To jkason, if you look at animal archive, one of the approved books for living pathfinder, and go to page 14 and look under riding animals, you'll find bison as the second entry. I used the actual books to make up the character, not an internet site.
Thank you. I couldn't find any reference to source on d20pfrsd, and I don't have the time these days to dig through all the books (thus my preference for internet sites), so that's what I needed.
Stealing mounts: If my bison is in danger of being stolen, then every ranger, druid, cavaler and anyone with a mount should be a lot more worried than I.
My general thinking on that subject (which was unmentioned though not unconsidered when I made the previous post) was: all of those classes have special bonds to their animals, since they're a class feature. Any animal companion or mount would attempt to return to its character at the first opportunity by virtue of that bond, and if he or she really was gone, the game has mechanics for restoring them. Heck, paladins can summon the bloody things to their side once a day no matter where they are.
Given the prevalance of those types of characters, my thinking was that most thieves already know what an extra hassle it is to try to take a companion. A regular critter, however, is an easier steal. And though a bison may be a pack animal, one that lets people ride it seems like not the kind of thing one sees every day. I figured the "Almighty, that there's a bison trained by a fish-man!" factor might draw more attention than just another heavy horse. Mileages vary, and that's perfectly fine. But since I thought about it, and you were asking, it seemed a reasonable point to raise.
It seems that playing a 'normal' character should be scared to death over thier animals.
For what it's worth, I'm always leery of stabling animals when I'm in a game, myself. While I don't recall it ever resulting in actual theft, it triggers my "don't split up the party" response a little.
And to be honest, I'd be asking these same questions is this was my second or third character so why not ask them now?
I found a lot of answers to my own rules questions just from playing in the games about here and seeing some mechanics, and the various GM styles, in play. My point on the effect of a more bestial mount, for example, came from some things SK has done, where people and animals reacted to 'monstrous' looking characters with suspicion because, well, they looked different.
When an adventure involves travel, I'd like to know how my character can do it and if I have my own mount, it makes it much easier to head to the next town or travel to an out of the way ruin instead of the DM contriving somehow for me to get there while everyone else just jumps on horses.
A responsible angle to consider. I tend not to worry about it, myself, at least insofar as transport to a locale goes. My general theory is that the GM has to get the party there by one means or another in order for the adventure to happen. Sometimes he'll make getting there part of the obstacles to overcome (SK, again, had a fun little side-dalliance involving getting horses), but there's only so much travel-blocking a GM's probably inclined to do, at least from my viewpoint, since it just stalls the adventure he or she took the effort to design.
