Horses at high level?

Aside from paladin mounts and animal companions, are there any ways to keep horses a good option at high-level? It seems a little silly to me that a fighter with lot of mounted combat feats would have to use dragons instead of horses at high level, but it seems like that's what would be required, unless he wanted to replace his horse every combat.

I'm not sure if I'd rather have a feat to let a character make any mount he hops on top of better, or if I want to have something like improved magebred horses, which are expensive investments, but quality. And available to any character, not just those with the right feats.

Suggestions?
 

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Your best bet, on its face, is to use a combination of equipment (adamantine barding?) spells (air walk? barkskin? bear's endurance? even things like stoneskin might work) and copious use of the Mounted Combat feat (maybe in the form of a saddle that grants the feat and a small bonus to the ride skill to the rider).

You're talking high level combat here, so I'm guessing that your PCs have a lot of lower level spells available to them that they won't otherwise use...
 

Aren't there Legendary Horses in MMII? (If not, there should be.) A Legendary Heavy Warhorse with appropriate barding and magical girding ought to be able to survive fairly well.
 

if your dm is nice, ask him to give your horse more HD....lots more HD as you level up. The key is raw hitpoints. If your horse is getting hit a lot in melee that's your fault, but you can't help him dying to a fireball.
 


Noble Steeds by Avalanche Press had "classed" steeds. The PC had the option of sending back some of his xp to increase the steed's level and when the steed leveled up it could get "feats", etc.

It was 3.0 but still works in 3.5 and is a very good option for something like this, IMO.
 

RangerWickett said:
I like the idea of awakened horses with class levels. Then, I suppose, they would simply charge a rate as if they were a skilled hireling.
That's certainly an option. If I were to do it, I'd give the awakened horse levels in Survivor (Savage Species): 5 levels, no BAB and HD d6, but all good saves, and you get Evasion, Uncanny Dodge, Improved Evasion, Improved Uncanny Dodge and DR 4/-. Prereq is "highest base save must be lower than level, which you qualify for at 5HD".
 

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