Pathfinder 1E Experience Points for special mounts, etc.

[vonmolkew]

Here's one I've never actually run into before: through a long series of adventures, three of my characters have been given special mounts: a griffon that is now the Paladin's "Divine Bond" steed, a hippogriff that is now the Cavalier's "extraordinary Mount" and a cooshee that has replaced the Cleric's war-dog. These creatures obviously help in combat, just like their previous horses and war-dogs did.

so my question is, do they get a share of the experience points when they fight a battle? It sure seems to me that they should since they are quite a bit more than a regular "mount", but I've never dealt with creatures that are out-of-the-ordinary like these. They have much higher intelligence (in some cases) than standard horses and war-dogs, but none of them are "Awakened".

Clouding the issue is that one is a Divine Bond, one is an Animal Companion, and one is just simply a mount like you would purchase a regular horse or pack-mule. so maybe they are all treated differently?

Thoughts?

 

[gamerprinter]

I get it, but at my table a mount is a mount and not a PC, so no sharing of experience points. An animal companion, for example, gains HD, etc (essentially leveling up) based on the level of the druid or ranger. Are you suggesting that you'd replace an animal companions leveling process into having to participate in combat, rather than leveling with the base class of the "master"? (If you do, you're not playing PF anymore, but something else.) Are you suggesting that an animal companion gains experience in addition to the normal level process (of course now the animal companion would be gaining more XP than normal, even surpassing the master eventually)?

Rite Publishing offers In the Company of Dragons, a 3PP supplement which allows you to play a dragon as a PC (which can also still be a mount). If you were running your mounts as special PCs, allowing them to get XP for participating in adventures would make sense. Anything short of mounts as PCs, then mounts should never gain XP.

And why would you consider griffon, hippogriff and cooshee special? I've played many games over the years with similar type mounts. Compared to a horse in a non-D&D type world, they might seem special, but in the flavor of the game, they are just flying mounts (not the cooshee, of course) and nothing particularly special at all.

Why do you think they are "special"?

 

[fletch137]

I'm not super-fluent on divine bonds or extraordinary mounts, but at first blush I'd say that if the beast is a class feature, then it should not affect the XP the character or party gets. The contributions of said creature are assumed in the class level.

On the other hand, if the party is being accompanied by companions earned through roleplay (animal or human), I can see diminishing the XP the PCs earn due to reduced difficulty. Whether or not you want to reduce the CR by a point or two, or add in the extra beings when dividing XP is up to you.

As an aside, I do kinda like the idea of mundane animals like wardogs or warhorses gaining levels as warrior NPC classes as they adventure with the PCs to keep them relevant to the ever-increasing challenges they face. In those cases maybe an option for PCs to donate XP to the animal in question? I dunno.

 

[Ramaster]

The first two cases are quite clear.

As class features, the animals do not gain XP, they just progress with their "owners".

The third case is a bit trickier. If I was running the game, then I would make the player decide if he wants the cooshee to advance or not. If he wants it to keep getting "levels", then yes, it keeps a share of the XP. Otherwise, it just follows them around. But I would discourage this.

 

[Noir le Lotus]

Usually, mounts come from 2 kinds of things :

- a class feature. Then they don't gain XP and advance at the same speed than the PC
- a cohort from Leadership. Then it gains XP but at a determined rate depending on the XP won by the PC.