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AmeVulpes
2019-02-19, 07:03 PM
I'm building a 'deadly hunter' Druid, which is a variant from UA. Since it doesn't get Wild Shape, I'm mostly going to be using my Animal Companion for mobility, flexibility, and hopefully beatsticking in combat. I like the flavor of horses too:smallyuk:.

So, I actually have several questions.

Firstly, a heavy horse's hooves:

A horse not trained for war does not normally use its hooves to attack. Its hoof attack is treated as a secondary attack and adds only half the horse’s Strength bonus to damage.

Multiattack: An animal companion gains Multiattack as a bonus feat if it has three or more natural attacks and does not already have that feat. If it does not have the requisite three or more natural attacks, the animal companion instead gains a second attack with its primary natural weapon, albeit at a –5 penalty.
A heavy horse (not warhorse) has only two atacks, neither of which are primary.

Question 1: Does training one for war make the the hooves primary, as implied? If not, what could make them primary?
Question 2: Would training for combat riding be considered training for "war?" If not, what would be?
Question 3: Recommended feats, skills, and mundane items to get a horse? I'm thinking Tumble for not provoking AoOs, maybe spiked barding if this Multiattack thing isn't going to work.

Note: Magic items are not available on demand. They fall into our possession in randomized loot, plot-related drops, and half-randomized half-planned shop inventories.
Starting at level 5, so this isn't a real concern just yet.
EDIT: Before anyone tells me how horribly unfairly poorly optimized this is going to be, I am optimized as a healer and face. We already have a tank, a bruiser, a blaster, and an Enchanter. Horse will basically be getting me to party members to heal them, and bodyguarding me.
EDIT2: Just noticed this :smalleek:
A heavy horse cannot fight while carrying a riderAny way around that? I wanna say Handle Animal to teach combat riding, but it doesn't actually say that does anything for the animal's attacks.

Rebel7284
2019-02-19, 07:38 PM
As far as I am concerned, the one and only reason to have a horse animal companion is for the horseshoes of flame magic item from Savage Species.

AmeVulpes
2019-02-19, 07:41 PM
That's a quite fantastic item I had never heard from before. I'll definitely be keeping an eye out. 3 hours downtime isn't enough to make it worse than the other horseshoes, for sure.

DrMotives
2019-02-19, 07:58 PM
The warbeast template is written to be what a light horse has gone through to be a light warhorse, and a heavy horse has gone through to be a heavy warhorse, but applied to any animal or vermin someone might train. If your DM allows, 6 months of training time will let it be a heavy warhorse, with the extra HD being a "free" (costs 6 months of training time) update to the animal.

But to answer your questions,
1) Yes
2) yes
3) Mundane gear, a chain shirt barding is nice. Medium or heavy armor takes away most of the point of a mount for your role, so keep it to light. A masterwork saddle can still give you a boost to ride checks. Problem with spiked armor is the horse doesn't have martial weapon proficiency, so it won't be terribly effective.
The horse probably won't worry about your druid's prohibition against metal armor, but if that's an issue then elven darkleaf armor (from A&EG) turns a medium metal armor into a light armor made of alchemically treated darkwood. It's even thematic for a druid. I suppose if you really wanted the armor spikes still, it could be described as being made with brambles & thorns. A breastplate barding made of wood this way is AC +5, max dex +5, armor check -2. Light armor, so the horse can still run at full speed in this.

eggynack
2019-02-19, 09:39 PM
1) Yes
I'm kinda unconvinced on this one. The difference between the trained and untrained horse seems to be that the trained horse uses its hooves to attack at all, not that those attacks are particularly useful. It's not strictly implied that the lackluster nature of attacks is what's causing the horse not to use them, and it's obviously not stated that anything renders the attacks primary. I don't think anything would allow the horse to make primary hoof attacks.

Probably a good thing. Heavy horse would be quite strong with primary hoof attacks. Like, maybe best first level animal companion strong. You lose the tripping from riding dog, and get a second attack, a bit of HP, and the attacks in question even hit a bit more often. Oh, also speed. It's a lot. The heavy horse was already a bit of a meat wall, and adding a pile of attack and damage is extra a lot.

Anyway, it's not like this is that big of a deal. You're kinda throwing away both the animal companion and wild shape, which isn't ideal, but druid spells are sweet. Pick good ones and you can still quite plausibly be the strongest character in the party if that's what you want.

Eladrinblade
2019-02-19, 11:40 PM
Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't you use handle animal to train your horse into a warhorse?

AmeVulpes
2019-02-19, 11:50 PM
Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't you use handle animal to train your horse into a warhorse?

It does say they-

are trained and bred for strength and aggression.

I'll have to talk to DM and maybe the rest of the table to see about Warbeast making it one, though.