D&D 5E Why does mounted combat feel underwhelming in 5e?

[Fauchard1520]

When it comes to the cavaliers, mounted paladins, and equestrian fighters of 3.X, it’s all about that sweet, sweet charge. Anyone that’s ever done the simple math of lance + spirited charge = Eomer face knows just how amazing it can feel. The business end of a lance is the tactical nuke of the battlefield, resulting in chunky salsa whenever it strikes home.

5e, on the other hand, seems to reduce "mounted combatant" to "battle taxi." I suspect I'm missing something.

So here's my question: What is the most interesting thing you can do with mounted combat in the current edition of the world's most popular roleplaying game? I suspect that I'm missing some kind of secret strat that makes it better than "move a little extra."

(Comic for illustrative purposes.)

 

[ECMO3]

Mounted combat in 5E can be OP if you do it right and your mount doesn't die. The ability to have the mount dash and or disengage every turn gives you unmatched mobility and that is extremely powerful if you play tactically to take advantage of it.

Additionally RAW you can play a lot of games with dismounting and mounting which moves the mounts initiative from yours to its own and gives them multiple turns in a round. Some would say this is cheesy, but it is no more cheesy than an OP charge ability IMO.

If you just close with everything and swing a stick at it and then stand there next to it then having a mount is much less impressive.

 

[RangerWickett]

Historically, the first advantage of cavalry simply was the ability to choose whether to engage infantry, and to go around foot soldiers. They would seldom be forced into a fight they did not expect to win. This is not something that really comes up during tactical combat on a 5-ft. grid.

Add the invention of stirrups and compound bows, and now you can kill your opponents from range and then withdraw before their arrows can hit you back. Again, most D&D battle maps are too small for these tactics. I did, however, run a mounted archer ranger back in 3.5 in Red Hand of Doom, to great effect - though a lot of that was not due to me being able to attack from range, but simply because 3.5 was ridiculous, and the rules let my horse kick/kick/bite, then 5-ft. step back out of melee so I could go arrow/arrow/rapidshotarrow, and I could still make opportunity attacks with my spiked gauntlet.

(Yes, the famed ability of a mounted warrior with a pointy glove to wallop anyone who might pass by them!)

The mounted lancer ought to be threatening, and in 5e you might actually have enough movement to ride in, stab from reach, then ride away without provoking an opportunity attack. And in a world of 'realistic' people who are no higher than 3rd level, a single hit from a lance would often be fatal. The design of 5e causes higher level combat to be a death by a half-dozen cuts instead of rocket tag. Which is more balanced for gameplay purposes, and which offers more counterplay, but which removes the occasional fun of pwning a mofo.

I think it is important for GMs to include a variety of foes, including low-level ones, even at high level, so the players can still experience the joy of wiping out mooks. Ten CR 1/4 warriors can pose a threat even at 10th level, thanks to bounded accuracy.

Or we could give high level fighters abilities that are flavored as "your attack deals +20 damage because it's actually your posse of 20 guys swarming whoever you attacked." Then you just have the fields of Agincourt every session.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm not really sure you're missing anything. 5e is intentionally reductive on a number of levels. Mounted combat has almost always been one of the thornier problems for editions of D&D to solve (since mounts are usually not a great fit for many places that D&D adventurers go.) Combine the two together, and you get a perfect recipe for perfunctory rules, support in name only.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Nope, don't think you're missing anything.

DnD combat, especially 5e, is very very boring.

 

[JoeyD473]

Nope, don't think you're missing anything.

DnD combat, especially 5e, is very very boring.

I agree that mounted combat is overall very boring in 5e combat in 5e doesn't have to be boring. It depends on players and DMs. If they use the same tactics over and over again then yes it is boring. But sometimes you have clever players/DMs and combat can be interesting again. This is true of all editions

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Regular mounts in 5e die way too easily to AoE damage effects. A warhorse and barding is just a waste of money, unless you have a class feature that gives you a mount or mountable companion there's no point in riding into combat.

 

[Umbran]

When it comes to the cavaliers, mounted paladins, and equestrian fighters of 3.X, it’s all about that sweet, sweet charge. Anyone that’s ever done the simple math of lance + spirited charge = Eomer face knows just how amazing it can feel. The business end of a lance is the tactical nuke of the battlefield, resulting in chunky salsa whenever it strikes home.

5e, on the other hand, seems to reduce "mounted combatant" to "battle taxi." I suspect I'm missing something.

