Ibn Khaldun
Explorer
Just found this thread. Nice stuff. I wonder if it would be interesting to have two different mounted paths-- one for the knight type and one for the mount archer type.
Which makes lances very handy as they would give you reach on that attack and maybe put you outside the range of an opportunity attack....when you charge someone, assuming you charge, attack, then keep moving, like a knight on a horse for example, your opponent now gets an opportunity attack when you leave... i can see that part though. Anyway, I'm going to give these a go. Good info, thanks.
Super simple! Perfect for my game. I've seen other variants but none that are as easy to implement. I will be rolling a slight of hand check at a -2 (due to being old and slow) in hopes to steal this for my campaign.The rules for mounted combat in 5e are OK, but pretty sparse. It doesn't convey the terror a warrior on foot might have when a mounted foe charges him, or some of the techniques the same warrior on foot might have to deal with such a foe.
I thought I'd take a quick crack at some rules expansions, and get your collective thoughts. All my ideas are untested on the tabletop, and probably wrong.
1) The Mounted Warrior: To better reflect the advantages of being on a mount, I suggest the following rules:
- Advantage on Damage with melee and thrown weapons if the mount moved at least 20' before the attack (changing a foe on horseback gives your attacks more punch) (thanks Redthistle!)
2) Facing a mounted foe
- suffering a critical hit while mounted = DC 10 dex save or fall prone within 5' from the mount (unhorsing your opponent is a popular strategy)
- no 2-handed weapons melee weapons while mounted, 2 handed ranged weapons at disadvantage. One hand needs to be free to guide the horse (although a shield can be used in that hand)
- new Feat: Mounted Archer: Can use 2-handed ranged weapons while mounted with advantage (historically, skilled horse archers were terrifying)
- mounted opponents who fall from a mount suffer +1d4 damage if wearing medium armor, +1d8 in heavy armor (because falling from a horse in plate armor sucks)
- Polearms score a critical hit against a mounted opponent on a 19 or 20 (that's a large part of what polearms were meant for)
- Pikes in particular have advantage on damage rolls against mounted foes (at last, a reason to take a pike!)
Please feel free to modify, criticize, improve or mock this as you see fit.
(apologies if this has been covered in a previous thread- there's a lot to search through!)