What I Learnt From Last Night's Session

[Sejs]

We have had the same experience at our gaming table as many others have had: horses do not last.


Moreover, horses named after Prince songs are particularly doomed.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Yes, that would be good. Horses are scary tough at low levels, but by level 5 they are a joke. Great cleave fodder for a fighter.

If TSR were still in business, we probably would have seen the NPC class "Mount" for horses by now.

 

[Wik]

Y'know, we don't really see this in our games. Mostly, the PCs are on foot (much as I hate it), but even during mounted combat, all attacks are directed towards the rider. Most characters don't wanna take out someone's mount.

I think it's fine that horses suck, though: D&D Is all about the hero. The only way you're gonna have a cool mount is if you pay for it. A big problem about it all, though, is that the paladin's mount usually doesn't mean much, simply because he doesn't have any opportunity to use it: the rest of the group (rightly) assumes that riding a mount is suicide, so they try to stick to the ground, which lessens the advantage of a paladin's mount.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Would it be too broken if Mounted Combat also worked for saving throws? You could even say that reaching a certain DC -- say, 8 or 10 above what's needed -- gave an Evasion effect.

I think if you did this, you'd see more non-lance-wielding, non-paladin, non-cavalier characters taking Mounted Combat. I know many of my characters would.

I disagree that it's okay that D&D horses die easily ... there's a lot of coolness factor in a character maintaining the same mount for extended periods of time. I don't particularly think mounts should be big on offense, but I have no problem with them having a pretty good defense, if PCs want to invest a feat in it.

 

[Agamon]

This is gonna sound really funny. But in my chief group, we always used badgers. And when our mage got a Serpent's Staff (or whatever it is), we started singing the Badger, Badger, Badger song.

LOL. My group was singing that song while fighting a Druid and his dire badger AC last weekend.

 

[Deadguy]

It's worth pointing out that characters who want their mounts to have a better chance of survival should consider spending some of their money buying magical protections for it. And DMs who want PCs to make much use of mounts need to make such items available. Likewise create feats that have Companion-like effects.

Then to have a mount or not becomes a character (and thus player) choice.

 

[jmucchiello]

Horses die really easily!

Since the early days of 1e, yeah. Horses aren't worth it. I think I am the only person to name a horse in our group in ages. I played a swashbuckler/fighter with a few mounted feats. I'm the only player to put skill points into Ride (same campaign). The campaign featured far more outdoors encounters than we usually do and so I felt the swashbuckler needed some fields mobility. That horse lasted until 10th level when I had to retire him for an off-plane adventure and we haven't returned to the plane very often since.

 

[Nyeshet]

The 'normal' levels of most NPCs rarely reaches as high as fifth level. Personally, I tend to limit NPCs to beneath tenth level, and only the exceptional ones reach above fifth.

If you are lower than fifth level, a war horse is a significant, potent, lasting mount.

Once you get to levels 5+, it is a good idea to start looking for other types of mounts. Hippogriffs, Griffons, Unicorns, Nightmares, Manticores, and Gorgons all come to mind . . . . And this is not even taking into account more exotic mounts at (even) higher levels, such as dragons and dinosaurs - or even just adding a template or two to a more "normal" mount. Or just using a Construct in the shape of a 'normal' mount - such as a stone golem horse, perhaps?

Isn't there a type of dragon / horse creature in MM I ? What about the Dragonne? At 9HD it is more a mount for levels 12-16, perhaps, but it offers an idea of what might be more 'typical' at higher levels. What about Lamassu and Sphinxes?

Really, if you keep increasing in level, you would seek to have a mount that could both last through combat and offer new and useful options during combat. If you are epic enough, even a tarrasque could become a worthy- of- consideration mount.

 

[The_Gneech]

Generally in my games, horses are what you use to -get to- the combat -- at which point you hop off and do your fighting.

Or fall off and the horses run away ... nobody wants to spend the money on a trained warhorse!

-The Gneech

 

[molonel]

Mounts never get a break. I played in a 30th level one-shot epic game at a con. This guy came in with this intricate backstory explaining that his gold dragon mount (young?) was his brother (he had the half-dragon template).

I told him, "You probably don't want to do that."

"Do what?"

"Have a mount. At least, not a young gold dragon. First combat, he's toast. You might want to have another means of movement as a backup."

He scoffed.

Then, his mount got dusted on the 1st initiative count of the first round of the first combat, and since it was underwater, he was left floating slowly downward into the deep.