Cohort Mount?

[Gem_Knight]

Working on a character for a game, the character is straight knight 6, and just picked up Leadership with the intent of using her cohort as a mount. The annoying thing is I'm having a hell of a time finding something intelligent at ECL4 that's large or better. Even all the Large animals are at least 3HD which means slapping Half-Celestial on an animal is right out (unless I'm missing a 2HD Large animal somewhere?) Griphon is too high (+3 LA alone and like 8HD as I recall)... and 4ECL isn't a lot of room to template stack onto something more amusing. Even Centaurs are +4LA on top of 4HD (or something close to that that's way out of the 4ECL range)

[Red Fel]

Was your goal to have a cohort that's also a mount, or to have a special mount? Because if it was the latter, there are feats for that.

For example, you could take the Dragon Steed feat, which requires Ride 8, Cha 13, and speak language (Draconic), and gives you a Dragonnel mount.

If you were a Paladin, you could take the Celestial Mount feat or the Drakkensteed Mount ACF, or if you went Paladin/Ranger you could take Devoted Tracker and your mount would be obscene. You could also take the Winter's Mount feat, but that technically requires the Special Mount feature (which Knights, sadly, do not have).

It's a shame, but unfortunately Knights, despite being built for mounted combat, don't seem to receive special mounts, which would really help them. That said, if you took one level of Cleric followed by two levels of Prestige Paladin, you could get the Paladin Special Mount, and then trick it out anyway you'd like.

As for using a Cohort... That's tough. Assuming you have a Cha modifier of at least +1 (which you should, as a Knight), you're looking at a Leadership Score of 7+, which means a Cohort of level 5+. Additionally, Leadership ordinarily limits you to a Cohort two levels below your level, unless you take Improved Cohort, so basically your Cohort is going to be capped at level 4. Looking over my lists, I can't find anything Large with a level that small. For example, a Pegasus has 5-8 HD with +2 Cohort LA, so the lowest you could have a Pegasus Cohort/Mount is level 9 (level 8 with Improved Cohort). Same with a Giant Eagle or Owl. Without a Special Mount, it just won't happen at lower levels.

[Gem_Knight]

I did specifically say knight, it's for a RHoD campaign, though the intention is to continue the party after the module, so I want to stick pure Knight with her.

Dragon Steed is an option that I had overlooked/missed, that will probably do, I'll have to look at the dragonel stats. Maybe I can consider that then see if the DM is amiable to Retraining that feat when I get high enough to attract a more appropriate Cohort.

[Runeclaw]

Maybe just get a horse or something now and arrange to have it Awakened when your Leadership score permits?

I can't come up with any large animals under 3 HD or a way to make one intelligent for less than +2 ECL. At ECL 5, you'd have a lot more options.

[Runeclaw]

How about a hippogriff? Only 3 HD. Has the issue of LA: -, but so do all the animals. It only has Intelligence of 2, but that's because the standard one is built with all average ability scores. If your DM lets you use an array or point buy, you could give it an Intelligence of 3 or more, qualifying it for class levels. This would be a very reasonable thing for your DM to allow, because a Cohort built on a PC race would certainly not be expected to have all average abilities. Unlike Animals, its Magical Beast type doesn't preclude it from having a higher Intelligence, it just has a -8 racial penalty.

Getting your DM to allow you to treat the CR: - as CR:0, on the other hand, for a flying mount, may be a lot to hope for.

[Angelalex242]

Cohort Mount is my favorite thing to do when I want my Paladins to ride a Gold Dragon.

It's a dragon, so I damn well better treat him/her like my friend.

Then again, it's a dragon, so if we want to fly somewhere...

When I have a Dragon Mount, the 'summon' mount feature of the Paladin Mount goes away. The Dragon does what he/she bloody well pleases, and stays put.

[Gwendol]

Is Wild Cohort out of the question?

[Gem_Knight]

no, Wild Cohort isn't out, I just wanted something intelligent, rather than animal intelligence, didn't even have to fly, could always swap it for a flier later... I think I'll go with Dragon Steed, it's the simplest solution for the moment.

[Crake]

play a petal, get dragon cohort, pick up a faerie dragon, fly around as a faerie on a faerie dragon!

[Gem_Knight]

play a petal, get dragon cohort, pick up a faerie dragon, fly around as a faerie on a faerie dragon!

there's so much fail in this...

RHoD means 5-6th level start depending on DM, petal has LA, Dragon Cohort is a 9th level minimum feat....