Help pricing a few unique mounts

[PotatoNinja]

Edited my horrible spelling and grammar once i got to a computer :D

I'm running a campaign, and my group of players is headed into a troll/orc/kobold/homebrew bird like people held confederation. They are trying to retrieve a rather large engine/power source for a steampunk airship. These ships are very rare, and only a few others exists.

It's being held in a major holy site that is guarded by all members of the confederation, the confederation does not know of its importance as an engine, the party can either storm the sight, or try diplomacy.

The areas native wildlife is dinosaurs and the orcs and trolls both use various dinosaurs as mounts from time to time. I have already included half dragon raptors for a few elite orcs to use as mounts and advanced a few of them to large size (dienycheus? Sorry, they're the base 3 hit die ones from MM1).

They work out to being able to fly 70 mph if I did the math right, and I know the parties prolly gonna want a few. How much should I charge for medium sized half dragon raptor(3 hd) and how much for 9 hit die ones? (Least hit die for large sizes if I read their entry right) given their insane speed and overland capabilities?

Also, I’m aware that medium raptor don't get winds from half dragon, but the group might want non winged ones for novelties sake.

[AzazelSephiroth]

Well I do not have my books near me so my memory may be off- but i think that Hippogriffs were like 3000g for an egg and 6000g for a trained young one... If these creatures are a bit more common you could change those numbers to about 1000g for egg and 3000g for trained... maybe. I am one for allowing cool ideas and creatures into my games with little worry over cost usually so if this seems too cheap then feel free to up the gp cost.

Of course you could also run that they are very common and only be a few hundred gp. It really depends on whether these creatures will be a big issue in combat or change game mechanics... frankly in my games the mounts are just awesome cars for the chars to travel in and only rarely does the need for combat stats pop up... but it does happen and half-dragon dinosaurs are going to kick a lot of butt in combat!:smallbiggrin:

[Chilingsworth]

Are the mounts in question trained for war? If not, it'll be harder to use them in combat. Wait, half the half-dragon template gives them enough int for them to be sentient, doesn't it? So, is that even an issue with these things?

[ericgrau]

If you're going to spend that much time raising them I imagine war training would be included standard.

Hippogriffs are CR 2, 25 HP, 100 ft. fly and about 4,000 gp in the end.
Pegasuses (Pegasi?) are CR 3/ECL 6, 34 HP, 120 ft. fly and about 4,000 gp in the end.
Unicorns are CR 3 / ECL 8, 42 HP, don't fly and have no listed price
Griffons are CR 4/ECL 10, 59 HP, 80 ft. fly and about 8,500 gp in the end.
A nightmare is CR 5/ECL 10, 45 HP, 90 ft. fly (good) and have no listed price

Dinosaurs have much higher CR. I'd price it as roughly CR squared, so something flying with CR 8 and 120 HP might be 34,000 gp. Half-dragon adds 2 CR.

[Tibbaerrohwen]

Are the mounts in question trained for war? If not, it'll be harder to use them in combat. Wait, half the half-dragon template gives them enough int for them to be sentient, doesn't it? So, is that even an issue with these things?

Sentient mounts can be an issue.

Isn't there a template in MMII for war-trained creatures? It comes with prices for creatures as well, I believe.

[Coidzor]

Sentient mounts can be an issue.

Isn't there a template in MMII for war-trained creatures? It comes with prices for creatures as well, I believe.

Warbeast, yeah. X per HD above either 3 or 5 HD and Y per HD below that.