) can be increased by, keeping the mount on equal footing at higher level.
Awesome video... I was planning to cover this as well, as I've used Mounted Combatant in a couple of builds, and wanted to clarify these matters but didn't really have time to do so in a build video, figuring I'd just Deep Dive on it later. Glad to see that's now unnecessary! It'll be great to have this as a reference.
First of all, great breakdown, as always! I'm going to disagree with you on the "unlimited turns" hack, though. While I did not find any paragraph explicitly saying "you can only take one turn pee round", the section on The Order of Combat includes the following: "During a round, each participant in a battle takes A turn." I read that as "only one". Thus, a creature that takes a turn and is subsequently mounted+controlled on the same round cannot act again even if it's initiative changes. It could, however, cause a creature to get two turns between another creature's turns. Say we start with initiatives: 1 - PC 2 - Enemy 3 - Steed - During Round 1, acting last, Steed attacks Enemy. - On Round 2, PC mounts Steed and controls it, then pulls some trick to get off (Misty Step, swarmkeeper or whatever). - Steed now has moved up in initiative order and can act again before Enemy. Can this be advantageous / worth it? Sometimes, sure. Is it broken? Probably not.
"A controlled mount can move and act even on the turn that you mount it." I can see why someone would interpret it to mean the mount gets an extra turn when it's mounted, but for some reason the words "can" and "even" make me think if the mount moved or used an action first before it was mounted means those resources are depleted until the next round. The language used for the rule is really flimsy and vague, but balance aside I feel like that interpretation makes the most logical sense. It is, after all, still the same 6 second timespan. Side note, something I struggled with for a bit was why Mr. Crawford insisted on making the distinction that the mount and the rider have separate overlapping turns rather than just saying they share a turn, but I think I've figured out that it probably has to do with determining when spell effects end, which is actually kind of useful for us. Say a Sorcerer uses Twinned Spell or a Glory Paladin with a found steed uses Haste on themselves and the mount. You've tracked the number of rounds it's been since you cast it and you know the spell's going down on your turn, but because your turns are still considered separate, you can have your mount go first and do what they need to do to get you to a safe place before you announce it's your turn and then get hit by Haste's lethargy effect.
Even disregarding which of the 4+squares you occupy, what i'm wondering mostly is this: if you ride a mount larger than 10ft at the shoulder, like an elefant, can you even attack medium or small creatures on the ground or be attacked by them? I mean, you're >5ft away from them. Would you require a reach weapon to attack targets on the ground? Would they need reach to attack you? This is a huge deal, because it would basically invalidate one third of the mounted combatant feat. Edit: talking specifically about melee
I feel like if I were designing a hypothetical 5.5e, I would simplify the controlled mount rules to you and your mount both share your turn to make it less confusing (and deal with whatever edge cases come out of that rule)
The current rules could definitely be clarified but I think you underestimate the edge cases that would come from the mount not having a turn. To take just one example, a huge number of effects are keyed to "the beginning of a creature's turn in the area of effect." You would have a lot of illogical scenarios where a mounted creature cannot be affected by a web, but the rider can be. Etc. Just noting that. "Rider and mount share one turn" is a very easy rule to remember, but it introduces a lot of problems, so actually applying it at the table may introduce more issues. Can't say for sure, but I think that's why Crawford has been so insistent in tweets (and careful in the interview) to emphasize that the rider and the mount both still have their turns.
@@nathansmith9597 Thats dnd in a nutshell everything has to work stupid because otherwise it can either be exploited or is overly complicated to explain all the exceptions.
@@nathansmith9597 No it really is as simple as "While controlled, your and your creature share a turn." that's it. When uncontrolled, it could even still share your initiative but act separately. It's not that complicated.
After reviewing the exact language in the rules... I have to agree! The language rules for a controlled mount could have been simplified a great deal by having the mount share the rider’s turn. I stand corrected.
Thanks for the detailed review, including parsing out the Jeremy Crawford references. Regarding your end trick with the sphinx I think another commenter noted that sentient mounts (e.g. dragons, Giant Eagles) cannot qualify as Controlled Mounts (i.e. Overlapping turns). The distinguishing line on Controllable Mounts seems to be >4 Intelligence and the ability to speak a language (not just understand). There are a few creatures that range Intelligence 4-6 that might work (no Language), but mostly this benchmark holds. The primary exception is the Worg (i.e. Intelligence 7; Goblin & Worg languages) because it specifically states it is a mount and that the Worg may override its rider if it feels mistreated (specific rules overrule general). The multiple actions tactic you posited at the end of the video could be useful, if allowed by a DM, in melee where multiple riders are adjacent to mount on subsequent initiative counts. This has limits and most DMs will shut it down. A ranged effect/Action by the Mount would be more effective/less limited on the map. Sadly the only two creatures that meet the criteria for a Controllable Mount with a non-melee Action/Attack that will not move you away from a waiting group of potential riders are the Chimera and Hellhound (Monster Manual review, only). Each has a 15ft cone attack that refreshes on 5-6 (1:3 chance). Still limited, but interesting potential. As a DM I wouldn't be too worried about this for abuse, as long as I remember that Sentient Mounts don't qualify for Controlled Mount status (i.e. act on their own initiative, always). Where I think your post will help players the most, beyond understanding Mounted Combat basics, is in giving companion focused characters (e.g. Beast Master Rangers) a slight nudge in the effectiveness on combats when their potential mount manages a higher initiative than them. Giving the animal companion a chance to initiate combat and then act again once mounted could give a nice bump to their first round of combat. Nothing too game breaking. Thanks for the video :)
This is how it has been run at my table. My ancients paladin is the only regularly mounted combatant so it is good to know we have had it right. Would still like controlled mounts to make an attack though, a rider would give a signal to a war horse to tell it to kick but would still be i control of where it went and when.
Makes sense. They are separate turns, that resolve simultaneously. Something that doesn't happen anywhere else, so if we try to apply assumptions that work in other cases, we'll miss something. I'm personally not sure about willingly losing control of a mount would unshackle it from only being able to dash/dodge/disengage. If it only takes half your movement to mount, why bother with swarmkeeper's movement, just mount & control the mount, then dismount. You're out of movement, but you gave the thing another turn. Otherwise, a trained iron golem could take as many turns as you have soldiers. Even if you're limited it to only dash, dodge, and disengage, imagine having a line of riders, 2x the mount's movement apart, and a message/McGuffin/prisoner tied to the mount. Each rider mounts & controls, then dismounts the mount. The mount can now dash, then move and reach the next rider in line, and it's turn, and be recharged. The only issue is organizing initiatives/turn orders, so that the mount doesn't have to wait for a round to end between each rider's initiative. Near-instant transportation of one mount-load every 6 seconds.
Consider the following: Mounts with Sidekick levels. Given the standing that the base requirement for a Sidekick is a stat block of CR 1/2 or fewer, and only Expert or Spellcaster require a Language to be effective, one might (with, of course, a willing DM and also willing party; that's a *very* powerful combo if not balanced in some manner) have themselves a rather heightened longevity for their mount than they might otherwise had. (Note: The fact a beast or other creature as such might be considered for Sidekick levels is mildly canon, as Tasha's I think mentions a Mastiff/Riding Dog named Buttons in the text and definitely features a Wolf in the image of possible Warrior sidekicks) (*Edit: Cursory Glance in the MM, if you have a Goblinoid PC, you could theoretically have a Worg mount with Sidekick levels in any three of the classes; Worgs speak Goblin and Worg. Additionally, that applies to any creature that has a language, like Blink Dogs, Giant Owls, etc (given the CR restriction; Giant Eagles and Giant Elks also have their own language, but are too high CR for Sidekick as written). Imagine the fear in your foes' eyes when the Giant Owl you're riding starts casting Cleric or Druid spells with their base 13 Wisdom score) (**Edit Addendum: Mounts with Languages casting Cure Wounds, Bless, Shield of Faith, etc. on their riders, goodness)
You don't necessarily even need to go this far though. For an edition that is meant to be so simplified compared to older ones, it'd be a lot easier if creature rules were unified with player rules, just like in 3.X. My solution would be that beloved and intended permanent mounts simply gain HD along with the rider and they make death saving throws like a PC. Done and dusted.
It's worth noting that there *are* rules regarding how easy it is to knock you off your mount - they're inthe military saddle item, from whicj we can extrapolate the rules that apply to other circumstances. "A military saddle braces the rider, helping you keep your seat on an active mount in battle. It gives you advantage on any check you make to remain mounted." Presumably, you do not get advantage with any other saddle with the less advanced stirrups and whatnot.
What makes you think that you get a new turn just because your initiative changes? The PHB says "A round represents about 6 seconds in the game world. During a round, each participant in a battle takes a turn", which suggests that you can't have multiple turns in the same round unless something explicitly states otherwise (like Samurai's Strength before Death feature). To me the it's pretty clear that by changing initiative mid-combat all you're doing is moving your 1 turn up or down, not getting a completely new one. As such if you've already taken your Turn 5 in Round 5 and your initiative is reduced and you come around next in the initiative order you're simply skipped, and the initiative change will only make a difference on the next round.
I'm pretty sure that I have seen somewhere that you can also mount other players. Hmmm this makes the interaction with runeknight quite interesting. Runeknight: makes his attacks, Swarm keeper ranger: climbs on his back and makes his attacks and uses his forced movement to go off the runeknight, Runeknight gets another turn uses movement and attacks, Warlock climbs on his back and makes his attacks and movement and misty steps off, Runeknight gets anther turn uses movement and attacks. (of course he would still have to be at least still be one size larger then whoever mounts him)
In my homebrew rules I've changed the movement to what we term a limited action which allows you to move, drink a potion, make a single melee attack, cast a cantrip at first level, and control your mount. Movement is obviously broken up into 5' increments and requires half your movement to mount or dismount. The control your mount is also broken up like movement. Half is used to control the mounts movement and the other half to control their action. This allows you to use half your movement to mount and then use either the mounts movement or action. So you can't move 15' and mount then move 100' on your horse by having them move and then dash. If you moved 15' and then mounted you have nothing left to control the mount with. If you mount and then you could move the mounts full movement or direct them to attack if they have an attack ability.
Ive never thought mounted combat was that confusing. The rider and mount share an initiative. Its similar to newer summons or something like a wildfire spirit. The only difference is mounts have their own turn. So each have everything they can do on their own turn and since they share initiative, not just have the same initiative roll, they take their turns simultaneously. Since theres no way to literally have the two run their turn at the exact same time they just have to mix and match the order in which they act. Dming wise i would just rule that if a mount occupies a space than so does the player unless the mount is at least huge or larger. Also with the demonstration at the end id probably rule that if a mounts initiative changes then it still has to wait a round to get a turn.
Am I understanding you correctly? Gnome battle smith with Mounted Combatant feat is riding his steel defender. He can force attacks to target him, instead of the steel defender. Steel defender uses it's reaction to add disadvantage to the roll.
