Druids with horse animal companions.

[RangerWickett]

Druids can get horse animal companions, but not warhorses. The difference is in hit dice, ability scores, and whether their hooves are treated as 'off-hand' attacks.

A horse not trained for war does not normally use its hooves to attack. Its hoof attack is treated as a secondary attack and adds only half the horse’s Strength bonus to damage. (These secondary attacks are noted with an asterisk in the Attack and Full Attack entries for the heavy horse and the light horse.)

However, that horse has a certain number of tricks it knows, so if you give it the Combat Riding set of tricks, does that count as it being trained for war? Would it eliminate the -5 penalty to its attacks? Basically, is it possible to have a combat-useful horse animal companion?

 

[brehobit]

I'd say that having the right tricks would eliminate the -5 penalty.

Mark

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Training is training. And a Trick is just a special kind of training.