Animals and templates

[HurinTheCursed]

Hello people,

I'd like to advice our party's pallies who still rides a warhorse at level 15 while we fight more and more flying enemies. First, I have to understand quite a few rules, hence the numerous questions for which I would appreciate your insight.
I'd rather have raw answers (with sources if possible) but rai will be appreciated as well.


If an animal/dragon becomes paladin mount, it counts as a magical beast. Do its hit points, skills and bab follow animal/dragon or magical beast type ?
If an int2 animal becomes paladin mount, its intelligence increases. is it eligible to half celestial template ? it doesn't seem chronologic to me.
Half celestial cannot be applied to a fully grown animal such as a paladin mount.
Under which conditions is a creature eligible to acquire the warbeast or the magebred templates ?
How can a paladin ride a mount with the magebred template ? It is magically called rather than bought so could the animal have the template already ?
How can a paladin ride a mount with the warbeast template ? If the template is to be added after it becomes a paladin mount, then it counts as a magical beast and is too clever to be trained. The paladin mount is called rather than bought so could it have the template already ? Which creature would require a 1-year taming first and which is considered to be domestic ? Dragonnel, Drakkensteed, dire eagle, griffon, pegasus ?
How can a druid have a companion with the magebred template ? It is an animal gained from a ceremony rather than bought so could it have the template already ? Or it be considered to have recently lived in the wild for a while before it answers to druid's call ?
How can a druid have a companion with the warbeast template ? It is an animal gained from a ceremony rather than bought so could it have the template already ? Or it be considered to have recently lived in the wild for a while before it answers to druid's call ? I suppose it can be trained, but I suppose it requires an added year of taming before ?
If an animal with multiple move modes get an upgrade from warbeast, paladin mount... are all movement modes concerned ?
When an animal gets additionnal hit dice, does it size change ? Does it acquire iteratives ?
NO. YES (though it usually can't make good use of them, as natural weapons don't get iteratives)
When a dragon cohort reaches the same or more hit dice than a bigger dragon of the same type, does his dragon become bigger at the cost of mount advance ?
When a paladin with dragon cohort reaches high enough level to get a bigger dragon of the same type, does his dragon become bigger at the cost of mount advance or does he have to find a new dragon ?
If the CR added to templates depends on the creature hit dice, does it further delay the levels at which this creature would gain level as paladin mount ? Does it unlock new abilities limited to higher HD creatures of the template ?
If multiple templates have to be applied, I have the feeling it should be in the following order: Half-celestial -> Magebred -> Mount/companion -> Warbeast. Is it right ?
Half-celestial and Magebred are incompatible, they cannot be applied to a fully grown animal
If a mount has pounce, can it use it in charge while the rider makes his single attack ?
YES
Outside the DMG list that gives the druid level required, how to determine the level of availability of an animal using Wild Cohort (dire eagle, drakkensteed)...
Outside the DMG list, an animal is available as animal companion and wild cohort only if it is explicitly noted as such in its description
Can a paladin apply his paladin mount bonuses to an animal acquired using Wild Cohort ?
NO

To ease your search,

paladin mount list is in DMG p204,
Half celestial is in MM p145,
warbeast in MM2 p219,
magebred in EbCS p295,
Dragonnel is in DrC p151,
Drakkensteed is in DM p113,
Dragon cohort is in DrC p104,
Dragon steed is in DrC 105,
the list of available dragon cohort is in DrC p139.
wild cohort: http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a

Thanks by advance

[Necroticplague]

When an animal gets additionnal hit dice, does it size change ? Does it acquire iteratives ?
If a mount has pounce, can it use it in charge while the rider makes his single attack ?[/LIST]

To answer the quoted ones in order:
No, yes (though it usually can't make good use of them, as natural weapons don't get iteratives)
Yes.

[HurinTheCursed]

Thank you for your answer Necroticplague

By the way, 2 other questions added:
Outside the DMG list that gives the druid level required, how to determine the level of availability of an animal using Wild Cohort (dire eagle, drakkensteed)...
Can a paladin apply his paladin mount bonuses to an animal acquired using Wild Cohort ?