Very late to the party, but with the Sphynx example at the end, there is nothing in the mounting rules that say the mount gets an additional turn. Only their initiative changes. So an unmounted creature with initiative 20 does it's actions and movement, then on initiative 18 it is mounted, and its initiative changes to 18, but their turn has already taken place during the round. Their movement and actions are spent. They would have to wait until initiative 18 on the next round to perform movement and actions. "During a round, each participant in a battle takes a turn. The order of turns is determined at the beginning of a combat encounter, when everyone rolls initiative." That seems pretty clear to me. During a round, each participant gets a single turn. The order is determined by initiative. I would infer that if initiative changes, the order changes, but it doesn't grant any participant an additional turn.
You mention at the end of the video that you could allow a creature to get multiple turns in a round, that would be limited by the mechanic that states "Once during your move, you can mount a creature that is within 5 feet of you or dismount". You can either mount OR dismount, not both.
Being on the brink of a Eberron campaign, I've started to research this exact topic, so I can play my halfling Mounted on a velociraptor (actually a troodon, but that's me being a boring biologist) chucking rocks at anyone who gets near.
Crawford not changing his mind on this ruling hinges on him very poorly attempting to clarify that, despite occurring at the same time, the rider and mount have their own separate turns. So that raises the question: What rule interaction makes that distinction so goddamn important?
And magic effects that trigger "at the start of each of your turns" or similar don't count because sharing a turn doesn't mean you don't have a turn, it means two creatures have the same turn; It's equally the rider's turn as it is the mount's. It's the kind of granular distinction a dual-wielding rogue would try to lawyer you with so he can Sneak Attack with both his weapons - once for his turn and once for his mounts. Someone find me a reason that isn't this sort of BS.
I think the best mount is a phantom steed. It is eternally replaceable. And even if killed, it takes one minute to disappear, during which it still acts as a mount. Which is longer than most fights, so you can truly rely on mounted combat. Plus the 100ft speed is neat, that's 50ft to hit and run without taking AoO by having the mount withdraw, which is more than most creatures can move. I'd argue it is well worth the ritual caster feat, which by itself is a very good feat.
If it takes damage it takes on minute to disappear, during which it still acts as a mount if it still has hit points. There's nothing in the spell that suggests if the mount is reduced to 0 hit points, it bypasses the rules for that.
@@TreantmonksTemple I am not sure what you are saying when (1) the phantom steed takes damage and (2) it is reduced to 0 hp. Can it still move and take actions on either of these conditions?
@@TreantmonksTemple thank you! There are a lot of uninformed players who are posting on other sites that they can still get the 100 ft movement for a whole minute after the steed takes damage.
I've got a loxodon totem barbarian riding upon an elephant. Planning on awakening the elephant and taking the mounted combatant feat. I've also got the saddle of the cavalier... this video is super useful. Its taken many levels to achieve but I don't want to cheese my DM Elephant riding an elephant.
I was with you until the final conclusion which got me super confused. Say mount has 20 initiative and you have 10. You mount on your turn, mount initiative changes to 10, you decide who goes first, mount now gets to act on your turn. Second round, mount is still at 10 initiative and so are you. Now depending on who you chose to go first, that creature acts, then the other. I don't get why this contradicts the ruling on no changing initiatives as the initiatives don't change anymore after that first turn.
Let me walk you though it again ROUND 1 1. Monster takes turn at Initiative 20 2. You mount the monster at initiative 15 3. You decide that you will go before the monster 4. You use forced movement/teleport to dismount the monster 5. You do whatever you want on your turn, and your turn ends 6. After your turn ends, the next creature in line is the monster, so it gets a 2nd turn in the same round. Because it's initiative got change from 20 to 15. This process can be infinitely repeated
Technically it acted on 20 in the previous round. In the current round, as you’ve described, it gets one turn (on 15). Granted, in your example it would get multiple turns in the same round if the creature’s initiative had been a value less than 15...(or if you force dismount and another character mounts before the end of the round).
I've been in love with the idea of a small character mounted on a medium creature, mostly in the sense of taking the pressure off of my DM of needing to cater to the needs of large creatures, making certain I can be mounted in tight quarters or most any situation, etc. However, by the writing of the Mounted Combatant feat, it wouldn't benefit this build much at all. Yes, this inspired the idea of a Fairy mounted on a war mastiff or kruthik or whatnot, in which they use their innate Enlarge/Reduce ability on their mount...thoughts?
I would also like to add you can't just mount an aquatic or flying mount willy nilly. These mounts require an exotic saddle before they can be mounted. So if they aren't saddled before combat they wouldn't be a viable mount.
Look I'm going to say that Halfling can treat a Goliath as a mount. Rules reference? Please see the important source book known as "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome".
If your doing a knight campaign or just have only a few players, I’d say give the mount sidekick levels and have it as another character the player controls.
Two things: Military Saddle (PHB) has mounted combat rules and answers the question you posed about saddles and tack providing benefits to riders. Second: Any mounted combat video should address the "horses in dungeons" objection. DMs will often answer a player asking to play a mounted PC with "how are you gonna use a horse in a dungeon?" Horses can't climb ladders, for instance, or ropes. They can't move through narrow passages easily (or at all, depending on how narrow). I think the fiction of cavalry in catacombs is silly, but the concerns about horses in dungeons are somewhat exaggerated.
This comment is before I watch the video. But if you don't talk about it here, could you perhaps discuss being a small ranger and the new beast master primal beast as a mounted (beast of land) companion for combat and all. Seeing as they get their turn at the same time as the ranger and such. So how essentially does that affect mounted combat rules and such? Would you get to use it as a independent mount and just control it as you (the player) see fit, Use the ranger's bonus action for it to attack?
If I ever encounter the "Can this be broken" part as a Game Master I'd rule the creature can only get is action, reaction, bonus action, legendary etc. etc. once per combat turn :) So if the gynosphinx acts first it might perhaps use its action and then e.g. 10 feet of movement to move to this ranger. Then the ranger mounts the gynosphinx. Now then ranger and gynosphinx can act 'together' as they please but the gynosphinx already used their action and some movement (in this example) . Once again: I suppose I'd handle it this way.
Okay. I’m going to take this to mean that I can move simultaneous with my mount. Like, riding on a pony means your movement is no 40ft, and after your regular action and bonus action you have a “mount action” to dash or disengage. :)
If intelligent creatures (e.g. Dragons) are allowed to be controlled mounts by a DM (i.e. act on rider's initiative count) I worry we might see a great many casters with Imp/Quasit/Psuedodragon/Sprite Familiars being mounted by those same familiars in order to get a second turn in the first round. Let us not go there :P D&D does not need Ratatouille Warlocks!
Hi a great video. I have a question, with the following information Relentless Avenger By 7th level, your supernatural focus helps you close off a foe's retreat. When you hit a creature with an opportunity attack, you can move up to half your speed immediately after the attack and as part of the same reaction. This movement doesn't provoke opportunity attacks. Find Steed 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. would you stay that you could use your control mount and move 1/2 its movement. what would be you take on this when find steed and you fight as a seamless unit
18:49 Readying the /DASH/ action would be highly dubious, you couldn't move with your readied reaction, I think it would be basically worthless. The readied action can be either an action, (like dash :P) or "you choose to move up to your speed"
Question: Using the Mounted Combatant FEAT and the grid system for a Medium sized creature on a Large mount. Would the 2nd ability apply (You can force an Attack targeted at your mount to target you instead.) if the rider is using a non-reach weapon and is on the grid space where there is a 5ft square (mount) between the rider and the attacker of the mount ? I ask this because a player/rider on a Tiger (druid wildshape) intelligence mount was "surrounded" by a goblin tribe on all sides. BY RULE......does each and every attack (12 of them) get directed to the Rider ?
This is excellent, and I really appreciate the depth you've gone into here. I have a question, though. At about 16:56, you say "Now a creature that's not trained for combat may not be controllable in combat, while a creature trained to be ridden, including in combat, may or may not be controlled by the rider's choice." Are you intending to make a distinction between creatures that are "trained for combat" versus those that are simply "trained"? I haven't found that distinction in the rules, though I've heard arguments from others that there should be such a distinction -- essentially, that there should be a substantive difference in the control dynamic between taking a riding horse into combat versus taking a warhorse. It was argued that taking a non-combat-controlled mount into combat should require Animal Handling checks to do things like directing one's steed to use the Disengage action (or really to do anything at close quarters at all, because animals that aren't specifically trained for it would be constantly spooked in battle). What do you think?
I get you, but it feels clunky to me. If the turns happen one after another, and both are the same player's turns, then the only thing this rule does is make the player consider the order of operations of their actions. I've seen this cause a turn in which the player rides in, attacks, then rides out, take 5 minutes to execute. They got stuck on which action they need to ready and which one they need to do when and whose turn needs to happen first etc. etc. So I prefer to treat a controlled mount like a magic item which increases your walk speed and allows you to use your reaction to take the dodge, dash, or disengage action. It's functionally the same thing but there's a whole lot less paperwork for the player who just wants to be a cool lancer. Also, blob method for the win. The less paperwork the player has to do on their turn the better.
29:21 IDK chief, it looks like the turn reset might have a problem with the idea that only on the round end everyone regains their expended actions, so when a creature uses its actions and you mount it, it would still be out of actions until the end of that round. In the case a creature is dismounted by a PC and another PC ride it, the creature would be able to use its actions and movement ONLY if they weren’t already expended.
So I think the main reason for this whole turn confusion is that if you and your mount share a turn then you would share movement and actions. your mount doesn't lose its turn it's just happening at the same time as yours
The two don't share a turn. They share Initiative. To which they both can act together, intertwining their turns together. Each creature has their own individual turn. Initiative is a "time-slot" in a round.
I'm doing a halloween one shot as a mounted Dullahan warrior. This is an important part of my research. I doubt you'll get back to me on this old video, but what class(es) would you play for a level 5 mounted combatant?
Wouldn't the broken Sphinx stuff at the end of the video not be RAW since "The Order of Combat" on PHB p.189 says every creature takes "a" turn each round, meaning an initiative change wouldn't mean an additional turn? That section consistently uses language for a limitation to one turn per round. The Sphinx example is obviously not RAI but I don't believe is RAW either.
how about a beast master ranger? can they ride their companion? and if they can would they be able to command it to take the attack action with the ranger's bonus action while mounted? and would the companion be able dash and disengage without the ranger's bonus action like a normal mount?
This went off the rails at the end. What in the world did Crawford say that implied a mount could get multiple turns? Just because your turns can overlap, doesn't mean once the mount takes a turn it gets another one when it gets mounted. Where does this extra turn come from? EDIT: Btw, everything up to that point was great!
He actually literally says in the video they would get multiple turns, and then says how as a DM he would not be happy to see it abused. (and to be clear, I'm not advocating the behavior either - the example is a cautionary tale only) See for yourself: ruclips.net/video/99tX6tmc73Q/видео.html
I am running into a situation as a dm where my BBEG will be on a mount. His legendary action of moving isn’t on the mounts turn. Is there any rule situation where he can use the mount speed or do I just need to ask my players really nicely if it’s ok?
