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Scorponok
2010-12-30, 01:35 AM
Hi, I am DMing a 3.5 campaign, and decided to introduce riding horses into the game.

I have looked through the section on riding skills as seen on d20srd. (Ride :: d20srd.org (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/ride.htm)) There were some things I liked about it, and some I didn't. In short, I thought there wasn't a whole lot of stuff written about horses.

Now, I talked to my players about it, and they pretty much agreed that giving them riding horses would be a bit overpowering, and one said he just never saw a need for them in the campaigns he's been in, but that doesn't mean that eventually, they may be fighting soldiers who are on horseback.

So I am coming up with my own homebrew stuff to add a little bit of fun to my campaign.

First, the horses:

http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/2881/dndhorses.jpg

You can get these at Michaels craft stores in Canada. They are called Horses Toob, and the manufacturer is Safari Ltd. (safariltd.com) They are $12 for 12 horses of varying size, from ponies to medium, to large horses. Perfect! And with a bit of scotch tape for saddles, they fit in with DnD miniatures perfectly! If you want a discount, go to the Michael's website (michaels.com) and look around for their flyer. You can get anywhere from 25% to 50% off at any given time. So I got mine for $6 on Boxing Day. Seriously, no kids ever buy these, and they were the most plentiful type of "Toob" I could find in the store. There were other Toob collections, from knights, to western themed ones, to safari animals to insects. You could probably find various other creatures to inhabit your DnD game.

Second, I wanted to make mounted combat a part of my campaign, and the different types of horses all do something different. Check this picture out:

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/2708/dndhorses2.jpg

If you've ever read up on the biblical story of the apocalypse, these horses will look vaguely familiar. For those not familiar with the story, the Bible says that John the Apostle had a vision about the end times. He saw four horses, each with riders. The first rider was on a white horse, and he came to spread peace - but this was a false peace. Soon after, a red horse appeared, bringing war, so that all nations fought against one another. The third horse was as black as midnight, and brought with him famine and pestilence, and the fourth was an ashen horse, bringing with him death.

The horses in the above picture are called: white horse, hell horse or hellion horse, nightmare, and grey warhorse.

The White Horse is a horse that when ridden, will give the rider 5 tempHP. This can be increased when the horse levels up along with the rider. Also, once per day, it can cast a single cure light wounds, mass or a dispel magic, mass (homebrewed spell).
I am not sure if I will implement this yet, but maybe, eventually the white horse will sprout wings and become a Pegasus.

The Hell Horse is a blood red horse that seems to always smell of burnt wood or charcoal. And this is because it can literally set itself on fire, dealing 2 fire damage to anything that close enough and attacks it with a melee attack. It can also breathe fire out if its nostrils. A trained Hell Horse will be trained to not burn her rider, but an untrained or young one will sometimes singe the rider accidentally. Once per day, this horse can create a ring of fire around her 15 ft. in diameter. This ring originates from the horse and spreads outwards, damaging enemies nearby. The ring of fire then continues to burn on the ground, damaging any creature that moves through it to attack the rider or the horse.

*note* althought the Horses Tube comes with one orangish-brown horse, I didn't think this was red enough, so I used some red games workshop paint to paint it blood red!

The Nightmare is favored by many, because it is not spooked by the undead. Other horses will go crazy and flee at the sight of undead creatures, but the Nightmare does no such thing. This is an advantage and a disadvantage, because other horses might warn the rider of an imminent attack by an unseen force, yet they would flee at the sight of an undead creature. A Nightmare has no such fear, and does not warn her rider, seeing an undead creature as any other creature. When a person rides a Nightmare, they get an extra +1 on attack rolls and damage rolls vs. undead creatures, vampires, lyancrotopes(?), and clerics. *Clerics, because vampires and villains like riding a big black scary horse. ;)
Once per day, a Nightmare can summon 4 skeleton warriors to fight by its side.

