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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4693268" data-attributes="member: 4937">Interesting.  That gives me some context I'm better able to relate to.  Quite frequently I find myself thinking, "How would you do a Macedonian phalanx/Roman Legionnaire/Polish Hussar/Scythian Peltast/ect. using the 3e rules set".  I tend to want to run a low level campaign world where being 4th level is pretty significant, and sometimes its not easy to really capture the flavor you want with a limited number of feats.So, for example, if want to capture a Mogul horse warrior.The first thing I would look into is a skill booster like Skill Focus (Ride).Then he'd need Mounted Combat and Mounted Archery.At that point, I'm actually pretty happy.  We have a 1st level human mounted archer that feels reasonably skillful at his job.  With dexterity 13, 4 ranks in ride, a skill focus (+3 by a common house rule), and a nice heirloom saddle (<a href="http://www.asianart.com/mongolia/saddle.html" target="_blank">like this</a>) he's got +10 bonus to ride.  That let's him do any kind of common ride action with virtually no risk of failure, and he's pretty darn good at stunts as well.  Despite being 1st level, he rides probably as well or better than the heroes until they've obtained a fairly high level.  Guiding the mount with his knees is DC 5.  He never fails under ordinary circumstances.Per page 138 of the 3.0 PH, I don't need an extra feat to split move and fire, so I don't have to even go for 'Ride By Attack' or anything of the sort.  Since I don't have facings in 3rd edition, turning around in the saddle to fire behind you is simply a flavor enhancer.And everything else from that point is gravy.  At 2nd level, he'd probably add Skill Apptitude (Ride and Tactics).  'Skill Apptitude' is a homebrew feat that collects all of those '+2 to two different skills' feats together into a single feat (because it is elegant to do so and prevents taking more than one such feat that applies to the same skill).  Tactics is a homebrew skill that represents formal military training (although as of yet, I have no mounted uses for the skill, which makes me think I should).  Together with now 5 ranks in Ride, and 5 ranks in Handle animal, his Ride skill now goes up to +15 at 2nd level.  He's now capable of doing quite heroic feats of skill in the saddle.At 3rd level, he'd probably pick up Endurance.  His ride skill now goes to +16.At 4th level, I'd probably specialize a bit - half would pick up 'Ride by Attack' and specialize at close combat, and the other half would pick up 'Weapon Focus (Shortbow)' and specialized at ranged combat.  Dexterity would go up to 14, and ride skill would improve to +18.  Since 4th level is the highest level ordinary NPC's in my campaign usually obtain, that's as far as I'd probably take it.So the question is, am I completely happy?  At 4th level he has 6 feats - Skill Focus (Ride), Mounted Combat, Mounted Archery, Endurance, Skill Aptitude, and Weapon Focus (Shortbow).  The answer is mostly, but not quite.  First, I'd really want to push that Endurance skill down to 1st level, but I've already filled up my first level slots with essential feats.  Secondly, more subtlely, all the above characters are legal as created, but there is no actual way for a '1st level Mongol' to become a legal '2nd level Mongol' because 'Skill Aptitude' is not a fighter bonus feat and couldn't be picked up at 2nd level.  If I bump 'Skill Aptitude' down to the 1st level human bonus feat, then 1st level Mongul warrior loses 'Mounted Archery' and hense couldn't hit the broad side of a barn until 2nd level.  Lastly, by the book, I've already used up all or most of the character's skill points on ride and handle animal, so he doesn't have many or any skill points for handy things like craft, jump, tactics, or survival.  I could partially address this by going with some other class than fighter, but then I'd loose the bonus feats I need to capture the character's fighting style (and in the case of tactics, only fighters have it as a class skill).So while I don't feel the need for 8 additional feats, like you've suggested, I often feel slightly cramped by just having 2-3.</blockquote>

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