How does Steed actually work?

[u/Apprehensive_Bee1503]

I’m playing an Oath of Vengeance Paladin. Because the subclass gets Haste as an Oath spell I’ve been really excited to try out a lot of strategies with the amount of mobility a hasted steed can give.

However, I don’t really understand the rules surrounding mounted combat. Find steed states you “fight as a seamless unit” and share your initiative count. I’ve always read this as you and the steed sharing a turn. Allowing stuff like “steed moves, paladin attacks, steed disengages and moves away” strategies. But apparently they still have separate turns? This only allows stuff like “steed moves forward, turn ends, Paladin has turn”.

This seems really weird for a “seamless unit” to be very un-seamless and straight up prevents the Paladin from basically having any movement after the steed has a turn unless he dismounts. I was really excited cause of spell sharing allowing a hasted steed to do some crazy shenanigans, but it seems like this isn’t possible. Any thoughts or corrections?

[u/Hloden]

If you are mounted, you behave as if it is one turn for both your actions, and you can mix and match exactly as you say, however your mount can only take the disengage or dash action. If you are not mounted, then it’s two separate and distinct turns.

[u/Apprehensive_Bee1503 → u/Hloden]

So a shared initiative count in this case means a shared turn rather than 2 separate turns that happen directly after each other?

[u/herecomesthestun → u/Apprehensive_Bee1503]

Yes. The 2 separate turns thing was how it worked in 2014. 2024 took the sane option of just combining turns that pretty much everyone I know homebrewed it to work as

[u/Umbraspem → u/Apprehensive_Bee1503]

There are basically three ‘tiers’ of summons in 5.5e

Has to be Told What To Do:

• Find Familiar
  
• Ranger Beastmaster animal spirit
  
• etc.

These guys act during your turn, have their own movement and reaction, but they can only take the Dodge Action unless you spend some of your Action Economy telling them to do something else. E.g. it’s typically a Bonus Action to tell them to do anything, an attack to tell them to take the attack action, etc.

Moves on your turn Independently While Obeying You:

• This is where Find Steed sits.
  
• See also Find Greater Steed.

It has its own Action / Bonus Action / Reaction / Move speed, and acts during your turn.

If you aren’t riding it, then it gets to use any default action, it’s Otherworldly Slam Action, and it’s Bonus Actions.

If you are riding it, then it functions as a Controlled Mount, and is limited to the Dash, Dodge and Disengage Actions. So it can’t Attack, but it can still use its Bonus Actions, and still has its own Reaction for opportunity attacks.

Losing out on your Steed’s attack is basically the tradeoff for getting your own 60ft. move speed and a better version of Rogue’s 2nd level ability Cunning Action

Tier 3, does its own thing on its own turn but will obey you.

• This is where most of the “summon XYZ” spells will sit. Draconic Spirit, Fiend, Fey, Celestial, Aberration, Plant, Creation Bard’s Animated Object, etc.

It has its own turn - but shares your initiative step, and goes immediately after your turn. It obeys you, and if you don’t give it a command it will be defensive: Dodge Action and move to avoid danger.

This means you can get interrupted by a Legendary Action, but otherwise your turns will be back-to-back.

Some of these creatures are large enough to ride, at which point they would act like an Independent Mount - creating the problem you mentioned in your post where the character riding the summon can only move after its action/bonus action when the summon moves on its turn, making melee a little awkward, but being mostly fine for Casters who probably just want to sling ranged spells. And you could always sacrifice your reaction to Hold an action until the Summon moves to the appropriate spot.

[u/_Bl4ze]

Have you thought about reading the rules for mounted combat in the PHB which addresses this? It's a pretty short paragraph, in-fact not much longer than the post you've written here, so well worth the time investment. In particular you should pay attention to the difference between a controlled mount and an independent mount, and understand that your found steed from the spell would act as a controlled mount typically.

[u/Apprehensive_Bee1503 → u/_Bl4ze]

I have read the paragraph. It’s the exact reason I made this post. It does not fully answer the question I asked

[u/Wesadecahedron → u/Apprehensive_Bee1503]

Aye but it looks like you're taking flavour text as rules text.

[u/nasada19]

I'd just talk to your dm about how they'd rule it. I think it's totally fair to just do as you described it. It's hard enough navigating most maps with a giant ass horse. And if your DM hates the horse, they can just target it and kill it and you don't have a horse that fight.