SOURCE: Player’s Handbook

Rating the Benefits of Mounted Combatant

Unlike many feats, the benefits of Mounted Combatant are highly conditional. The bonuses below are only available when the character is mounted. 

An unmounted character gains zero benefits from the Mounted Combatant feat. 

Benefit #1 – 

Advantage on melee attacks against unmounted targets smaller than your mount

Keep your mount bigger than the creatures you fight and you basically get advantage on every single attack. That’s incredibly powerful, if conditional, and won’t often come into play against big monsters like dragons. 

Benefit #2 – 

Any attack targeting your mount can be forced to aim at you instead

One of the biggest issues with mounted combat in 5e is mounts dying. This single feature goes a long way toward fixing that problem by preventing enemies from targeting your mount. 

Benefit #3 – 

When your mount takes a Dex save, if it passes the save and could take half damage, it can take no damage instead

Attacks are half the puzzle to keeping your mount alive. Blasts are the other half. Now, if your mount passes their save, they take zero damage, making them even harder to kill. 

Mechanics and Requirements

Understanding How Mounted Combatant Functions

Advantage on attacks

The first benefit granted by the Mounted Combatant feat is simple, but powerful:

While mounted, you have advantage on attacks against any creature smaller than your mount. 

Advantage is an incredibly powerful effect, and against anything smaller than your mount, this is permanent and total. Nothing can prevent it. Nothing can switch it off. 

But is it useful? Obviously, advantage is fantastic on anything making attack rolls. But the power of this feature is incredibly dependent on the encounter you’re in, and the enemies you’re facing. 

Against larger enemies, for example, groups of trolls, or huge monsters that are powerful enough to come as singular foes, like dragons, this benefit does absolutely nothing.

But facing Orcs? Bandits? Skeletons and their necromancer buddy? The City Guard?! Roughly anything human-sized or smaller? Expect your character to feel incredibly strong, You’re going to find yourself supremely effective, hitting every attack and riding down foes without mercy. 

Redirecting enemy attacks

The second benefit of the Mounted Combatant feat allows the rider to choose to redirect any attack aimed at their mount to themselves, instead. 

This is a massive benefit, which can make a mount all but impossible for certain enemies to hurt. The character riding it is almost certainly going to be substantially tougher, with a higher AC and a much bigger pool of HP, and Mounted Combatant literally removes the option for attack rolls to be aimed at your mount if you so choose. 

So those pikemen who realize that you’re much more effective on horseback and keep trying to bring Binky down? They can’t hurt him anymore, leaving you free to attack with advantage with impunity. 

It’s important to specify that this is by choice, on a per-attack basis, as well. If a bunch of goblins leap out and try to stab your horse, you might want to let one or two go through, knowing that they’re probably not going to kill it, and if you’re down to your last handful of HP and the ogre tries to club your donkey to the ground, you might want to let that attack go through to save your own life. 

It gets better as you level, and enemies become capable of killing your mount in one round of attacks, or even a single attack roll. Essentially, though, the important thing to know is this. Enemies are no longer gonna be attacking your mount if they even were. 

There are also some weird interactions between this, intelligent mounts, and even other PCs. More on this later. 

Mounted evasion

The last benefit given by the Mounted Combatant feat gives your mount the Evasion feature. 

Literally, it’s just that. When your mount passes a Dex save that would allow half damage, for example against spells like Fireball, it takes no damage instead. 

Most mounts aren’t going to have the best saves (unless there’s a Paladin with their auras in the party. Or, y’know, riding them…) By the mid-levels, a standard mount probably died even if it passed the save, so this is a decent increase to survivability.  

How does mounted combat work?

To really understand the mounted combatant feat we need to know how mounted combat actually works in 5e. 

Put simply, there are two kinds of mounts, both with their own quirks: Controlled Mounts and Independent Mounts. 

When a character mounts a creature, they can choose whether their mount is controlled or independent. 

A mount can only be controlled if it has been trained to accept a rider, for example, a trained warhorse, or a magical animal companion. 

