Paladin's mount can't wear armor? What am I missing?

[James McMurray]

The concern is in the armor check penalty. Without the feat your attack bonus for your full plated celestial steed is gonna plummet.

 

[porthos]

Thank you all for putting some brain power behind my conundrum. Doesn't sound like there's a hard and fast answer, but Bagpuss's catch of the Animal type saying "Proficient with no armor unless trained for war" is, I feel, the closest. Since it is a WARhorse, I'm going to assume it has been trained for war and is proficient in armor of all kinds.

Thanks again. The EN World boards rule!

 

[amethal]

Thank you all for putting some brain power behind my conundrum. Doesn't sound like there's a hard and fast answer, but Bagpuss's catch of the Animal type saying "Proficient with no armor unless trained for war" is, I feel, the closest. Since it is a WARhorse, I'm going to assume it has been trained for war and is proficient in armor of all kinds.

Thanks again. The EN World boards rule!

As you may have noticed, its a rules anomoly.

Looks to me like warhorses get a bunch of bonus feats by implication. Maybe my pony should get leadership as a bonus feat to compensate?

 

[James McMurray]

Most likely your pony already has epic leadership. Count the fleas on it and see.

 

[Gerion of Mercadia]

Take note of the endurance feat - which allows a creature to wear armor without becoming fatigued. IMC, if the creature has endurance, it can wear armor without a problem, wether trained or not. Kinda important for elephants.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

As you may have noticed, its a rules anomoly.

Looks to me like warhorses get a bunch of bonus feats by implication. Maybe my pony should get leadership as a bonus feat to compensate?

Well, first you would have to find a 6 HD pony... Then, since a warhorse doubles in cost due to the expense of someone with good Handle Animal training it into the euqivelent of a fairly benign and physical feat, you would need someone with and Epic Handle Animal and pay them for training your pony into a high level and complicated feat.... I'd say for 100,000 gp and a quest to find a really bored epic ranger you could have a pony thus compensated.

A 6 HD cat with Leadership... For all the good it does him.

 

[RedFox]

Barding doesn't require a feat or a proficiency for animals to use, as far as I can tell.

And if a DM was sticking your magical angel warhorse with attack penalties because you put barding on it, I'd suggest spritzing her with a water bottle and saying, "NO!" in a firm, loud voice.

 

[MarkB]

Barding doesn't require a feat or a proficiency for animals to use, as far as I can tell.

Barding is armour, it's as simple as that. And whilst you don't need to be proficient with armour in order to use it, if you're not proficient with it you'll take the armour check penalty to additional skill checks and to your attack rolls.

 

[RedFox]

Barding is armour, it's as simple as that. And whilst you don't need to be proficient with armour in order to use it, if you're not proficient with it you'll take the armour check penalty to additional skill checks and to your attack rolls.

See the rest of my post, above.

 

[nittanytbone]

Worst case, just give it leather barding, masterwork studded leather, or mithril chain barding. Or mithril breastplate barding, and it accepts a small penalty on attack rolls.