Training horse to warhorse

[Plane Sailing]

Interestingly a ranger or druid who chose a light horse as his animal companion gradually sees it improve to warhorse and beyond standard via the companion advancement rules.

If someone wanted a companion as a class feature that might be a neat way of providing an upgrading animal.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Fair enough, mafisto.

I would only compliment you on the careful consideration you have given the matter.

In a vanilla campaign, the military might of a light warhorse vanishes after ~6th level. And PCs can easily afford to buy 2 or 3 when the cost of a light warhorse is the same as a cheap disposable potion. (Heavy warhorses are an entirely different matter). Clearly these rules of thumb do not apply to your campaign.

 

[DM-Rocco]

From the Player

Hello all,

It seems as if this has been a dead topic for a bit, however, I am the player for whom mafisto is referring and I would like to state a point or two, I can't help it, I like to debate. I am his DM in another game, he is mine in this.

It is a long drawn out series of e-mails stating my points on why you should be able to train a light horse into a light warhorse, however, I have conceeded that, for purposes of my DM's world where any creature you can control in battle is powerful, I really don't need the extra +2 to STR, CON, and +1 on WIS that is the difference between a light horse and its war counterpart. Sure it would be nice, but ultimately, especially after reading his statements above, I am just happy having my very own horse that I can ride into combat on and call my own. I will bring up a point of fact however, and I would like some honest feed back on this, perhaps it will influence my DM.

The only point I was trying to get across to the DM that really mattered, which he did not state above, was the attack rate of the horse. The point is the attack penalty is different for a war horse and a regular horse. It is not part of breeding but a limitation on not being trained to fight. I am not even talking about the extra attack a war horse gets with his bite but how his attack are percieved.

The attack trick trains an animal to attack creatures. A non war horse gets a -5 penalty to hit because it is treating hooves as a secondary attack and adds only half STR to damage. Why does it consider its hooves as secondary attacks, because, as stated in the MMI a regular horse will actively aviod combat since it is not trained for it.

If you are training a horse to attack, regardless if it is a war horse or not a war horse, then you train it to attack with everything it has, thus making that creature, in this case the light horse, deadly with his hooves and teeth, as is referred to in the attack for a war horse, even though it is not a war horse.

They should therefor be referred to as primary weapons, getting full STR bonus, which would only be an other +1, and more importantly they should eliminate the -5 penalty for fighting with a secondary weapon.

Both the light war horse and the light horse have the same hit dice, so they should have the same attack bonus. I will concede that the physical differences between the horses can be attributed to breeding, although I still think you can train a horse to be stronger and faster, but that aside, I think if you go through the time and effort to train a horse to fight in combat you are going to train them to use everything they have for weapons and then they would be considered primary weapons.


Also, I thought I read somewhere that a mount trained for combat riding can make an attack as well as the player. Can someone confirm or deny.

Oh, Ridley's Cohort, not only is the campiagn low magic, but also low money. We are average of 3rd level and only have about 500 gold in gear, no worries about abusing the handle animal skill there and never fear, he is very adamant about not making regular Warhorses even for sale, hence why I took 6 ranks in Handle Animal.

 

[DM-Rocco]

One more thing

Keeping in the spirit of evil DM's everywhere , Mafisto presented us with a chioce of leaving our horses and metal gear behind to decend down a chasm that we couldn't see the bottom of or fighting our way through the Barbarian lands. I chose the later, but was out voted .

So the debate on this is not going to affect anything right away since we had to leave our mounts and metal gear with an Ogre who will most like eat all of our horses, not just the three we okayed . We are mountless and if I know my DM like I do, I suspect that my handle animal skills will be wasted for some time to come.

But I still want to know what you think.

Cheers

 

[Camarath]

I see nothing in the rules that would change a normal horse's natural attacks from secondary attacks to primary attacks. I agree that it may be resonable to to allow training to change this but the RAW do not appear to give that option. If it was my game I would allow it at the cost of an additional trick.

Also, I thought I read somewhere that a mount trained for combat riding can make an attack as well as the player. Can someone confirm or deny.

Do you mean that a trained mount can attack at the same time as its rider or that it can attack with the same aptitude as its rider?

A mounts actions do not count against its rider's actions (with of course the exception of any actions taken to control or direct the mount) so if the mount has been instructed to attack it may do so at the same time as its rider attacks or preform other actions. A mount must however use its own modifiers and abilities for its attacks.

 

[Treebore]

I would think it would be reasonable to say training a horse to fight with its hooves would be equivelant to training a new warrior to be proficient in simple weapons. I haven't found anything that specifically states this, but I read it as an implied result.

 

[DM-Rocco]

Camarath, you got it correct, I meant that the horse would get an attack with his normal attack rate and abilities and the rider would, if he made the correct ride check, would also get his regular attacks.

I can see where it may cost an additional "trick" and that would be fine with me. I just think that if you are training a mount, it would, as Treebore stated, be implied in the training.

Any other comments?

 

[Camarath]

Any other comments?

If you can stand a slower mount the Mule is not all that bad its hooves are primary attacks.

 

[DM-Rocco]

Wow, that is totally gay that a mule gets primary attacks and a light horse doesn't. I think the designers were smoking the reefer when they called that rule up.