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2010-05-03, 01:40 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2009
Why aren't mounts/ride/handle animal/small size more important for optimization?
I'll see a few threads specifically about this type of optimization but rarely do I see it mixed in with normal optimization threads. It seems like it should be a standard for an optimized character, no? The things you can do with handle animal and mounts and such is pretty crazy, seems like every character should want to be good at it. Its almost as good (or maybe just as good) as leadership, but with less stigma.
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2010-05-03, 01:42 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2006
- Location
- London, England.
Re: Why aren't mounts/ride/handle animal/small size more important for optimization?
It's fiddly and requires a reasonable amount of skill to get to work, so it's not widespread. Most D&D games tend to assume that each player gets one PC and that's it, with maybe an animal companion or familiar. There are also practical issues with taking other creatures with you wherever you go.
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2010-05-03, 01:52 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2008
- Gender
Re: Why aren't mounts/ride/handle animal/small size more important for optimization?
Another issue is that, without investment, mounts tend to be rather fragile. And any investment in a better mount is less investment in a single character, which tends to limit mounts to dedicated builds, which are generally more niche.
Ride and Handle Animal both have mostly low static DC's and relatively few bonuses from class features/items as compared to other skills like Hide and Move Silently.
And size is one of the myriad considerations for a decent race choice.The name is "tonberrian", even when it begins a sentence. It's magic, I ain't gotta 'splain why.
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2010-05-03, 01:56 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2005
- Location
- Toronto, City of Spires
Re: Why aren't mounts/ride/handle animal/small size more important for optimization?
The practicality issue is really the one that strikes me most important. Yes, you can use a skill check (and possibly a large amount of money) to get yourself an extra, credible melee threat to deploy against your foes. But that creature often can't meaningfully participate in dungeon crawls due to size, consumes a fair amount of your resources to train, equip and field, and can be defeated instantly by a fair number of attacks. Animals are kind of the extreme end of min-maxed fighters: incredibly good at melee, able to soak a lot of damage, and stupendously vulnerable to anti-melee tactics (glitterdust, ray of stupidity, whatever).
Also, a large amount of what you can do with an animal, you can do with a summons. Cost of a spell, rather than a notable portion of your build.That is not dead which can eternal lie
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2010-05-03, 02:00 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2008
Re: Why aren't mounts/ride/handle animal/small size more important for optimization?
I find the Wild Cohort feat is non magical way of getting past some of that fragility. They are still not going to be all that powerful, but they will at least have some hit points.
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2010-05-03, 02:09 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2009
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2010-05-03, 02:10 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2007
- Location
- Finland
- Gender
Re: Why aren't mounts/ride/handle animal/small size more important for optimization?
It's simply not a part of standard optimization; what you do with e.g. Handle Animal has little bearing on what you do with animals or such. Handle Animal Guide does exist as does Mount Handbook, but the idea is that people can mix-and-match if they want a character with animal friends.
And small-sized races tend to be default suggestion for sneaks; just, sneak optimization isn't really all that common a question. But yeah, they come up, just it's that in optimization, people tend to want to deal with the optimization question at hands and help Person X to gain the character they want, and the "Beastmaster" is a rare question indeed.Campaign Journal: Uncovering the Lost World - A Player's Diary in Low-Magic D&D (Latest Update: 8.3.2014)
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