I read the Intelligent creature rule ("Intelligent creatures, such as dragons, act independently.") as "Intelligent creatures may NEVER be controlled, unless explicitly allowed by the description (as the Find Steed spell)", so the Gynosphinx shenanigans could never happen without the DM changing the rules and accepting responsibility for the consequences. Even with Find Greater Steed they avoided including options for spellcasting creatures like Unicorns, even though the Unicorn's own description lists it as a Paladin mount, because the "You control the mount in combat" clause provided by the spell would be a problem. You could, of course, have arguments about whether or not certain creatures are "Intelligent" or "Trained to accept a rider".
Unlike Find Greater Steed which explicitly states, "You control the mount in combat." there is nothing in the text of the Find Steed spell with a similar level of clarity.
"Intelligent creatures, such as dragons, act independently." You kinda ignored the recommendation/rule on what determines controlled or independent mounts. If a DM is allowing a player to control a gynosphinx, then the DM has other issues. It might work with a different creature with your exploit, but you (or I watching) missed that bit about what counts as controlled or not.
The problem is that sentence kinda doesn’t mean anything. Besides dragons, we have no idea by RAW what defines intelligent, so it’s one big giant “what”
The last part of the video is not intended as a "how to" manual. It is intended to warn DM's about allowing just any creature to be a controlled mount.
It's kind of funny to me. I read "takes its turn" and "same initiative" and came to the same conclusion from the beginning. From that point, nothing JC said or tweeted was confusing at all. Maybe it was only confusing to people trying to exploit...
Planning on a Beast Master Ranger(Revised versions), the race is a custom Lineage and I was thinking small size, so I can jump on my kelpie(my beast) in land form, and move.
Heck, you could go simpler - polymorph someone into a T-Rex, and then mount and dismount with things like Misty Step, or Telekinesis (from Tasha's), or whatever. The spell + Legendary actions are nicer, but you can almost for sure get a T-Rex at level 9 (assuming they exist in your world, and you have seen one). My players feel the rules for mounted combat are not awesome, so have taken to just not bothering with it. And that, I think, is the worst part - mounted combat can be really cool but the weirdness around it discourages it. Even for the Paladin player in my group. Hopefully this video clears it up for folks, and might help them give it a try. So far, it has come up exactly once when someone tried to ride a donkey, which they couldn't do because they wanted to play a Goliath and the "you can't ride something smaller than you" rule shut that down.
wow that interaction at the end is some top tier stupid shit. Great work. Though it does rely on forced movement being able to move you off the creature and it not moving the creature with you wich is unclear. Teleports should work though so mysty step would work RAW.
There has always been more then a bit of issue with the mounted system in D&D and JC is always trying to make it sound like it works. MCDM in it’s PDF magazine’s inaugural addition Arcadia #1 did post an article going over the base rules and proposed alternative additional rules for mounted combat. This will not help you at at RAW tables but it can give you some ideas at tables that like homebrews.
How to make mounted combat work. Play a Kobald Battle Master in a party with a Bear Totem Barbarian or Caviler Fighter. Take the Mounted Combatant Feat. Take Turns directing who takes the hits.
The way my group has done it for years is absolutely identical to everything Chris said, with the added caveat that you have to declare whether your mount shall be controlled or uncontrolled for the duration of a combat right when initiative is rolled (or when you get on the mount, if that happens later) and you can't change it back and forth during a single fight.
I think gynosphinx is using the prefix meaning female, so I always assumed it sounded like gynaecologist, or gyndroid, as opposed to android, or androsphinx.
Two other things I noticed. 1. creature size is The maximum size a creature would take up not its actual size. in other words its a range. A horse could actually be a 1X2 or for that matter a giant tree Could be 1 1x1x3 (assuming each unit is a 5'cube) and still be part of the size category. 2.Question. Is there any indication that moving the initiative actually grants new actions and/or movement? I tend to think the on and off stuff would change initiative without granting any new actions. (Possibly A new reaction). I will look more into this.
Would love to see a Drakewarden Lancer, I've been playing around with one. Drakewarden/Fighter and I think there is a way to make it viable and fun to play.
Hey Treantmonk, I thought once a mount was controlled it didn't get to do anything besides move, dash, disengage, dodge... is that the case? Why was the sphinx able to still cast, attack, and use legendary actions if it was acting in a controlled fashion as opposed to on it's own?
24:04 you can charge while on your mount, attack as it moves. During movement your mount can attack before, during, or after movement. Is that an easy way to say it?
Your Last Idea is Boken in so mutch more ways because a Druid could wild shape and make this in every Party. So we have a simple fix for this at the start of the Combat you can lower your Initiative to mat it with an Ally before you now the Initiative of the opponents. Then you can Share the turns betwen all thet Go direkt after eatch other. So no Problem with the mounts. Some probably think that some Combos are to Strong with this technik, but ceap in mind the enemys are Not allways dumm. They can use it too.
Thanks for this clarification! However, there remains the Battle Smiths` Steel Defender-problem, because RAW say`: "the defender shares your initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours". So, can the (small) rider use their bonus action to command the SD to move, let it move, and attack a target and then let the mount attack? Or, do I first have to ready an action, let the mount move and attack, and then attack myself. Or is this rule simply meant to prevent that rider and mount attack on the same turn?
The Steel Defender will take its turn immediately after yours and you must command it with your bonus action if it is uncontrolled. If it is controlled, then you use the rules for controlled mounts.
@@TreantmonksTemple Thank you! So, does this mean, I can with a melee weapon: 1.Bonus action command mount, 2.Ready attack until mount attacked,3. Mount moves and attacks 4.attack myself? Because some people say that I don´t get a bonus action when I ready an action.
@@tillfangohr9286 Yes and no. You want to change 2: "ready attack until mount attacks or moves adjacent to enemy" If you wait until your mount is attacked by an enemy, then 4 might not happen. As regards the "some people say I don't get a bonus action when I ready an action", I think that's a misunderstanding. You cannot ready a bonus action. But you can use a bonus action and ready your action in the same turn (assuming you have a bonus action that does not require you to take an action first, you can't do this with two-weapon fighting for example). Just remember that if you have the extra attack ability and you ready an attack, you only get to make 1 attack and it consumes your reaction so no attacks of opportunity for you or shield spells, etc. Therefore it may be better to control your mount. If you do control it, then it loses the ability to attack but you can attack twice if you have extra attack. If the steel defender is more dangerous than you, then yes, bonus to command, ready, and it attacks then you attack once.
Why does it matter if the mount has a separate turn if they take place at the same time? Assuming we can't use that exploit you mention at the end how is this different than merging turns when the mount is controlled?
I find this video a little odd - enjoyed it obviously as I knew it would present some interesting wrinkles that I hadn't previously thought of, though I have researched the rules of mounted combat specifically in the past. You present here the rules of mounted combat as though they are comprehensive, yet the video demonstrates pretty clearly that they are not. I think a more analytical, in-depth look at these rules, in terms of what is solid and works, and what is vague and broken - and perhaps some suggestions as to how to create a more comprehensive set of rules would be much more useful. The rules for mounted combat are published in like 3 different places and when put together, do not present a clear picture at all, leaving multiple gaps that are unresolved, and an ocean of questions. I'd argue that riding and fighting on mounts is a common and treasured part of the fantasy genre, and we really deserve some more detailed rules, specifically ones that take into account the concept that we might be riding a large variety of strange creatures, not just like horses and dire wolves or something. Can an intelligent mount decide that it will allow itself to be controlled by it's rider? You suggest that in the video - and sure, logically I imagine this to be true and don't necessarily need rules to tell me it is - however, the distinctions of 'controlled' versus 'uncontrolled' have fairly hefty mechanical weight, especially when considering 'unconventional' mounts. If an intelligent mount CAN allow itself to be controlled, does that mean it is then considered a 'controlled' mount? If so, does that then mean that it can no longer use any special actions - such as a dragons fire breath? Why can a controlled mount not even take the attack action? The rules state 'intelligent creatures, such as dragons, act independently'. Yet find steed states that it is an intelligent creature BUT it 'has an instinctive bond that allows you to fight seamlessly as a unit'. Does this mean it is considered a 'controlled' mount or not?
There are certainly fuzzy areas. Technically, there is a general rule that an intelligent mount cannot be controlled, whether it wishes to be or not. I've seen lots of DM's hand wave that though. In regards to the Find Steed spell, the "fight seamlessly as a unit." doesn't say how it interacts with that general rule, though I think intuitively we could see it as a specific exception. JC has said that it should be seen as one, though I expect when the spell was written there was no consideration of how making the mount intelligent might restrict its use as a mount.
@@TreantmonksTemple My point exactly. The rules as written function decently well for the situation of a horse or other such generic mount creature, and then basically put up some walls so as to prevent strange interactions and unforeseen consequences with varying monster / creature stat blocks, without doing the work to actually consider the various possibilities and implications of the existing structure. In doing so though, they create a lot of ambiguity and also strip away a lot of fun and interesting possibilities with less conventional mounts, which - I mean how many epic fantasy stories do NOT involve things like riding on dragons, or giant toads, or dinosaurs, etc? Should an elephant, a gargantuan dragon, and a horse all take the same amount of movement to mount? Why should a trained warhorse not be able to use it's turn to attack? It's impossible to train an intelligent creature to act as a 'controlled' mount? A 'controlled' mount loses any special abilities it has as a creature? Even positioning, which you point out in the video - the rules assume that, despite the fact that a horse occupies 4 squares on a battlemap, that you can attack adjacent creatures if you are mounted on it, and adjacent creatures can attack you. Sure, on a horse, we've all seen movies where this stuff happens and can imagine how it works, seems intuitive. But there is no rule for larger creatures - what if you're on the back of a gargantuan dragon? I'm usually a strong advocate of 5e's structure and the simplicity of it's rules, but this is one area that I think genuinely deserves a little attention. Not only are there a lot of areas that are extremely fuzzy, the existing rules do specifically prevent many of the interesting possibilities of having the kinds of cool and interesting mounts that most would imagine when considering a fantasy world.
Awesome video, I really like this type of vid. How would grappling work while mounted (could you mount still use full movement, dragging the creature behind)? Would shoved prone work? Also, it would suck that the Ranger with animals handling expertise is worse than the grapple build Barbarian at making a mount controlled. Any thoughts there?
For me it makes sense that the grappling barbarian would be better at holding on to a resisting mount than an animal handling specialist. But the ranger would be better at calming the mount after engaging in the grapple and would be more likely to get the creature to allow itself to be ridden without having to deal with the grapple in the first place.
Just to make sure i got this right, if i'm mounted to start the battle and i've decided to control the mount. mount-moves to melee range i dismount then do my set of action, bonus action then the mount can still attack/take an action (as its not a mount anymore but an independent creature since i dismounted) correct? in the same vein, even if i'm not mounted to start combat, i can get on the mount, we align initiative, mount moves up to the creature. I dismount and perform my action and bonus action then my mount can still use their attacks/action correct?
