D&D General Elephants are cheaper than Warhorses

[Dioltach]

It think there was another book. Where the elephants came to earth and would like to lightly step on you to may you submit. Fallen Angels may have been the title.

Footfall, perhaps?

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

D&D has got the loxo specie, and the loxodon appear in Magic: the Gathering.

In D&D not only mammoths are possible, but also palaeloloxodons from the Prehistory.

Palaeoloxodon - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

War elephant - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[MarkB]

Footfall, perhaps?

Sounds right. I remember the behaviour and psychology of the aliens in that novel, but not their physical appearance.

 

[Mannahnin]

In Thailand an elephant sells for around 2 million Baht, a Horse maybe 50000 Baht.

So even where elephants are relatively common workhorses they generally cost a lot more than a horse

Of course if theres too much fantasy in the equation then there really is no common baseline on which to make a comparison

This is comparing to a regular horse, not a specially trained and bred warhorse. If you want to check modern prices maybe compare to racehorses.

No its comparing a regular horse to a 'regular' elephant - both animals when trained for war would be worth much much more.

The discussion was about Xeviat thinking it was weird that the 2014 and 2024 PHs list the elephant at only 200gp when a warhorse is priced at 400gp. Various people offered explanations, including that a warhorse has a lot more training and that training and upkeep is expensive.

You came into that discussion noting the real world prices in Thailand for a horse vs elephant, apparently missing the "war" part of the comparison.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The discussion was about Xeviat thinking it was weird that the 2014 and 2024 PHs list the elephant at only 200gp when a warhorse is priced at 400gp. Various people offered explanations, including that a warhorse has a lot more training and that training and upkeep is expensive.

You came into that discussion noting the real world prices in Thailand for a horse vs elephant, apparently missing the "war" part of the comparison.

I do think it is likely some kind of oversight. I am guessing elephants have generally been more expensive than horses, if only because they are probably harder to breed in the same numbers. I don't think it is a big deal, just like I don't think it is a big deal when people point out how much damage a cat can do in 1E (I don't expect them to have spread sheets of all the numbers in the game to make sure they line up in a perfectly believable way). But I do also think explaining it in setting is pretty easy.

On real world prices, I often use them in my games for simplicity (i.e. if a player wants to build a new room in their house, I'd rather just look up what that actually costs in life than try to figure out how that would have been handled in a medieval economy), but prices in the past were so different than today. You can look up old price lists and see how differently things were valued. Also Elephants I believe, are a protected species as well (on top of the aforementioned sacredness). There are organizations dedicated to protecting them where you can 'adopt' them for a year (not literally adopt but you pay like 50 bucks a year and they send you information about how well that elephant is doing). So I would imagine elephants are not subject to normal market prices

 

[Mannahnin]

I do think it is likely some kind of oversight. I am guessing elephants have generally been more expensive than horses, if only because they are probably harder to breed in the same numbers.

You appear to be missing the point.

An elephant costing more than a horse makes sense. It's considerably larger, exists in smaller numbers and will require more feed. We might draw a shaky analogy to a large, uncommon truck vs a relatively common car. Say a Humvee vs a Toyota Camry.

A war horse costing more than either also makes sense. It's specially bred for exceptional size and power among its species, and for a temperament which tolerates the noise and chaos of battle better, and specially trained for an extended period. For the purposes of the vehicle analogy it's a luxury sports car, like a Maserati or Ferrari.

 

[Tonguez]

The discussion was about Xeviat thinking it was weird that the 2014 and 2024 PHs list the elephant at only 200gp when a warhorse is priced at 400gp. Various people offered explanations, including that a warhorse has a lot more training and that training and upkeep is expensive.

You came into that discussion noting the real world prices in Thailand for a horse vs elephant, apparently missing the "war" part of the comparison.

yeah, fortunately the world no longer has War Elephants available to base a cost or training comparison on, so the best comparison in my mind is working elephants and working horses.

The point is the PHB values are a normal elephant and a Warhorse which people rightly point out is due to the War Horse having specialist training. But of course War Elephants existed too so we can extrapolate that War Elephants also had specialist training and thus would be worth a lot more. But beyond some extensive historic research I have no idea what the differences might be...

 

[Stormonu]

You appear to be missing the point.

An elephant costing more than a horse makes sense. It's considerably larger, exists in smaller numbers and will require more feed. We might draw a shaky analogy to a large, uncommon truck vs a relatively common car. Say a Humvee vs a Toyota Camry.

A war horse costing more than either also makes sense. It's specially bred for exceptional size and power among its species, and for a temperament which tolerates the noise and chaos of battle better, and specially trained for an extended period. For the purposes of the vehicle analogy it's a luxury sports car, like a Maserati or Ferrari.

You mean a Jaguar, don't you?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You appear to be missing the point.

An elephant costing more than a horse makes sense. It's considerably larger, exists in smaller numbers and will require more feed. We might draw a shaky analogy to a large, uncommon truck vs a relatively common car. Say a Humvee vs a Toyota Camry.

A war horse costing more than either also makes sense. It's specially bred for exceptional size and power among its species, and for a temperament which tolerates the noise and chaos of battle better, and specially trained for an extended period. For the purposes of the vehicle analogy it's a luxury sports car, like a Maserati or Ferrari.

Yeah, it still does not make sense. Draft horse cost 50 gp. There is no way in hell that a domesticated elephant would cost only four times as much.

Furthermore, IIRC by the rules, this supposed expensive training of the warhorse doesn't do much. It will carry you around just like any other mount. Paying eight times the price of the draft horse gives your mount one point higher AC and that's it! Whoop-de-doo! It has also marginally better attack damage and trampling charge, but it cannot actually use those when someone is riding it. Meanwhile costing four times as much than a draft horse, an elephant gets your mount two points higher AC and 57 hit points more! It also has much more powerful attack than either horse and trampling charge, but again, it cannot actually use those while being ridden.

Se either from lore or rules perspective it makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[Bedrockgames]

You appear to be missing the point.

An elephant costing more than a horse makes sense. It's considerably larger, exists in smaller numbers and will require more feed. We might draw a shaky analogy to a large, uncommon truck vs a relatively common car. Say a Humvee vs a Toyota Camry.

A war horse costing more than either also makes sense. It's specially bred for exceptional size and power among its species, and for a temperament which tolerates the noise and chaos of battle better, and specially trained for an extended period. For the purposes of the vehicle analogy it's a luxury sports car, like a Maserati or Ferrari.

I get the point, and again I don't really think it is a big issue, but I am a bit skeptical about the price difference (and I understand a war horse could be considerably more expensive than an elephant). I am not saying I am 100 percent right here. I don't know what the actual data would suggest. Entirely possible the facts are that a war horse was more expensive than an elephant. But I also don't have a dog in this particular argument. I was pushing back against using modern elephant prices in Thailand as a measure for example because of their special status there and because prices in medieval economies would have probably been a lot different