Encouraging players to use mounts

[EldritchWeaver]

In the campaigns I've played so far, mounts were basically ignored. They might have been used as method of travel, but basically not inside of a battle. It went even so far that in one game the GM allowed to respec a character, removing any mount related feats because he failed to provide the opportunity to use them. So for my game I intend to GM at some time I'd like to encourage the use of mounts. I don't want to force my players to invest into these skills (after all, who would take them playing a sorcerer?). Should I discover that I do dislike the mounted combat, taking it out of play, or end up failing to provide opportunities to make use of it I don't want to feel bad about it either.

So I've been thinking about these house rules:


Give all players a bonus rank in Ride each level
Maybe make Ride a class skill for all characters
Provide each even level a bonus feat used for Mounted Combat tree feats
Maybe wave any prerequisites aside from Ride


Is this too much? Do you have any other suggestions?

[Blackhawk748]

If you want people to use mounts and mounted combat techniques, its not about what you give them, its about where the fight is.

I love being a mounted fighter, generally i go Light Cavalry. Now to do that i need space, which is a serious problem in dungeons. So if you tell your players that they will be fighting up in Skyrim (its the first thing i could think of) they may go mounted, because they have sufficient space to maneuver, as Skyrim has plains and the forests have little underbrush.

In this particular instance i would go with a mounted archer and harass like there was no tomorrow, mainly because i've never gotten to do it. :smallamused:

[Gritmonger]

You can show them with some combat against mounted foes on open terrain. Let them experience the wrong end from what seem like otherwise weak foes, and let them make up their minds. They might still say no.

[goto124]

What if the player rolls a centaur?

[Blackhawk748]

What if the player rolls a centaur?

Then you play a Cavalier and someone else plays one too, now you have a Mount/Rider and the Rider and his Mount :smalltongue:

Actually ive done this, and whatever you hit dies, horribly.

[TheCountAlucard]

Another thing to be careful of is that you don't punish them arbitrarily for it. Charging them huge bundles, routinely running into enemies whose first or only tactic is "shoot the horses out from under them," or sending them places where their horses they invested in become useless tend to come across as dirty/punishing tactics.

I don't want to necessarily compare players to dogs, but if you want to get them to behave a certain way, you've gotta train 'em to do it, and positive reinforcement works a lot better than negative.

[Mr Beer]

I would start by giving them free horses and have each of those horses do something cool in combat, e.g. one of them kicks, another one slams opponents, another closes extra quickly etc. etc. Basically make it so players will want to use their horse because it's clearly better than not doing so.

You could also give the horses individual personalities and play it for laughs, encourage the players to develop some empathy for them.

[Blackhawk748]

Another thing to be careful of is that you don't punish them arbitrarily for it. Charging them huge bundles, routinely running into enemies whose first or only tactic is "shoot the horses out from under them," or sending them places where their horses they invested in become useless tend to come across as dirty/punishing tactics.

I don't want to necessarily compare players to dogs, but if you want to get them to behave a certain way, you've gotta train 'em to do it, and positive reinforcement works a lot better than negative.

Agreed, because if you do this people will start making Uber Mount builds and you will be sad, or they will begin to hate mounted combat in general and you will be sad. Either way, you are sad.


I would start by giving them free horses and have each of those horses do something cool in combat, e.g. one of them kicks, another one slams opponents, another closes extra quickly etc. etc. Basically make it so players will want to use their horse because it's clearly better than not doing so.

You could also give the horses individual personalities and play it for laughs, encourage the players to develop some empathy for them.

Also this, horses have all kinds of weird personalities and they become almost human in certain fantasy series.

[dps]

I wouldn't give 'em any bonus feats or skills. I'd just straight up tell them that they're likely going to be doing a lot of fighting outside, in open areas, against opponents who fight mounted, and that they might want to select riding and mounted combat skills. If they still choose not to, let them learn the hard way.

The idea proposed by Mr Beer of giving them horse (or other appropriate mounts) is reasonable IMO. I also like his idea of giving the mounts personalities. I wouldn't give the horses themselves combat skill at the start, though. However, you might consider letting the horses gain such abilitites, in effect leveling up themselves. And maybe instead of having the horses "level" by a standard XP system, or whenever their riders level, make their advancement dependent at least in part by the care they're given. That way, a rider that treats his mount well will find it becoming a better mount more quickly than a mount whose rider treats it more or less as a taxi.

[Necroticplague]

Easy-drop subtle hints that things more exotic than just horses will be available, which have useful utility uses. A normal horse is too fragile to last past the first couple of levels, and doesn't provide anything but speed. And with even a relative little bit of effort, it's easy to have a character who can outrun the horses. So allow them to get something more interesting. Maybe one might ride a spider, allowing for "death from above" tactic while underground, and using its webs to help control the battlefield. Maybe a very creative person rides a Rust Monster, using the ability to divert attacks to your mount to screw over weapon users.

