D&D General What ever happened to the Cavalier?

[Umbran]

Pointing out that horses drastically improve strategic and tactical mobility is... well, historically accurate.

It makes me want to make them more useful.

Yes, but as a gameplay element, it becomes either an issue, or irrelevant.

If some of the PCs are not mounted, it becomes an issue of having players left out of play because of it. Some GMs might say, "them's the breaks, next time plan for that," but I'd rather not invite the poor play experience.

If all the PCs are mounted, or have some other equivalent) it becomes merely a rescaling of the play area.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I don't think that would be the actual result though.

The horse can run as far as it wants, but that doesn't matter if the monsters aren't also moving with them. Usually what I see with a mounted charge character is charge/reset/charge behaviors, not kiting the enemies far out of the rest of the party's combat range.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

To me it's a bit odd how horses and other mounts are disdained to the point that most characters would rather travel by foot everywhere they go.

Because players are usually taught that mounts are a hassle, something the DM will exploit in order to disrupt their plans, waste their resources (or at least their time), and/or cause headaches about. There isn't anywhere you can go by mount that you can't without, but many DMs intentionally create situations where you can go by foot but cannot take your mount.

Hence, mounts will be avoided unless the cost of doing so becomes prohibitive. As with many, many "why do players do this weird nonsensical thing?", the "problem" becomes perfectly rational once you ask what perverse incentive the DM is applying to push the player away from the (presumed) rational choice.

Hilariously, 2E had a whole section on mounts, including a table of horse traits.

I mean, not that hilarious. D&D, especially old-school, is infamous for its weird and hyper specific tables of things.

I'd love to see mounts (and classes tied to their use) be much more viable in the game and the system simply more friendly to their use without turning them into pocketable pokemon like 3E tried to do.

Were the figurines of wondrous power really a 3e invention? I'm surprised, I would have sworn they were older.

As for the overall goal, to achieve this you must also teach DMs how to integrate mounts in a way that is net rewarding for players, rather than feeling like you're dragging around a giant bull's-eye with a hat that says "SMITE ME O MIGHTY SMITER!" Players will almost always behave rationally, in the sense of doing what is rewarded and avoiding what is punished. This means that if rationality-as-a-player conflicts with naturalistic rationality, the former wins, pretty much every time. No amount of rules adding richness or depth can fix a culture of play where mounts are a liability.

 

[Tonguez]

I just fixed mounted combat for my games the other day. I was making the characters for my players, because they are new to 5e, and because I have been enjoying doing it. It got me obsessed with making sure that 1) everything the character can do is spelled-out rules-wise & 2) It all fits on one page (with not-small font!).

With that in mind, I was trying to fit the ranger's horse on (and then the fighter picked up one too, after defeating a villain mounted on a warhorse). So... two characters with horses. So I started with the whole warhorse monster statblock. I was tying to cram it into a corner, when it occurred to me that I could just move stuff to the PC. I left the mount's AC, HP, and Ability Scores in a little box and I moved its speed, charge, and hooves attacks under the PC's options. So it looked like this:

Speed: 30 ft. (Mounted) 60 ft.
Charge. (mounted) If you move at least 20 ft. straight toward a creature & hit them with your horse’s hooves, they must make a dc14 STR save or be knocked prone.

Actions:
Longsword +5 for 1d8+3 slashing damage.
Hooves (mounted) +6 for 2d6+4 bludgeoning damage.

etc.

So now the horses' attacks are just part of the PC's suite of features. And they'll actually use them. They "ready" those features by mounting their horse, the same way you ready your sword by drawing it.

Sounds a lot like Ironsworns use of Companion Assets which I discovered when looking for a way to incorporate a characters hunting dogs. For the Horse asset you gain the horse abilities Swift, Fearless(Charge) and Mighty(Melee+1). However if you roll 1 when using your horse then the horse takes the negative consequence such as bolting (you get unmounted) or damage (it has its own damage track).

 

[James Gasik]

Because players are usually taught that mounts are a hassle, something the DM will exploit in order to disrupt their plans, waste their resources (or at least their time), and/or cause headaches about. There isn't anywhere you can go by mount that you can't without, but many DMs intentionally create situations where you can go by foot but cannot take your mount.

Hence, mounts will be avoided unless the cost of doing so becomes prohibitive. As with many, many "why do players do this weird nonsensical thing?", the "problem" becomes perfectly rational once you ask what perverse incentive the DM is applying to push the player away from the (presumed) rational choice.


I mean, not that hilarious. D&D, especially old-school, is infamous for its weird and hyper specific tables of things.


Were the figurines of wondrous power really a 3e invention? I'm surprised, I would have sworn they were older.

As for the overall goal, to achieve this you must also teach DMs how to integrate mounts in a way that is net rewarding for players, rather than feeling like you're dragging around a giant bull's-eye with a hat that says "SMITE ME O MIGHTY SMITER!" Players will almost always behave rationally, in the sense of doing what is rewarded and avoiding what is punished. This means that if rationality-as-a-player conflicts with naturalistic rationality, the former wins, pretty much every time. No amount of rules adding richness or depth can fix a culture of play where mounts are a liability.

