Paladin Mounts

[Chroma]

Defenders of the Faith, page 13, has alternate Paladin mounts. For balance reasons (so that the mount isn't overpowered with the bonus HD et al. that it gets), I would be inclined to apply something like the 3.5 Druid rules for animal companions. i.e. The better animal companions get a penalty to the level of the benefits. For example, Pegasus might get Paladin's level -3 benefits - so only getting +2 HD when your Paladin is 8th level.

DMG 3.5 pg 204 also talks about changes to what enhancements that "better" special mounts get. I've got no problems with special mounts, it just doesn't really say how to generate them. I wish they'd given example unusual paladin mounts like they did for the alternate familiars.

 

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

The Paladin is the Mount's Human Companion

We use the average stats but the player gets to roll the hit points. At about 14th level, the Paladin (my brother) said, "My horse has more hit points, better attributes, more special abilitities like SR and evasion, and does more damage and almost has as good a BaB. I get it, I must be the mount's human companion!"

 

[Liolel]

My paladins mount follows the standerd rules, which means that the extra hitdice and stuff was applied on to the average statistics for the mount, which was a pegasi. This might have been a rules violation, but the hitdice increase gave the mount a feat and I got to choose which feat.

 

[Steverooo]

We use the creatures base stats -10 (except for things like the 2 INT), then roll 4D6, drop the lowest, and add whatever was rolled to the (Base stat-10). Thus, good rolls can give you a better Animal Companion or mount, and bad rolls a worse one.

 

[Squire James]

Another option is to use the paladin's base stats as the mount's base stats. So a strong paladin with low Dex would get a big clumsy horse, while the elven "bow paladin" would get a thin graceful beast. Yes, most of them will be good-looking or commanding compared to others in their species. Sorta like how my cat is getting more like me all the time (fat: yes, lazy except for short bursts of furious activity: yes).