Mounted or unmounted?

[forrestomintero]

Just wondering if there's a consensus on whether it's best to mount your horse, or allow it to act as an independent entity? For context, It's with full-paladin Seela, and my horse has the aggressive sub-class.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

In my experiance:
Mounted.
It lets you take advantage of the team feats, increase survivial and increase seela range.

[seeker1]

I think the Cavalier benefits the most in terms of increased damage from mounted combat, but all classes can gain some benefit. If they are doing melee, it doesn't seem to really do much for ranged characters.

Mounted combat seems to have had some bugs like a lot of other things, I *think* this is one area where they've fixed almost everything. However, you still seem to dismount as you transition from area to area. May not be a bug, but not everybody likes that.

[Ghost]

Mounted is the way to go but I prefer Bulwark mode for the Horse and don't forget to buff up your faithful steed as well

[Max Kojote, M.SC]

Mounted combat has some good and and bad points. The good typically outweigh the bad, especially for melee as a mount allows them to get to a target and immediately do a full attack. Plus, you know, added movement. Also extra survivability as the mount is usually attacked before the rider and mounted feats help that. As mentioned, also works really well with teamwork feats.

The main issue is if something happens to the mount, the rider gets knocked off and goes prone. If the mount gets knocked down, or dies, or gets hit by a compulsion effect (although I don't think fear does it), then the rider ends up being a bit at risk until they can get back up.

Still though, overall I'd say the benefits outweigh the negatives for a melee character. I've had Seelah be a bit of a combat monster while on horseback. Cavalier, of course, wants the mount. The main thing is to keep an eye on things just in case the rider ends up having Problems(TM).

[IlluminaZero]

Turn based makes mounted melee combat ridiculously awesome.

[Selvokaz]

for some reason riders cant seem to stay mounted on their mounts, Owlcat needs to fix that, yes i understand the mount can be killed and thus you fall off, but they'll betimes where that wasn't the case and the rider is still dismounted come next combat.

[gmwaddington]

Being mounted has a number of advantages that others have mentioned:

1. Enemies usually target the mount. Mounts can be fairly easily buffed to high AC with Mage Armor, Barkskin, Shield of Faith and Magic Vestment.
2. On the first round of Combat, the mount can move while the rider makes a full attack.
3. The rider and mount are adjacent for the purposes of teamwork feats (Shake it Off, Outflank, Seize the Moment). Don't forget to increase the mount's Int to 3 to qualify for these feats.

[jutschi78]

For Seelah as melee stay mounted all the time! More movement and full attacks after moving. Charge in turnbased is bugged, sometimes the mount get stuck and ur turn is wasted.

You can even cast animal groth on the mount and enlarge person on the rider (or legendary proportions on both, but cost 2 dinosaur bones, but for the hard fights it can be worth).

The rest is said by the others.

Since you are in trouble if ur mount is disabled, i suggest to get that mounted feat, that lets use ur mount ur mobility check as save once per round. Get a item with a bonus to mobility as high a possible and skillfokus mobility is useful to. Let Seelah use the spell effortless amor, to get rid of the amor malus on dex based skills.

The teamwork feat, that gives a bonus to saves for adject allies is nice too.

An Azata MC with the superpower to share teamwork feats (and get 2 teamworks feats for free) helps a lot. (Or Skaltsong or Char with greater tacican ability)

[Cutlass Jack]

Mounted is great. Especially since your horse counts as a flanking partner while on it.

[Ichthyic]

I've usually embiggened myself with one spell or another, so even with enlarge animal... mounted combat is out for me. if you have an animal that has a trip bite, this is just fine though. your mobility ON an animal is better, but if you are a caster you will probably pick up a feat, item, or spells fairly early that will allow you to just teleport where you want to go anyway.

[katzenkrimis]

Originally posted by seeker1:

I think the Cavalier benefits the most.

Mounted combat seems to have had some bugs like a lot of other things.

Dismount as you transition from area to area.

I was testing out a low-level Cavalier: Knight of the Wall today.

I like them, but they struggle to open doors, so you have to manually get other players to open doors. Also, as you say, the mount/dismount can be a problem sometimes.

And when you approach the Defender's Heart doorway the horse lags behind, so you have to wait patiently for it to arrive before you can enter.

I don't know whose big idea it was to have the horse hang out in my bedroom at the Inn. It craps next to my bed.

Arthur Morgan from Red Dead Redemption II would not approve.

[forrestomintero]

Originally posted by Ichthyic:

I've usually embiggened myself with one spell or another, so even with enlarge animal... mounted combat is out for me. if you have an animal that has a trip bite, this is just fine though. your mobility ON an animal is better, but if you are a caster you will probably pick up a feat, item, or spells fairly early that will allow you to just teleport where you want to go anyway.

New RP build: gnome MC+ Regill + 4 hired gnome goons, give everyone either cavalier or hunter class levels, have everyone take velociraptors as their mounts. Bonus style points for all of them taking some levels as hell knights or the hell knight mage equivalent. All fear the raptor cavalry. For the practical side of this build, while it might sound like a bad idea to make everyone so similar, you're effectively doubling max party size, with raptors being almost as good as any pure melee build companion, and hunters can really take any role in the party since they're a hybrid melee/caster/archer class that can effectively spec in any direction. Also, everyone and their mounts stacking teamwork feats left and right is going to make them brutally effective.

[Cutlass Jack]

Originally posted by katzenkrimis:

I don't know whose big idea it was to have the horse hang out in my bedroom at the Inn. It craps next to my bed.

Arthur Morgan from Red Dead Redemption II would not approve.

The only thing I find next to my bed in the Inn is dead demon bodies. If my horse is eating demons that try to kill me in my sleep and craps them out after, I'm fully okay with this. He's a Very Good Horse.