@@TreantmonksTemple thanks! great vid chris. Very helpful. Was just a bit unclear on the whole you can only mount or dismount once per move. Did it mean you can mount once, dismount once or you can mount/dismount but not both in a single turn?
i don't know if i buy into the turns that "overlap". that's more like a way of saying that the 2 turns follow each other in the order the player choses. There is no mechanic within PHB that mentions that turns can overlap. A turn is taken separately from the next turn, period, and that part seems like a lot of speculation based on what crawford said in an interview. Also, Crawford interview =/ RAW. The mounted mechanics, like a lot of other things are extremely unclear in 5e, but based on RAW, there is no overlap mechanic mentioned anywhere. It seems to me like this rules were botched and resulted in a thing where RAW is very different from RAI, unfortunately. As a DM, i wouldn't mind ruling that a controlled mount can act within your turn, just like a beastmaster's companion. It is giving you a free disengage from your mount that doesn't take up your own action, which results in something similar to the mobile feat, allowing for some nice hit and run tactics and good synergy with mounted combatant giving you permanent advantage, etc. Fortunately it also has some weakness to it that the enemies can exploit, i.e. putting the mount under spell or other effects that are not attacks and that cannot be mitigated through mounted combatant. It still becomes a very strong alternative to mobile or cunning action when ruled that way. And even without the overlap it would still be interesting, like taking hit and run over 2 turns, being vulnerable 1 turn every 2 turns by using the fact that even without ruling that turns can be overlap, they can still be interchanged due to the same initiative. Another grey area is, what happens if you mount a creature that already has it's own set of rules, like beast companion, steel defender, summon, etc. No where does it say that the mount rules take priority over those rules.
The rules for controlling a mount say the mount can "move and act on your turn", and although that doesn't explicitly use the word "overlap", it strongly implies it.
@@TreantmonksTemple I am looking at p.198 of PHB under the mounted combat section. Maybe you refer to the phrase "A controlled mount can move and act even on the turn that you mount it", which might be omitting to add "and your following turns while you are mounted". But it could also be a bad phrasing for "on the turn it takes following the turn you mount it". I don't see a general "move and act on your turn" here. Well, i don't disagree with the idea of ruling it either way, but i think the RAW part for this is simply absent. It seems to me the writers of this section didn't follow the mechanics of their own game and left that up to interpretation purposefully or not.
@@chopcooey "and your following turns while you are mounted" This is not necessary to add (or to be more specific, if it was otherwise, THEN it would need to be specified), since unless the rules say otherwise specifically, the following round of combat will not have turn order changes according to the rules on initiative.
If you're asking for RAW, PHB states "In either case, if the mount provokes an opportunity attacks while you're on it, the attacker can target you or the mount." But you should be able to direct your controlled mount to take the Disengage action and avoid this in most cases.
Turn and initiative are not the same thing. Initiative indicates when you can act (before, after or at the same time). If a creature acted in its turn, it doesn't matter how many times a creature change its initiative, its turn was already done for that round.
So at 8:52 you talk about the limitation of only being able to mount or dismount a creature once during your move making it so that you can't mount and dismount a creature on your turn. Doesn't this, under most circumstances, prevent the broken situation you discuss at the end of the video?
Yes, under most circumstances it does. That is why in the example the swarmkeeper ranger uses being moved off the mount by the swarm rather than dismounting.
@@Startoshadows Never seen any to be honest. My Anecdote was how we dealt with a mounted charge as players, so that nobody had to deal with mounted combat: Sleet storm and telekisesis, no mounted shenenigans anymore.
Treant monk how would you rule on issues regarding height? For example, if a rogue that was riding an elephant was attempting to stab a halfling, it would be unrealistic because their shortsword wouldn't have that much reach. How would you rule on something like this?
Being that you are on top of the mount, it's perfectly reasonable to be thinking about positioning in 3 dimensions. That means if you are on top of a very tall mount, you could need reach.
“Let’s talk about mounting a creature.”
“Gentlemen, you had my curiosity. Now you have my attention.”
I love the fact that he's gone back to simple mis-understood basics. Here's hoping there will finally be a accurate video on poisons on youtube some time in the near future. Vids on kiting, ambushes and other white room tactical scenarios would also be good.
Couldn't agree more. Can we get a video that finally puts the idea of a "surprise round" to bed? I can't believe I still have to have real arguments with real people in 2021 that think different creatures roll for initiative at different times instead of exclusively at the beginning of combat.
@@dylandugan76 some people learn D&D in 2021. And some creatures only enter combat, thus initiative, in later rounds, such as reinforcements.
@@joeld2925 That's all true. I was specifically referring to experienced DMs, who should know better, that have whichever group of combatants get the drop on the other roll initiative by themselves, take an entire round of combat, and then, at the start of the second round, the opponents finally roll their initiative and get added to the order, even though they were present (and probably attacked) from the very beginning. What is supposed to happen is that any creature who is considered "surprised" simply skips it's first turn without acting, they would still enter initiative order at the very beginning with everyone else. It's especially important to do this correctly if any one of the creatures involved may want or need to use a reaction but may or may not have one available.
@@dylandugan76 The way it works in 2021, 5E, is really stupid so I don't blame anyone for misunderstanding.
I read up on all the rules, listened to Crawford and eventually decided it was all pretty silly. I made my own simplified rules, convinced my DM to use them for my character, and we take care of any eventualities on a case by case basis.
So no, I don't know how the rules work anymore :P
“Well if you aren’t you’re in the right plac...” *Me walking off for being in the wrong place*
I have had to research this so much Chris because of the contradictions and illogical nature and while I DM I have rewritten some of the rules for simplicity’s sake.
Thank you for making a video in one spot so others do not have to read through Reddit posts and misguided tweets for an hour or two looking for answers that should be clear.
I rule that the rider is centered on the mount which means it occupies half of all four squares and the rules state if you occupy half a square you can be reached or reach any adjacent square. This makes it easy to determine if the player has the reach to attack any adjacent square to the mount and the opponents can reach them.
Makes Huge+ mounts a bit useless for melee characters though, since they're 3x3, so the middle is now 10ft from the edge. Maybe that's intentional though.
@@LibertyMonk I haven't run into that yet but I would probably require a reach weapon to attack from the back and still use the same rules but the player would not be able to be targeted by a non-reach weapon. Good point will think on it.
Centered on the mount makes the most sense. So the player has access to each square adjacent to the mount. And consequently anyone next to the mount has access to them as well.
The issue of being on a huge or gargantuan mount simply means you, as the rider, can't reach with a melee weapon unless you have a reach weapon and vis versa for those trying to attack you. Which makes perfect logical sense. It would be incredibly hard to attack someone riding an elephant with a longsword.
As much as I appreciate the effort in this video and the explanations the one thing I just kinda do away with for the sake of simplicity is that you just occupy the same space as the creature i,e if it gets hit by a fireball you are too, if it can be attacked by a creature, you can too, I know it isn't the most nuanced thing but goddamn it just tidies mounted combat so much.
I personally also like to blob method, Make things much easier for everyone, especially since you don't have to consider the height issue
Remind folks to play mounted sentinel builds with reach in your game. A medium creature occupying 4 squares is gravy. Whatever works at your table, whatever makes most sense to the group and creates the least mechanical hassle.
Schrödinger’s Mount: you’re both occupying and not occupying every space in the mount. Whenever something happens that would require you to be somewhere for it to happen, there you are
I use this method too. Since there are no "facing" rules, your mount could be looking any direction at any time, meaning your position could likewise change at any time. So you basically occupy any space on the mount.
@@normal6483 While certainly simpler in some ways it has some pretty big tactical consideration. For example a medium character's reach is usually just the 8 surrounding squares. If you take this approach you extend it to 12 surrounding squares. For a reach weapon it gets worse going from threatening 24 squares to 32. And the reverse is true. You also increase the number of enemies that can attack the player. If it works for you go for it. But there's definitely room for abuse and/or unforeseen consequences.
Normal people: If the circles overlap => turns are shared; circles don't overlap => turns are mutually exclusive and as a corollary are sequential.
Rules of DnD... Circles overlap alright, but just because they share a turn doesn't mean that they *share a turn*, they in fact have seperate turns.
Normal people: Thanks DnD rules. My understanding of these rules couldn't possibly increase /s
I guess my less catty version is that if the circles overlap is the answer, then the turns overlap i.e. the turns are shared is what I understand. When we add to this that the statement that the turns aren't shared, all it does for me is devalue the meaning of words.
Rules of DnD....Circles are squares!
Here are two scenarios I believe help explain why the distinction Crawford is trying to make matters:
*Example One*
Let's say the rider is paralyzed "until the end of their next turn." Does this mean the mount can't move or take an action? No - because they don't share a turn; they only share initiative order within the round.
These two turns may happen within the same initiative order relative to other creatures in the initiative order, but _one can end before the other_ if there is nothing more which can be done.
*Example Two*
Let's say we have a firbolg rogue with the sentinel feat mounted on a controlled riding horse.
A kobold spy (who hoped they wouldn't be spotted in the bushes) readies an action to expend their movement to get away from the rogue if they enter melee range, just in case.
The rogue has surreptitiously spotted the kobold with their very high passive perception and directs their mount to use its movement to approach.
The readied action is triggered by the mount's turn, interrupting it, and the kobold turns to run.
This triggers the rogue's opportunity attack, a sentinel feature (bringing the fleeing creature's movement to zero), and sneak attack - all triggered from the mount's movement, therefore _as a part of the mount's turn._
This does not happen "on" the rogue's turn even though it happens to occur within the same window of time. (If you happen to be familiar with event handling in programming, this is exactly like that.)
Now the rogue uses their action to attack _with their own turn,_ also triggering sneak attack damage - because sneak attack triggers "once per turn," not "once per round."
This isn't any different from any other time that the rogue gets sneak attack on an attack of opportunity, because they still have to expend their reaction to get it. It isn't broken.
*But it wouldn't be possible RAW if the mounted combat rules said that the character and the mount "share a turn."*
Pragmatically, will it feel like they "share a turn" much of the time? Sure. Much of the time, will there be any reason to make a distinction at the table? No.
Are there rule interactions where the PC's turn and the mount's turn need to be understood as distinct chains of events, even if they overlap in time?
Yes. That is both why Crawford's very precise language is useful and why people who are not hearing the precision or employing it themselves are muddying the waters.
I really appreciate you doing Crawford's due diligence for him. Great video, so many of these questions I've had in the back of my mind for ages but I generally just avoided mounted combat so I didn't need to bother.
Crawford - Muddying the waters since 2014
Lol
As far as I understand this is how I rule his words:
- beast and player have their own actions as their turn rules, but when mounted they can use them at the same time, Ej. beast have a movement and can use the disengage action, PC use it's action to move in the mount squares and can use it's action to attack. All of this happen like it is the same creature, but counting the turn resources of each one separated.