One thing that is missing is that D&D is built primarily a around small squad-level tactics, but the mounted charge is more of a large battlefield formation tactic. One horse riding at you with a pointy stick isn't so scary. A wall of horses tens of yards wide is another matter entirely.

 

[Aldarc]

Why does mounted combat feel underwhelming in 5e?​

I think that the answer is also in the name of the game: (1) Dungeons and (2) Dragons.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Mounted combat has a lot of problems in D&D. Nearly all of them have to do with the simple fact that horses don't belong in dungeons. They're so limited compared to a humanoid. Mounts don't like narrow passageways. They can't climb ladders. They can't use spiral staircases. God help you if you need to travel the planes. If they fall into a pit trap, they're 1,000 lbs of dead weight stuck at the bottom of a pit. Their high movement rate is often totally irrelevant indoors, too, and you'll be bottlenecked by doorways and rooms. A mounted knight doesn't exactly fit through a doorway. Even outdoors, their tactics don't really provide any benefit at all if the creature can fly or has any kind of special movement. They don't like uneven or steep terrain, either. Paladins have it slightly better with Summon Steed... but it's still difficult to make work and Summon Steed isn't quite the Pokeball it really needs to be like Find Familiar. So you can focus on mounted combat, but there's a significant risk that you're just going to have all this investment into stuff you can't use.

It's a lot better for small characters if they're riding a more agile animal like a dog... but One D&D just made lances heavy. So... guess that's that?

I played a Paladin from 1998 to about 2004. Started in 2e AD&D, converted to 3e D&D, and then to 3.5. Went from level 1 to level 15. I never once called my steed. I just never wanted the obligation of a mount to take care of, and there was no benefit to having a mount. We spend 90% of the game in the underdark, lost across the outer planes, lost in untamed wildernesses, or in various urban settings. Our DM was a big fan of Chronicles of Amber. I remember the first dungeon we went to at level 1, the NPC that hired us gave us pack animals for the journey. The party ended up drawn through a portal in that first dungeon. We never saw those pack animals again because we never returned through the cave entrance.

Mounts are too much of a liability.

 

[Tonguez]

Why does mounted combat feel underwhelming in 5e?​

I think that the answer is also in the name of the game: (1) Dungeons and (2) Dragons.

Dungeons, Dragons and Mounted Combat would be compatible with the fiction though.

Orbril the gnome often rode his Giant Hamster, but his standard combat response was thrown incendiary grenade then run away and hide - not much for mounted combat

 

[humble minion]

Mounted combat has a lot of problems in D&D. Nearly all of them have to do with the simple fact that horses don't belong in dungeons. They're so limited compared to a humanoid. Mounts don't like narrow passageways. They can't climb ladders. They can't use spiral staircases. God help you if you need to travel the planes. If they fall into a pit trap, they're 1,000 lbs of dead weight stuck at the bottom of a pit. Their high movement rate is often totally irrelevant indoors, too, and you'll be bottlenecked by doorways and rooms. A mounted knight doesn't exactly fit through a doorway. Even outdoors, their tactics don't really provide any benefit at all if the creature can fly or has any kind of special movement. They don't like uneven or steep terrain, either. Paladins have it slightly better with Summon Steed... but it's still difficult to make work and Summon Steed isn't quite the Pokeball it really needs to be like Find Familiar. So you can focus on mounted combat, but there's a significant risk that you're just going to have all this investment into stuff you can't use.

It's a lot better for small characters if they're riding a more agile animal like a dog... but One D&D just made lances heavy. So... guess that's that?

I played a Paladin from 1998 to about 2004. Started in 2e AD&D, converted to 3e D&D, and then to 3.5. Went from level 1 to level 15. I never once called my steed. I just never wanted the obligation of a mount to take care of, and there was no benefit to having a mount. We spend 90% of the game in the underdark, lost across the outer planes, lost in untamed wildernesses, or in various urban settings. Our DM was a big fan of Chronicles of Amber. I remember the first dungeon we went to at level 1, the NPC that hired us gave us pack animals for the journey. The party ended up drawn through a portal in that first dungeon. We never saw those pack animals again because we never returned through the cave entrance.

Mounts are too much of a liability.

Depends on your playstyle and the nature of your campaign a bit. I'm playing a paladin in Storm King's Thunder at the moment, and there's a lot of outdoor encounters in that campaign - probably more than indoor (although a lot of them have been onboard ship, where horses are less than useful...). But of course if I'd been playing Dungeon of the Mad Mage this would very much not be true.

