Horses at high level?

[Storyteller01]

Green Ronin has templates for improved mounts, but they aren't going to survive higher levels.

Second World Simulations 'Masters at Arms' book has the Alpha Beast PrC. It's described as a fighter class for animals.

 

[Thurbane]

Seriously, the best I can see is awakened followers.

Turns out a warblade warhorse is pretty handy.

No, warhorse monks are where it's at...check out those movement rates!

There's also things like Stone Horses and the Brass Horse in Heroes of Battle...

 

[brehobit]

The Wild Cohort and Leadership feats can be used to gain a mount that advances in power as the character does.

Wild Cohort allows for a horse, but I don't think a warhorse is an option for the feat. Still, a 12th level fighter will end up with a heavy horse that has 10HD and around 75 HPs.

 

[frankthedm]

Read handle animal. The rules for rearing dire animals and magical beasts as mounts are in the skill.

Track the wandering monsters back to their burrows to get started and strike for non lethal damage once in a while for breeding stock.

A dire wolf reared as a combat mount is really good. Their carry capacity is just under 800lb… for a light load.

A rhino might not win any medals for speed, but the intimidation factor alone should win you a battle or two.

Unfortunately, if you choose a dire boar as your mount you will be replacing it kind of often.

 

[Patlin]

"The Warlock In Spite of Himself"

Construct horse?

 

[Shazman]

I think the wild cohort feat ( with heavy warhorse as an option) or leadership are the best options. If you don't want to spend a feat, I suppose you could ask the DM to stat up some advanced horses with templates like magebred or legendary on them. They would be very expensive, of course but well worth the money. A more flavorful way would be for the character to "find" a horse animal companion of a high level ranger or druid whose owner has passed away or gone missing. Now you've got a durable mount and a plot hook.

 

[frankthedm]

I'm not sure if I'd rather have a feat to let a character make any mount he hops on top of better, or if I want to have something like improved magebred horses, which are expensive investments, but quality. And available to any character, not just those with the right feats.

If you are married to the imagery of the horse , in the MM2 there were dire horses. starting at 8HD, they could cram up to 16 HD IIRC before they advanced to huge. I say why ride a herbivore when the amount of killing in D&D almost guarentees a meat eating mount will be very well fed.

Other than that, magebread might be good. I am not familiar with the stats, but high level chacters gotta pay them gp's for anything better than the norm. Armor or mounts, enhancing costs thousands and soon tens of thousands. 150 gp gets you 3 HD of fighting horse, 400 gp gets you 4HD of fighting horse. After that the gp per HD rate should not be dropping. A 5 hit die horse should cost minimum 650 GP. 6HD 900gp, maybe rounded up to an even thousand.

 

[kjenks]

Spells that can get you a mount:
Bottle of Smoke
Mount (but the horse is not war-trained)
Phantom Steed
Phantom Stag
Polymorph
Summon Dire Hawk

Items:
Figurine of Wondrous Power (Ebony Fly, Goats, Griffon, Elephant)

Feat:
Leadership (for a druid cohort who stays in horse form, using Natural Spell and Extend Spell with Swift Fly) (As a side-benefit, the druid's animal companion can make a sturdy mount, too)

 

[nittanytbone]

The Beastmaster PrC might be what you're looking for, too. A one level dip gets you an animal companion, and you can use the Natural Bond feat (you're a fighter with lots of feats, right?) to make it even better.

 

[lukelightning]

Just convince the party's druid to wildshape into a horse.

Personally I think if you want something special for a mount you have to "pay" for it, either through a class feature (animal companion), feat (leadership), or at least justify it with lots of ranks in handle animal. Just shelling out cash to buy a griffon won't cut it.