Mounted Fighting

Opponents fighting from horseback (or from atop any similarly-sized mount) enjoy a number of advantages and a few disadvantages over combatants on foot.

Movement
Most mounts grant a movement bonus to rush, disengage, and withdraw actions. These bonuses are listed in the stat block of any creature suitable as a mount as a mount’s Speed Bonus.

The Ride Ability replaces Athletics and Dodge for any movement rolls made while mounted.

Combat
Mounted fighters employing close-range weapons enjoy a +1 bonus to withering attacks against non-mounted opponents of human scale, or +2 against battle groups not armed with weapons with the reaching tag. Mounted fighters also enjoy a +1 Defense bonus against attacks from close-range weapons wielded by non-mounted opponents, so long as those weapons lack the reaching tag.

Unusual Mounts
Some rare mounts render these rules unsuitable.

Flying Mounts
Flying mounts grant no combat bonuses, instead offering only superior mobility.

Enormous Mounts
Enormous mounts such as mammoths, yeddim, or tyrant lizards prevent their rider from being attacked at all by short-range weapons not possessing the reaching tag, unless opponents first use a miscellaneous (Dexterity + Athletics, difficulty 3) action to climb aboard the huge mount (this counts as the character’s movement for the round). However, riders atop such mounts similarly cannot attack opponents on the ground with short-range weapons which lack the reaching tag.

Attacking Mounts
Mounts generally don’t have their own Initiative track, though the Storyteller may waive this if it seems appropriate (such as a Fair Folk noble entering battle on the back of a behemoth more dangerous than its rider).

Unless a mount has its own Initiative track, all withering attacks against it are considered to target its rider.

Decisive attacks can be used to target mounts with the intent of killing them out from under their riders; in many circumstances, however, the unhorse gambit is a more effective option.

Equipping and Fighting with Mounts
Barding In general, barding for mounts works exactly the same as armor for any other character — light, medium, and heavy barding is available, with the same traits as armor for humans.

Barding’s mobility penalty is applied to the mount’s Speed bonus, and in certain cases might even turn it into a speed penalty (such as with heavy barding on a mammoth).

In the likely event that a barded mount isn’t tracking Initiative, it’s suggested that barding subtract raw damage from incoming decisive attacks against the mount (-2 for light, -4 for medium, -6 for heavy).

Weapons
Weapons give access to special advantages. Horns or spikes grant the gore technique used by ox-dragons, aurochs , and other horned beasts. A lance, by contrast, is a heavy weapon; mounting it to the saddle makes it impossible to disarm, and enables the impale technique.

Commanding the mount to attack or use an attack technique uses up its rider’s combat action. This is considered an attack action, and can be placed in a flurry.