[Douglas]

The biggest problem with mounts is that, aside from certain special builds that pile multiple collections of huge bonuses on them, using a mount past the very low levels is like taking a mobile collection of tissue paper into battle. There are no commonly available mounts that have the ability to survive hits like a PC, or to dish out pain like a PC can. There's a good reason for this, you don't want an easily bought mount to share as much of the spotlight as the actual characters, but the margin is so huge that it goes all the way into "nearly useless".

If you want mounted combat to get used, you need to make mounts that are capable of surviving and contributing in combat without an ultra-specialized rider.

[Blackhawk748]

The biggest problem with mounts is that, aside from certain special builds that pile multiple collections of huge bonuses on them, using a mount past the very low levels is like taking a mobile collection of tissue paper into battle. There are no commonly available mounts that have the ability to survive hits like a PC, or to dish out pain like a PC can. There's a good reason for this, you don't want an easily bought mount to share as much of the spotlight as the actual characters, but the margin is so huge that it goes all the way into "nearly useless".

If you want mounted combat to get used, you need to make mounts that are capable of surviving and contributing in combat without an ultra-specialized rider.

And sadly the only way to do this is to invest build resources into it. Thankfully it can be as easy as taking Wild Cohort, as you basically get an animal companion, so they can actually take a hit. Oh and you are then Bear Cavalry. But other than that it gets very expensive to get a decent mount. IIRC Wyverns are like 50k gp or something nuts.

[Mastikator]

Step 1: Make travel and carrying stuff a realistic hassle that you can't just magic your way out of
Step 2: Offer mounts and carriages as an easy solution
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit.

[Surpriser]

Another possibility that actually solves a multitude of problems, although it might be incompatible with what you want:

Play at a lower power level.
From your description, I assume you are playing D&D. At a lower level, say, no higher than 6, even regular horses should be robust enough to hold their own in combat. While you lose out on some of the mounted combat feat chains or combos, martial characters that specialize will still be very effective.

Of course, this should be combined with the other suggestions, so talk to your players about your expectations for your campaign (so they can plan their builds ahead) and/or demonstrate the effectiveness of mounts using NPCs.

[Yora]

What game are we talking about?

[LibraryOgre]

Simplest methods:

1) Simply give them bonus feats. You want them to use mounted combat? Tell them that they come from a mounted culture, and so get Ride and all the mounted feats (or a selection of them) as bonus feats.

2) Make sure they can ride, and that they need to. Make their opponents things they can't conveniently keep up with if they don't ride... they might be goblins on wargs, wemics, or anything that can easily outpace them. Put their opponents, not in holes in the ground, but in tent encampments on the plains.

[atemu1234]

What if the player rolls a centaur?

Ride another Centaur?

[rgrekejin]

Step 1: Make travel and carrying stuff a realistic hassle that you can't just magic your way out of
Step 2: Offer mounts and carriages as an easy solution
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit.

I get the sense that the OP wants the players to use mounted *combat*, not just be mounted sometimes. This arrangement is going to result in players ditching their mounts as soon as possible once combat starts.

[Segev]

The trouble with mounted combat is that mounts are horribly vulnerable and don't offer a lot of benefit. I tried to address this in a section of the feats (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BWI2n1Xg1okUhHNABnXN0yShhgRmRYp4vaUq2SI1Hp4/edit?usp=sharing) I wrote a while back with the intent of helping bolster martial-types closer to being able to hang out usefully with Tier 1 spellcasters. You might take a look at the Mount-Related Feats section and see if offering your players access to something along those lines helps them feel a mount is a good investment.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Give the players a cohort who is a mount, even if it's just a horse with 3 intelligence. Then let the mount take class levels in pounce barbarian 1/warblade X or something, and give out some loot in the form of barding and horseshoes and whatnot. At higher levels, this is basically what's going to happen either way - some caster will take levels in Zhentarim Skymage and get a dragon mount*, and the rest of the players won't want to be left behind.

Also, get the rules out and known amongst your players, because they aren't the easiest part of the game, especially with flying mounts and the whole maneuverability thing.


*A large gold dragon has 11, 14 or 17 HD, which is easy to achieve. A huge gold dragon has 20+ HD, requiring a charisma modifier of 14 - tougher, but still doable pre-epic.

[Deadasadoor]

I second/third what other people have been saying. If you want them to use mounts, give them cool mounts and places to use them. As they advance, give them more advanced mounts. Start off with horses, then move to things like gryphons, dinosaurs, and maybe other magical beasts. If a player really likes a certain mount, let them advance it with Wild Cohort or something so that it stays relevant.

