Monsters and Mounts

[Xphile]

According to the 4e mounted combat rules, a monster and its mount share the same actions (standard, move and minor), but the mount itself gets counted as normal XP for the battle. To me this seems a bit odd, as instead of having to face X attacks per round of combat, the PCs only have to deal with X/2 attacks per round.

To me this seems a bit under powered, except in the case of something like the Skeletal Steed which gives the rider a free attack.

This came up while I was building an encounter for a party of six level 3 PCs. I thought it would be interesting to show them how mounted combat would work by having them fight 3 Warhorses and 3 human riders. Looking at the creatures though, this seems like it will become a super easy battle as the only attacks are mostly going to come from the three riders.

Has anyone else experienced this? Have you found that it is better to make either the mounts or riders into minions?

 

[Bold or Stupid]

Actually for monsters they both get their full actions, the mounted combat rules are for PCs.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It is up to the DM. If you read the mounted combat section carefully what it actually says is the DM has 2 choices. He can use the mounted combat rules as-is with the mount/rider getting a single set of actions, in which case the mount doesn't count in the XP budget. The other choice is to give them each all of their actions (but put them in the same initiative count, that really makes it work better) and then count the XP for both the rider and the mount.

The first case is good when the mounts are fairly insignificant, like horses. Horses won't fight on their own except maybe to defend themselves and will usually run away if left to their own devices, so just consider them to be an adjunct to the riders.

The second case would be good if say you had a mounted warrior on a griffon. The griffon is a fierce monster that can fight on its own and is a definite threat by itself, so it deserves to count in the XP budget and should get its own actions.