Otherwise, the mount is independent. Think of a wild horse that a character leaps onto the back of, bucking and running, trying to throw them off. 

The rules also state that intelligent creatures, (the example given is dragons) always act independently. Though we’d rule that a willing dragon could easily act as a controlled mount. Until the PC does something silly and the dragon decides otherwise, of course. 

Controlled Mounts

A Controlled Mount is what most people’s minds automatically go to when thinking of mounted combat. Animals like horses, ponies, donkeys, and even the more exotic riding creatures like camels or war hounds. 

Controlled Mounts are simple to understand. Their initiative changes to match your own. It follows your commands without question, and it can only take three actions on its turn: 

• Dodge
• Disengage
• Dash

First, it’s important to point out that a controlled mount cannot attack in any way. Its actions are limited to the above three choices. 

With that said, all three actions it can take are incredibly useful. 

Dodge – Most controlled mounts have low AC and low HP, which means it’s generally trivial to have your horse cut down from under you. The Mounted Combatant feat helps with this, preventing enemies from attacking your mount unless you choose. 

But if you need it to take a hit, Dodging to force disadvantage on attack rolls goes a long way to making your mount much tougher, especially if you can afford barding. (More on barding: mount armor, later.)

Disengage – Disengaging allows a creature to walk out of a hostile creature’s threatened zone without taking attacks of opportunity (AOO.) Generally, it’s a trap option for PCs, and it’s normally much better to try and kill your way out, or at least deal damage and hope your party can bring you back. 

But for mounts? It’s a much better prospect. 

First off, your mount has limited actions and cannot attack, so taking the Disengage action doesn’t hurt the party’s DPS numbers. 

But secondly, and majorly, if a mount disengages, the rider also doesn’t take AOOs!

The rules for movement in 5e state that a creature being moved by another creature’s movement can’t provoke attacks of opportunity. So your horse disengaging allows the pair of you to freely disengage and maneuver around the battlefield, at will. That’s an incredibly powerful mobility effect and allows a character on a mount to get precisely where they need to be every turn. 

Dash – Dashing is mechanically simple. Spend your action to move a second time. 

Many mounts have high movement speeds. The basic warhorse has a speed of 60ft, double that of many PCs. Dashing pushes this up to a monstrous 120ft, allowing a mounted character to effortlessly run down fleeing enemies or flit between creatures in an encounter, just as cavalry should be. 

Intelligent Mounts

Riding an intelligent mount is simultaneously simpler, and much more complicated. Here’s why:

An intelligent mount doesn’t follow your instructions. It keeps its own initiative and acts independently on its turn.

On the one hand, this is incredible, a dragon accepts your character as their rider. Now, you have a flying, fire-breathing monster as your best friend. Everyone who opposes you is gonna die!

On the other hand, if the dragon decides to ignore your commands to fly down there and eat that mage, and instead decides that he’s gonna see what the village on the horizon is hiding? Well, you’re stuck on his back until he lets you off, or you decide to jump. 

You’ve also got to consider the initiative issue. An intelligent mount has a completely different initiative score to your character. What if you’re first in the order, and your mount is last? What if it flies over to an enemy, kills them, and you’re left with nothing to fight on your turn? There’s a reason controlled mounts work on your initiative score, and this is it. 

Using mounts in 5e

The way the rules are written makes it obvious what the intent of mounts in 5e is supposed to be. Intelligent mounts are designed to be a rare thing, and for PCs, controlled mounts are the way to go. 

This is reinforced by spells such as Find Steed, which summons a companion steed that’s “unusually intelligent,” (which means intelligence 6, and the ability to understand a language.)

Key Stats

The Mounted Combatant feat has no stat requirements and offers no stats to a character.

Ideal Characters for Mounted Combatant

Top Classes

Paladin – The literal knight in shining armor can make fantastic use of this feat. Natural tankiness, the colossal damage spike of Smite, plus the only spell list in the game to contain Summon Steed all add up to a fantastic mounted combatant. 

