Could mounts level up?

[Sindal]

Hi yall.

So I was looking through the stuffs the other day and I got to wondering:

Small races are one of the only races who can pull off mounted combat on the regular based on their size and being able to mount medium creatures. Neat!
But then i realized: Wait, medium sized mounts are kinda made of tissue paper.

So here's a question I'm posing:
Should combat mounts start leveling up as soon as they 'belong' to someone, provided they are participating in battle and with a monetary 'training' fee added to whoever the owner is.

-I bolded that last part, because your theoretical normal horsy doesn't really need much, but your battle horsie (or mastiff/pony) is gonna get burnt to a crisp by a stray fireball late game, effectively ruining the viablity.

Would you say it's fair to allow mounts to level up whenever their owner levels up, provided they have been in battle with their owner?
The level up would really only be to HP I imagine. Possibly a stat upgrade every once in a while?

What do y'all think?

[nickl_2000]

1) Careful of stepping on the beastmaster's toes (and the artificer when it goes live). They already have it pretty rough, let's not make it worse.
2) How do you handle replacement mounts when the current one gets turned to ask by a second fireball?

[Lunali]

It's unfair to the characters that actually have ways of protecting their mounts and getting stronger mounts. Whether that matters to you is a different question.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Hi yall.

So I was looking through the stuffs the other day and I got to wondering:

Small races are one of the only races who can pull off mounted combat on the regular based on their size and being able to mount medium creatures. Neat!
But then i realized: Wait, medium sized mounts are kinda made of tissue paper.

So here's a question I'm posing:
Should combat mounts start leveling up, as soon as they 'belong' to someone and are participating in battle?

-I bolded that last part, because your theoretical normal horsy doesn't really need much, but your battle horsie (or mastiff/pony) is gonna get burnt to a crisp by a stray fireball late game, effectively ruining the viablity.

Would you say it's fair to allow mounts to level up whenever their owner levels up, provided they have been in battle with their owner?
The level up would really only be to HP I imagine. Possibly a stat upgrade every once in a while?

What do y'all think?

Not the worst of ideas. Especially in a small party. I'm imagining a two or three player party where some help is needed and they get kind of a shared meat shield / damage dealer who isn't going to interfere with the decision making like some DMPC's do. (this should soak up XP also if it levels)

If it belongs to a player you'll have to nerf the player in some other way to maintain balance. Something like if the mount gets an extra D8 a level then the player looses a 3/4 of a D8 off something else. I'd say a whole D8 but there is that above mentioned chance of the mount will die.

Also the XP to level up the mount will come from the group pool so the players around it will all level up more slowly. If you level on "accomplishments" or some alternative rule I'd say push that back 1/x where x is the number of PC's you have.

[Sindal]

1) Careful of stepping on the beastmaster's toes (and the artificer when it goes live). They already have it pretty rough, let's not make it worse.
2) How do you handle replacement mounts when the current one gets turned to ask by a second fireball?

1)That's why I said Hp and a stat upgrade at most. A beastmaster's beast can already do a lot more than a plain mount, gets bonuses to attacks etc. Your mount is meant to be a mount. That's it. It doesn't do anything else. It's sure as hell not going to do anything else if it's dead.
2) A full reset normally, with the possibility of the dm being admittedly generous and will allow you to purchase a new mount with a much higher cost to atleast be partially trained. Paladins steeds would have their mounts retain their level ups.

I'll ask the question:
What is the point of the normal mounts if they can only be used by, say, a ranger who has picked beastmaster and NO ONE ELSE (artificers aren't legal yet, and very few will be using them as mounts in the first place) to even a moderate degree of sucess.

