The Power of Mounts

[Lev]

Ok guys, here's a delicate one.
One of my 3.5 players decided to roll a level 3 druid.
She started off with 3k gold, around 500g of this was spent on a mount, specifically an elephant (masters of the wild).

The problem is that for 500 gold she has secured a CR 7 animal under her control, it has a +26 to grapple, is huge sized, can hustle 40' and can generally beat anything into a pulp with a full round action, not even mentioning how trample works or the fact she can give it free attacks with serp's swiftness.

How can I handle the situation by making it evenly challenging without being a cockbite?

[stenver]

If they encounter something, their enemies will see the elephant as the most threatening animal. They will attack it until it is disabled.

Alternatively you could just send them into a dungeon. An elephant is too large for a dungeon.

[Morph Bark]

The elephant still looks out for itself, it won't do everything the druid asks of course, and if it would get its hit points below half of the maximum, it'd flee.

[ShadowsGrnEyes]

a mount that is not a special companion or class feature, takes a move action to direct in combat. if she wants the animal to do somthing it wouldnt normaly do or is not trained to do that is called a Push and that takes a full round action.. . assuming this elephant is not in fact her animal companion, USING the elephant will eat up alot of the druids move actions actions.

[Person_Man]

Any generic dungeon should be too small for the elephant to fit into. Also, elephants cannot jump any distance and cannot lift their legs more then a few feet off the ground. So a simple set of humanoid sized stairs is essentially impassable to them.

[Ormagoden]

Flying creatures can't be trampled by an elephant.

Pay attention to the amount of tricks it knows.

An important note on attacking with a regular animal.

"Attack (DC 20): The animal attacks apparent enemies. You may point to a particular creature that you wish the animal to attack, and it will comply if able. Normally, an animal will attack only humanoids, monstrous humanoids, giants, or other animals. Teaching an animal to attack all creatures (including such unnatural creatures as undead and aberrations) counts as two tricks. "

[awa]

real elephants cant jump dnd elephants have high strength and a decent move thus netting a +14 jump mod. Personally I would not allow her to buy such a creature at her level it's far to powerful.

Edit if she riding the beast she really does not need her move action the creature will move for her. Even if every thing does focus fire level appropriate foes will not be able to bring it down particularly if they start purchasing it gear.

[Wolf Warhead]

Potential idea: House rule that any mount for an adventurer can't have more HD than its rider? The Elephant is not the limit of the silliness you can achieve for low costs. It might feel like you're being mean to the player, but balance is always something important to keep in mind.

[Aroka]

Enforce the rules.

The animal only knows specific tricks, and it always takes a move action (and a check, though those are easy to make even when you roll 1) to make it perform a trick. The PC can't just play the animal as a second character - he makes actions to make rolls to make the animal perform tricks, which you adjudicate. It's an animal, not a follower.

Dungeon and cities are an easy solution - you usually can't take an elephant into either. Eventually the player will get fed up forking up dozens of gold pieces per day for the stabling, care, and feeding of an animal he can't make real use of.

Bought animals are very annoying for a DM, for sure - I had a low-level PC use all his money on a half-dozen war dogs who were always ordered to guard him.

[Xefas]

Alternate Opinion:

Why punish the player for something that's obviously fun for them in the name of balance? If everyone is having fun, what's the problem? How about instead of trying as hard as possible to take away something big from the character, make that aspect of the character interesting and important?

Ask them why they have the elephant, how did they acquire it, and if they have any special attachment to it. How do people react when they see him stroll into town on a huge (possibly very exotic depending on the part of the world you are in) beast? 500 gold is a lot to the average peasant; he must appear as some kind of prince or noble to be able to spend so much on something so simple as a mount.

How does he react to that? He's a druid, so his perspective must be rather interesting. If he spent long enough in devout communion with nature to become a Druid, then he's probably not very at home in civilized society to begin with. And if he is, well, that's an interesting bit of backstory to explore.

And if they happen to use it to breeze through D&D's often egregiously long and tedious level-appropriate encounters, then all the better. A 'roleplaying game' should have more than combat.