AD&D not only had figurines of wondrous power, but also Stone Horses, and Equus Medallions that took the form of a decent mount; I had a Paladin who went on their quest to get their bonded mount and the DM awarded me one of those, which took the form of an "Ultra-Heavy Warhorse".

 

[Thomas Shey]

So you would suggest that Great Weapon Master should have a sentence about how it is used while flying?

I've got to tell you, that question seems nonsensical in context.

 

[Umbran]

I'd say the latter is only true if ranged attackers don't really have a purpose. If you really want it to be intrinsically melee centric, then you're right, but I'd certainly not hesitate to start combats in some environments at such ranges that closing isn't going to be a one or even two round operation.

But, that's exactly my point. Anyone not on a horse who isn't a longbowman or a long-ranged spellcaster will find the action done before they get close enough to do anything useful, sitting around bored while everyone else has all the fun.

 

[Tonguez]

Were the figurines of wondrous power really a 3e invention? I'm surprised, I would have sworn they were older.

The Figurines have been around since 1e and I thought 3e had good mount rules. Even the Paladins pokemount is derived from a AD&D feature

 

[Willie the Duck]

As others have said, their relative non-popularity is a quirk of the couple legacy items of game makeup (1. horses have been incredibly fragile, don't scale up with level, and most of what make them necessary eventually can be replaced by bags of holding; 2. any build-mechanics or treasure-selections dedicated to mounts turn off in at least some common environments). The things contributing to their popularity would probably be 1. they are an iconic fantasy element, and 2. people like pets.

Basically, D&D has done everything it could for a long time to make them unattractive.

Indeed. And also did its' best to give you alternatives to having them. Perhaps another reason was that a lot of the advantages also were a lot better in Chainmail than in oD&D/AD&D. Being really good at besting plate armor is good and all, but if most of your opponents are armorless monsters*, maybe it doesn't matter as much. Double damage is good, but if you spend any rounds** lining it up or anything it quickly stops being a go-to option if the expensive*** thing that facilitate it might drop out from under you.
*who might need magic weapons to fight, in which case (because of the magic item chart) you want longsword proficiency
**or just second attacks, once you hit the level for that
***and if you used training costs, you are cash-strapped in AD&D

It's remarkable how the concept has held on despite the stereotype that the horse will die quickly.

Well, there are plenty of people who might want to play a knight on horseback. It's just a dream that dies quickly for many if the system doesn't support it.

It is an interesting space, things that no small portion of gamers might want to play, but the game historically hasn't done well with the implementation. The best contra-example I can think of is TSR-era Thieves -- a roguish skulker-type is a popular concept, but the game made them unfun to play*, butx2 people still did play them (quite a bit, if the anecdotes I hear are representative). I think the primary difference is that both the game and some play assumptions many made conspire to make playing without mounts easy (bags of holding and flying carpets and gauntlets of 'carry 300lbs extra' are common, lots of people glossed over some part of the wilderness adventure minigame, etc.), whereas they kinda conspired after supplement I/AD&D to make Thieves feel necessary (counter to the pre-thief assumption those who played from the very very beginning would have experienced) -- or at least lots of people interpreted the presence of Thieves as indicating only they could do some things and that those things showed up in common dungeons.
*exceedingly fragile, rather bad at things other than your primary role, low chance of success during the dungeon-centric part of the game, if you do fail you're often subject to the trap or all the people you were trying to sneak past/up to

Hilariously, 2E had a whole section on mounts, including a table of horse traits.

I'd love to see mounts (and classes tied to their use) be much more viable in the game and the system simply more friendly to their use without turning them into pocketable pokemon like 3E tried to do.

2E was rather famous for a 'if we include a bunch of options and focus on the flavor, people will use them in spite of us not changing the underlying game system that disincentivizes such'. The Complete Fighter's supplement had rapiers and sabres cutlasses and belaying pins and martial arts -- but you were still going to be up against undead and golems and demons that needed +1 weapons to hit and the same magic item table that made longsword the right choice. The Complete Thieves' supplement had dog pepper and hand warming lamps and tar paper that added 1-5% (or just removed penalties DMs hadn't known to be subtracting until these were introduced) to thieving skills --which didn't change that the best way to play a successful thief was to convince your DM that now was not the time to make a check. And so on (pacifist priest options, spell-less campaigns, stone and bone-wielding neolithic options -- all without really examining how this would work in the D&D frame). I don't remember the horse traits table (was it in Complete Paladin, I think I stopped collecting by then), but a big old table of horse traits without any rules changes to make them more playable seems very on-brand for 2e.

As for pokemon-horses, I think that's what 5e has done/is doing for pets in general (along with making them come back after a specific recharge if slain). Just making them things that might get left behind if you exit the dungeon not-where-you-entered, or just things that die, makes them really more beneficial for someone who treats them as an expendable resource compared to someone who treats them as an exciting addition to the PC's characterization, and I think they are leaning into the later.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Yeah, zero-to-hero mechanics don't really work well with fixed stat mounts.

If they're going to be fully integral to how a character works, I'm not sure they should be able to die at all.