(Edited: I added a note to the first post about adding a cost. This would further separate it from beast masters who's beast level up naturally as part of the class)

[nickl_2000]

1)That's why I said Hp and a stat upgrade at most. A beastmaster's beast can already do a lot more than a plain mount, gets bonuses to attacks etc. Your mount is meant to be a mount. That's it. It doesn't do anything else. It's sure as hell not going to do anything else if it's dead.
2) A full reset normally, with the possibility of the dm being admittedly generous and will allow you to purchase a new mount with a much higher cost to atleast be partially trained. Paladins steeds would have their mounts retain their level ups.

I'll ask the question:
What is the point of the normal mounts if they can only be used by, say, a ranger who has picked beastmaster and NO ONE ELSE (artificers aren't legal yet, and very few will be using them as mounts in the first place) to even a moderate degree of sucess.

If you are only giving HP then it should be fine. I would actually make it so there is a Max amount of hit dice that the mount can get (based on the player level). Then new mounts can get additional HP through the PC spending downtime training them. That way you are rewarding the PC who spends downtime with the mount and you are rewarding the player for choosing Animal Handling.

[GlenSmash!]

I suppose I would just introduce Higher CR mounts so that players can use them, and Cavaliers and Mounted Combatants can use them too. Similar to Find Greater Steed.

Now could a riding horse become a Warhorse or a warhorse become something greater with expense and training? Yeah seems cool to me.

[Sindal]

I suppose I would just introduce Higher CR mounts so that players can use them, and Cavaliers and Mounted Combatants can use them too. Similar to Find Greater Steed.

Now could a riding horse become a Warhorse or a warhorse become something greater with expense and training? Yeah seems cool to me.

That's a neat idea indeed. :smallsmile:
The only reason I can think of against it is that (besides the fact that it's gonna be some work making up a list of upgraded mounts) is that players might get attached to 'their' mount.

[Cheesegear]

Use the Sidekick rules.


The only reason I can think of against it is that (besides the fact that it's gonna be some work making up a list of upgraded mounts) is that players might get attached to 'their' mount.

Creatures that the MM explicitly says can make partnerships with Humanoids and/or receive training - usually with conditions:

HD
3. Hippogriff
7. Griffon
7. Owlbear
7. Pegasus
8. Manticore
8. Nightmare
9. Unicorn
10. Displacer Beast
12. Chimera
13. Wyvern

....And then there's Dragons, whose HD varies all over the place.

There are several more in Volo's. Orcs ride Giant Bats, for example.

[loki_ragnarock]

Back in the 3.5/Pathfinder days if I wanted to have a mount that was worth a damn I would invest in the Leadership feat so that I could ride my cohort, an awakened horse with ranger levels named Toby. Or what have you; the mechanic existed primarily as a way to get a badass mobile chair when playing characters that didn't have a badass mobile chair baked in. Sure, the paladin can simply make a new one when his died, but mine was a lifelong companion who I could share quips with that was better at killing people than my fighter was. Toby was distinctly more badass than the paladin's mount, but when he died there was no bringing him back without the same resource investment as any other NPC; that relationship was worth diamonds.

So I'm all for leveling up your mounts. Just keep them tier competitive without making them over step the actual PCs.

Take your mount, make four versions of him, one for each tier, with an eye for keeping it survivable at all tiers of play. Make there be a cost for additional training. Tier 4 should be 1500 gp, since that's what Simulacrum costs. Building down from there, Tier 3 should be 1,000, Tier 2 500, Tier 1 as base cost.
So for 3,000gp, you should have a fairly badass little riding dog that you still have to drop diamonds on if you want to bring back from an unfortunate end.
Paladins get theirs as a spell they can cast again and again, rangers get theirs as an already established bad option, you get yours as a gpsink.

Have fun.

[Damon_Tor]

You could use the Sidekick rules from UA to give a warhorse some Warrior levels. I would probably allow it for a mount that's well loved and its care well roleplayed. Though I wouldn't allow them to skirt the mounted combat rules: it would lack the intellect to function well as an independent mount unless the party got the resources together to be able to hire someone to cast Awaken on him or became able to do so themselves. In this way we could avoid stepping on the toes of the paladins and their class feature spells.