This happened a lot in games?
Anemic Horses
- Thread starter darkadelphia
- Start date
This happened a lot in games?
munkeywrench
First Post
Here's my houserule:
The carrying capacity shown for mounts is in addition to the weight of a single rider who wears only cloth.
The carrying capacity shown for mounts is in addition to the weight of a single rider who wears only cloth.
Starbuck_II
Explorer
Only ones that allowed the Hulking Hurler.
cheshire_grin
First Post
I take it you completely ignored the cited historical records that pretty much showed exactly that? There is a reason jockeys and cavalrymen are not large people; weight matters even to a horse.
The problem is, in real life, strength scales linearly with size, while mass scales exponentially. That is, twice as big means twice as strong -- but four times as heavy. You run into wildly diminishing returns very quickly.
Now, if you want to argue for story purposes that the D&D milieu should support a heavy warhorse, in heavy barding, with a dragonborn on its back in plate, should roll along at precisely the same speed as a palfrey with a jockey in cloth, then be my guest; that's at least a defensible position.
But IRL heavy cavalry wasn't used because of speed advantages over men on foot; it was used because the mass of the horse plus the mass of its armor made it a) very hard to stop the horse once it got moving, b) terrifying to stand in front of, and c) a terrific platform from which to kill lightly armored peasants. Having a mounted full-plate knight moving 2 squares/round doesn't seem unreasonable to me (but they should also get the commensurate advantages: extra charge damage, fear effect, etc).
jodyjohnson
Adventurer
I don't see the problem as moving slower because you are over weight. I see the issue as moving 4 times slower because of being over weight.
You can move at full speed up to 260ish and then any weight between 270 and dragging 1250 you move at 2.
Seems to me that there should have been a more graded scale.
Under 10x = normal
10x to 20x = move slower (-1 speed)
20x to 50x = slowed while dragging/pushing
You can move at full speed up to 260ish and then any weight between 270 and dragging 1250 you move at 2.
Seems to me that there should have been a more graded scale.
Under 10x = normal
10x to 20x = move slower (-1 speed)
20x to 50x = slowed while dragging/pushing
Might I direct you all to the first paragraph of the "carrying, lifting, and dragging" rules on p. 222 of the PHB?
I see no reason not to extend that rule to mounts. In other words, when a mount is just carrying a rider and his or her gear, don't worry about weight limits. If the rider starts piling chests full of dragon-loot or unconscious paladins onto the horse's back too, or when the horse is injured or trying to move through terrain where weight might matter (a battlefield churned to mud by extensive rain and bloodshed, an ice-crusted lake, etc.), then start worrying about weight limits.
Alternately, simply rule that if a creature has the Mount ability, it can carry a rider of the appropriate size and that rider's gear without any penalty to its speed.
PHB p. 222 said:
I see no reason not to extend that rule to mounts. In other words, when a mount is just carrying a rider and his or her gear, don't worry about weight limits. If the rider starts piling chests full of dragon-loot or unconscious paladins onto the horse's back too, or when the horse is injured or trying to move through terrain where weight might matter (a battlefield churned to mud by extensive rain and bloodshed, an ice-crusted lake, etc.), then start worrying about weight limits.
Alternately, simply rule that if a creature has the Mount ability, it can carry a rider of the appropriate size and that rider's gear without any penalty to its speed.
Old Gumphrey
First Post
I take it you completely ignored everything I posted unless it had the word "horse" in it. D&D elephants can't even carry a large HUMAN with all of his gear and barding, much less a dragonborn. Elephants are ridiculously strong, and could carry five fully armed men without slowing down to 1/4 speed.
I would imagine that "wildly diminishing returns" don't start until after the elephant, since the elephant is fantastically strong, even for its size. It can move a car with its nose. Seriously.
This is good, but...
This is better, and sort of what we're doing already.
On Puget Sound
First Post
This thread isn't nearly silly enough. When do we get to the argument over how quickly a horse can climb a rope? It is an athletics check, and so it's strength-based, and horses are pretty strong....
Then you need to look again.
While the carrying capacity apparently is realistic, the effect of going over this limit is not. A horse does not slow down to 10 ft. per 6 seconds when it carries 300 lb.
In 4E the dragonborn is better of when he is carried by a dwarf then when he mounts a horse.
ObsidianCrane
First Post
The funny thing about the elephant is the encumberance rules are hardly the issue there, its actually their unencumbered movement. Get them encumbered and their speed is probably about right...
The problem for all mounts is solved if you simply ignore the weight of the first rider (but not their gear) and the basic harness (ie not barding) needed to ride and control the mount in combat.
Sure your heavy cavalry is going to be moving to fast for what it should really be able to do, but it is not going to get the historical benifits of heavy cavalry. But then again, even super heavy cavalry is far less scary than a person on a wyvern so maybe there is something to that...
The problem for all mounts is solved if you simply ignore the weight of the first rider (but not their gear) and the basic harness (ie not barding) needed to ride and control the mount in combat.
Sure your heavy cavalry is going to be moving to fast for what it should really be able to do, but it is not going to get the historical benifits of heavy cavalry. But then again, even super heavy cavalry is far less scary than a person on a wyvern so maybe there is something to that...
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