Mounts & Movement

[AbdulAlhazred]

Some of the above posts contain some rather dubious statements and some suppositions about the rules that aren't actually spelled out.

If the rider takes a move action, and the mount takes a standard action, does the mount move with the rider? At the rider's speed? Or is the only move action the rider can take become "dismount"?

Actually the details of how this works are a bit grey. When a rider uses the Mount action and moves into the space of the mount he becomes mounted. A mounted rider and mount share a pool of actions, but it is never spelled out exactly how this happens. Does the mount immediately lose whatever actions (and its separate turn actually) IMMEDIATELY or does it still get the actions it was due on turn that it was mounted? Conversely when the mount/rider combo take a dismount action does the mount now immediately get a turn of its own, or does it have to wait a round? What we do know is that the mount and rider have ONE SET OF ACTIONS and act on the rider's initiative, so there is no 'rider taking a move action' the two COMBINED take a move action, which is taken using the available options of the mount, not the rider.

If the rider uses an action that grants the user movement (such as an attack that allows a shift), can the mount take that movement? Or does making such an action simply mean the rider cannot benefit from that part of the action?

The rider cannot benefit, the two must move together or the rider must dismount. Someone suggested that certain movement might apply to the rider only, such as Fey Step's teleport. This isn't spelled out in the rules and if it is possible then presumably it would happen in the same (rather ambiguous) way that dismounting happens. The RC does state that teleportation explicitly only effects either the rider or the mount (barring some power that says otherwise).

Does the mount count as an ally? So that when the mount is adjacent to an enemy, both the rider and one of the rider's allies is adjacent? Would this mean that the mount can benefit from Leader-style powers that grant movement or attacks to allies? If so, and the mount moves, does the rider move with it?

Yes, a mount is an ally by the definition of the rules. There are only two types of creature in a combat, allies and enemies, the rules allow for nothing in-between (one can reasonably extrapolate more than 2 sides, but no clear rules actually exist for 'neutral parties'). So, yes a mount can benefit from anything that would help an ally. NOTE however that many mounts are not intelligent creatures who have a cause to fight. If not actually mounted most horses and similar animals will probably flee or defend themselves, but are unlikely to carry on autonomously as if they were PCs.

Does the player get to decide what actions the mount takes? That is, if I want my warhorse to trample, can I as the rider/player make my mount do that? Or because the mount is an NPC, does the DM make that decision? Is the Mounted Combat feat useful at all in a game where the DM says mounted creatures don't want to attack?

NPCs are always under the control of the DM, at least nominally. OTOH as long as the PC is mounted the player should be in charge. If a creature is not 'willing' then it can't act as a mount by the rules. Its of course possible a creature could lose morale and decide to run away, etc. There are no clear rules for this kind of thing, its entirely up to the DM.

Do Aura effects change to emanate from the mount while mounted (since they "share the same space"), or is it similar to a blast/burst in that the user must "choose" an origin square (effectively making the aura happen only on one side of the mount, plus on the mount itself)?

Auras don't have clear rules in mounted combat, they are never mentioned. Its up to the DM.

Is acquiring new/upgraded mounts mostly an issue of things that happen in the campaign? So my 30th level fighter might be buying a new Warhorse after every encounter due to the things in those fights being able to eat warhorses for a light afternoon snack? No guarantee of having an "appropriate" mount for your level?

Mounts are equipment. You buy them as you would any other type of equipment. That being said there's nothing preventing the DM from giving the PCs virtually any sort of creature to be a mount. These would normally count as 'treasure' by RAW, but they could also be companion characters. CC type mounts would presumably be more effective and would usually count as a whole character for XP and encounter balance purposes.

I cain't for the life of me parse out what even the intent here is. If my character basically doesn't benefit from any powers that grant movement while mounted, this seems to get rid of a HUGE swath of powers from a LOT of classes, even archetypally mounted classes (like fighters). Having paper-thin mounts in comparison to PC's seems totally..."un-4e" to me. Not in the spirit of "you can always do the things you can do." / avoiding accidental suck. Can I make my mount kick or trample, or is that something my mount only gets to do when I'm not riding it? If I take Warlord powers that grant attacks and movements, and I move when the mount moves, could I grant the action to my mount (and thus myself)? Does my mount benefit from special movement modes, or is it essentially a dead weight I need to drag along if I want to play that kind of character?

I know the stock response to this is, "Don't play a mounted character in 4e, doofus!", but I'm trying to get a sense for what such a character could do/be capable of in 4e, it's just hard to tell if the mount is ever really an asset or mostly just a handicap.

Mounts in 4e can actually be quite advantageous. Most such creatures are fast, and many have movement modes unavailable to PCs (at least at less than mid-paragon). OTOH there are some disadvantages as you note. Given that a character of say level 8 could reasonably be ridding around on a hippogryph you can see that mounts can be pretty handy. Even a warhorse is a perfectly fine adjunct to a low level fighter (who can make OAs adjacent to the horses space, a very nice advantage). Its POSSIBLE to have the mount make attacks in lieu of the PC, but frankly for most mounts and PCs this isn't a real big advantage. OTOH sometimes mounts can be make pretty nice OAs. Their larger size also makes flanking a lot easier in many cases.

There ARE higher level mounts. If a player is expecting to ride the same warhorse for the whole campaign then indeed they are going to find they outgrow it after 4-5 levels. 2 options exist. The DM can make it a companion character (which gets XP and levels up), or simply make available higher level mounts (hippogryphs, gryphons, giant lizards, wyvverns, etc etc etc, there are no strict limits on what can act as a mount). There are creatures DESIGNED to be appropriate thematic mounts at pretty much all levels (as with other things epic might be somewhat sparse, but the DM can come up with something).