- the mount have it's initiative turn, he can use it to split his actions between the two initiatives if is mounted (ej. Creature use it's action to kill a bandit, a PC mount it and now have a shared turn with PC, it can use it's movement to aid the PC, but since it already used it's action he can't use a dash or disengage till this are spender resources they recover at the end of the round.
- if the mount is intelligent they will use their own initiative to do their normal actions like spellcasting and movement, if it allow to be controlled he can't use actions other than the dodge, disengage or dash in that turn. If the mount is unintelligent they would most of the time not have an initiative and could be only used with the controlled rules.
Managed to answear YES on all questions, thanks to your Oath of Glory video, but I love to keep watching and learn more ❤️
On a large mount, a medium sizes character can occupy any of the 4 squares. For some players or DMs, this causes confusion as they imagine the medium character hopping around from the tip of the nose of the mount all the way to its hindquarters. I imagine it as the mount rotating and the relative position of the rider changing.
With that said, this is one of those situations where, because we have real life parallels (unlike magic spells), players feel like the rules have to "make sense". The rules just describe how to play and if describing them gets in the way of fun, bend them as a DM. Few players demand "realism" when they spend 6 seconds crafting a magnificent illusion much larger than a house with fine detail, but they might balk if the Orc Warg Rider is allowed to occupy a square that doesn't advantage the player.
"Making sense" is way too overrated and should be eschewed in favor of whatever is fastest and easiest for everyone to agree on and to actually use in practical gameplay. It's the same reason that playing on a grid makes the game's world non-Euclidian with 5e's rules and there is no difference between circles and squares.
A medium creature occupying one square of a Large creature, and potentially moving around the mount, does give the possibility of reflecting things like trick riding. Partial Cover, reach, base contact, and other combat factors could give a character a great deal to play around with, tactically.
@@dylandugan76 yeah. Making sense is also punitive to martial classes as they "have to make sense" whereas caster can do stuff that could not happen in the real world.
Just have fun and listen to your DM. :)
The house rule we play with in my games (both as a dm and player) is that the rider can lean on the mount and attack from any of the squares, but you can also be hit in any of the squares. It’s a Schrodinger’s mount where you are and are not in every square until an attack happens, and then you’re there.
Real complicated way of saying the rider occupies the same spaces as the mount they’re riding
What a crazy coincidence you posted this today. The group I GM for has a small race battle Smith artificer and they just hit level 3.
And then I find out hes gonna ride his steel defender into battle....and I realize I dont know mounted combat rules AT ALL
For the "Grid" issue, I tend to just have the rider's size now be the Mount's size for attacking/opportunity attacks. This removes all confusion about the whole thing and removes shenanigans. I also remove the lances requirements of having disadvantage if anything is within 5 ft as its notably a mounted weapon. I'd also include this for mounted archers/spellcasters if the enemy doesn't have reach. But that last one needs more testing because I've only ever seen melee use mounts.
Great video as usual Chris. You largely came to the same conclusions I reached in my own research. However, I prefer the character occupying the center of the mount and thus essentially becoming the size of the mount. Remember that the space occupied by a creature is just representative of the area it has immediate influence over. The additional mobility of being mounted would translate to the ability for the character to influence a large sized area and therefore be susceptible to attacks within that area. Having the character occupy a corner of the mount seems too clunky and unrealistic to me.
Players are going to love mounted Sentinel builds at your table.
I would make a follow up video to this (mostly for DMs) discussing the value of letting players treat mounts as side kicks.
If a character's design is based around being mounted then they might have a specific attachment to a mount that they wish to keep for the campaign. If they don't have access to phantom steed or find steed, then I think it's worth the DM's time to concider making their mount a sidekick.
Being a sidekick had the immediate advantage of increasing a mount's hit points in proportion to the player's level. Large size creatures typically have d10 hit dice, and medium d8s. Add on to this the ASIs (no feats by RAW) that the sidekick gets and their HP, AC, or attacks (in the case of bears or such) can be increased by, keeping the mount on equal footing at higher level.
Awesome video... I was planning to cover this as well, as I've used Mounted Combatant in a couple of builds, and wanted to clarify these matters but didn't really have time to do so in a build video, figuring I'd just Deep Dive on it later. Glad to see that's now unnecessary! It'll be great to have this as a reference.
First of all, great breakdown, as always!
I'm going to disagree with you on the "unlimited turns" hack, though. While I did not find any paragraph explicitly saying "you can only take one turn pee round", the section on The Order of Combat includes the following:
"During a round, each participant in a battle takes A turn."
I read that as "only one". Thus, a creature that takes a turn and is subsequently mounted+controlled on the same round cannot act again even if it's initiative changes.
It could, however, cause a creature to get two turns between another creature's turns. Say we start with initiatives:
1 - PC
2 - Enemy
3 - Steed
- During Round 1, acting last, Steed attacks Enemy.
- On Round 2, PC mounts Steed and controls it, then pulls some trick to get off (Misty Step, swarmkeeper or whatever).
- Steed now has moved up in initiative order and can act again before Enemy.
Can this be advantageous / worth it? Sometimes, sure.
Is it broken? Probably not.
"A controlled mount can move and act even on the turn that you mount it."
I can see why someone would interpret it to mean the mount gets an extra turn when it's mounted, but for some reason the words "can" and "even" make me think if the mount moved or used an action first before it was mounted means those resources are depleted until the next round. The language used for the rule is really flimsy and vague, but balance aside I feel like that interpretation makes the most logical sense. It is, after all, still the same 6 second timespan.
Side note, something I struggled with for a bit was why Mr. Crawford insisted on making the distinction that the mount and the rider have separate overlapping turns rather than just saying they share a turn, but I think I've figured out that it probably has to do with determining when spell effects end, which is actually kind of useful for us. Say a Sorcerer uses Twinned Spell or a Glory Paladin with a found steed uses Haste on themselves and the mount. You've tracked the number of rounds it's been since you cast it and you know the spell's going down on your turn, but because your turns are still considered separate, you can have your mount go first and do what they need to do to get you to a safe place before you announce it's your turn and then get hit by Haste's lethargy effect.
Yes they are consistent. It is also a nightmare of logistics to play it as written. The rules as written need to be thrown out.
Even disregarding which of the 4+squares you occupy, what i'm wondering mostly is this: if you ride a mount larger than 10ft at the shoulder, like an elefant, can you even attack medium or small creatures on the ground or be attacked by them? I mean, you're >5ft away from them. Would you require a reach weapon to attack targets on the ground? Would they need reach to attack you? This is a huge deal, because it would basically invalidate one third of the mounted combatant feat.
Edit: talking specifically about melee
I am so thankful you've compiled all this for clarification.
I feel like if I were designing a hypothetical 5.5e, I would simplify the controlled mount rules to you and your mount both share your turn to make it less confusing (and deal with whatever edge cases come out of that rule)
The current rules could definitely be clarified but I think you underestimate the edge cases that would come from the mount not having a turn. To take just one example, a huge number of effects are keyed to "the beginning of a creature's turn in the area of effect." You would have a lot of illogical scenarios where a mounted creature cannot be affected by a web, but the rider can be. Etc. Just noting that. "Rider and mount share one turn" is a very easy rule to remember, but it introduces a lot of problems, so actually applying it at the table may introduce more issues.
Can't say for sure, but I think that's why Crawford has been so insistent in tweets (and careful in the interview) to emphasize that the rider and the mount both still have their turns.
@@nathansmith9597 Thats dnd in a nutshell everything has to work stupid because otherwise it can either be exploited or is overly complicated to explain all the exceptions.
@@nathansmith9597 If mount and rider share a turn, isn't the start of the rider's turn the start of mount's turn too?
@@nathansmith9597 No it really is as simple as "While controlled, your and your creature share a turn." that's it. When uncontrolled, it could even still share your initiative but act separately. It's not that complicated.
After reviewing the exact language in the rules... I have to agree!
The language rules for a controlled mount could have been simplified a great deal by having the mount share the rider’s turn.
I stand corrected.
Thanks for the detailed review, including parsing out the Jeremy Crawford references.
Regarding your end trick with the sphinx I think another commenter noted that sentient mounts (e.g. dragons, Giant Eagles) cannot qualify as Controlled Mounts (i.e. Overlapping turns).
The distinguishing line on Controllable Mounts seems to be >4 Intelligence and the ability to speak a language (not just understand). There are a few creatures that range Intelligence 4-6 that might work (no Language), but mostly this benchmark holds. The primary exception is the Worg (i.e. Intelligence 7; Goblin & Worg languages) because it specifically states it is a mount and that the Worg may override its rider if it feels mistreated (specific rules overrule general).
The multiple actions tactic you posited at the end of the video could be useful, if allowed by a DM, in melee where multiple riders are adjacent to mount on subsequent initiative counts. This has limits and most DMs will shut it down. A ranged effect/Action by the Mount would be more effective/less limited on the map.
Sadly the only two creatures that meet the criteria for a Controllable Mount with a non-melee Action/Attack that will not move you away from a waiting group of potential riders are the Chimera and Hellhound (Monster Manual review, only). Each has a 15ft cone attack that refreshes on 5-6 (1:3 chance). Still limited, but interesting potential.
As a DM I wouldn't be too worried about this for abuse, as long as I remember that Sentient Mounts don't qualify for Controlled Mount status (i.e. act on their own initiative, always).
Where I think your post will help players the most, beyond understanding Mounted Combat basics, is in giving companion focused characters (e.g. Beast Master Rangers) a slight nudge in the effectiveness on combats when their potential mount manages a higher initiative than them. Giving the animal companion a chance to initiate combat and then act again once mounted could give a nice bump to their first round of combat. Nothing too game breaking.
Thanks for the video :)
Ultimately, it's the DM's decision what mount can be controlled, but the example is very much NOT something I'm recommending see play.
This is how it has been run at my table. My ancients paladin is the only regularly mounted combatant so it is good to know we have had it right. Would still like controlled mounts to make an attack though, a rider would give a signal to a war horse to tell it to kick but would still be i control of where it went and when.
Makes sense. They are separate turns, that resolve simultaneously. Something that doesn't happen anywhere else, so if we try to apply assumptions that work in other cases, we'll miss something.
I'm personally not sure about willingly losing control of a mount would unshackle it from only being able to dash/dodge/disengage. If it only takes half your movement to mount, why bother with swarmkeeper's movement, just mount & control the mount, then dismount. You're out of movement, but you gave the thing another turn. Otherwise, a trained iron golem could take as many turns as you have soldiers.
Even if you're limited it to only dash, dodge, and disengage, imagine having a line of riders, 2x the mount's movement apart, and a message/McGuffin/prisoner tied to the mount. Each rider mounts & controls, then dismounts the mount. The mount can now dash, then move and reach the next rider in line, and it's turn, and be recharged. The only issue is organizing initiatives/turn orders, so that the mount doesn't have to wait for a round to end between each rider's initiative. Near-instant transportation of one mount-load every 6 seconds.
