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View Full Version : Paladin Cohort Mounts - How do they work?



Stephen_E
2007-03-28, 10:42 AM
I was looking at the DMG pg200, Re: Paladin Cohorts Mounts, where they talk about a Paladin combining a Cohort from the Leadership feat with a Special Mount. The problem is that they're very vague how this works.

Has anyone else actually used this feature, or come across a expanded description of how it works.

It says that the Special Mount advantages are considered a +2 LA over the normal LA for the Cohort.

The difficulty is that a Special Mount gets a range of boosts, and which ones translate over to the Cohort -
- Bonus HD
- increased NAC
- Bonus Str
- Increased min Int
- and a whole range of "Special"

Thanks
Stephen

silentknight
2007-03-28, 12:29 PM
Well, the way I understand it is that any creature that you could use as a mount and has a ECL that would make it equivalent to a cohort of similar level is okay to have a cohort/mount. You apply all the special mount boosts and special qualities just as if they were not also a cohort.

For example, if the Leadership feat let you have an 8th level cohort you could have a special mount with an ECL of 6 and then add LA +2 for being a special mount.

I hope I got that right. Does that help?

Clementx
2007-03-28, 12:33 PM
You said it correctly in the OP. It increases the ECL by two, which means you can't have as powerful a cohort as your mount. If you pick a weaker one, you get LA+2 benefits from making it your mount that make it as effective as the best non-mount cohort you could manage. I don't see your confusion here...

Closet_Skeleton
2007-03-28, 01:54 PM
I had no idea you could do this...

Does this give you an Extra mount or merely a mount that isn't a horse?

silentknight
2007-03-28, 05:25 PM
There is no limit to the number of mounts you can have (other than cost) but you can have only one Special Mount and one Cohort. And as stated above, they can be the same creature.

Yes, a Special Mount can be other than a horse. Popular ones are gryphons, hippogryphs, giant eagles, and youngish dragons.

Stephen_E
2007-03-29, 02:11 AM
OK. A simple example -
A 12th lev Paladin.
His Special Mount/Cohort is a Pegasus
The Pegasus has a normal Cohort LA of +2. As a Special Mount that's increased to +4. Therefore at 12th level the Pegasus could have a total of 2 additional levels from XP - 4HD base +4 LA +2 XP (which can be class levels) for total 10 ECL (maximum for a Cohort to a 12th lev character).

A Pegasus as a Special Mount for a 12th lev Paladin receives the following -
+4 Bonus HD
+6 NAC
+2 Str
7 Int minimum
Empathic Link, Improved Evasion, Share Spells, Share Saving Throws, Improved Speed.

So would the Cohort/Special Mount have
10HD - 4HD Base, +2 HD from XP (Which can be class levels), +4 Bonus HD
+6 NAC
+2 Str
+ all the listed special abilities.

Thanks
Stephen

silentknight
2007-03-29, 12:28 PM
Based on what you have shown here, yes. I don't have my books to double check your calculations, but it looks good.