[braxsus]

Depending on how realisitic your world is..
Elephants need to eat constantly..they don't processs celluose effeciently and a full size adult will eat 500 lbs a day..this takes 75% of its activity

So let i graze itself...allow 75% of the day to do so..for it to stay healthy..hope it doesn't cause problems with local herdsman

Supply feed..by magic..Allow 25% of the day for it to eat the food

Supply Feed..buying Food..have 2 pack mules to caryy the 500lbs of hay per day..and the mules feed as well..and have a good idea where you will be able to get this hay on a daily basis..allow 40% of your day to handle all the beasts and its feeding/grooming

It is cool..sounds fun..but I see this ount as a special circumstances..large battles, begin story line sequences...Not feasible for a daily travelling mount

[Caphi]

snip

Because some of them have fun interacting with the combat too?

[Xefas]

{Scrubbed}

[Aroka]

{Scrubbed}

My group only plays D&D for the combat challenges - if we want something more, we play a better game and/or a better setting. The combat can be awesomely fun. Sometimes you lose and die and roll a new character, the rest of the time you win. Winning by the skin of your teeth, or through some clever tactic, is the most fun, by far. Winning because a third-level PC bought a CR 7 pet doesn't sound very fun.

Not to mention your "death or victory" nonsense is nonsense. PCs are very capable of retreats, on average.

[Xefas]

{Scrubbed}

Judging by "...- if we want something more, we play a better game and/or a better setting.", you realize that there are, in fact, better systems out there than D&D for just about every aspect of the game you might partake in.

Given that as truth, there's not much room to debate with you rationally, as you arbitrarily choose to do something worse than you could otherwise. By that logic, it would be justified to just...I dunno...shoot oneself in the foot instead of brush your teeth? Sure, a shot in the foot is worse, but hey, why not do something worse for the hell of it? That's no kind of logic at all. It can't be debated.

[Yorrin]

Alternatively, give some of your foes awesome mounts as well. Then have one of them who is capable of knocking the druid off his/her mount. Said foe should also dismount, and have the two mounts locked in combat separate from the rest of the fight.

In other words- isolation. Have one foe in any given fight specifically designed to be fought by the elephant, and capable of drawing its attention away.

[drengnikrafe]

Once upon a time, my most eccentric PC decided he wanted to ride a War Armadillo into battle, and then, after charging, he would throw a tiny War Armadillo. He found the rules that might work. I ignored all of those rules, and Rule of Cooled the entire thing. It, mechanically, acted just like a normal horse and moderately large rock. Fluff-wise, it was a really awesome deal.

Okay, with that anecdote out of the way... is it possible for you to have this PC have something mechanically simple but fluff amazing?

[Aroka]

{Scrubbed}

Judging by "...- if we want something more, we play a better game and/or a better setting.", you realize that there are, in fact, better systems out there than D&D for just about every aspect of the game you might partake in.

Given that as truth, there's not much room to debate with you rationally, as you arbitrarily choose to do something worse than you could otherwise. By that logic, it would be justified to just...I dunno...shoot oneself in the foot instead of brush your teeth? Sure, a shot in the foot is worse, but hey, why not do something worse for the hell of it? That's no kind of logic at all. It can't be debated.

So if X is worse than Y, X is automatically horrible? A game that is not optimal for anything is the same as shooting yourself? This is rational?

D&D is not a great game game, but it's the only game with the D&D feel, which does count for a lot. It's easy and familiar and doesn't require a lot of thinking or heavy involvement - it's like playing a shooter.

And none of that addresses the fact that people do, in fact, enjoy the actual combat in D&D, and your arguments were trash.

[Xefas]

So if X is worse than Y, X is automatically horrible? A game that is not optimal for anything is the same as shooting yourself? This is rational?

You're putting a lot of words in my mouth that I didn't say. Also, you're taking a tongue-and-cheek hyperbolic metaphor and using it at face value.

D&D is not a great game game, but it's the only game with the D&D feel, which does count for a lot. It's easy and familiar and doesn't require a lot of thinking or heavy involvement - it's like playing a shooter.

