Horse breeds in D&D

[101jir]

In D&D, there are riding horses and warhorses to the best of my knowledge. What if you want more options? Lets say that a standard riding horse is a quarter horse. A standard warhorse would probably be a shirehorse. There should probably be fantasy breeds too. Some ideas for different types of breeds that we should stat out are
Arabians
Thoroughbreds
Orc Warhorses
Lipzanners
Clydesdales
More?

[Yora]

Shire horses are not for riding. Those breeds are draft animals specifically bred to be passive and calm. While its nice to have a horse that does what its told, I don't think they are very comfortable with lots of action going on. Not much experience with warhorses, but I don't think they would make very good ones.

[hamishspence]

Champions of Valor had a big list of faerun horse breeds.

[urkthegurk]

Shire Horses are very useful in battle, BECAUSE they stay calm. They're used for baggage, or for carrying big kettle drums. But they could maybe also carry those knights riding around in full armor, a feat you don't see many horses carrying out. Bear in mind, this is before centuries of breeding made ALL the big horses placid. Who knows what their personalities were like.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhorse

For simplicities sake, I'd break it down like so:

Draft Horse (Examples: Clydesdale, Shire)
Destrier (Morgan, Warmblood,
Wild Horse (Mustang, Brumbie) -- I like the idea of wild horses having different temperments and stats than their domesticated counterparts.
Light Warhorse (Arabian? Mongolian) -- For horse archers, for example.
Pony

And I like the Orc Warhorse idea, although I think most orcs just eat horses.

[grimbold]

would these horses be radically different in strengths or would they all stay to the same basic formula as found in the MM?

[101jir]

Shire Horses are very useful in battle, BECAUSE they stay calm. They're used for baggage, or for carrying big kettle drums. But they could maybe also carry those knights riding around in full armor, a feat you don't see many horses carrying out. Bear in mind, this is before centuries of breeding made ALL the big horses placid. Who knows what their personalities were like.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhorse

For simplicities sake, I'd break it down like so:

Draft Horse (Examples: Clydesdale, Shire)
Destrier (Morgan, Warmblood,
Wild Horse (Mustang, Brumbie) -- I like the idea of wild horses having different temperments and stats than their domesticated counterparts.
Light Warhorse (Arabian? Mongolian) -- For horse archers, for example.
Pony

And I like the Orc Warhorse idea, although I think most orcs just eat horses.

I like that idea of breaking it down to simpler matters, although I think stats for ponies already exist. There would probably have to be a few exceptions, though. Thoroughbreds would have to have significantly higher Con and speed. It might be nice to have some basic classes, like you mentioned though. Just deal with exceptions later.


would these horses be radically different in strengths or would they all stay to the same basic formula as found in the MM?

It would depend. A Shirehore, for example, would be much stronger than an Applousa. A quarterhorse and a mustang would probably havbe the same score though.

[101jir]

So does anyone have any stat ideas yet?

EDIT: And this goes way beyond just faerun horses.

[Icedaemon]

The preferred approach tends to be having several clearly different species of riding- and pack animal. Why not go with that?

[101jir]

The preferred approach tends to be having several clearly different species of riding- and pack animal. Why not go with that?

What do you mean by that? As far as catagorizing, sure, we could go with the catagories mentioned above. Some of those catagories are not in any of the core rule books to the best of my knowledge.What I mean is just mroe specific than what is currently available by CRB.

[onthetown]

Definitely Arabian (Zakharan? :smalltongue: ) for Light Warhorse, since that's what they were used for back in the day. Quickly run in and run out with their riders, great for fast strikes; they're also great scout horses, since (if my own Arab is any indication) they can just keep going and going and going...

And hey... Shire and other draft horses can be ridden... they're awesome for riding, if a little unnerving to be up that high. :smallamused: Imagine leading your army on a gigantic beast that has you sitting six feet off the ground. I would be intimidated.

Something to note is that, in the campaign I'm currently playing in, we treat war ponies to be the equivalent of Norwegian Fjords.