Mataxes wrote: ↑Wed Aug 30, 2017 1:44 am
This is a very good question, and I don't have a ready answer. It's not something that has, to my knowledge (or research) been directly addressed in the game. And now that it's brought to my attention, kind of a big oversight.
My off-the-cuff ruling would be it takes just one "trick" for a mount to be combat trained, with an additional one required for each rank of "Willful" the creature might have. This would explain the (monetary) value of the more powerful combat mounts (griffins, thundra beasts, etc), above and beyond their rarity -- it's much harder to train them for combat.
We'll have a look at this and see if we can come up with a more official answer.
Willful already causes it to require extra successes on the training tests. Causing it to require extra training tests, each requiring extra successes seems to be squaring the penalty, and causing it to reduce the number of other "tricks" that can be taught seems to be cubing the penalty. Simply saying you need two or three successes for it to learn anything seems to me to adequately account for the mounts willfulness without piling it on.
If you are going to look into it and come up with an official answer, I would request that you think about several aspects. I think that the training of "Tricks" is more or less adequately covered in the book (though what one "Trick" can consist of is a little vague to me. "Scout ahead" seems to me to cover a whole lot more ground than "fetch").
One of the things to distinguish is the level of training being undertaken.
- Training a totally untrained animal to be a riding mount
- Training a trained riding mount to be combat trained
These two seem to me to be totally different things, and I wonder at the amount of time each takes. One Day each? Well, it is magic. Which of a mounts skills, abilities, and powers do each of these give the rider access to control? It has been answered above that a rider synchronizes his mounts initiative with riding training, and gains control over the mounts attacks with combat training, but what about a mount with Stealthy Stride, Battle Shout, or Tracking? My own guess is that Stealthy Stride, being a movement option becomes available to the rider with riding training. Battle Shout becomes controllable by by rider with combat training, and commanding the mount to use Tracking requires a separate trained "Command", but could easily envision disagreement. And of course the original question is still, Do ether or both of these training's reduce the number of other "Commands" and or "Tricks" a mount can learn?
Another issue to consider is does the mounts starting condition matter at all? It seems to me that this could range anywhere from a young fully domesticated animal raised in captivity (such as a horse), through wild horses, through never fully domesticated animals such as dyre and at the far end of the spectrum you might have a fully adult creature that is not domesticated and can't be trained. For example the description of the Griffin specifically says it can't be trained as a mount unless captured young. And I assume that any creature that is not suitable to be an Animal Companion is not trainable at all So this aspect is Animal Bonds domain, but does it matter to Animal Training as to whether a species is considered domesticated or not? It seems to matter with Griffins..
Also, if you buy a horse, it is assumed to already be trained as a riding mount. This training will never go away and does not reduce the number of "Tricks" you can teach your mount. If you capture and train your own wild horse?
If you buy a Thundra Beast and pay the full 4,000 price, it is already combat trained and this would not seem to reduce the number of "Tricks" that you can teach it. If you raise a Thundra Beast from a ... colt? Hatchling? Anyway, you have invested a lot of time and saved a huge pile of money. How many command slots have you used up training it to be a mount and a combat mount?
Does this change if you came across a fully grown wild Thundra Beast?
I guess that maybe the idea I am groping towards (and this is something I had not even thought of yesterday) is that maybe teaching animals young, the training is permanent and does not use up a training slot but teaching adults does and only lasts Rank Months without renewal? This has the added bonus of keeping reasonable limits on Cavalrymen and Beastmasters animal schools. Cheaper in the long run to train them while they are young instead of having to send your cut-rate bargin warhorse back to school every 3 months.