Beefing up mounted combat for 5e

[Grumbleputty]

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!)

• 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)

2) Facing a mounted foe

• 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!)

 

[Redthistle]

An option to dealing out extra damage would be to give the mounted character advantage on the attack instead.

Did you consider that, and if so, what was your reasoning to go with extra damage on a hit? Advantage on the attack would be dealing extra damage just because you'd be hitting the target more often.

 

[Grumbleputty]

Thanks Redthistle- my thinking was that it's not necessarily easier to hit from a mount, but when you do it does more damage. Hitting more often has more effects than just damage- messing up spell casting for instance.

Your point is well taken, though- adding another d6 to damage is a very old-school way to handle that, and doesn't scale with the level of the character like Advantage does. Advantage on damage rolls seems like the 5th edition way to handle it.

 

[eMalc]

I don't have the PHB on me so I'm unsure if Lances are even in the game, but if they are should riders with Spears/Lances receive a further damage bonus when charging on horseback? Or atleast something that shows the rider is straight up slamming their weapon into the opponent rather than timing a strike as they ride by. I wouldn't want to bog down these rules with extra conditions so this could be considered just part of the advantage to damage I guess.

Only other thing I'd mention is some variance to mount speed & control depending on certain health thresholds of the mount. e.g if the mount is under 25% max hp, it's speed is reduced by half and the rider must make a successful animal handling check to bring it under control or else it uses it's movement to get as far away from the largest threat as possible.

Your rules look quite good to me otherwise, I may take them up in a campaign I'm planning.

 

[Redthistle]

eMalc, the lance exists in 5e. See PHB pages 147 (Reach), 148 (Special Weapons), and 149 (for the crunch).

The Feat, Mounted Combat (PHB p168), provides a simple and effective means of supplying some of what Grumbleputty is looking for, but that doesn't include any extra damage resulting from the force of a mounted charge.

The mention above of "advantage on damage", although it does not exist in the RAW, prompted the following notion:

The idea that the force of a mounted charge should cause more damage than an unmounted attack makes sense. We can borrow the advantage/disadvantage 2d20-roll mechanic on attack rolls and apply it to damage rolls.

On a successful, non-critical mounted charge attack, roll two of each of the damage dice. For example, for the 1d12 lance, you'd roll 2d12 and keep only the higher result. This would usually (since the dice are not always kind) result in slightly increased damage over the standard 1d12 for a mounted charge attack, without encroaching on the sweetness of a critical hit.

Likewise, an unmounted pole-arm wielder would gain the same advantage on both attack and damage rolls, courtesy of the mounted combatant.

This doesn't address the mounted archer. On that, I simply think the suggestion above should be a Feat, not a Skill.

 

[Grumbleputty]

You're absolutely right, Redthistle- Mounted Archer should have been a Feat, not a skill. I'll edit the original post. And I'm curious why the idea of Advantage on Damage doesn't exist in the game- it's possible the designers avoided it for some reason that hasn't occurred to me yet.

The Mounted Combat feat does cover some of what I'm after, but from what I've read on other threads most people avoid it, since Feats are pretty precious and most players spend a lot of time in dungeons, where the Feat would be of little use.

I've been dreaming up a scenario that has the party given steeds to chase down a wagon train of evil cultists transporting the prisoners of their latest raid back to their territory, and having the party catch up just as a horde of Gnolls riding Giant Hyenas attacks the same wagon train, triggering a three-way cavalry battle. If I pull it together and convince my regular group to try a one-off encounter, I'll report back on how my expanded rules play out on the table.

 

[Skarsgard]

If you don't mind a suggestion; we felt the Lance charge was a bit ho-hum in our games and changed the lance to make it Heavy(mounted). This allows riders to eventually get Mounted Combat and Great Weapon mastery and make more of an impact on the charge. We did stipulate that the movement of the horse had to be 20 ft before the attack to count as a charge.

 

[GMMichael]

+1 [MENTION=31985]Grumbleputty[/MENTION] for doing what GMs should do. But, you mean to tell me that 5e doesn't have anything like these ideas?

 

[miniaturehoarder]

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,

Default trained combatant, like a guard or soldier, only has around 11 HP, the warhorse's 2d6+4 and trample follow up with 2d4+4 more is plenty lethal.

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=31985]Grumbleputty[/MENTION] Nice house rules!

I think some kind of "setting a polearm to receive a charge" rule might make sense...like improved to hit or damage when readying a polearm attack against a mounted opponent...or a bonus to opportunity attacks made with a polearm against a mounted opponent.