Mounted combat: Do you bother?

[lukelightning]

I use it a fair amount. As a DM I terrorized the players with a bunch of really nasty goblins riding on medium-sized giant spiders (and some on a large spider)*.

In the game I'm playing in, the cleric in the party has a paladin-style warhorse (non-vanishing) and can be really scary as a mounted combatant (particularly when sharing buff spells with his mount). This is balanced by the fact that there are lots of situations/places where horses can't go. The druid has a giant pack lizard he rides on sometimes, while my guy is stuck with a horse he can barely ride (light riding horse which likes to run away).

*Goblins in my game don't ride wolves or wargs; depending on the tribe they ride all sorts of weird creatures: spiders, bats, giant wasps, giant rats, etc.

 

[drothgery]

I don't think I've ever been in a game with a PC that relied on mounted combat. Too many dungeons, caverns, manor houses, and other places you have to fight in but your mount can't go. A paladin's pokemount helps a little bit (if the BBEG hangs out in conventiently large room), but it's still hard to get a lot of value out of mounted combat.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

I'm playing a mounted combat focused marshall right now actually (I'm multiclassing to fighter though, high level marshall doesn't offer enough IMO). The game started at level 4. All of use had to have some ranks in ride as we were all playing cavalry men. Spirited charge works great with the Over the Top minor aura.

IME enough battles happen out doors so that mounted combat can be good to invest in.

To have an effective mount at higher levels take leadership and get a mount as your cohort. I'm going to try talking the DM in allowing me to get a horse (with above average ability scores) that can advance in hit dice (horses typically can't). Normally I'd try to get something more exotic but that wouldn't fit the tone of his campaign.


It really depends on the DM. If all you do is fight in 20ftx20ft rooms connected by 5ft wide hallways a mount is going to suck.

 

[Beckett]

It's only been highlighted in the Eberron game I play in. My Bone Knight starts out most combats on his undead stead. It is good for a few extra attacks (vicious template from LM), and hardy enough that I can dispel it before it dies for good. We also had a Talenta dino rider (who was working up halfling outrider, and was quite good at ride-by attacks). She was a fighter/scout, so had to rely on the mount's toughness to survive. After her clawfoot died, she upgraded to a larger model, that was also magebred to boost its chance of survival. After the character was disintergrated, the player brought in a Valenar elf, a ranger who has her horse as her companion.

Most other games tend toward underground, or we just give up on horses since we can't keep them alive. In the above Eberron game, the rest of the party has sworn off riding: We lost most of our mounts to area spells in one fight. We resupplied, rehorsed, and I set my new cohort on a magebred heavy warhorse (800GP!). First encounter, a dragon that breathed and killed the horses.

 

[ChristianW]

I ran a low power, low magic campaign that featured a lot of outdoor terrain. We used Mounted Combat, Ride By Attack, Trample and Spirited Charge to awesome effect. It was a very fun game!

 

[Thanee]

We had quite a few characters with mounted combat in various campaigns (often Paladins), and mostly they have been able to make some use of it.

We even had a mounted combat focused character in CotSQ, but it was a halfling.

Mounted combat in general (not the feat) has been useful for our characters in many occasions.

However, in some campaigns, a character with a focus in mounted combat will simply not work.

Bye
Thanee

 

[dogoftheunderworld]

Not in the past, but for some reason this past year both campaigns have used mounts more. One campaign I play a Ranger with a war horse companion. The other campaign I DM in and there has been at least one on-the-road battle... the horses faired poorly.

... (Specifically, if you aren't a paladin or a druid, any mount you have is going to die in the first high-level area effect or breath weapon its exposed to, save or no save.)...

I hadn't really thought about it much, but I can see using a ride check (as mentioned above) in place of saving throws.

Another idea would be to treat any actively ridden mount as a "carried/worn item" and only allow Area Effect damage to it on a character saving throw roll of 1. This kind of implies the ride check with evasion built in. Not exactly realistic, and maybe unfair to chracters who have built up around their speical mount/ride skills... but much easier on the storyline (and the horses .

 

[Widowmaker]

I can honestly say it has not come up in any of the campaigns I have played in.

I am trying it for the first time in game, hopefully it is not a waste of feats.

 

[diaglo]

it happens more on the NPC side of things.

the PCs don't tend to buy or use horses/mounts.

 

[lukelightning]

Don't bring a regular horse to a dragon fight.