Even so, the steed hasn't seen a lot of use. It's been great as a transport option when we need to travel long distances in a hurry (with a Potion of Growth, it can even carry the whole party), but as a combat option - no. I'm just on the cusp of level 12 now, and my steed still has only 19 hit points. I can't remember the last time anything i was fighting did that little damage. If the steed gets hit at all, it's going to die (and it's still a level and a bit before I can use Find Greater Steed). That lack of survivability is just a showstopper when it comes to going into combat mounted. You have to spend a feat on Mounted Combat to make it even slightly functional, and even then, it's not going to extend your steed's lifespan very much. And spending a feat on something so situational is hard to justify.

Which is a shame. I'd love to play a game centred around a band of horse nomad PCs or something, for example, but the rules just don't support it. I'm sure there's 3pp products that fill the gap of course.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

As others have mentioned, battlefield mobility is a huge deal. One of the biggest dangers of being a ranged combatant and/or a squishy caster is when an enemy gets into melee with you. A disengage + single move often only keeps you out of melee until the enemy's next turn (assuming both combatants have a similar 30' movement), unless you've got a bunch of other allies to tie them up. While mounted, you get the benefit of significantly greater movement and the ability to move, disengage, and still use your own action to attack, which really enables skirmishing.

 

[CubicsRube]

I always thought an attack from a charging horse should do more damage.

Something like "if you move in a straight line at least 15 feet towards an unmounted creature, your first melee attack against that creature gains +10 damage".

This makes mounted combatants more scary on an open field both for the party and enemies, and makes tactics like postitioning in trees or around rocks etc potentially more important.

I also think horses should have more hp and more damage on a melee attack, but that's a different issue.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

Many years ago I conversed with a horse cop in NYC. He said that horses were great for crowd control because they terrified city folk. Hardened criminals who would come at an on-foot officer would shy away from an 800kg iron-shoe-wearing animal. And even if they didn't, all the horse had to do was lean. Person v horse pushing contest, horse wins.

I wonder if this could be modelled ingame with some sort of morale effect?

The only time Peter the Peasant levy soldier had encountered a horse it was when a grumpy farm horse kicked his cousin Cara in the head, and she's never been right since. So, when a mercenary on horseback with a big curved sword shows up and the squad leader yells "Get 'im!", Peter has second thoughts.

 

[Willie the Duck]

I think people have laid out many of the major issues. Two other present themselves:

• Mobility in general) In D&D (and any other game where one person moves and acts, then mostly freezes in place while everyone else moves and acts), it is very much dependent upon the rest of the game rules as to whether mobility is highly valuable. If you have to end your move when you attack, then it may not really help much -- maybe letting you attack first, but if people don't drop after being subjected to one round of attacks (and counter-attack with full force), it might not be all that much benefit. If you get multiple attacks, but not so if you charge past someone taking one big swing, you also might be dragging out the combat to a great degree (and if 40-60% of opponents have some kind of ranged attack, charging from outside retribution range to the same distance in the other direction is probably not going to happen).
• For historical reasons (Chainmail), after a certain point horses are rather flimsy compared to most PCs and the things they face. That's a specific decision D&D made that did not have to be the case. Chainmail also had a lance charge be one of the only real reliable ways that you could actually land a hit on someone wearing plate. D&D, even the ones where lance charges do double damage, have never made mounted combat that strong*, and offered all sort of other methods of making your attacks better able to hit heavily-armored opponents (everything else developed afterwards which add +s to hit). *excepting mounted archery, which is great when you can do it.

 

[Fauchard1520]

Best use I've seen in ANY edition was a riding gecko gnome cavalier in Pathfinder. The ability to go up dungeon walls kept the mount relevant and interesting for a long, long time.

 

[ECMO3]

You know what is pretty awesome is a mounted Rogue.

That gives you sneak attack with almost all melee attacks all the time since you always have an ally next to the enemy. The mount can also use disengage as its action allowing you to use a bonus action for something else like Two Weapon Fighting, Mage Hand Legerdemain or Fast Hands.

 

[kigmatzomat]

The game has a perfectly useful Mounted Combat feat in the PHB. It addresses most mount HP issue by forcing attacks to hit the rider (including spells with attack rolls), it essentially gives the mount Evasion (meaning a warhorse can survive a typical fireball), and the rider gets advantage attacking creatures smaller than the mount so it isnt just a "mount survival" feat..

Add a saddle of Cavalier for when you are low on hp and need to let the mount take some shots but at disadvantage (means no sneak attacks)

It's just that people don't want to spend the ASI.