Paladin Mount as a cohort

[Grogg of the North]

A player in my campaign wants to take leadership and wants to designate their special mount as their cohort. The player is a paladin/fist of raziel. Essentially, he's paying a feat tax to keep his mount relevant.

If the mount is made a cohort, the DMG suggests that they be given a +2 LA. And ... that's it. The whole section on doing this is rather sparse, only a paragraph long.

Does the mount continue to gain the abilities of a paladin's special mount? Does it just gain bonus HD? Can it take class levels? Feats? Any advice is greatly appreciated and welcomed.

 

[Shin Okada]

Yeah, the mentioning is quite short and simple, and The only example I can find is Hound Archon Hero, 11th-Level Paladin and it's Bronze Dragon Mount.

Hound Archon Hero is a 11th-level paladin. And the description says the juvenile bronze dragon mount gains 2 additional HD, 4 points of Strength, an additional 4 points of natural armor, improved evasion, and +10 feet to speed in all its movement forms. That is the bonuses which usual special mount of a 8th-10th level paladin gains.

A juvenile bronze dragon is not meant to be a cohort from the beginning (it has no LA listed). And I am not sure where that -1 to -3 effective paladin level for the special abilities as a special mount came from.

But anyway, gaining both additional abilities including bonus HDs and class levels seems to be too strong.

 

[smetzger]

A player in my campaign wants to take leadership and wants to designate their special mount as their cohort. The player is a paladin/fist of raziel. Essentially, he's paying a feat tax to keep his mount relevant.

If the mount is made a cohort, the DMG suggests that they be given a +2 LA. And ... that's it. The whole section on doing this is rather sparse, only a paragraph long.

Does the mount continue to gain the abilities of a paladin's special mount? Does it just gain bonus HD? Can it take class levels? Feats? Any advice is greatly appreciated and welcomed.

I've allowed a Druid to cast awaken on their animal companion and then take the leadership feat. I just had everything stack with the animal companion powers.

The answer to your question really relies on how powerful the paladin is in relation to the other PCs.

I would most likely ...
1) allow the mount to have all its paladin mount powers
2) allow the mount to gain in power as a paladin mount
3) allow it to take class levels up to the appropriate level of the cohort; rules seem to suggest this should be 2 less levels
4) allow it also to improve in power by taking class levels

I'd also probably give it some way to communicate via speech with the Paladin.