First, I disagree that D&D is the only game with the D&D 'feel'. There are plenty of other games that can be tailored very simply to have that same kind of feel.

Secondly, that's a broad generalization of an entire genre of game. I don't know exactly what you mean be shooter (first person shooter? rail shooter? side-scrolling shooter? third person shooter?), but I have a feeling that good shooters do, in fact, require some thinking.

And none of that addresses the fact that people do, in fact, enjoy the actual combat in D&D, and your arguments were trash.

I don't appreciate the thinly veiled personal insult. But still, I think your logic is flawed here as well. To use another metaphor, I can be having plenty of fun on the tilt-a-whirl at the state fair, but if I just looked past the fence, I'd see the rollercoaster, which is so much more fun. At that point I'd realize I should be on that rollercoaster instead.

Replace "tilt-a-whirl" with anything that is slightly fun, "fence" with any sort of information barrier, and "rollercoaster" with anything that is more fun than the previous thing in the metaphor.

[Lev]

Alternate Opinion:

Why punish the player for something that's obviously fun for them in the name of balance? If everyone is having fun, what's the problem? How about instead of trying as hard as possible to take away something big from the character, make that aspect of the character interesting and important?

Ask them why they have the elephant, how did they acquire it, and if they have any special attachment to it. How do people react when they see him stroll into town on a huge (possibly very exotic depending on the part of the world you are in) beast? 500 gold is a lot to the average peasant; he must appear as some kind of prince or noble to be able to spend so much on something so simple as a mount.

How does he react to that? He's a druid, so his perspective must be rather interesting. If he spent long enough in devout communion with nature to become a Druid, then he's probably not very at home in civilized society to begin with. And if he is, well, that's an interesting bit of backstory to explore.

And if they happen to use it to breeze through D&D's often egregiously long and tedious level-appropriate encounters, then all the better. A 'roleplaying game' should have more than combat.

Yes this is exactly my point, I want to handle it in a balancing way that doesn't detract from the awesomeness of just having an elephant.

Her backstory is basically that she's a savanna druid, she's pretty solid in that and her companion is a cheetah so she's thematically and RP-wise pretty well off. She explained where she got everything, family stuff, druidic clan, ect.

The flying monsters are a good idea, except no one has ranged weaponry-- druid, bard, barb.

I could see the threat meter go off the chart for the elephant yes, but it's not exactly a squishy-- a goblin swarm seems like it would be effective until you realized that even from the sides and 10 guys aiding grapple, it probably would still fail vs a +26... it would have to be ranged characters going after it, so that might work.

Depending on how realisitic your world is..
Elephants need to eat constantly..they don't processs celluose effeciently and a full size adult will eat 500 lbs a day..this takes 75% of its activity

So let i graze itself...allow 75% of the day to do so..for it to stay healthy..hope it doesn't cause problems with local herdsman

Supply feed..by magic..Allow 25% of the day for it to eat the food

Supply Feed..buying Food..have 2 pack mules to caryy the 500lbs of hay per day..and the mules feed as well..and have a good idea where you will be able to get this hay on a daily basis..allow 40% of your day to handle all the beasts and its feeding/grooming

It is cool..sounds fun..but I see this ount as a special circumstances..large battles, begin story line sequences...Not feasible for a daily travelling mount

I have an RGB system set up for realism, green is extremely core, blue is middle of the road and red is dead real, each player puts a little marker dot on their character sheet and get rewards for more realism. Everyone chose blue.

