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What is needed, mechanically, to get a tamed but exotic animal, such as a wolf or lion, into a mount?

I see there is a Riding training, including Come, Heel and Stay. Is this training the only way to turn an animal into a mount? Is the animal having these three included tricks what's needed? Say, if you already taught it Come and Stay, would teaching it Heel make it mountable?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I know it's 4E, but the answers here could warrant a look: rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/8407/… \$\endgroup\$ – Ravn Apr 29 '14 at 21:57
  • \$\begingroup\$ To be clear, you list "exotic but un-intelligent" animals. If your mount is a Blink Dog or a Pegasus with Int 10, I would assume the training rules to be different? \$\endgroup\$ – Gates VP Apr 30 '14 at 21:31
  • \$\begingroup\$ @GatesVP: I'm curious about any differences. If people feel this doesn't warrant a separate question, feel free to add notes about intelligent beasts as mounts (though training might not be a thing as much as... diplomacy?) \$\endgroup\$ – leokhorn Apr 30 '14 at 22:27
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    \$\begingroup\$ Turns out it doesn't matter: "Animals have Intelligence scores of 1 or 2 (no creature with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher can be an animal)" and the Handle Animal skill is very specifically about Animals. \$\endgroup\$ – Gates VP May 7 '14 at 20:53
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If your animal is tame, then you can ride it. In the Ride skill description, it says about riding animals:

When reared from birth, the following animals can easily be ridden by Small or Medium humanoids, depending on the riding animal's size.

This heavily implies to me that you can ride tame animals regardless of what tricks they know through Handle Animal. However, without knowing tricks, the animal will be very difficult to use practically. You will likely need to make ride checks to control your mount in combat if it hasn't been trained in combat, and you will need a DC 25 Handle Animal check to make it do anything that it hasn't been trained to do already.

You can mount a tame lion that knows Come and Stay, but it will be difficult to bring it into combat, and you won't be able to have it walk alongside you without a DC 25 Handle Animal check.

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    \$\begingroup\$ It has to be one size category larger than you, as well. \$\endgroup\$ – mxyzplk Apr 29 '14 at 21:13
  • \$\begingroup\$ @mxyzplk Hmm. That's what I've always run with in the past as well, but I'm having difficulty finding a citation that clarifies that. Certainly the creature needs to have enough carrying capacity to carry its rider, which implies that the mount is larger in most cases. Do you know where that limitation is spelled out? \$\endgroup\$ – DuckTapeAl Apr 29 '14 at 21:16
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    \$\begingroup\$ I don't know, always been that way. It mentions it in the Beast Rider rules about whether you can ride the companion you get or not - "The animal chosen as a mount must be large enough to carry the beast rider (Medium or Large for a Small character; Large or Huge for a Medium character)." Also for eidolons, to make them a mount "The eidolon must be at least one size category larger than its rider." Don't know where it says it for horses, but - don't really care either, I'm not a RAW obsessivist. \$\endgroup\$ – mxyzplk Apr 29 '14 at 21:38
  • \$\begingroup\$ For reference, the quote actually comes from Animal Archive (not mentioned on pfsrd). Still a bit hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that tame = rideable, but it's because "rideable" seems to merely mean "you can be on its back and not be thrown off violently... period" \$\endgroup\$ – leokhorn Apr 30 '14 at 20:18

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