The Grey Warhorse is favored by soldiers for its higher HP, and riding this horse gives the rider a +1 attack roll bonus as well as a +1 damage roll bonus. Unlike a Nightmare, where this bonus only applies to certain types of creatures, this bonus applies to all opponents. Once per day, you can command the Grey Warhorse to fight alongside you, even if you have dismounted from it. When Grey Warhorses attack, they also get a +1 to attack and damage.

Anyways, to avoid making too long of a post, I'll stop this one here for now.

Scorponok
2010-12-30, 01:36 AM
Finally, the last of the horses, and this is where I am going to ask for suggestions...

http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/295/dndhorses3.jpg

The girl is riding on a Golden Horse. I was thinking of having this horse be a horse that likes shiny objects and is a "treasure hunter" type horse. Having this horse around will give you more loot, that will go directly to the rider, or whenever a monster or enemy is killed, the rider of this horse gets a 1d20 bonus in silver pieces. One of the players in my group suggested a bonus to AC because this horse is more agile, but has less HP.
I would like to have this horse favored by rogues and thieves, so I was wondering, what sorts of abilities do rouges lack that can be made up by riding this horse or having this horse in their party?

The Chestnut Horse the other guy is riding is the least favorite in my campaign. They are the fastest horses out of all of them by far, but aside from couriers, they do not function well as horses you would want to take into battle. They have lower HP than most other horses due to their more slender bodies built for speed, but when a player is knocked off his horse, typical horses move 4 squares away. The player can then use one move action to move towards the horse, then another action to mount the horse again. The Chestnut Horse, however, because of its speed, moves 8 squares away when a rider is knocked off the horse. This means that a human would need to use both actions to move towards the horse, then another action the next round to re-mount the horse.

The last horse, you can only get from those Buck or Two stores found in Canada. They are 25 cents each and make good objects to add atmosphere to the game. They are kind of cheaply made, not being as high of quality as the Horse Toob ones.

I decided to call these brown horses Choclairs, (after the now defunct chocolate bar which was one of my favorites. Choclairs (http://www.bewarethecheese.com/choclairs.htm))

I have no idea what the abilities or special features of this horse would be, so I'm gonna throw it out there for any suggestions.

And as a nod to the game of Chess, which I love, I want it to be so if these horses attack in the Knight pattern found in Chess, they can knock a player prone into the next square and then trample him.

Anyways, hope I am not breaking the game too bad with these horses. D:

Debihuman
2010-12-30, 11:04 AM
Basically you want a Magical Beast that looks like a horse. Horses don't have any Special abilities generally other than what a normal animal has. The way you've described these creatures, they are far more powerful than your standard riding horse and come with special qualities.

The golden horse can locate gold 3 times a day as the locate object spell. This would be a spell-like ability.

The chestnut horse would have a speed of 70 ft rather than the standard 60 ft or it can be hasted 3 times a day as the haste spell (your choice).

Here's the info on Trample:


As a full-round action, a creature with this special attack can move up to twice its speed and literally run over any opponents at least one size category smaller than itself. The creature merely has to move over the opponents in its path; any creature whose space is completely covered by the trampling creature’s space is subject to the trample attack. If a target’s space is larger than 5 feet, it is only considered trampled if the trampling creature moves over all the squares it occupies. If the trampling creature moves over only some of a target’s space, the target can make an attack of opportunity against the trampling creature at a -4 penalty. A trampling creature that accidentally ends its movement in an illegal space returns to the last legal position it occupied, or the closest legal position, if there’s a legal position that’s closer.

A trample attack deals bludgeoning damage (the creature’s slam damage + 1½ times its Str modifier). The creature’s descriptive text gives the exact amount.

Trampled opponents can attempt attacks of opportunity, but these take a -4 penalty. If they do not make attacks of opportunity, trampled opponents can attempt Reflex saves to take half damage.

The save DC against a creature’s trample attack is 10 + ½ creature’s HD + creature’s Str modifier (the exact DC is given in the creature’s descriptive text). A trampling creature can only deal trampling damage to each target once per round, no matter how many times its movement takes it over a target creature.