Consider the following: Mounts with Sidekick levels. Given the standing that the base requirement for a Sidekick is a stat block of CR 1/2 or fewer, and only Expert or Spellcaster require a Language to be effective, one might (with, of course, a willing DM and also willing party; that's a *very* powerful combo if not balanced in some manner) have themselves a rather heightened longevity for their mount than they might otherwise had.
(Note: The fact a beast or other creature as such might be considered for Sidekick levels is mildly canon, as Tasha's I think mentions a Mastiff/Riding Dog named Buttons in the text and definitely features a Wolf in the image of possible Warrior sidekicks)
(*Edit: Cursory Glance in the MM, if you have a Goblinoid PC, you could theoretically have a Worg mount with Sidekick levels in any three of the classes; Worgs speak Goblin and Worg. Additionally, that applies to any creature that has a language, like Blink Dogs, Giant Owls, etc (given the CR restriction; Giant Eagles and Giant Elks also have their own language, but are too high CR for Sidekick as written). Imagine the fear in your foes' eyes when the Giant Owl you're riding starts casting Cleric or Druid spells with their base 13 Wisdom score)
(**Edit Addendum: Mounts with Languages casting Cure Wounds, Bless, Shield of Faith, etc. on their riders, goodness)
You don't necessarily even need to go this far though. For an edition that is meant to be so simplified compared to older ones, it'd be a lot easier if creature rules were unified with player rules, just like in 3.X. My solution would be that beloved and intended permanent mounts simply gain HD along with the rider and they make death saving throws like a PC. Done and dusted.
It's worth noting that there *are* rules regarding how easy it is to knock you off your mount - they're inthe military saddle item, from whicj we can extrapolate the rules that apply to other circumstances.
"A military saddle braces the rider, helping you keep your seat on an active mount in battle. It gives you advantage on any check you make to remain mounted." Presumably, you do not get advantage with any other saddle with the less advanced stirrups and whatnot.
What makes you think that you get a new turn just because your initiative changes? The PHB says "A round represents about 6 seconds in the game world. During a round, each participant in a battle takes a turn", which suggests that you can't have multiple turns in the same round unless something explicitly states otherwise (like Samurai's Strength before Death feature). To me the it's pretty clear that by changing initiative mid-combat all you're doing is moving your 1 turn up or down, not getting a completely new one. As such if you've already taken your Turn 5 in Round 5 and your initiative is reduced and you come around next in the initiative order you're simply skipped, and the initiative change will only make a difference on the next round.
How mounted combat works in 5e is very simple:
It doesn't.
Lol I only play Rule 0 Edition.
I'm pretty sure that I have seen somewhere that you can also mount other players. Hmmm this makes the interaction with runeknight quite interesting.
Runeknight: makes his attacks, Swarm keeper ranger: climbs on his back and makes his attacks and uses his forced movement to go off the runeknight, Runeknight gets another turn uses movement and attacks, Warlock climbs on his back and makes his attacks and movement and misty steps off, Runeknight gets anther turn uses movement and attacks. (of course he would still have to be at least still be one size larger then whoever mounts him)
In my homebrew rules I've changed the movement to what we term a limited action which allows you to move, drink a potion, make a single melee attack, cast a cantrip at first level, and control your mount.
Movement is obviously broken up into 5' increments and requires half your movement to mount or dismount. The control your mount is also broken up like movement. Half is used to control the mounts movement and the other half to control their action. This allows you to use half your movement to mount and then use either the mounts movement or action. So you can't move 15' and mount then move 100' on your horse by having them move and then dash. If you moved 15' and then mounted you have nothing left to control the mount with. If you mount and then you could move the mounts full movement or direct them to attack if they have an attack ability.
Ive never thought mounted combat was that confusing. The rider and mount share an initiative. Its similar to newer summons or something like a wildfire spirit. The only difference is mounts have their own turn. So each have everything they can do on their own turn and since they share initiative, not just have the same initiative roll, they take their turns simultaneously. Since theres no way to literally have the two run their turn at the exact same time they just have to mix and match the order in which they act.
Dming wise i would just rule that if a mount occupies a space than so does the player unless the mount is at least huge or larger. Also with the demonstration at the end id probably rule that if a mounts initiative changes then it still has to wait a round to get a turn.
Am I understanding you correctly?
Gnome battle smith with Mounted Combatant feat is riding his steel defender. He can force attacks to target him, instead of the steel defender. Steel defender uses it's reaction to add disadvantage to the roll.
Look at his "techno knight" build!
Very late to the party, but with the Sphynx example at the end, there is nothing in the mounting rules that say the mount gets an additional turn. Only their initiative changes. So an unmounted creature with initiative 20 does it's actions and movement, then on initiative 18 it is mounted, and its initiative changes to 18, but their turn has already taken place during the round. Their movement and actions are spent. They would have to wait until initiative 18 on the next round to perform movement and actions.
"During a round, each participant in a battle takes a turn. The order of turns is determined at the beginning of a combat encounter, when everyone rolls initiative." That seems pretty clear to me. During a round, each participant gets a single turn. The order is determined by initiative. I would infer that if initiative changes, the order changes, but it doesn't grant any participant an additional turn.
Thank you for making this. Very comprehensive!
Glad it was helpful!
You mention at the end of the video that you could allow a creature to get multiple turns in a round, that would be limited by the mechanic that states "Once during your move, you can mount a creature that is within 5 feet of you or dismount". You can either mount OR dismount, not both.
Being on the brink of a Eberron campaign, I've started to research this exact topic, so I can play my halfling Mounted on a velociraptor (actually a troodon, but that's me being a boring biologist) chucking rocks at anyone who gets near.
Crawford not changing his mind on this ruling hinges on him very poorly attempting to clarify that, despite occurring at the same time, the rider and mount have their own separate turns.
So that raises the question: What rule interaction makes that distinction so goddamn important?
And magic effects that trigger "at the start of each of your turns" or similar don't count because sharing a turn doesn't mean you don't have a turn, it means two creatures have the same turn; It's equally the rider's turn as it is the mount's.
It's the kind of granular distinction a dual-wielding rogue would try to lawyer you with so he can Sneak Attack with both his weapons - once for his turn and once for his mounts.
Someone find me a reason that isn't this sort of BS.
I think the best mount is a phantom steed. It is eternally replaceable. And even if killed, it takes one minute to disappear, during which it still acts as a mount. Which is longer than most fights, so you can truly rely on mounted combat. Plus the 100ft speed is neat, that's 50ft to hit and run without taking AoO by having the mount withdraw, which is more than most creatures can move. I'd argue it is well worth the ritual caster feat, which by itself is a very good feat.
If it takes damage it takes on minute to disappear, during which it still acts as a mount if it still has hit points. There's nothing in the spell that suggests if the mount is reduced to 0 hit points, it bypasses the rules for that.
@@TreantmonksTemple I am not sure what you are saying when (1) the phantom steed takes damage and (2) it is reduced to 0 hp. Can it still move and take actions on either of these conditions?
@@Loopy_D_Loop No, nothing in the spell says the mount doesn't die if it reaches 0 hp, it just takes a minute for the corpse to vanish.
@@TreantmonksTemple thank you! There are a lot of uninformed players who are posting on other sites that they can still get the 100 ft movement for a whole minute after the steed takes damage.
I've got a loxodon totem barbarian riding upon an elephant. Planning on awakening the elephant and taking the mounted combatant feat. I've also got the saddle of the cavalier... this video is super useful. Its taken many levels to achieve but I don't want to cheese my DM
Elephant riding an elephant.
I was with you until the final conclusion which got me super confused. Say mount has 20 initiative and you have 10. You mount on your turn, mount initiative changes to 10, you decide who goes first, mount now gets to act on your turn. Second round, mount is still at 10 initiative and so are you. Now depending on who you chose to go first, that creature acts, then the other. I don't get why this contradicts the ruling on no changing initiatives as the initiatives don't change anymore after that first turn.
Let me walk you though it again
ROUND 1
1. Monster takes turn at Initiative 20
2. You mount the monster at initiative 15
3. You decide that you will go before the monster
4. You use forced movement/teleport to dismount the monster
5. You do whatever you want on your turn, and your turn ends
6. After your turn ends, the next creature in line is the monster, so it gets a 2nd turn in the same round. Because it's initiative got change from 20 to 15.
This process can be infinitely repeated
Technically it acted on 20 in the previous round. In the current round, as you’ve described, it gets one turn (on 15). Granted, in your example it would get multiple turns in the same round if the creature’s initiative had been a value less than 15...(or if you force dismount and another character mounts before the end of the round).
I've been in love with the idea of a small character mounted on a medium creature, mostly in the sense of taking the pressure off of my DM of needing to cater to the needs of large creatures, making certain I can be mounted in tight quarters or most any situation, etc. However, by the writing of the Mounted Combatant feat, it wouldn't benefit this build much at all. Yes, this inspired the idea of a Fairy mounted on a war mastiff or kruthik or whatnot, in which they use their innate Enlarge/Reduce ability on their mount...thoughts?
I would also like to add you can't just mount an aquatic or flying mount willy nilly. These mounts require an exotic saddle before they can be mounted. So if they aren't saddled before combat they wouldn't be a viable mount.
Battle Smith kobold on a metallic drake doing drive by with a crossbow with repeating shot while doing a crazy battle cry
Look I'm going to say that Halfling can treat a Goliath as a mount. Rules reference? Please see the important source book known as "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome".
I've done it. One of my earliest 5e OCs was a Goliath Wizard. And my buddy played a Gnome Barbarian. They did exactly what you're imagining.
If your doing a knight campaign or just have only a few players, I’d say give the mount sidekick levels and have it as another character the player controls.
Two things:
Military Saddle (PHB) has mounted combat rules and answers the question you posed about saddles and tack providing benefits to riders.
Second: Any mounted combat video should address the "horses in dungeons" objection. DMs will often answer a player asking to play a mounted PC with "how are you gonna use a horse in a dungeon?" Horses can't climb ladders, for instance, or ropes. They can't move through narrow passages easily (or at all, depending on how narrow). I think the fiction of cavalry in catacombs is silly, but the concerns about horses in dungeons are somewhat exaggerated.
The idea of a ranger skating on a Giant Snake is too cool to be discarded because anatomy! XD
Great summary, well done, sir.
This comment is before I watch the video. But if you don't talk about it here, could you perhaps discuss being a small ranger and the new beast master primal beast as a mounted (beast of land) companion for combat and all. Seeing as they get their turn at the same time as the ranger and such. So how essentially does that affect mounted combat rules and such?
Would you get to use it as a independent mount and just control it as you (the player) see fit, Use the ranger's bonus action for it to attack?
If I ever encounter the "Can this be broken" part as a Game Master I'd rule the creature can only get is action, reaction, bonus action, legendary etc. etc. once per combat turn :)
So if the gynosphinx acts first it might perhaps use its action and then e.g. 10 feet of movement to move to this ranger.
