Intelligent Mount/Unintelligent Rider?

[D.Shaffer]

Has anyone ever encountered a situation where you have an intelligent creature serving as a mount for an animal intelligence creature trained to act like a rider/combat helper? How did you handle it?

As a bit of a background for this question, there is a race in a novel series I'm thinking about converting. Said race is a species of intelligent, but otherwise normal large cat. They have trained a monkey like creature to serve as a sort of 'helper' animal and I'm thinking of ways they could be trained for combat while 'mounted' on their masters. I have a few idea on how to do this, but I'd like to see if anyone else has had something similar occur in their campaigns.

 

[Rackhir]

I doubt this is a common situation, but I think you just need to look at the Ranger/Druid animal companion rules. They should cover the sorts of things a helper animal should be capable of.

 

[Quartz]

Has anyone ever encountered a situation where you have an intelligent creature serving as a mount for an animal intelligence creature trained to act like a rider/combat helper?

This was the usual description of cavalry.

 

[D.Shaffer]

I doubt this is a common situation, but I think you just need to look at the Ranger/Druid animal companion rules. They should cover the sorts of things a helper animal should be capable of.

There's actually rules for helper animals already (Helpmate purpose, Rotw). That wasnt really the issue, it was in training an animal to be an effective rider in combat and all that entails. My solution, ATM, is just creating a few more tricks for handle animal, but I wanted to see if anyone else had any ideas.

 

[RonYon]

There is the Rules of the Game:Riding article on the Wotc site.
It covers non-riders that are not in control of the mount, and it covers inteligent Mounts.
I use these rules to adjudicate my tiny humanoid shaped(monkey) skeletons , riding on me , handing me loaded crossbows, carrying Riders Sheilds(+2 AC, shared with the mount), and of course,throwing poo.
These rules wouldnt be enough for you, since you actually need a way to train an Animal to Ride.
Perhaps a Skill Item?