As for feed, goodberry is a good counter as for a level 1 spell you can generate 2D4 magical meals + healing per spell, which can work on elephants too but I'm not sure the ratio of what a huge creature needs in meals vs a medium so I'll have to guess? Anyone have ideas?
I know there's a magic item that allows for automatic feeding -- Arms & EQ Guide --
"Saddlebags of Providing:
Each bag of this pair serves a
different function. Every morning,
the right bag contains enough food to feed whatever
creature it is slung over for one day. For horses,
this is generally oats and a few lumps of sugar; for
griffons, it means several pounds of raw horsemeat.
If removed and not eaten, the food spoils after 24
hours. Food does not appear if anything else is
placed in the bag.
The left bag contains a masterwork set of grooming
and leather repair tools. The grooming tools are
appropriate for whatever creature the bag is slung
over. In addition, the left bag contains 10 cubic feet
of space for the rider’s personal effects, and in all
other ways acts as a bag of holding. Both bags weigh
the same as regular empty saddlebags, regardless of
their contents.
Caster Level: 9th; Prerequisites: Craft Wondrous Item,
create food and water, Leomund’s secret chest; Market Price:
8,000 gp; Weight: 16 lb."

Tricks are a good rule to stick to, but a charm animal and animal trick spell (masters of the wild) are good counters.

Daily traveling is a point, they go at a trot but can't get anywhere in a hurry unless the druid casts Wind At Back.

At the end of the day, combat in D&D is just mathturbation that gets in the way of interesting character interaction.

And, hey, if intense, balanced, tactical combat is what they want, and not roleplaying, then 3.5 D&D is probably one of the worst games for that too.

I couldn't disagree more with this point. You must have had some bad DMs or despise action movies or something, because combat works like it does because of how fast and condensed it ACTUALLY is, even if it takes 2 hours to go through a single finale mob it still is intensely graphic, so much so that it would make bad writing to try to explain it... but an awesome movie.

I think your logic is flawed here as well.
-----
Replace "tilt-a-whirl" with anything

I see an abuse of analogy fallacy used to reinforce someone's opinions as "logical".

Yes, it is logical that you do not enjoy the combat, but you opened up with that comment by crassly insulting the game (albeit only a large portion and not the whole) that the forum you were posting it on is based around, and in fact the userbase is mostly made up of powergamers or at least those swayed towards the powergaming mentality of "can't take weak feats or I feel weak".
Now go re-read your posts and re-evaluate your perceived social posturing.

[braxsus]

I have an RGB system set up for realism, green is extremely core, blue is middle of the road and red is dead real, each player puts a little marker dot on their character sheet and get rewards for more realism. Everyone chose blue.

As for feed, goodberry is a good counter as for a level 1 spell you can generate 2D4 magical meals + healing per spell, which can work on elephants too but I'm not sure the ratio of what a huge creature needs in meals vs a medium so I'll have to guess? Anyone have ideas?
I know there's a magic item that allows for automatic feeding -- Arms & EQ Guide --
"Saddlebags of Providing:
Each bag of this pair serves a
different function. Every morning,
the right bag contains enough food to feed whatever
creature it is slung over for one day. For horses,
this is generally oats and a few lumps of sugar; for
griffons, it means several pounds of raw horsemeat.
If removed and not eaten, the food spoils after 24
hours. Food does not appear if anything else is
placed in the bag.
The left bag contains a masterwork set of grooming
and leather repair tools. The grooming tools are
appropriate for whatever creature the bag is slung
over. In addition, the left bag contains 10 cubic feet
of space for the rider’s personal effects, and in all
other ways acts as a bag of holding. Both bags weigh
the same as regular empty saddlebags, regardless of
their contents.
Caster Level: 9th; Prerequisites: Craft Wondrous Item,
create food and water, Leomund’s secret chest; Market Price:
8,000 gp; Weight: 16 lb."

Aye..there are plenty of ways around solving the "taking care of" the mount..just make sure the Player is aware of the costs and tasks required to take care of the pet..

The concern you have is that the mount will be over powered in most situations.

The solution is providing oppurtunities for the player to use the mount for most dramatic effect and fun without breaking the game play every session...foreknowledge of large battles in which he/she can call for her mount

But other times the elephant is elsewhere because its just having a bull in a china shop every where he/she goes

[Bharg]

It's an elephant! It won't starve just because you don't feed it. Just let it walk around freely and it will go and eat some trees.

Is the elephant actually trained for combat?

[Thinker]

Meh.

Okay, so in a standard combat, there are really only two broad outcomes. Victory and defeat.

