So I was thinking about exotic mounts, aka anything more powerful than a warhorse, and I couldn't find anything about what levels to give them, so I did some math, and I am wondering what you think!
My goal was to figure out what levels you can give mounts without significantly changing the balance of a party, you could give a level 2 character a cr 20 mount if you wanted, but it would make you really have to make encounters differently. My hope is that the numbers I provide show when mounts are a nice boost but shouldn't really change encounter building much. I am not suggesting you shouldn't give higher cr mounts, this just seems when it wouldn't be that much of a power upgrade.
I want to be clear, I took calculus in high school but at this point I know basically no math, so I would not be surprised if I did this wrong, if you have any improvements I would love to hear them!
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My basic idea was to go off the find steed spells, find steed gives a practically immortal intelligent version of a mount, so I feel it would be okay to give a normal version of the mount at the level that someone could get the spell. I know that only paladins get those spells, and they are half casters, but I feel that the spells are balanced enough that we can do the math as if a full caster got them.
I do not think this devalues those spells, as any bought or raised would be mortal, and you would probably have to spend a lot of money training it. The same way someone buying a warhorse doesn't devalue your paladin.
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the find steed spell is second level, which means that a full caster could get it at level 3. so I would feel okay giving any cr 1/2 or lower creature at level 3, so a worg or an axebeak would be fine.
Than find greater steed is a 4th level spell, meaning a spellcaster could cast it at level 7. So at level 7 I would feel okay granting a cr 2 or lower creature as a mount, so a gelatinous cube or a giant constriction snake would be fine.
Now to make the math easier, lets bring both up by 1. So at level 4 you get a cr 1/2 creature and at level 8 you get cr 2. That means that at level 4 you can have a mount with cr of an eightth of your level, and at level 8 you can have a mount with a quarter your level.
So my extrapolation would be that, since 8 is twice 4, that at level 16, you will be able to have a monster of half your cr, that being 8
so than, what I would say is
and than to extrapolate without doing any math
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so what do you think? I assume I got at least part of this wrong, how would you change it? Does this seem balanced.
another thing I couldn't figure out is what level is right to give a mount as a nice big reward. For example, a wyvern is cool at level 16, but is also kind of only okay, which was the point of this. What level would you give it as a big reward? (I will admit, this entire exercise was me trying to figure out when to give a wyvern as a mount)
Any thoughts?
My goal was to figure out what levels you can give mounts without significantly changing the balance of a party, you could give a level 2 character a cr 20 mount if you wanted, but it would make you really have to make encounters differently. My hope is that the numbers I provide show when mounts are a nice boost but shouldn't really change encounter building much. I am not suggesting you shouldn't give higher cr mounts, this just seems when it wouldn't be that much of a power upgrade.
I want to be clear, I took calculus in high school but at this point I know basically no math, so I would not be surprised if I did this wrong, if you have any improvements I would love to hear them!
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My basic idea was to go off the find steed spells, find steed gives a practically immortal intelligent version of a mount, so I feel it would be okay to give a normal version of the mount at the level that someone could get the spell. I know that only paladins get those spells, and they are half casters, but I feel that the spells are balanced enough that we can do the math as if a full caster got them.
I do not think this devalues those spells, as any bought or raised would be mortal, and you would probably have to spend a lot of money training it. The same way someone buying a warhorse doesn't devalue your paladin.
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the find steed spell is second level, which means that a full caster could get it at level 3. so I would feel okay giving any cr 1/2 or lower creature at level 3, so a worg or an axebeak would be fine.
Than find greater steed is a 4th level spell, meaning a spellcaster could cast it at level 7. So at level 7 I would feel okay granting a cr 2 or lower creature as a mount, so a gelatinous cube or a giant constriction snake would be fine.
Now to make the math easier, lets bring both up by 1. So at level 4 you get a cr 1/2 creature and at level 8 you get cr 2. That means that at level 4 you can have a mount with cr of an eightth of your level, and at level 8 you can have a mount with a quarter your level.
So my extrapolation would be that, since 8 is twice 4, that at level 16, you will be able to have a monster of half your cr, that being 8
so than, what I would say is
- level 2 you can have a cr 1/4 mount
- level 4 you can have a cr 1/2 mount
- level 6 you can have a cr 1 mount
- level 8 you can have a cr 2 mount
- level 12 you can have a cr 5 mount
- level 16 you can have a cr 8 mount
and than to extrapolate without doing any math
- level 20 you can have a cr 10 mount
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so what do you think? I assume I got at least part of this wrong, how would you change it? Does this seem balanced.
another thing I couldn't figure out is what level is right to give a mount as a nice big reward. For example, a wyvern is cool at level 16, but is also kind of only okay, which was the point of this. What level would you give it as a big reward? (I will admit, this entire exercise was me trying to figure out when to give a wyvern as a mount)
Any thoughts?