[Seerow]

The biggest problem with mounts is that, aside from certain special builds that pile multiple collections of huge bonuses on them, using a mount past the very low levels is like taking a mobile collection of tissue paper into battle. There are no commonly available mounts that have the ability to survive hits like a PC, or to dish out pain like a PC can. There's a good reason for this, you don't want an easily bought mount to share as much of the spotlight as the actual characters, but the margin is so huge that it goes all the way into "nearly useless".

If you want mounted combat to get used, you need to make mounts that are capable of surviving and contributing in combat without an ultra-specialized rider.

Exactly this. If there was some way to boost hit dice of mounts tied to a character without having something special like Wild Cohort/Animal Companion/Paladin Special Amount, then that'd be one thing... but at basically any given level, a mount you can actually afford without those features is highly susceptible to one shot via accidental AoE, much less any problems that come from enemies actually targetting the mount.


As a quick fix, give some form of mount scaling based off handle animal and/or ride. Maybe something like Bonus hit die every 2-3 ranks (capped total hit dice at ranks, so you can't find some mount with a bunch of HD already and give it a big boost). Also consider a feat or something that prevents the mount from attacking in exchange for significant defensive/mobility advantages. Since a big concern with powering up mounts is that you're placing another potential damage dealer on the field, have the player give up that potential advantage in exchange for significantly reduced chance of having a dead mount.

[Pluto!]

I'd just advance their mounts HD along with the PCs.

And make it possible to find replacement mounts with appropriate HD after some minor sidequest, should the originals die.

EDIT:
Or what Seerow just said. <_<

[The Grue]

On the adequate space point, if you're using a physical battle map consider increasing the scale from 5-ft squares to 10 or even 20, at least for mounted combat on open plains.

[EldritchWeaver]

Sorry for my late reply, I'll try to address the points raised so far.

The game is Pathfinder, maybe I missed the correct forum but I didn't find any more suitable place. Feel to move it if I'm wrong here. But mounted combat doesn't look that different to D&D 3.5, at least for the basics.

Giving players space to fight: I'll take this under consideration when planning the campaign.

Demonstrating the effectiveness of mounted combat/bonus skill point and feats/(not) punishing players: Actually, I thought of the idea to do some kind of workshop session. Purely sending different builds against different enemies, so everyone could become familiar with the rules outside a campaign. After all, I'm not familiar with the intricacies myself yet. That way everyone can judge if this is a worthwhile direction. That way I - and the players - can judge how the builds work and can decide before the campaign, how desirable using mounted combat actually is. That way I'm less likely ending up shelving mounted combat later (i.e. retraining the characters). Providing the players with at least a free Wild Cohort feat (or what Seerow suggested) would encourage mount use even for less riding inclined characters.

Playing a centaur: I hadn't considered this yet. Not sure if I'd like that in my campaign, but in my workshop it should be part of the builds.

Giving them free horses with personality: I found some advice in Roleplaying Tips Weekly newsletter (#241 and #242), which covers at least some traits. Not sure if the horses will be completely free, that depends on the specifics. But a nice discount will be included.

@Blackhawk748: "Also this, horses have all kinds of weird personalities and they become almost human in certain fantasy series." Which series are you referring to?

Upgrading the horses: It seems that this is a good idea to prevent the easy loss of a mount. If I employ Wild Cohort then I might introduce some kind of penalty for the horse's level if the mounts are mistreated.

Exotic mounts: Flying mounts would definitively fit into my campaign. Is there a list already somewhere out there?

Low power level: Sorry, my plans go past level 5.

Thanks to anyone who posted, it has been most helpful so far! :)

[Blackhawk748]

@Blackhawk748: "Also this, horses have all kinds of weird personalities and they become almost human in certain fantasy series." Which series are you referring to?

It wasnt referencing a particular series, just a general thing ive noticed from time to time. My first example would be Lone Ranger and for some reason i cant think of another example, though i know there are....

[ExLibrisMortis]

Exotic mounts: Flying mounts would definitively fit into my campaign. Is there a list already somewhere out there?

Not a complete list, but from the Zhentarim Skymage ability (which allows any creature that can fly, in principle):
- chimera
- criosphinx
- dire bat
- dragonne
- dragons
- giant eagle
- giant owl
- griffon
- hieracosphinx
- hippogriff
- manticore
- nightmare
- peryton (Monsters of Faerûn)
- roc
- sinister (Monsters of Faerûn)
- spider eater
- wyvern
- yrthak

I'd add the obvious pegasus to that. In addition, you can perhaps get a glider (or adamantine barding for a roc, aren't there enchanted suits of armour somewhere?) enchanted, as a construct mount, for those who aren't so good with animals :P.

