Good armor for a paladin mount?

[eyebreaker7]

I'm thinking of a magebread dire lion warbeast mount. What would be some good mount armor for him? I'm thinking light armor for speed travel, maybe some mithril chain? Are there even any sources that have specific armor made for mounts? Or maybe some specially made celestial armor (humanoid kind on page 220 DMG)


Thinking along the lines of:

https://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e350/Valygar_Corthala/1532615_zpswxafrw8m.jpg

You can't tell what, if any, armor the lion is wearing but it looks like it would be swift travelling. Not sure if I wanna give him the +10' movement increase or a +2 natural armor bonus. One sacrificed for the other.
The paladin would be wielding a Lion's Head Shield that isn't in the pic.

[Kelb_Panthera]

All the armor available for PCs is available for mounts as well. The cost for the non-magical portion is double the cost for a barding version and then adjusted normally for size. The cost of the magical components doesn't change.

A mithral chainshirt for a dire lion would cost 4 times what a mithral chainshirt for a human or orc would; twice as much for being large and twice that for being barding, assuming a dire lion is large. If it's huge that's 8 times; 4 times for being huge and twice that for being barding.

[the_tick_rules]

probably a mithral breastplate or chainshirt is good. there are some horseshoes that make horses faster. horseshoes of speed I believe.

[eyebreaker7]

Yes horseshoes of speed:

Horseshoes of Speed
These iron shoes come in sets of four like ordinary horseshoes. When affixed to an animal’s hooves, they increase the animal’s base land speed by 30 feet; this counts as an enhancement bonus. As with other effects that increase speed, jumping distances increase proportionally. All four shoes must be worn by the same animal for the magic to be effective.

Faint transmutation; CL 3rd; Craft Wondrous Item, haste; Price 3,000 gp; Weight 12 lb. (for four).


Then there's:

Horseshoes of a Zephyr
These four iron shoes are affixed like normal horseshoes. They allow a horse to travel without actually touching the ground. The horse must still run above (always around 4 inches above) a roughly horizontal surface. This means that nonsolid or unstable surfaces can be crossed, and that movement is possible without leaving tracks on any sort of ground. The horse moves at its normal base land speed. All four shoes must be worn by the same animal for the magic to be effective.

Faint transmutation; CL 3rd; Craft Wondrous Item, levitate; Price 6,000 gp; Weight 4 lb. (for four).

I've never really worried about a mount before. Just the normal stuff in the PHB. I've glanced at the "horseshoes" before but never thought to make them for another "non-horse" mount.
Do the Horseshoes of the Zephyr allow you to run across water? They say "nonsolid" so I'm guessing yes? Or does it mean like mud and snow?
Would a dire lion size cost more? They'd have to be something like the foot wrappings in the picture.

[the_tick_rules]

I can't see a good reason why it wouldn't work on water, water is a liquid and thus is most definitely not solid. dire lions are large and so are normal horses so as far as something size based like barding costs whatever works for a horse works for a dire lion. but they do have entirely different feet so yeah you would have to work around that.

[Gruftzwerg]

The paladin would be wielding a Lion's Head Shield that isn't in the pic.

Maybe you wanna invest into an "Exotic Shield: Rider's Shield". If you have the feat, your mount gets the Shield AC too. Once you can effort it, buy an "Animated Rider's Shield" so you have both hands free to attack. Imho the best way to increase both your and your mounts AC, at the expense of a feat. Abuse with special magical shield effects, to double the profit with your mount (e.g Spell Resistance, Fortification..).