When fighting monsters, defeat most often means 'death'. If your characters die, then the game is over. You don't want the game to be over, so the characters must win. Them winning is the only way to proceed with the game.

So, when fighting monsters, just say to your group. "Do you want to keep playing? If yes, you win. Describe how awesome you were. Then we can get back to the genuinely meaningful part."

When fighting more intelligent adversaries, there can be several outcomes of defeat other than death. They can capture you, they can Morality Undone you into your opposite alignment, they can turn you into a vampire, etc.

So, ask your players "If you lose, the non-death outcomes could be X, Y, or Z. Do any of those sound more fun than winning, if yes, which one? Describe how awesome things happened. Now lets get to the genuinely meaningful part."

At the end of the day, combat in D&D is just mathturbation that gets in the way of interesting character interaction.

And, hey, if intense, balanced, tactical combat is what they want, and not roleplaying, then 3.5 D&D is probably one of the worst games for that too.

Why do you want to turn the game into happy hippy fun time? I guess you don't really like the "dangerous" aspect of adventuring. I can extrapolate from your logic that you aren't very keen on any sort of checks, either. What would be more interesting: Failing at climbing the wall or simply being over the other side? I think your entire opinion is full of fail.

It must be too uninteresting to you, after all, you are just there to take part in the story. At that point what you're doing is at best sitting around a camp fire expanding on each others' ghost stories and at worst (and more likely) playing a choose your own adventure book.

[AslanCross]

1. She should have to feed it, so it should be given a few hours to graze.

2. It will definitely not fit in a generic dungeon.

3. Fast, mounted ranged attackers will be a good threat. Goblin archers mounted on war worgs will be faster than the elephant and will be able to scatter such that the elephant can't get off a full attack. Since its AC isn't very high (assuming that most of the cost went to the mount, so it doesn't have any barding), it will be easy enough to hit.

[Frosty]

Try talking to the player about it if you feel the elephant is too good.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff of Moddingham: Please keep it civil in this thread.

[Tyndmyr]

Don't take the elephant away. Elephants are awesome, and if it fits thematically with her char...all the better.

Make sure that food is taken into consideration...also, take into consideration climate and locale. If you need to fetch some thingie from a mountain or a dungeon, elephant isn't helpful at all. If it's in a desert, booyah. Basically, it ends up being a situational tool. Awesome when you can bring it to bear, but not useful a good chunk of the time. Just make sure to vary the challenges.

Keep in mind that the party will soon catch up with the elephant, so the difference will soon fade, too. Problems like these eventually solve themselves.

Oh, and if none of the party includes ranged weapons, make sure to have a trivial flying mob as part of an encounter. Nothing that will threaten them, but something that'll plink away at them from range while mocking them. A winged kobold with a shortbow, for instance. They'll eventually figure out some creative way of downing it(most likely by throwing stuff at it), but it might just encourage them to pack ranged gear.

Then you can bust out fun stuff, like archers riding hippogriffs.

[ericgrau]

Griffons are a CR 4 and cost 10,000 gp a pop. Ya, they are useful for flying, but that only goes so far. I'd say that book is pretty lousy at pricing animals, and you should figure out something better.

Also take a look at the handle animal skill. I don't know how the elephant is doing everything you describe without the ability to speak common nor understand common. I mean elephants don't normally grapple, and even the rest should be done by their own decision.

Why punish the player for something that's obviously fun for them in the name of balance? If everyone is having fun, what's the problem?

Because it's trampling over all the encounters and making them un-fun. If you want something now you could give him a baby elephant instead, and let it grow up over time assuming the druid pays for food, figures out where to keep it, and so on.

[Lev]

The size can be handled with spells that shrink animals, most dungeons can hold a Large elephant vs a Huge one.

[Soranar]

play by the rules

when deciding encounters an elephant is a CR 7 ally (which will aggro similar CR creatures that it will have to fight by itself)

if your team survives, they level up quickly (making the elephant much less of a gamebreaker, although allowing a Tier 1 gamebreaker class in the first place is probably your real problem here)

-if they die (druid, elephant or entire party) , problem solved