D&D General Mounted Archers

[David Howery]

mounted archers, like blocks of pikemen, are one of those historical things that are great to read about, but not so translatable into a D&D campaign. Unless your campaign is set outdoors a lot and deals with mass combat a lot, it's hard to get much use out of them. Individual PCs and NPCs could certainly be mounted archers (or pikemen), but both are problematic in a dungeon.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

even the Longbow has trouble penetrating a fully plated warrior

You see the development of armor piercing designs for arrowheads during that period, no one would have bothered if traditional arrowheads had been effective!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Mounted combat (ranged or melee) in D&D is great right up until someone lobs a fireball at your 7th level party and all the 19hp horses die and then suddenly you're not a mounted party after all. Ask my 12th level paladin how often his steed lasts past the first round of combat some time.

Hit point inflation from PCs, and static hit points on mounts, kills the concept dead from a RAW mechanical perspective. I'm sure there's third party sourcebooks etc that grapple with the issue, but from a core rules point of view it just doesn't work.

Mental image of cartoon horses being reduced to charred skeletons, that collapse leaving the party sitting in mid air.

But there are official rules that can be used for scaling mount hp - the warrior sidekick rules in Tasha’s.

 

[GrimCo]

Mounted archers - but instead, it's Warlocks with EB, eldricht spear invocation and spell sniper feat. 600 feet range, ignore half and 3/4 cover.

That aside, mounted combat in general is aftertought in 5e. Mounted archers were good at big open plains. In heavy forests, they loose 3 main advantages - speed, maneuverability and ability to engage from safe distance. Not only forests, narrow mountain passes and swamps also aren't mounted archer friendly.

Mounted combat is more of mass combat / warfare domain or in some cases, light skirmishers (but that's also more for warfare centered campaigns). In typical campaigns, not so much. Too many closed spaces.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Mounted combat (ranged or melee) in D&D is great right up until someone lobs a fireball at your 7th level party and all the 19hp horses die and then suddenly you're not a mounted party after all. Ask my 12th level paladin how often his steed lasts past the first round of combat some time.

Hit point inflation from PCs, and static hit points on mounts, kills the concept dead from a RAW mechanical perspective. I'm sure there's third party sourcebooks etc that grapple with the issue, but from a core rules point of view it just doesn't work.

This is true, but still better than WHRP. I saved forever to get a horse in one of our games (because they cost so much). Literally the very first battle it died in the very first hit :/

mounted archers, like blocks of pikemen, are one of those historical things that are great to read about, but not so translatable into a D&D campaign. Unless your campaign is set outdoors a lot and deals with mass combat a lot, it's hard to get much use out of them. Individual PCs and NPCs could certainly be mounted archers (or pikemen), but both are problematic in a dungeon.

Same problem as mounted combat in general. It just doesn't happen very often in TTRPGs. Much to my chagrin, because the cavalier archetype is one of my favorites.

 

[billd91]

This is true, but still better than WHRP. I saved forever to get a horse in one of our games (because they cost so much). Literally the very first battle it died in the very first hit :/

Reinforcing why, for much of history, cavalry was a rich man's game.

 

[J-H]

Archery in 5e is just fine, in that it's annoyingly over-optimal for many circumstances. The Swashbuckler in my current game does just as well using Steady Aim with his bow as he does moving into melee despite having class features that aid melee and do nothing for ranged combat. Archery also has the best combat style (+2 to hit), the Sharpshooter feat removes the range penalty entirely (at least in 5e, don't know about 5.24), and staying at a longer distance makes many monsters less threatening in addition to avoiding many short-ranged (30') spells. Unless the DM works at it, there are more monster features and abilities which penalize melee attacks (Riposte, Parry, Heated Body & variants thereof) and almost none that penalize ranged attacks.

For balance purposes, I don't think archery needs any help to be good. In fact, my hot take for the day is that arrow lethality is probably too high both from a game balance perspective and from a realism perspective. Chop a cantaloupe with an axe and it splits, shoot it with a bow and it falls over with an arrow in it but is probably still intact.
Since removing +Dex to damage would cause all sorts of ripple effects, shortbows should have 1d4 base damage and longbows 1d6 base damage to make them slightly less great.

 

[Marc17]

This is true, but still better than WHRP. I saved forever to get a horse in one of our games (because they cost so much). Literally the very first battle it died in the very first hit :/

Same problem as mounted combat in general. It just doesn't happen very often in TTRPGs. Much to my chagrin, because the cavalier archetype is one of my favorites.

Yes, I was always sort of upset that there was never a campaign appropriate in 3E to taking all those mounted combat feats. A knight with a lance always seemed like they'd be a fearsome foe.

I'd like to see a campaign or just a large sandbox wilderness adventure that is mostly set in an above ground local. No dungeons or caves to speak of, just a few castles, then buildings and tents dealing with roaming monsters, bandits, evil priests, and territorial and civil disputes between armed neighbors.

 

[J-H]

Yes, I was always sort of upset that there was never a campaign appropriate in 3E to taking all those mounted combat feats. A knight with a lance always seemed like they'd be a fearsome foe.

I'd like to see a campaign or just a large sandbox wilderness adventure that is mostly set in an above ground local. No dungeons or caves to speak of, just a few castles, then buildings and tents dealing with roaming monsters, bandits, evil priests, and territorial and civil disputes between armed neighbors.

I'm in one right now (play by post). My Battlemaster 8 is a mounted knight and also the roving recruiter for the King's Army. Skilled feat + non-dumped Cha + 2/5 maneuvers being social. My Persuasion checks are 1d20+8+1d8 so I hit some pretty ridiculous numbers as the party face in addition to being pretty dangerous in combat. Very happy with the character and his warhorse has only taken damage once or twice total.
(I have a string of remounts just in case, though).

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Yes, I was always sort of upset that there was never a campaign appropriate in 3E to taking all those mounted combat feats. A knight with a lance always seemed like they'd be a fearsome foe.

A knight with a lance who misses is going to be one who gets dragged off his horse, and stabbed multiple times by his group of foes.

Imho, knight with lance is great vs other knight with lance, or in a line charging against another line of knights with lances or against a line of infantry (really good, unless said infantry also had pikes or lances dug in). But in most D&D combats, pretty useless after initial first round. And that's assuming a wide open field. Once we get into most combat settings of underground small rooms, or forest clearings, or mountain paths carved onto cliff-sides - I'd say mounted knight with lance is not a great PC archetype.