Haven't played in forever and forgot taming mechanics plus soulstones are new to me.
If I had, say a nightmare, told it to guard me then soulstoned lore off, would it continue to guard me, even after mounting/dismounting?
What about if I soulstoned taming and/or lore off while being mounted and stay mounted on the pet? Does it go poof or stay with me?
If you tell a pet to guard and mount it, it may stay guarding you. However if you then dismount there is a chance it will set off in pursuit of spawn and you cannot control it from there. Recalling out with that pet might then result in it running off screen in confusion because the target it was pursuing was lost. Unless you want a lot of UO exercise I wouldn't recommend it...
I wouldn't expect a pet to boot you off or vanish immediately if you soulstoned your skill off, however it may lose loyalty to you even while you're mounted and go wild. You could try feeding it a lot to keep it happy.
However... I'm not sure if this made it in the final worldwide publish because I saw some notes without it and some with *shrugs*, but
this set of notes for Publish 85.3 contained this:
-
Pets can no longer go wild while owner is riding them.
I don't know if that fix means a pet won't lose loyalty if you lack skill to control it, or whether it referred to a bug with pets going wild. I'm hoping it was the later but the notes are frustratingly vague at times
So to sum up, I think if you were going to drop skill then you need to be prepared for problems, and as long as you accept the risks then by all means try it (in unpopulated areas hehe!). Test centre would be a good option here, try doing what you intend and see what happens.
Wenchy