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The description of Ashardalon’s Stride spell reports:

3rd level transmutation

Range: Self

Components: Verbal, Somatic

Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute

The billowing flames of a dragon blast from your feet, granting you explosive speed. For the duration, your speed increases by 20 feet and moving does not provoke opportunity attacks. When you move within 5 feet of a creature or object that isn’t being worn or carried, it takes 1d6 fire damage from your trail of heat. A creature or object can only take this damage once during a turn.

My question is, how does this work when you’re mounted? Does the horse gain the twenty feet of movement, and it just carries you along with it? Do you have to dismount to use it? Do you shoot off your horse because of the explosive force of the spell?

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The horse does not gain anything from the spell.

The spell has a range of self: this means that it targets you and only you, no others. Indeed, from the PHB we can read in the Range section (emphasis mine):

Other spells, such as the shield spell, affect only you. These spells have a range of self.

Moreover, the spell description clearly states that all the effects apply to you, the caster.

This works if your mount has been created by the Find Steed spell.

The Find Steed spell (or the higher level version Find Greater Steed) allows the caster to conjure a steed, and a nice option provided by such spell is the following one:

While mounted on your steed, you can make any spell you cast that targets only you also target your steed.

In this case, Ashardalon's Stride can target both you and the steed, giving them firing hooves, increasing their speed by 20 ft and all the other cool effects.

A DM could consider the creatures affected by the flames of the stride as targets of the spell too (see the discussion about What counts as a target for a spell?): this interpretation does not allow the Ashardalon's Stride to be a valid spell to be used in conjunction with Find Steed.

If I were the DM I would allow it, even if the above interpretation is correct, because of resources spent (2 spell slots) by the player and because the scene would be really cool.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ So then, if you are mounted and cast Ashardalon’s Stride, you have to dismount before it takes effect? \$\endgroup\$
    – DMofDoom
    Jul 20 at 12:51
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    \$\begingroup\$ @DMofDoom The effects starts as soon as you finished casting, but for using those effects you have to dismount, because everything the spell allows you to do depends on you moving, not on being transported. \$\endgroup\$
    – Eddymage
    Jul 20 at 12:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ Id argue they Ashardalon’s stride targets other creatures, so doesn’t work with a found steed. \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas Markov
    Jul 20 at 14:00
  • \$\begingroup\$ @ThomasMarkovisonStrike I see your point and I recall all the debate about what counts as a target, but in this case it seems pretty straightforward to me that the sole target of the spell is the caster. I'll add the reference to that interpretation about targets. \$\endgroup\$
    – Eddymage
    Jul 20 at 14:07
  • \$\begingroup\$ Here is where I first made the case. \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas Markov
    Jul 20 at 14:16

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