Then the ranger mounts the gynosphinx. Now then ranger and gynosphinx can act 'together' as they please but the gynosphinx already used their action and some movement (in this example)
.
Once again: I suppose I'd handle it this way.
I think it's good practice to now allow things that will break your game. I also think it's good practice for a player to not try to break the game.
Fantastic presentation
Warhorses are trained to act in the riders favor, and usually accept leg commands rather than relying on the reigns.
I wish you still showed the text as you discussed rules. The visuals, while interesting, are distracting.
Okay. I’m going to take this to mean that I can move simultaneous with my mount. Like, riding on a pony means your movement is no 40ft, and after your regular action and bonus action you have a “mount action” to dash or disengage. :)
If intelligent creatures (e.g. Dragons) are allowed to be controlled mounts by a DM (i.e. act on rider's initiative count) I worry we might see a great many casters with Imp/Quasit/Psuedodragon/Sprite Familiars being mounted by those same familiars in order to get a second turn in the first round. Let us not go there :P
D&D does not need Ratatouille Warlocks!
oh, thats so cool yet rather broken
Hi a great video. I have a question, with the following information
Relentless Avenger
By 7th level, your supernatural focus helps you close off a foe's retreat. When you hit a creature with an opportunity attack, you can move up to half your speed immediately after the attack and as part of the same reaction. This movement doesn't provoke opportunity attacks.
Find Steed
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.
would you stay that you could use your control mount and move 1/2 its movement. what would be you take on this when find steed and you fight as a seamless unit
18:49 Readying the /DASH/ action would be highly dubious, you couldn't move with your readied reaction, I think it would be basically worthless. The readied action can be either an action, (like dash :P) or "you choose to move up to your speed"
Question: Using the Mounted Combatant FEAT and the grid system for a Medium sized creature on a Large mount. Would the 2nd ability apply (You can force an Attack targeted at your mount to target you instead.) if the rider is using a non-reach weapon and is on the grid space where there is a 5ft square (mount) between the rider and the attacker of the mount ? I ask this because a player/rider on a Tiger (druid wildshape) intelligence mount was "surrounded" by a goblin tribe on all sides. BY RULE......does each and every attack (12 of them) get directed to the Rider ?
This is excellent, and I really appreciate the depth you've gone into here. I have a question, though. At about 16:56, you say
"Now a creature that's not trained for combat may not be controllable in combat, while a creature trained to be ridden, including in combat, may or may not be controlled by the rider's choice."
Are you intending to make a distinction between creatures that are "trained for combat" versus those that are simply "trained"? I haven't found that distinction in the rules, though I've heard arguments from others that there should be such a distinction -- essentially, that there should be a substantive difference in the control dynamic between taking a riding horse into combat versus taking a warhorse. It was argued that taking a non-combat-controlled mount into combat should require Animal Handling checks to do things like directing one's steed to use the Disengage action (or really to do anything at close quarters at all, because animals that aren't specifically trained for it would be constantly spooked in battle). What do you think?
I get you, but it feels clunky to me. If the turns happen one after another, and both are the same player's turns, then the only thing this rule does is make the player consider the order of operations of their actions. I've seen this cause a turn in which the player rides in, attacks, then rides out, take 5 minutes to execute. They got stuck on which action they need to ready and which one they need to do when and whose turn needs to happen first etc. etc.
So I prefer to treat a controlled mount like a magic item which increases your walk speed and allows you to use your reaction to take the dodge, dash, or disengage action. It's functionally the same thing but there's a whole lot less paperwork for the player who just wants to be a cool lancer.
Also, blob method for the win. The less paperwork the player has to do on their turn the better.
29:21 IDK chief, it looks like the turn reset might have a problem with the idea that only on the round end everyone regains their expended actions, so when a creature uses its actions and you mount it, it would still be out of actions until the end of that round.
In the case a creature is dismounted by a PC and another PC ride it, the creature would be able to use its actions and movement ONLY if they weren’t already expended.
So I think the main reason for this whole turn confusion is that if you and your mount share a turn then you would share movement and actions. your mount doesn't lose its turn it's just happening at the same time as yours
The two don't share a turn. They share Initiative. To which they both can act together, intertwining their turns together.
Each creature has their own individual turn.
Initiative is a "time-slot" in a round.
I'm doing a halloween one shot as a mounted Dullahan warrior. This is an important part of my research. I doubt you'll get back to me on this old video, but what class(es) would you play for a level 5 mounted combatant?
Wouldn't the broken Sphinx stuff at the end of the video not be RAW since "The Order of Combat" on PHB p.189 says every creature takes "a" turn each round, meaning an initiative change wouldn't mean an additional turn? That section consistently uses language for a limitation to one turn per round. The Sphinx example is obviously not RAI but I don't believe is RAW either.
how about a beast master ranger? can they ride their companion? and if they can would they be able to command it to take the attack action with the ranger's bonus action while mounted? and would the companion be able dash and disengage without the ranger's bonus action like a normal mount?
This went off the rails at the end. What in the world did Crawford say that implied a mount could get multiple turns? Just because your turns can overlap, doesn't mean once the mount takes a turn it gets another one when it gets mounted. Where does this extra turn come from? EDIT: Btw, everything up to that point was great!
He actually literally says in the video they would get multiple turns, and then says how as a DM he would not be happy to see it abused. (and to be clear, I'm not advocating the behavior either - the example is a cautionary tale only) See for yourself: ruclips.net/video/99tX6tmc73Q/видео.html
Does this mean that any initiative ties allow those tied characters to act on overlapping turns?
Explaining mount disengage to a new DM is always a chore...
I am running into a situation as a dm where my BBEG will be on a mount. His legendary action of moving isn’t on the mounts turn. Is there any rule situation where he can use the mount speed or do I just need to ask my players really nicely if it’s ok?
But if you control the niophysxins, it cant use actions like cast a spell, and what you said in the final part is a shenanigan
Watch the section again, the Niophysxins never casted a spell or took an action while it was controlled
Edit: spelling
"what you said in the final part is a shenanigan" I plead guilty.
"niophysxins" perfectly captures his pronunciation of gynosphinx, lol.
I read the Intelligent creature rule ("Intelligent creatures, such as dragons, act independently.") as "Intelligent creatures may NEVER be controlled, unless explicitly allowed by the description (as the Find Steed spell)", so the Gynosphinx shenanigans could never happen without the DM changing the rules and accepting responsibility for the consequences. Even with Find Greater Steed they avoided including options for spellcasting creatures like Unicorns, even though the Unicorn's own description lists it as a Paladin mount, because the "You control the mount in combat" clause provided by the spell would be a problem. You could, of course, have arguments about whether or not certain creatures are "Intelligent" or "Trained to accept a rider".
I can't resist letting someone I love ride me just to entertain them.
Unlike Find Greater Steed which explicitly states, "You control the mount in combat." there is nothing in the text of the Find Steed spell with a similar level of clarity.
"Intelligent creatures, such as dragons, act independently." You kinda ignored the recommendation/rule on what determines controlled or independent mounts. If a DM is allowing a player to control a gynosphinx, then the DM has other issues.
It might work with a different creature with your exploit, but you (or I watching) missed that bit about what counts as controlled or not.
The problem is that sentence kinda doesn’t mean anything. Besides dragons, we have no idea by RAW what defines intelligent, so it’s one big giant “what”
The last part of the video is not intended as a "how to" manual. It is intended to warn DM's about allowing just any creature to be a controlled mount.
It's kind of funny to me. I read "takes its turn" and "same initiative" and came to the same conclusion from the beginning. From that point, nothing JC said or tweeted was confusing at all.
Maybe it was only confusing to people trying to exploit...
Well, I think basically people want to know if you can do things that are traditionally associated with mounted combat: things like a ride by attack
Planning on a Beast Master Ranger(Revised versions), the race is a custom Lineage and I was thinking small size, so I can jump on my kelpie(my beast) in land form, and move.
Heck, you could go simpler - polymorph someone into a T-Rex, and then mount and dismount with things like Misty Step, or Telekinesis (from Tasha's), or whatever.
The spell + Legendary actions are nicer, but you can almost for sure get a T-Rex at level 9 (assuming they exist in your world, and you have seen one).
My players feel the rules for mounted combat are not awesome, so have taken to just not bothering with it. And that, I think, is the worst part - mounted combat can be really cool but the weirdness around it discourages it. Even for the Paladin player in my group. Hopefully this video clears it up for folks, and might help them give it a try. So far, it has come up exactly once when someone tried to ride a donkey, which they couldn't do because they wanted to play a Goliath and the "you can't ride something smaller than you" rule shut that down.
wow that interaction at the end is some top tier stupid shit. Great work. Though it does rely on forced movement being able to move you off the creature and it not moving the creature with you wich is unclear. Teleports should work though so mysty step would work RAW.
@@johnandrewbellner ABSOLUTLY. No DM should allow that.
There has always been more then a bit of issue with the mounted system in D&D and JC is always trying to make it sound like it works. MCDM in it’s PDF magazine’s inaugural addition Arcadia #1 did post an article going over the base rules and proposed alternative additional rules for mounted combat. This will not help you at at RAW tables but it can give you some ideas at tables that like homebrews.
How to make mounted combat work. Play a Kobald Battle Master in a party with a Bear Totem Barbarian or Caviler Fighter. Take the Mounted Combatant Feat. Take Turns directing who takes the hits.
That last scenario made me want to vomit. I'm going to ensure that doesn't happen in my games lol
It's presented as a thought experiment only, not as a suggestion of something you should actually attempt at a table.
The way my group has done it for years is absolutely identical to everything Chris said, with the added caveat that you have to declare whether your mount shall be controlled or uncontrolled for the duration of a combat right when initiative is rolled (or when you get on the mount, if that happens later) and you can't change it back and forth during a single fight.
I think gynosphinx is using the prefix meaning female, so I always assumed it sounded like gynaecologist, or gyndroid, as opposed to android, or androsphinx.
Two other things I noticed.
1. creature size is The maximum size a creature would take up not its actual size. in other words its a range. A horse could actually be a 1X2 or for that matter a giant tree Could be 1 1x1x3 (assuming each unit is a 5'cube) and still be part of the size category.
2.Question. Is there any indication that moving the initiative actually grants new actions and/or movement? I tend to think the on and off stuff would change initiative without granting any new actions. (Possibly A new reaction). I will look more into this.
I can make it easier - watch the whole JC interview (google "dragon talk mounts"). They go into your question.
Would love to see a Drakewarden Lancer, I've been playing around with one. Drakewarden/Fighter and I think there is a way to make it viable and fun to play.
What's the fighter dip for, just surge?
Hey Treantmonk, I thought once a mount was controlled it didn't get to do anything besides move, dash, disengage, dodge... is that the case? Why was the sphinx able to still cast, attack, and use legendary actions if it was acting in a controlled fashion as opposed to on it's own?
24:04 you can charge while on your mount, attack as it moves. During movement your mount can attack before, during, or after movement.
Is that an easy way to say it?
