Good Leadership Cohort to Use as a Mount? (3.5)

[LHK87]

Hello all,

I'm going to be playing in a Greyhawk setting campaign starting at Lv.6 - I'm tentatively playing a Human battle Cleric of Heironious (Ordained Champion build), quite high point buy so I have 16 CHA while also having great STR/CON/WIS.

My feats are kind of boring and standard battle Cleric stuff (and the rest of the group is not terribly optimized either, so it won't hurt if my own power drops a bit). I was thinking of maybe gimping myself a little bit and adding some flavor by instead taking some mounted combat feats instead and trying that playstyle out!

Thing is, I don't want to gimp myself TOO much (hence the 'Optimization' tag), and the biggest mounted combat challenge aside from the feat tax for me is just finding a suitable mount as a Cleric in the first place. I want to stick with Ordained Champion if possible (so no getting a mount via Prestige Paladin), and I've heard just using the Leadership feat to ride a Cohort is a good way to do this, but I couldn't find a list of suggested good mounts by level for this. I have 16 CHA so I'll have no problem, I think, finding a cohort with the max level (I'm Lv.6, so that will be a cohort of Lv.4).

I have never played a mounted character or used Leadership to recruit something that may have monster levels, so I am quite confused at what is available to me! If anyone has some general 'tips on good cohorts to ride', that would be much appreciated. Bonus points if the mount is something that a Lawful or Neutral Good Human Cleric wouldn't be seen as TOO weird riding (and I'd like to avoid weird 'trick' mounts like riding a wildchanged Druid or polymophed Wizard, for example).

The SRD Celestial Charger (sorry, I can't link according to the forum yet) is a good example of something I'd like to use if I was way higher level. If I understand right, that +8 LA means that it'd take a character with Leadership and Lv. 17 (cleric 7, +8 LA) to get that as a cohort, is that right?

It has monster and class levels. Can I build a weaker version of something like this that will grow alongside me? I think my DM would probably be fine with me using Leadership to 'swap out' templated or slightly modified creatures as I level up, pretending it's just the same animal instead of constantly dropping/re-acquiring new mount cohorts. I'm aware I could also use Draconic Cohort but don't want to wait until Lv.9.

Thanks in advance for any advice! (Even if that advice ends up being 'you can't do it, play a Paladin or Cavalier')

[Bronk]

If you just want a mount of your own, you'd be better off short term with the 'wild cohort' feat.

http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a

With leadership at your level, your best bet would be to attract a druid with a mount as an animal companion, and use that. Later, you can use the druid.

A unicorn would come online at level 10 (4HD, 4LA, plus two levels), and a celestial charger at level 25 (15 HD, 8 LA, plus two levels).

However, at level ten, you could just get a unicorn and have it start leveling as a cleric.

Edit: Lammasu comes online at level 14... it has flight, catlike attacks, and inherent cleric casting.

You might want to look into being a smaller race (like a strongheart halfling if possible so you can keep your bonus feat) so you can take advantage of smaller mounts.

[LHK87]

If you just want a mount of your own, you'd be better off short term with the 'wild cohort' feat.

With leadership at your level, your best bet would be to attract a druid with a mount as an animal companion, and use that. Later, you can use the druid.

A unicorn would come online at level 10 (4HD, 4LA, plus two levels), and a celestial charger at level 25 (15 HD, 8 LA, plus two levels).

However, at level ten, you could just get a unicorn and have it start leveling as a cleric.

Edit: Lammasu comes online at level 14... it has flight, catlike attacks, and inherent cleric casting.

You might want to look into being a smaller race (like a strongheart halfling if possible so you can keep your bonus feat) so you can take advantage of smaller mounts.

Thanks, some useful info here. Wild Cohort looks interesting, although like you mentioned, I'd be limited to Large creatures unless I changed race (which means...a bison or a bat at Lv.4, neither of which are very thematic to me...). I'm also aware of the option to just basically get a Druid cohort and shove them in a dimensional closet while I use their animal companion as a mount (I don't want to get the full ridiculous benefits of Leadership and a second character), but that also just feels wrong on a visceral level.

A Heavy Warhorse is 4 HD, right? Can I just use Leadership at Lv.6 to get a Heavy Warhorse cohort and start leveling it in Fighter or something after that (or even just plain ol' continued HD advancement), or does it just not work that way?

Hopefully even if it doesn't work out for my character here, it can be useful for other people as a resource who are looking at Leadership as a mount-obtaining option...

[Florian]

Leadership and monstrous cohorts... is a sad topic. It´s easier to get a master of many forms to be your mount than an actual mount, and that says a lot.
It might actually be easier to call/bind one of them for a year and shell out the WBL.

[Bronk]

Thanks, some useful info here. Wild Cohort looks interesting, although like you mentioned, I'd be limited to Large creatures unless I changed race (which means...a bison or a bat at Lv.4, neither of which are very thematic to me...). I'm also aware of the option to just basically get a Druid cohort and shove them in a dimensional closet while I use their animal companion as a mount (I don't want to get the full ridiculous benefits of Leadership and a second character), but that also just feels wrong on a visceral level.