The Oath of the Crown is amazing while mounted. The ability to challenge an enemy and prevent them from moving away from you, party-wide healing, and the ability to stop enemies from attacking your steed (or other party members) with absolute impunity add up to a powerfully disruptive package. 

Barbarian – While it might feel out of theme, a Barbarian can make a terrifying mounted threat, combining massive damage output with probably the most naturally tough class package in the game. 

Two subclasses are excellent mounted combatants. Ancestral Guardians appreciate the speed of their mount and can force the enemy they’re fighting to attack anything else with disadvantage, including their horse. And, ironically, the Path of the Beast is an incredibly powerful brawler that can switch between offense and defense, with a scaling late game feature that gets stronger based on the number of friendly targets in range. Your mount absolutely counts for this. 

Battle Smith Artificer – The Battlesmith’s Steel Defender companion can function as a mount for any small creature, is easy to heal using class features, can spend its reaction every turn to force disadvantage on an attack against its rider, and can be brought back to life for the cost of a single spell slot. 

That’s already good. Now consider that the rider is a utility spellcaster with innate access to magic items, natural bulk, high armor class, and the ability to use their Intelligence modifier to make ranged attacks. Plus, there’s nothing stopping you from hopping off your mechanical buddy and sending it into combat, if the need strikes. 

Race or Subrace Choices

Bugbear – Yeah, the idea of a stealthy, goblinoid horror riding a horse is weird (ask your GM for a warg…) but +5ft of reach makes attacking while mounted much easier. 

Halfling (Or other Small races) – Small-sized races can use Medium-sized creatures as mounts, which opens up the list of options, and makes it much easier to navigate around adventures, most of which are sized for the standard medium PCs. 

VHuman – Mounts are strongest at the lowest levels of the game. Variant Human lets you take this feat at level 1, which should keep your mount alive until you can get something better. 

Combos, Tactics, and Synergies

Complementary Feats

Squire of Solamnia – Mounting and dismounting now only cost 5ft of movement. That’s nice. So is automatic advantage and bonus damage on attacks multiple times per day. 

Best of all is the fact this feat is available through a Background, and the feat chain that leads from it has three strong options to choose from. 

Slasher – A boost to stats, a negative on speed for any enemy you attack, and the ability when critting to force an enemy to attack with disadvantage for an entire round are all excellent things on a build that has automatic advantage on anything smaller than its mount. 

Spells that Synergize

Find Steed – Summon a magical, intelligent creature that instinctively wants to work with you and will unthinkingly follow orders, and if it dies can just be resummoned with another spell slot? Yes, please. 

Unfortunately, the spell is exclusive to the Paladin spell list. The only other way to currently access it is the Bard’s Magical Secrets ability. 

Misty Step – Only for creatures using Find Steed, this works alongside that spell to teleport both you and your mount. 

Strategies for Maximizing Mounted Combatant Effectiveness

Never become unmounted

The benefits of the Mounted Combatant feat are only available when mounted, so a character with this feat should do everything in their power to stay on top of that horse. 

In D&D 5e, there are multiple ways to become unmounted:

• Your mount dying prevents you from being mounted, understandably
• Being knocked prone unhorses a mounted character
• Forced movement moving you out of your mount’s space also unmounts you
• If your mount is knocked prone or forcibly moved, it’s a DC10 Dex save to stay on your mount

Ways to prevent from being dismounted

Most of the non-death effects in the dismounting list require a successful Athletics check from yourself or your mount to ignore. A character looking to be an effective knight should push their Athletics skill and Strength score as high as possible. 

The Saddle of the Cavalier uncommon magic item is also a great choice for mounted characters, preventing a character from being unmounted if they’re alive and conscious. The second effect forces all attacks against the mount to be made with disadvantage, a solid general defensive buff for the times you’re not taking all the hits. 

Get the strongest mount possible

The basic warhorse is a challenge rating ½ creature with 19HP and 11AC. 

