Running Mounted Combat - Tactics?

[wedgeski]

Good stuff. Thanks very much all! Game starts in 2 hours - keep 'em coming!

 

[frankthedm]

Direwolves, dire boars and rhinoes make unpleasant mounts to deal with.

 

[Quartz]

Charge!

The NPCs and their mounts are invisible. There's an illusion of them well spread out to one side. The PCs attack the illusion, then get hit by the charge. Overruns, Power Attacks with lance... nasty.

Or if it's a small group, have the attackers Invisible and Silenced. Do any of your PCs have tremorsense?

If the PCs are reasonably close together, how about having two horsemen with a net between the two? Bundled up PCs are dead PCs.

 

[Question]

What happens if the PCs target the horse? It doesnt have too much hps to begin with.

Also how the hell do you use the horse as cover?

 

[shilsen]

What happens if the PCs target the horse? It doesnt have too much hps to begin with.

True. Which is why mounted druids are so much fun

Also how the hell do you use the horse as cover?

By dropping sideways and hanging alongside the mount. Take a look at the Ride skill. The option is described there.

 

[Question]

Im trying to imagine a knight in full plate armor doing that.........

 

[shilsen]

Im trying to imagine a knight in full plate armor doing that.........

I find that if I can imagine an archer firing four arrows in six seconds or a halfling damaging a colossal dragon with a dagger, then the image of a platemail-wearing rider doing that isn't too difficult. YMMV.

 

[kjenks]

How'd it go, wedgeski?

Another tactic for you: the mounted dudes should avoid charging a character who has a readiedi action (because the readied action could be "take a 5 ft. step and kill that horse" or "move out of the charge path"). Instead, the mounted dudes should concentrate on one character who has attacked, used an item or cast a spell that round.

 

[wedgeski]

How'd it go, wedgeski?

It went okay! The minotaur did exactly what I thought he would, which was charge the officer's horse, grapple it, then pin it, before attacking the rider himself, who had just had his magical longsword greased out of his hands by the sorcerer! Fair to say that guy didn't last long (great fun though).

Elsewhere, the two PC gnomes really felt the pain from overrun attacks, bit I was struggling to capitalise on it because the party was hasted and had almost as good movement rates as the horses. This coupled with the fact that they were less effective than the officer (no Ride-By Attack) meant that they weren't really a telling presence on the field. The most pain probably came from the mounted archers, who had little trouble staying out of range of the fray and peppering the PC's with multiple hits.

So, in the end, circumstances meant the fight wasn't as long or 'novel' as I'd hoped, but everyone agreed it was great fun and I did see a different kind of thinking on the battlefield. Next time I'll give the riders a little more expertise and a few different weapons and we'll see how it goes.

Thanks to everyone who replied!

 

[kjenks]

Next time, Haste the horses. And don't forget that you can't overrun on a charge (PH errata).