Barded mount need armor proficiency?

[TessarrianDM]

A combat-oriented mount such as a warhorse is wearing barding. A character in armor must have armor proficiency or he takes a penalty to attack rolls equal to the armor check penalty of the armor worn. Does the same thing apply to the mount? For example, would a heavy warhorse in half-plate barding take a -7 penalty on it's hoof attacks?

 

[lukelightning]

The rules are poorly conceived. In the rules about types and subtypes, under animals it says "Proficient with no armor unless trained for war." So warhorses can wear armor, I guess.

But there are no rules for other animals. There is no explicit "trained for war" trick to give them armor proficiency. Personally I think it should be a feat; you can't have a full-plate-armored-dire bear for free.

 

[smootrk]

A Feat called "Trained for Warfare" (or something similar) would do the trick for me (with regards for animals, magical beasties, etc).

For low HD animals (lowly dog), his feats are technically used already for stuff like Alertness and Track, so some other consideration might be applied. One might simply say that the increased cost of such animal includes the 'training'. Sooo, for the Full Plate Armored critter should have an increased cost for the essentially bought feat. For High HD creatures, or advanced critters, just use one of the feat slots for the ability.

 

[Quartz]

Hmm... there are light, medium, and heavy warhorses, aren't there? Going by theKISS principle, we have our barding categories too.

 

[Hella_Tellah]

Unless the animal is trained for war--a riding dog, warhorse, or like creature--your mount must have proficiency in the armor it wears to avoid an attack penalty. The rules for proficiency don't disappear just because someone sits on top of the creature. You'll therefore need to have your mounts take the requisite feats. This is an excellent path for Druids to take with their animal companions' feats, but for those who simply purchase their mounts, I see no particular cause to worry over their attack bonuses.

 

[borc killer]

Unless I am mistaken there is a template in the MM2 that is for this. You can make a War Rhino and such.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

"Trained for War" I always just assumed to mean the "train an animal for a general purpose" facet of the Handle Animal skill. Namely, the Combat Riding one. So, any animal with an Int of 2 (requires 6 tricks) could be trained for war and thus wear barding. THat's how I've always houseruled it. Thought that was the design intent...

 

[mvincent]

Unless I am mistaken there is a template in the MM2 that is for this. You can make a War Rhino and such.

Correct. The MM2 contains the Warbeast template.

The MM II (pg. 219) also says that an animal with war training is automatically proficient with armor.

 

[Wolf72]

I just wish Handle Animal had put some wording in there ...

I would assume if your beast has combat riding (or fighting) then you'd pick up armor too

 

[TessarrianDM]

Thanks for all of the replies. I failed to look in the Creature Type definitions, where it is explicitly stated whether or not they have armor proficiency (as lukelightning pointed out in the first reply). Thanks!