[Seerow]

To add one more to the list of exotic mounts: Stone Flyer, from one of the Underdark Books. Has Flight AND Earth Glide, and grants its rider the Earth Glide ability as well. I've wanted to use one since I found out they exist, but AFAIK they are incompatible with paladin special mount or animal companion, which gives a very narrow band of time where they aren't a liability rather than an asset.

[Blackhawk748]

Also Ashworms if your in a desert or gravelly area.

[goto124]

Ride another Centaur?

Something tells me the players are going to make a lot of 'mounting' jokes. Depends on their (lack of) maturity of course.

[tadkins]

Play a halfling combatant atop a riding dog. Less space issues and you can bring it into more dungeons. :)

[Loxagn]

Another option is to make the mounts unique. A horse is just a horse, and might even be ignored by the players. (Why worry about a horse when you have Mount and Phantasmal Steed?)

One thing that one of my first DMs did for the party was giving each party member a mode of transportation that was unique entirely to them, something that got us immediately interested in them and made us want to keep them.
For instance, the warforged in our party found, early on, a key that radiated artifact-level magic. He had no idea what it was, but in a later dungeon he found the remnants of a House Cannith Master Forge, with one of the last intact items in the room a strange metal orb which, when in the presence of the key, unfolded into a warforged war horse. Functionally identical in terms of statistics, but it looked cool.
Other things of note included the cryomancer receiving a pair of boots that, when activated, froze the ground beneath her feet into a flat plane of ice and sprouted blades, allowing her to effectively skate everywhere at impressive speed, and the artificer coming across the schematic for an elemental-powered motorcycle. The party's 'mounting up' sequence felt like something out of a movie, cool and thematic and something that made us put real effort into maintaining and 'upgrading' our rides over time, even if it wasn't strictly speaking 'optimal'.

Surprisingly, player characters will occasionally ignore what might be more mechanically efficient if the DM gives them what essentially amounts to a shiny new toy.

[daremetoidareyo]

My approach would be to hand out the ride skill as a class skill for all PCs and one extra skill point at first level that can only be used to increase ride. Additionally, any level where a PC gains more than 20% of their experience on horseback will gain an additional skill point that can only be used to increase ride when they level up. At ride skill level 8, let those classes that get an increase in movement speed apply it to their mount's land speed At skill level 10 let those classes that get an increase in movement speed apply it to their mount's flight/swim/earthglide speed.

For straight fighters, consider pairing mounted combat with any other mounted feat as a 2 for 1 bonus deal (mounted combat + mounted archery/dismount attack/mounted mobility). Maybe throw an extra line on the mounted combat feat where a rogue/scout can sneak/skirmish attack with a +30' bonus (typically 60') on a mount.

Other options to tack onto mounted combat:
For TOB, allow any horse that has trained with a PC for longer than a week be able to have a stance apply to both of them (or more importantly, have it at least apply to the PC while on horseback). For incarnum, allow a single soulmeld to be shared with the horse. For dragonfire adepts/warlock, make a 1st level invocation that will allow the mount to make a single breath attack/eldritch spit an hour at the adepts level -3.

Then take the advice of others on the thread regarding cool unique mounts, whether that is through making horses unique (and you should probably scale that HD along with the PC) either through personality, their individually chosen fighting techniques, or making them cool non-horse options. If you do scale the HD of the unique mounts, make a table of all the feats that the mount is allowed to take at certain levels and let the PC decide which one he would like on it. When a mount dies, a new mount of equivalent HD being bought at market would have a commensurate increase in cost per HD. (You should choose the feat docket, otherwise you're gonna be dealing with illithid bloodline grappling + brain extraction starspawn horses, or necropolitan undead rebuking riding dogs...although those sound pretty cool in my book, so maybe ignore me?...).

Level 1 loot: a riding lance with a wand chamber in it.

[Azrael9986]

If you want to make them feel like their mounts are special Eberron has a template for that in Eberron Campaign setting.
PG 289 HORSE, VALENAR RIDING: pretty much insane speedy horse 80ft speed.
PG 295 Mage breed animal: It has several variants. That allow you to make semi-custom horses for them or lizards for the more reptile like races your PCs might have. this one also increases Str, Dex, or con by 4 and the other two by 2. so its pretty useful. Hell this lets them have any kind of mount they could desire within reason. as it only works on animals. So no mage breed unicorns or dragon stupidity.

Also it might help them get attached at the start if you gave the weaker stuff max HP because horses die easy enough as is.

[Coidzor]

Have them face increasingly difficult mounted skirmishers so they realize they'll need to improve their tactical mobility to address the challenges they're facing, I suppose. So long as at least initially they'll have a way to deal with the skirmishers at all rather than being picked to bits.