Gear for a Cohort/Mount

[Jhyrryl]

The gnome fighter in one of my campaigns is taking Leadership as we reallocate for 3.5. She'll be using the feat to pick up a special mount: a half dragon (red) dire weasel.

It's advanced to a 4 HD critter, so it comes with a 7th-level NPC's gear, worth 7,200gp. I'm willing to put it slightly above that, say up to 8,000gp. What would you recommend that I equip it with?

Party level is 10th, and they're going to be spending a significant amount of time in the Underdark. It's going to have an AC of 20 and 42 hit points (rolled well and I boosted it's starting Con 2 points to help with survivability).

One item is probably going to be an exotic military riding saddle of resistance, so there goes 1k gp. What else?

 

[Gregor]

Magic Barding?

 

[Pax]

I strongly suggest Saddlebags of Providing (from A&Eq). One side provides a day's food for the mount, the other has a bag-of-holding effect and masterwork grooming-and-care tools in it. Costs ~5,000gp, if I recall correctly.

The feeding aspect is truly significant; do you have ANY idea what (or how much) a half-red-dragon DIRE weasel can eat in a day?

...

Well, neither do I.

But whatever it is, the saddlebags will provide it, one day's worth, every day.

 

[Jhyrryl]

Actually, decided that it wasn't fair that a typical humanoid cohort would have elite-level stats, so used the +4, +4, +2, +2, +0, -2 rules, bumping the Dex and Con up with the +4s (base critter is dex-based, and again with the survivability), +2s to Str and Wis, +0 to Int, and -2 to Cha (justifying its position as the less dominant member of the relationsihp when combined with the 4 Int).

End result is a +7 Dex modifier (making most barding fairly useless) until it gets some big plusses on it.

But I'm tempted by the saddlebags. With the PC being CN and the rest of the party being evil, I didn't figure they'd worry too much about its "foraging" habits. But since they'll be in the Underdark... The masterwork grooming tools are the real kicker though; lotsa RP opportunity there. And the extra-dimensional space will be perfect for the covetous little beast.

 

[Pax]

Mithril chain-shirt barding is 1,800gp.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

If you've got enough cash left over, consider leg wrappings (just like the horseshoes but you don't need to nail them onto your dire weasel's feet) of speed or of the Zephyr.

Also worth considering:
Amulet of natural armor +1 (in 3.5 it stacks with the creature's existing natural armor).
Ring of protection +1 I'm not sure how you'd attach it to the weasel (earring, nose-ring, etc) but it would be somewhat helpful.
Bracers of armor +2 (only if you fight lots of incorporeal undead--otherwise +1 mithral chainshirt barding is far far better).