Where does it say that a change in initiative would give you an extra turn and regain all your actions and mouvement in the same round?
Your Last Idea is Boken in so mutch more ways because a Druid could wild shape and make this in every Party. So we have a simple fix for this at the start of the Combat you can lower your Initiative to mat it with an Ally before you now the Initiative of the opponents. Then you can Share the turns betwen all thet Go direkt after eatch other. So no Problem with the mounts. Some probably think that some Combos are to Strong with this technik, but ceap in mind the enemys are Not allways dumm. They can use it too.
True
Thanks for this clarification! However, there remains the Battle Smiths` Steel Defender-problem, because RAW say`: "the defender shares your initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours". So, can the (small) rider use their bonus action to command the SD to move, let it move, and attack a target and then let the mount attack? Or, do I first have to ready an action, let the mount move and attack, and then attack myself. Or is this rule simply meant to prevent that rider and mount attack on the same turn?
The Steel Defender will take its turn immediately after yours and you must command it with your bonus action if it is uncontrolled. If it is controlled, then you use the rules for controlled mounts.
@@TreantmonksTemple Thank you! So, does this mean, I can with a melee weapon: 1.Bonus action command mount, 2.Ready attack until mount attacked,3. Mount moves and attacks 4.attack myself?
Because some people say that I don´t get a bonus action when I ready an action.
@@tillfangohr9286 Yes and no. You want to change 2: "ready attack until mount attacks or moves adjacent to enemy" If you wait until your mount is attacked by an enemy, then 4 might not happen.
As regards the "some people say I don't get a bonus action when I ready an action", I think that's a misunderstanding. You cannot ready a bonus action. But you can use a bonus action and ready your action in the same turn (assuming you have a bonus action that does not require you to take an action first, you can't do this with two-weapon fighting for example).
Just remember that if you have the extra attack ability and you ready an attack, you only get to make 1 attack and it consumes your reaction so no attacks of opportunity for you or shield spells, etc. Therefore it may be better to control your mount. If you do control it, then it loses the ability to attack but you can attack twice if you have extra attack. If the steel defender is more dangerous than you, then yes, bonus to command, ready, and it attacks then you attack once.
There is some wrong in here. Mostly right, though. So useful for many.
Why does it matter if the mount has a separate turn if they take place at the same time?
Assuming we can't use that exploit you mention at the end how is this different than merging turns when the mount is controlled?
I find this video a little odd - enjoyed it obviously as I knew it would present some interesting wrinkles that I hadn't previously thought of, though I have researched the rules of mounted combat specifically in the past.
You present here the rules of mounted combat as though they are comprehensive, yet the video demonstrates pretty clearly that they are not. I think a more analytical, in-depth look at these rules, in terms of what is solid and works, and what is vague and broken - and perhaps some suggestions as to how to create a more comprehensive set of rules would be much more useful.
The rules for mounted combat are published in like 3 different places and when put together, do not present a clear picture at all, leaving multiple gaps that are unresolved, and an ocean of questions. I'd argue that riding and fighting on mounts is a common and treasured part of the fantasy genre, and we really deserve some more detailed rules, specifically ones that take into account the concept that we might be riding a large variety of strange creatures, not just like horses and dire wolves or something.
Can an intelligent mount decide that it will allow itself to be controlled by it's rider? You suggest that in the video - and sure, logically I imagine this to be true and don't necessarily need rules to tell me it is - however, the distinctions of 'controlled' versus 'uncontrolled' have fairly hefty mechanical weight, especially when considering 'unconventional' mounts.
If an intelligent mount CAN allow itself to be controlled, does that mean it is then considered a 'controlled' mount? If so, does that then mean that it can no longer use any special actions - such as a dragons fire breath? Why can a controlled mount not even take the attack action?
The rules state 'intelligent creatures, such as dragons, act independently'. Yet find steed states that it is an intelligent creature BUT it 'has an instinctive bond that allows you to fight seamlessly as a unit'. Does this mean it is considered a 'controlled' mount or not?
There are certainly fuzzy areas. Technically, there is a general rule that an intelligent mount cannot be controlled, whether it wishes to be or not. I've seen lots of DM's hand wave that though. In regards to the Find Steed spell, the "fight seamlessly as a unit." doesn't say how it interacts with that general rule, though I think intuitively we could see it as a specific exception. JC has said that it should be seen as one, though I expect when the spell was written there was no consideration of how making the mount intelligent might restrict its use as a mount.
@@TreantmonksTemple My point exactly. The rules as written function decently well for the situation of a horse or other such generic mount creature, and then basically put up some walls so as to prevent strange interactions and unforeseen consequences with varying monster / creature stat blocks, without doing the work to actually consider the various possibilities and implications of the existing structure. In doing so though, they create a lot of ambiguity and also strip away a lot of fun and interesting possibilities with less conventional mounts, which - I mean how many epic fantasy stories do NOT involve things like riding on dragons, or giant toads, or dinosaurs, etc?
Should an elephant, a gargantuan dragon, and a horse all take the same amount of movement to mount? Why should a trained warhorse not be able to use it's turn to attack? It's impossible to train an intelligent creature to act as a 'controlled' mount? A 'controlled' mount loses any special abilities it has as a creature? Even positioning, which you point out in the video - the rules assume that, despite the fact that a horse occupies 4 squares on a battlemap, that you can attack adjacent creatures if you are mounted on it, and adjacent creatures can attack you. Sure, on a horse, we've all seen movies where this stuff happens and can imagine how it works, seems intuitive. But there is no rule for larger creatures - what if you're on the back of a gargantuan dragon?
I'm usually a strong advocate of 5e's structure and the simplicity of it's rules, but this is one area that I think genuinely deserves a little attention. Not only are there a lot of areas that are extremely fuzzy, the existing rules do specifically prevent many of the interesting possibilities of having the kinds of cool and interesting mounts that most would imagine when considering a fantasy world.
Awesome video, I really like this type of vid. How would grappling work while mounted (could you mount still use full movement, dragging the creature behind)? Would shoved prone work? Also, it would suck that the Ranger with animals handling expertise is worse than the grapple build Barbarian at making a mount controlled. Any thoughts there?
For me it makes sense that the grappling barbarian would be better at holding on to a resisting mount than an animal handling specialist. But the ranger would be better at calming the mount after engaging in the grapple and would be more likely to get the creature to allow itself to be ridden without having to deal with the grapple in the first place.
Just to make sure i got this right, if i'm mounted to start the battle and i've decided to control the mount.
mount-moves to melee range
i dismount then do my set of action, bonus action then the mount can still attack/take an action (as its not a mount anymore but an independent creature since i dismounted) correct?
in the same vein, even if i'm not mounted to start combat, i can get on the mount, we align initiative, mount moves up to the creature. I dismount and perform my action and bonus action then my mount can still use their attacks/action correct?
That is my understanding, yes.
@@TreantmonksTemple thanks! great vid chris. Very helpful.
Was just a bit unclear on the whole you can only mount or dismount once per move. Did it mean you can mount once, dismount once or you can mount/dismount but not both in a single turn?
@@TheRobversion1 but not both
i don't know if i buy into the turns that "overlap". that's more like a way of saying that the 2 turns follow each other in the order the player choses. There is no mechanic within PHB that mentions that turns can overlap. A turn is taken separately from the next turn, period, and that part seems like a lot of speculation based on what crawford said in an interview. Also, Crawford interview =/ RAW. The mounted mechanics, like a lot of other things are extremely unclear in 5e, but based on RAW, there is no overlap mechanic mentioned anywhere. It seems to me like this rules were botched and resulted in a thing where RAW is very different from RAI, unfortunately.
As a DM, i wouldn't mind ruling that a controlled mount can act within your turn, just like a beastmaster's companion. It is giving you a free disengage from your mount that doesn't take up your own action, which results in something similar to the mobile feat, allowing for some nice hit and run tactics and good synergy with mounted combatant giving you permanent advantage, etc. Fortunately it also has some weakness to it that the enemies can exploit, i.e. putting the mount under spell or other effects that are not attacks and that cannot be mitigated through mounted combatant. It still becomes a very strong alternative to mobile or cunning action when ruled that way. And even without the overlap it would still be interesting, like taking hit and run over 2 turns, being vulnerable 1 turn every 2 turns by using the fact that even without ruling that turns can be overlap, they can still be interchanged due to the same initiative.
Another grey area is, what happens if you mount a creature that already has it's own set of rules, like beast companion, steel defender, summon, etc. No where does it say that the mount rules take priority over those rules.
The rules for controlling a mount say the mount can "move and act on your turn", and although that doesn't explicitly use the word "overlap", it strongly implies it.
@@TreantmonksTemple I am looking at p.198 of PHB under the mounted combat section. Maybe you refer to the phrase "A controlled mount can move and act even on the turn that you mount it", which might be omitting to add "and your following turns while you are mounted". But it could also be a bad phrasing for "on the turn it takes following the turn you mount it". I don't see a general "move and act on your turn" here. Well, i don't disagree with the idea of ruling it either way, but i think the RAW part for this is simply absent. It seems to me the writers of this section didn't follow the mechanics of their own game and left that up to interpretation purposefully or not.
@@chopcooey "and your following turns while you are mounted" This is not necessary to add (or to be more specific, if it was otherwise, THEN it would need to be specified), since unless the rules say otherwise specifically, the following round of combat will not have turn order changes according to the rules on initiative.
I must have missed this, but why can the attacker attack you if your mount provokes an attack of opportunity?
If you're asking for RAW, PHB states "In either case, if the mount provokes an opportunity attacks while you're on it, the attacker can target you or the mount."
But you should be able to direct your controlled mount to take the Disengage action and avoid this in most cases.
Turn and initiative are not the same thing. Initiative indicates when you can act (before, after or at the same time). If a creature acted in its turn, it doesn't matter how many times a creature change its initiative, its turn was already done for that round.
So at 8:52 you talk about the limitation of only being able to mount or dismount a creature once during your move making it so that you can't mount and dismount a creature on your turn. Doesn't this, under most circumstances, prevent the broken situation you discuss at the end of the video?
Yes, under most circumstances it does. That is why in the example the swarmkeeper ranger uses being moved off the mount by the swarm rather than dismounting.
The best way to handle mounted combat is to use spelsl di force the rider to dismount by pushing pullig or somewhat and sidestep the whole issue.
Seems pretty unsporting to do that if there's a player character that built around being mounted.
@@Startoshadows Never seen any to be honest. My Anecdote was how we dealt with a mounted charge as players, so that nobody had to deal with mounted combat: Sleet storm and telekisesis, no mounted shenenigans anymore.
Treant monk how would you rule on issues regarding height?
For example, if a rogue that was riding an elephant was attempting to stab a halfling, it would be unrealistic because their shortsword wouldn't have that much reach. How would you rule on something like this?
Being that you are on top of the mount, it's perfectly reasonable to be thinking about positioning in 3 dimensions. That means if you are on top of a very tall mount, you could need reach.
omg such an awesome video! I