Horses at high level?

[Banshee16]

Aside from paladin mounts and animal companions, are there any ways to keep horses a good option at high-level? It seems a little silly to me that a fighter with lot of mounted combat feats would have to use dragons instead of horses at high level, but it seems like that's what would be required, unless he wanted to replace his horse every combat.

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.

Suggestions?

What about the animal friend feat from the WotC site? The horse would gain hp, BAB, and ability score bonuses as you go up in level.

I've faced that problem before....sucks to have your lvl 20 fighter charging a dragon, and go flying because the dragon sneezes, and the warrior's 25 hp horse is killed.

Banshee

 

[frankthedm]

I've faced that problem before....sucks to have your lvl 20 fighter charging a dragon, and go flying because the dragon sneezes, and the warrior's 25 hp horse is killed.

Good! That is exactly what should happen. The onus is on the PC to make sure the mount he choses can handle the combats he will be facing. The core rules do have ways of training higher HD animals for combat riding and the MM has GP costs for at least a few other mounts. Failing that there are a few magic items that provide better mounts than a warhorse in the DMG. Also, Planar Ally and Planar binding might be usable to call up better mounts.

The 20th level figher does not go into combat with a weapon that cost under 1000gp, why would the mount be any different?