[Necroticplague]

Thank you for your answer Necroticplague

By the way, 2 other questions added:
Outside the DMG list that gives the druid level required, how to determine the level of availability of an animal using Wild Cohort (dire eagle, drakkensteed)...
Can a paladin apply his paladin mount bonuses to an animal acquired using Wild Cohort ?

1.Is it available to a druid as an animal companion? Then you can get it through Wild Cohort, albiet 3 levels later. If not, you can't get it through Wild Cohort. Dire Eagles are available as level 4 companions, so you could pick it up at level 7 wild cohort.
2.Nope. A Paladin's Mount is it's own creature, separate from any others. This is like asking if a paladin/sorceror could apply his familiar bonuses to his mount.



Also, replying to one of the OPs questions:
13. That's not a legal order to apply the templates. Ignoring the question of whether you can have a templated creature as a paladin mount (I'm not certain on what the hard rules for possible mounts are), Half-celestial makes the creature an Outsider, while Warbeast and Magebred both require the creature to be an Animal (Warbeast allows for some other types, but Outsider is not one of them).

[MisterKaws]

For different mounts, you calculate the effective Paladin level based off its CR: if it cannot fly, reduce the effective paladin level for the mount improvements for every point of CR above 2; if it can fly, reduce the effective paladin level for every point of CR above 1.

Half-Celestial and Magebred are inherited templates: one gained through being born in a NG plane, and the other for being bred with a special magic method(YOU DON'T SAY), thus you cannot apply them to fully grown creature. Warbeast, however, is an acquired template, which you can add to a creature by training it for a LONG period of time. Any of these templates would reduce the effective paladin level as normal.

I'd recommend you look out for a Cauchemar and try to convince it(read:Sanctify the Wicked, the good version Mindrape) into becoming a LG paladin's mount, which is not that hard, really. He'd have 0 paladin improvements for having such a high level mount, but it's really worth it. Otherwise, just go looking for a Drakkensteed or even a Celestial Warhorse at Elysium. Be wary of Elysium's "Too good to want to leave"(A.K.A: Entrapping) trait if you're doing it, though.

[HurinTheCursed]

You guessed it, some of my questions were designed to determine which animal and templates mix for find the most suited mount for my friend's paladin.
But understanding the rules is also necessary to convince my DM if a combination is allowed by the rules or not, which requirements are needed and such stuff.

The cauchemar is nice but our DM is pretty difficult to negociate with. Even if we could convince him to allow a redeemed caucherar, the smoke would not disturb the mount but it would prevent the rider to see further than 10 feet just as it hampers the opponents. I'll ask just to know.

What is sure is that this character needs a reliable way to fly (either a flying animal or one with half celestial template) by riding a large mount with some staying power when slugged in melee to complement the paladin's Spirited Charge. He is currently L15 and can expect to reach early 20s.
Speed at least 30+ feet or enough strengh to fly in heavy wind or Ray of Enfeeblement would be nice to prevent bad case scenario. The griffon seems as good as a dragonnel (but doesn't cost a feat), marginally better than a warbeast dire eagle and better than a warbeast drakkensteed, warbeast giant owl or a pegasus. Grapple, rake, pounce don't work well for a mount which rider has ride by attack but a griffon really remains solid everywhere while others have more weaknesses.
A half celestial griffon is even better, it seems a better choice than anything but a dragon cohort, which may be worth the feat at level 20. Since we play in dragonlance setting, this would not be that difficult to be allowed a young gold dragon, the share of ressources to give him would however be a lot more than the guidelines.

Regarding half-celestial, it's somewhat a pity all available magical beast already have flight and darkvision and that half celestials saves doesn't synergize well with share saves but it seems really worth the late access for a high level paladin !

[unseenmage]

Not sure if helpful but there's a list of animals in my sig with a list of templates that do not change their type.

The lists are even randomized (originally to simulate a marketplace) so template selection can be less cherrypicking-ish.