Anemic Horses

[nittanytbone]

Normally I would agree with the above points about realism, the idea that a European knight might have 3 horses, etc. Part of the design philisophy of 4E, however, is that realism takes a back seat to fun and cinematic action.

So, rather than have the Knight track the bookkeeping of 3 horses (only 1 of which is likely to be combat capable), he should have just 1 mount that is pretty survivable and likely to be a recurring character in its own right.

Maybe the upcoming Martial Power sourcebook will have some solutions.

 

[mattador]

Get one of these. Problem solved.

 

[ObsidianCrane]

The Adventurer's Vault handily lists (on page 11) all the available mounts their price, combat, /hour and /day speeds along with their Normal, Heavy, and Push/Drag capacities.

Weighing in at 21,000 gp with a capacity of 325lbs the Trihorn Behemoth has the highest Normal load of any mount. The poor old Elephant only manages a 312 normal load, which is less than the recomended load for a small elephant, large adults have a recomended limit of up to 880lbs (max. capacity must exceed this).

For the curious barding has the following weights:
Large Creature - Light 40lb, Heavy 80lb
Huge Creature - Light 60lb, Heavy 120lb

(Hmm Paladin/Fighter with Lance (Spear), Heavy Shield, and Plate weighs in at 71lbs + Rider, Heavy Barding is 80lbs. So the rider cannot weigh more than 111lbs - that is a major issue. Seems someone forgot about the rider in working out mount capacity....)

However its worth noting that a Mount includes all gear needed to ride it, so we can skip the weight of saddles etc, further if we ignore the rider's weight then that would leave the Warhorse above with 111lbs for extra load - like say that evil noblewoman, or the halfling buddy.

Even doing that leaves huge animals way under capacity, but I suspect that is less of an issue. It might be easiest to just houserule them to have double capacity rather than 1.25x capacity.

 

[darkadelphia]

(Hmm Paladin/Fighter with Lance (Spear), Heavy Shield, and Plate weighs in at 71lbs + Rider, Heavy Barding is 80lbs. So the rider cannot weigh more than 111lbs - that is a major issue. Seems someone forgot about the rider in working out mount capacity....)

Reasonable analysis has not yet convinced the good people of ENWorld that there's anything wrong with the mount rules. Expect a reply of "Well, then the PC should weigh less than 111 lbs, clearly, the Chronicles of the Gauls dictated by the 5th century Monk, Polonius, indicate that all members of the Roman Cavalry were Halflings." ;-)

 

[ObsidianCrane]

Reasonable analysis has not yet convinced the good people of ENWorld that there's anything wrong with the mount rules. Expect a reply of "Well, then the PC should weigh less than 111 lbs, clearly, the Chronicles of the Gauls dictated by the 5th century Monk, Polonius, indicate that all members of the Roman Cavalry were Halflings." ;-)

Which is easily dismissed by pointing out that Roman Cavalry were skirmishers and not the heavy calvary created by the middle ages European knight described by Lance and heavy shield + plate mail situation with heavy barding. Horses can clearly move effectively with this stuff on - just not in 4E DnD unless you ingore the rider's weight.

 

[Klaus]

The Adventurer's Vault handily lists (on page 11) all the available mounts their price, combat, /hour and /day speeds along with their Normal, Heavy, and Push/Drag capacities.

Weighing in at 21,000 gp with a capacity of 325lbs the Trihorn Behemoth has the highest Normal load of any mount. The poor old Elephant only manages a 312 normal load, which is less than the recomended load for a small elephant, large adults have a recomended limit of up to 880lbs (max. capacity must exceed this).

For the curious barding has the following weights:
Large Creature - Light 40lb, Heavy 80lb
Huge Creature - Light 60lb, Heavy 120lb

(Hmm Paladin/Fighter with Lance (Spear), Heavy Shield, and Plate weighs in at 71lbs + Rider, Heavy Barding is 80lbs. So the rider cannot weigh more than 111lbs - that is a major issue. Seems someone forgot about the rider in working out mount capacity....)

However its worth noting that a Mount includes all gear needed to ride it, so we can skip the weight of saddles etc, further if we ignore the rider's weight then that would leave the Warhorse above with 111lbs for extra load - like say that evil noblewoman, or the halfling buddy.

Even doing that leaves huge animals way under capacity, but I suspect that is less of an issue. It might be easiest to just houserule them to have double capacity rather than 1.25x capacity.

A warhorse in full plate barding carrying a human in plate armor and bearing a lance, longsword and heavy shield is heavy cavalry. By its very definition, heavy cavalry is slower, but more resilient. I see no problem with a warhorse being slowed down by this much weight. They make up for it with a single charge to break enemy lines, and then withstanding blows while the knight cuts foot troops with his sword.

Light cavalry is mainly a warhorse with no barding (or leather barding), carrying a rider decked in leather or hide armor, bearing a spear and shield, a longsword and a shortbow.

The heaviest cavalry in the Roman Empire (the Kataphractes - sp?) was a warhorse with chainmail barding, bearing a chainmail-wearing rider with a spear, a light shield and a longsword.

 

[leifthelucky]

My houserule is to simply add a medium load category: encumbrance exceeding the light load reduces the horse's speed by 2 - both realistic and not crippling, in my opinion. More than twice the load results in the actual 'slowed' effect of having the mount's speed reduced TO 2.

 

[darkadelphia]

A warhorse in full plate barding carrying a human in plate armor and bearing a lance, longsword and heavy shield is heavy cavalry. By its very definition, heavy cavalry is slower, but more resilient. I see no problem with a warhorse being slowed down by this much weight. They make up for it with a single charge to break enemy lines, and then withstanding blows while the knight cuts foot troops with his sword.

Light cavalry is mainly a warhorse with no barding (or leather barding), carrying a rider decked in leather or hide armor, bearing a spear and shield, a longsword and a shortbow.

The heaviest cavalry in the Roman Empire (the Kataphractes - sp?) was a warhorse with chainmail barding, bearing a chainmail-wearing rider with a spear, a light shield and a longsword.

Did heavy cavalry move one third the speed of an unmounted peasant? What I was trying to say with my previous post is I am making an argument in the interest of the fun of the game, and people are shooting it down based on "realism" when the current rules are no more realistic.

 

[Old Gumphrey]

Seriously. Yeah, heavy warhorses would be slowed down by a fat guy in full plate, but they would not be Slowed. They would not move TWO from carrying a fat man in armor. That's slower than I can crab walk.

So how about those new mounts? Elephants with a light load of 317 lbs, eh? Can't ride a horse. Can't ride a rage drake. Can't ride an ELEPHANT. So a huge 20 str dragonborn STILL doesn't have a mount, even if it's size huge and possesses legs that look like ADULT OAK TREES (unless he just happens to weigh 250 lbs, because, like, muscle doesn't weigh anything, amirite?).

Mounts are meant to be ridden, so my PCs will ride them (without penalty!), even if they are 20 str dragonborn in full plate on a horse that looks like Ronnie Coleman (link SFW, unless your work frowns on men who aren't wearing shirts).

 

[Lizard]

Can someone point me to the "ZOMG! Horses are TOO STRONG!" threads from 3x, since I can't otherwise understand why WOTC decided to "fix" the general Strength/Encumbrance rules, which for the first time in D&D history made sense and allowed for dragons and giants who weren't crushed under their own weight?

Linear strength formulas of any sort don't work for the scale of beings D&D (and D&D style) games need to quantify. The exponential+size mod system of 3x (lifted directly from Hero) worked fine, and imposed virtually no time cost in play. The new system gives us halfling supermen and crippled elephants, for no gain in "fun" that I can tell.