Building Mounted Party Encounters

[Denkal]

Hey all, I've been playing around with ideas for interesting adventures, and I really like the idea of having the PCs exploring a plains region, mounted for mobility. I'm not 100% on the hook/geography, so I'm trying to think of interesting encounters to get the creative juices flowing.

So, I've come to the full-mounted encounter. Either a skirmish during a race against the clock, or trying to stop a mob from fleeing toward a reinforcement camp or charging towards an allied encampment.

My problem is finding creatures that provide an interesting encounter, without breaking the premise. For example, I like the thought of the party on horseback chasing down a dragon flying towards a settlement with the intent to destroy it. The mobility of the scene lends towards interesting exchanges, but there's nothing stopping the dragon from using a breath attack as normal, harming the party while obliterating their mounts.

The only solution I'm finding would be fighting other mounted combatants, but I can see that getting repetitive after a while. Not to mention, almost any reason the party would have to fight while mounted, provides their opponents with the opportunity to cripple them by targeting their mounts. Among other options, I was considering allowing all players the Mounted Combatant feat for free. It can help with mount survivability, without giving any one player too much of a benefit.

Any ideas for interesting mounted encounters that won't be reduced to "who can take down the other side's mounts first"?

[Mandragola]

One option might be to put the party on something other than horses. Sit them on a wagon that they need to defend, or a flying carpet or one of those magic flying ships. Or give them a tank if you want.

Actual horses are fine too of course. Just don't put in a fire-breathing dragon! A blue dragon that fired a line of something instead of a cone might nuke one horse but not all of them, which would cause the party a dilemma of maybe picking up the dropped party member or just carrying on as fast as possible. A bigger problem is that a flying dragon goes waaaaay faster than a horse!

Magic golem horses might be fun, though uncomfortable.

[Marcelinari]

Centaurs. This is a great excuse for centaurs. Plus, they won't attack the mounts due to bearing no ill-will towards the horses. Probably.

Pikemen. Traditionally, the armed response to cavalry has been a forest of pikes, all pointing at the direction the horse is charging. Horses tend not to go in for that. Maybe an invading army, or an incursion by a Hobgoblin Legion?

Ankhegs. They'll want to eat the tasty, tasty horseflesh, which gives the players incentive to dismount and face it on foot. For that matter, bulettes work for that as well.

[Mr.Moron]

You could always just throw out the rules for mount damage entirely, assuming someone always stays mounted until they hit 0 health.

The mount rules weren't really written with a mount-centric game in mind, they're a little side addition like the crafting rules. Just there to be simple and "Good enough" should it come into focus for some short time during a more standard campaign.

If mounts and mount combat are going to be a huge part of your campaign, you really need to do one of two things:
A) Ignore everything about mounts except the mobility boosts and just treat rider & mount as one creature.
Pro: Simple
Pro: Keeps all the other game math intact
Con: Might feel artificial.

B) Introduce new mount rules, built to address the problems.
Pro: Gets you exactly the feel you're looking for.
Pro: Gives the mounts additional mechanical relevance that highlights the focus of the campaign.
Con: It's easy to mess up
Con: It's a lot of work.

[VoxRationis]

Consider using relative movement/speed, rather than turn-based, even though it's a departure from the normal rules. Otherwise, a chase scene on horseback will end up with the distance between two characters varying by 100 feet or so consistently every 6 seconds.

As far as dragons v. horses, you could rule that a dragon flying overhead using its breath weapon is different from it standing still and breathing down a cave. More precise timing is needed, the area the breath affects is different, etc. Give them a Ride check to evade completely at the normal DC or something. (This method does set dangerous precedents, though.)

[Easy_Lee]

I threw some kobolds riding ambush drakes at some players one time. Both had advantage on all melee attacks due to pack tactics. I thought that worked pretty well.