Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 6688521" data-attributes="member: 6677017">An important part of my solution is that it isn't allowing the find steed spell to summon anything it can't by the book. Rather, it is allowing you to use find steed to bond with a creature you meet or acquire on your travels, which is a house-rule that follows the same principle as the valid (and I find most compelling) interpretation of the MM described ability to bond with a familiar met in your travels by using find familiar. (The argument for which is provided in the OP.)That was what I was initially planning on doing, until the find familiar valid concept precedent struck me one day. It completely eliminates all the work, because the paladin now has the same mount options as the rest of the party, his is just a bit better. In order for the paladin to have a griffon mount, the party has to get access to griffon mounts. He has no ability to summon up a griffon. However, once the party does have such mounts available to them, the paladin can magically give his mount a boost using the find steed spell. There seems to be some disagreement as to what those tweets actually mean. Mr. Crawford rightly says that the DM can be more generous than RAW, but the other statements don't make any sense.He says that the mount is not an independent creature, but that it follows the normal mounted combat rules. The normal mounted combat rules say intelligent mounts are independent creatures. Where is this exception coming from? Allowing an intelligent mount to act independently is generally preferable to controlling it. So not only is the spell providing an exception (supposedly), but it is a nerf-exception. This spell is supposed to be a benefit, not a hindrance.The only thing I can think of is that he is getting the "not independent" idea from the "fight as a seamless unit." Let's look at the source:"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." PHB p.240By the tone of that sentence, I doubt anyone is going to interpret the intent of it being to nerf to your mount's features. It sure looks like it is supposed to be giving you some special benefit. But Mr. Crawford's ruling does the opposite. It says that your instinctive bond simply downgrades your intelligent mount to non-intelligent functionality in combat, and "fight as a seamless unit" apparently just means, "I do all the fighting, you do all the moving"--ie, a non-intelligent mount.I have to reject that as an interpretation of the text. I doubt Mr. Crawford wrote that particular spell, or if he did he has forgotten the intent.So what exactly does it mean? Well, we have no way of knowing as the text fails to tell us. I submit as my suggestion, that it means two things. First: although the mount is intelligent and acts independently per mounted combat rules, it always acts in accordance with the paladin's wishes. Second: Acting as a seamless unit would seem to poorly fit acting on separate initiative counts, so I submit that it acts on it's rider's initiative.My interpretation is therefore that the mount has all the actions available to an intelligent creature, yet follow the paladin's instructions and acts on the same initiative.That apparently is the way Jeremy Crawford is seeing it, but he isn't seeing what is written in the book.The beast master ranger is a known issue for the designers. Mike Mearls said they're going to present some different takes on the ranger to see what people like. So as far as balance is concerned, we can and probably should ignore the RAW beast master.</blockquote>

Verification