A Heavy Warhorse is 4 HD, right? Can I just use Leadership at Lv.6 to get a Heavy Warhorse cohort and start leveling it in Fighter or something after that (or even just plain ol' continued HD advancement), or does it just not work that way?

Hopefully even if it doesn't work out for my character here, it can be useful for other people as a resource who are looking at Leadership as a mount-obtaining option...

Well, animals can't generally take class levels because they advance by HD, and their INT scores are below the minimum of three.

However, you could just buy a trained mount and hold off on the leadership feat until later. You could get a warhorse, a camel (there was s thread about that a few weeks ago), even a griffon. Perhaps a magebred or warbeast version for extra oomph. Just treat them well, and be sure to take some ranks in the ride skill. Then, when you trade them out for what you really want, your leadership score won't take a hit.

[LHK87]

Well, animals can't generally take class levels because they advance by HD, and their INT scores are below the minimum of three.

However, you could just buy a trained mount and hold off on the leadership feat until later. You could get a warhorse, a camel (there was s thread about that a few weeks ago), even a griffon. Perhaps a magebred or warbeast version for extra oomph. Just treat them well, and be sure to take some ranks in the ride skill. Then, when you trade them out for what you really want, your leadership score won't take a hit.

Wow! I took a look at the Warbeast variant and it's beautiful. I may just have to give up on Leadership and shell out gold to buy trained mounts. I can't believe you can get that sample Warbeast Rhinoceros for only 775 gp (it has >100 HP and gores for 2d6+13 for crying out loud!).

Of course, that price doesn't seem to include the cost of training the animal - I can fudge some skills in Ride (it's a class skill for Ordained Champion), but Handle Animal is a no-go. Are there any concrete rules on how much it costs to receive a 'rider ready' animal? I see in the Griffon entry that you can pay 1,500gp extra for an already-trained version, for example.

Once that's figured out, is it correct to assume that (for the right price and assuming someone in-world is training/selling) I can just buy a Warbeast (insert any animal with Int < 3) ready to Ride? It sounds like Int 3 and up is when they suddenly get treated like sentient beings instead of property... EDIT: I just saw that a mount needs to have a CR of 3 less than the character riding it, 4 less if it can fly, so that's one restriction.

Also, just for hypothetical fun and information sharing, Int < 3 means our Warhorse cohort from progressing in Fighter is a no-go, but would it still be able to progress in HD? i.e. could I eventually at Lv.10 end up with my Heavy Warhorse at 8 HD with Leadership?

[Fouredged Sword]

Wow! I took a look at the Warbeast variant and it's beautiful. I may just have to give up on Leadership and shell out gold to buy trained mounts. I can't believe you can get that sample Warbeast Rhinoceros for only 775 gp (it has >100 HP and gores for 2d6+13 for crying out loud!).

Of course, that price doesn't seem to include the cost of training the animal - I can fudge some skills in Ride (it's a class skill for Ordained Champion), but Handle Animal is a no-go. Are there any concrete rules on how much it costs to receive a 'rider ready' animal? I see in the Griffon entry that you can pay 1,500gp extra for an already-trained version, for example.

Once that's figured out, is it correct to assume that (for the right price and assuming someone in-world is training/selling) I can just buy a Warbeast (insert any animal with Int < 3) ready to Ride? It sounds like Int 3 and up is when they suddenly get treated like sentient beings instead of property... EDIT: I just saw that a mount needs to have a CR of 3 less than the character riding it, 4 less if it can fly, so that's one restriction.

Also, just for hypothetical fun and information sharing, Int < 3 means our Warhorse cohort from progressing in Fighter is a no-go, but would it still be able to progress in HD? i.e. could I eventually at Lv.10 end up with my Heavy Warhorse at 8 HD with Leadership?

Anything with an advancement segment of - cannot advance in HD. Horses cannot advance it looks like. A rino on the other hand can grow to up to 24 HD, but they turn huge at 13.

[Bronk]

Of course, that price doesn't seem to include the cost of training the animal - I can fudge some skills in Ride (it's a class skill for Ordained Champion), but Handle Animal is a no-go. Are there any concrete rules on how much it costs to receive a 'rider ready' animal? I see in the Griffon entry that you can pay 1,500gp extra for an already-trained version, for example.

Once that's figured out, is it correct to assume that (for the right price and assuming someone in-world is training/selling) I can just buy a Warbeast (insert any animal with Int < 3) ready to Ride? It sounds like Int 3 and up is when they suddenly get treated like sentient beings instead of property... EDIT: I just saw that a mount needs to have a CR of 3 less than the character riding it, 4 less if it can fly, so that's one restriction.



The warbeast template makes an animal combat trained... It's already ready to ride (even giving you a +2 to ride checks).

Actually getting one, or what its CR is (based on the 'guideline' in the DMG) is up to the DM though. The template is from MM2, and I'm away from my books, but I think it mentions having to buy warbeasts from special trainers/breeders.