Past around level 3, that’s not tough. At all. 

Barding helps a little. Barding is armor for mounts. It provides the same protection as the equivalent armor for PCs but costs 4 times as much. Yes, you can clad your horses in plate mail, just like the cataphract of old, but it’s going to cost you a cool 6000g to do so. 

The best general option is probably a chain shirt. 200g to increase AC from 11 to 14. Though, realistically, with the mounted combatant feat under your belt, most enemies aren’t going to be able to hit your mount unless you want them to. 

Spells and feats can also be used on mounts in a lot of cases. Temporary HP especially are an easy option, especially for mounts that understand at least one form of speech like animal companions and found steeds, so qualify for Inspiring Leader and other feats.

Fighting from horseback: Weapons for mounted combat

Like all the rules for mounted combat, how fighting is done from the back of a horse in 5e is unspecific and slightly odd. 

The generally agreed upon rule is that a mount’s spaces are all treated as the rider’s spaces, for the purpose of attacks. So standard weapons with a 5ft reach can be used to attack anything within 5ft of the mount. Reach weapons, on the other hand, should allow a rider to strike anything 10ft from their mount. As always, though, speak to your GM about specific interpretations of questionable rules. 

In terms of weapon choice, there’s a major divide between one-handed weapon and shield, and two-handed weapons. 

One-handed weapons are the defensive choice, increasing the AC of the rider by 2 points. This is significant, in part because of the ability to force attacks on the rider instead of the mount. 

Two-handed weapons on the other hand are much more aggressive. Combining the advantage granted by this feat with the damage bonus of Great Weapon Master or Polearm Master to butcher entire encounters. You just won’t be able to take as many hits in return. 

Lances

We’d be remiss to write a guide on mounted combat and not mention the lance. 

In 5e, lances are a reach weapon with a 1d12 damage dice, and the ability to be wielded in one hand when mounted, giving it the best traits of all weapon types. 

The downside is reasonably significant: Disadvantage to attack targets within 5ft. Normally, this is a bigger issue, but the Mounted Combatant feat makes it much easier to deal with. 

1. Given space, your mount can freely Disengage so you can stab from 10ft away without disadvantage
2. If your target is smaller than your mount, the advantage gained would cancel out the disadvantage. Not ideal, but possible. 
3. Finally, always have a secondary weapon on hand. When closing to the melee, drop your lance (a free action) then draw your backup weapon and keep fighting. Mechanically viable, historically accurate, and pretty cool. 

Intelligent mounts, PCs, and forcing attacks

Throughout this guide, we’ve touched on intelligent creatures being able to be used as mounts, but having their own turn order. We’ve also mentioned that Mounted Combatant can force attacks to target the rider. 

Rules as written, this means an intelligent mount could go on an absolute rampage, smashing through entire armies, while the rider on top uses their action every turn to dodge for disadvantage against all the attacks coming his way, or cast defensive spells, soaking hit after hit after hit. 

This gets better, if slightly more absurd when you consider that Moon Druids can turn into large-sized animals, which qualify as mounts for anything smaller than them. 

So yeah, a perfectly legal pair of characters is a giant hairy man that turns into a bear, and his tiny gnome friend who rides around on his shoulders and makes him basically invincible. Isn’t D&D fun? 

Final Thoughts on Mounted Combatant

Mounted combat in 5e is a strange beast. The rules aren’t designed to fully support it, and many encounters, especially dungeon crawls, exploring strange ruins, or traversing the Underdark, aren’t built for constant travel with a Large-sized mount. 

But if you’re set on making this character concept work, or you’re playing a character with better access to powerful mounts, like a Paladin or a small-sized character, Mounted Combatant’s defensive benefits are very powerful, and the times the advantage on attacks comes into play, you’ll feel the difference. 

Mounted Combatant is easy to recommend. If your plan is to be mounted in combat, and to stay mounted in combat, you need this feat. If that’s not your game, you don’t. 

It’s as simple as that.