magical mount

[lumen11]

Allright, I'm kinda new to this so forgive my possibly stupid questions.

I'm planning to play d&d with a paladin. Obviously it's most interesting feature is the mount, but that's where the problems start.

Assume I take a heavy warhorse, then I have a few problems with the HD. Here are the questions.

As an animal, the warhorse has a d8 hit die, but the monster manual says that a magical beast, which the paladin mount is supposed to be, has a d10 hit die. Which does it have.

The mount gets extra hitdice. Can he as a regular magical beast, take extra skillpoints and feats with those. A magical beast gets a new feat for each +4 extra HD. Does he get one at +6 or 2 at +4 and +8.

How do I determine the base attack, hitpoints and constitution(change) from the number of HD a creature has

 

[shilsen]

There are/have been a lot of arguments about this subject, but here goes:

The extra hd are all d8s. The mount gains no benefits from being a magical beast other than immunity to some spells. So it doesn't get extra feats or skill points from extra HD, since animals do not. Calculate base attack off HD as for an animal (same as a cleric), and hit points as for an animal of the appropriate HD and Con.

 

[lumen11]

-

Does that mean 3/4 times 8 (from d8) for a +6 bonus.
or 3/4 times 4 (4HD) for a +3 bonus?

 

[lumen11]

-

Suppose I would want to take a dire horse or even an asperi as a mount, could I just do that, or would I need something?

 

[Artoomis]

Beyond the hit die staying at d8 (this is specifically mentioned in the Paladin class description for the special mount), whether the rest of the "magical beast" properties apply is left up in the air by the core rules. Edition 3.5 may clarify this - I'm hoping so, anyway.

For now, using the rules as written and disregarding the FAQ or sage opinion, the paladin's mount should gain BAB, skill points and feats as a magical beast.

The game effect of this is almost nill - the mount will not be getting many skill points or feats. At most, this will give just a bit more survivability to the mount.

 

[shilsen]

Re: -

Does that mean 3/4 times 8 (from d8) for a +6 bonus.
or 3/4 times 4 (4HD) for a +3 bonus?

3/4 times the HD. Since a heavy warhorse starts with 4HD and gets +2 HD as a mount for a 5th lvl paladin (the earliest that he can get a special mount), that's 3/4 x 6 (rounded down) or +4 BAB.

 

[shilsen]

Suppose I would want to take a dire horse or even an asperi as a mount, could I just do that, or would I need something?

That would be up to the DM. You can use the rules in DotF for variant special mounts as guidelines.