Mounts and mounted combat
- Thread starter Aithne
- Start date
kreynolds said:
The key to remember is that when mounted you get a full round action, and the mount gets a full round action. The reason the partial melee attack is specified, is that by the time your horse moves however many feet to the opponent, you don't have enough time to get all of your attacks off.
However, you could sheate a weapon and retrieve an item while the horse is moving (two move-equivalents) or throw a two-handed weapon with one hand (full round action).
And the cool thing is, the horse can be on the full run while you do it!! While teh horse loses dex to AC and can't attack, you can get very far very fast. That's teh power of mounted combat.
Artoomis
First Post
Okay, I broke open the PHB and here's how mounted combat works:
First, melee and ranged attacks are treated differently - in two different paragraphs.
Melee: "If you mount moves more than 5', you can only make a partial attack. Essentially, you have to wait until the mount gets to your enemy before attacking, so you can't make a full attack."
Ranged "..In either case you make the attack roll when your mount has completed half its movement. You can even exercise the full attack option while you rmount is moving..."
So, for melee, no full attack if the mount moves. Which is what I said before.
First, melee and ranged attacks are treated differently - in two different paragraphs.
Melee: "If you mount moves more than 5', you can only make a partial attack. Essentially, you have to wait until the mount gets to your enemy before attacking, so you can't make a full attack."
Ranged "..In either case you make the attack roll when your mount has completed half its movement. You can even exercise the full attack option while you rmount is moving..."
So, for melee, no full attack if the mount moves. Which is what I said before.
kreynolds
First Post
Artoomis said:
I know what you said before, but that interpretation doesn't make much sense: You can throw 4 daggers at the mid-point of your mount's move but you can't swing a dagger 4 times at the mid-point of your mount's move? Its arbitrary and illogical that you can make ranged attacks faster than you can make melee attacks, but only while on horseback.
The only way I could accept this interpretation is if it is due to laziness on the designer's part. For example, if they couldn't figure out how to spread out melee attacks on a mount during a move, so they just nerfed it, then I could accept it. But even if that were the case, then that would mean that all of your ranged attacks in a full attack action are made throughout the mount's move, which means that your attacks are each made at different ranges based upon the location of your mount throughout the move. However, this isn't the case, and if the location and amount of movement is irrelevant to ranged attacks in a full attack action, it makes no sense that it would be relevant to melee attacks.
Last edited:
Bauglir
First Post
I think you're meant to be throwing those 4 daggers *while your mount is moving* - the half-move thing is only an abstraction.
Sure you could swing your dagger 4 times while you're moving, but unless your target is really, really big, it's not going to be in range for the whole move..
Sure you could swing your dagger 4 times while you're moving, but unless your target is really, really big, it's not going to be in range for the whole move..
