Mounts for a large paladin

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

I'm making a Half Ogre paladin of slaughter and I'm having alot of trouble figuring out a suitable mount. I'm drawing a horrible blank when it comes to what is suiting. If it's any help he has an ECL of 11.

[oriong]

Well, a lot depends on specifically how much you way, you could probably ride a Large mount if you're light enough relative to it's strength.

An Ogre weighs about 600 pounds, you're probably around 400.

A dire wolverine can carry up to 600 pounds and still be in the light load region when modified for the paladin's bonuses.

A dire boar can carry up to 1200 lbs and still be in the Light region.

so either of those, or the rhino or dire lion should be just fine.

[TheThan]

I doubt this is helpful, but I just got this image of a Forest Giant paladin riding a Tyrannosaurus into battle…

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Even though, judging from my recent wiki search, it looks like a forest Giant is too tall to ride one, hmm well any Giant thats less than 16 feet tall would do.

[Wehrkind]

I like the idea of a dire boar or dire bear myself. Something big and angry that goes into a berserk rage in combat really fits the concept of a paladin of slaughter. Maybe there is something in the monster manual that would do the trick too, like something semi intelligent. A displacer beast is probably too small, and would be better for a sneakier god, but something that likes to kill for it's own sake would fit the bill.

[Toliudar]

A size-advanced Winter Wolf?

A huge Wyvern?

[Tor the Fallen]

Flying mounts can only fly if they're carrying a light load and their barding is also light.

Dungeon crawling is going to be a little tough, what with being so big and all.

[Mewtarthio]

Dungeon crawling? He's a Large Paladin of Slaughter! He'll probably be flying around the blackened sky, accompanied by lightning and dramatic music, spreading death and destruction across the land!

...Though he'll probably need some dungeon crawling eventually, just to acquire a few Evil Artifacts.

[JaronK]

Really, it should be a Warhorse, since that's what the Paladin ability summons. Just advance the HD a little bit and thus increase his size. He'll just be riding into battle on an oversized Cliedsdail (sp?).

JaronK

[Fizban]

Let's see, Half-Ogre LA is +2 I think, so you're level 9. You need a huge creature to ride, which means it'll have plenty enough carrying capacity for your weight.

Dragons aren't gonna cut it, since the biggest dragon you can get from just your special mount ability is large. A huge dragon cohort is unavailable until epic.

You could look up the cost of a Great Carver in the ECS. Ebberon came out before they reduced the raptor sizes, so that'll give you the price for a huge dinosaur in ebberon.

You could just ad hoc stats for a huge horse and use that, subtracting a few levels from your special mount abilities.

Now, the best idea I've got is to use this feat from the spooky wizard's website:

Spoiler

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Wild Cohort [General]

You have a special bond with a wild animal, and it is willing to travel and adventure with you.

Benefit: You gain an animal cohort. The animal cohort is generally friendly to you and is willing to follow you and adventure with you. If given proper training, the animal cohort will willingly serve as your mount, guardian, and companion. (See the description of the Handle Animal skill on page 74 of the Player's Handbook for more details on training animals.)

You can use the Handle Animal skill on your animal cohort as a move action rather than as a standard action, and you gain a +2 bonus on all Handle Animal checks made to direct or influence your animal cohort.

Provided the DM gives her approval, at 1st level you can choose from a badger, camel, dire rat, dog, riding dog, eagle, hawk, horse (light or heavy), owl, pony, snake (Small or Medium viper), or wolf. Like a druid, you can choose more powerful animals as you increase in level. These alternative animal cohorts work like the alternative animal companions available to a druid, but they are available as cohorts later than they are available as animal companions. When selecting an alternative animal cohort, use the list of alternative animal companions on page 36 of the Player's Handbook, but treat yourself as a druid three levels lower than your character level. For example, once you reach 7th level, you can choose an animal cohort off the list of animal companions available to a 4th-level druid.

Special: Druids and rangers who take the wild cohort feat gain an animal cohort in addition to their animal companion. Although the two abilities are similar, they follow different sets of rules and must be tracked separately.

You can only ever have one wild cohort at any given time.

Like a druid's animal companion, your wild cohort improves as you gain experience. Although the animal cohort improves significantly compared to others of its kind, its abilities do not rival those of a druid's animal companion.

Character Level BonusHD NaturalArmor Adj. Str/DexBonus Bonus Tricks Special
1st-2nd +0 +0 +0 0
3rd-5th +1 +1 +0 1 Evasion
6th-8th +3 +3 +1 2
9th-11th +5 +5 +2 3
12th-14th +7 +7 +3 4 Devotion
15th-17th +9 +9 +4 5
18th-20th +11 +11 +5 6 Improved evasion

Animal Companion Basics: Use the base statistics for a creature of the companion's kind, as given in the Monster Manual, but make the following changes.

Class Level: The character's class levels and racial Hit Dice.

Bonus HD: Extra eight-sided (d8) Hit Dice, each of which gains a Constitution modifier, as normal. Remember that extra Hit Dice improve the animal cohort's base attack and base save bonuses. An animal cohort's base attack bonus is the same as that of a cleric or rogue of a level equal to the animal's HD. An animal cohort has good Fortitude and Reflex saves (treat it as a character whose level equals the animal's HD). An animal cohort gains additional skill points and feats for bonus HD as normal for advancing a monster's Hit Dice (see the Monster Manual). The number listed is the current total of extra HD over and above the base creature's total. For example, a creature that normally has 1 HD but that is a wild cohort for a 6th-level character gains an additional 3 HD for a total of 4 HD.

Natural Armor: The number noted here is an improvement to the animal cohort's existing natural armor bonus. For example, a creature that normally has a natural armor bonus of +2 but that is a wild cohort for a 6th-level character gains an additional +3 bonus for a total natural armor bonus of +5.

Str/Dex Bonus: Add this value to the base creature's Strength and Dexterity scores. For example, a creature that normally has a Strength score of 10 but that is a wild cohort for a 15th-level character gains an additional +4 for a total Strength score of 14.

Bonus Tricks: The value given in this column is the total number of "bonus" tricks that the animal knows in addition to any that the character might choose to teach it (see the Handle Animal skill, Player's Handbook page 74). These bonus tricks don't require any training time or Handle Animal checks, and they don't count against the normal limit of tricks known by the animal. The character selects these bonus tricks, and once selected, they can't be changed. For example, a wild cohort that belongs to an 11th-level character has a total of 3 bonus tricks.

Evasion (Ex): If an animal cohort is subjected to an attack that normally allows a Reflex saving throw for half damage, it takes no damage if it makes a successful saving throw.

Devotion (Ex): An animal cohort's devotion to its master is so complete that it gains a +4 morale bonus on Will saves against enchantment spells and effects.

Improved Evasion (Ex): When subjected to an attack that normally allows a Reflex saving throw for half damage, an animal cohort takes no damage if it makes a successful saving throw and only half damage if the saving throw fails.

Link
Baisically the feat gives you an animal companion with one less hit die, no share spells, and it take a move action to command it instead of a free. But since it's your mount, you use the ride skill as part of whatever you're already doing.

Using that feat, you could have a Giant Croc, Huge Viper, or Elasmosaurus at level 9, taking a -6 to your level for calculating it's abilities from the feat. The catch is that they all have speed 20', so you're going at best the same speed you were unmounted, but you'll have a really cool mount. If your DM let you fudge it, for lv-9 you get a megaraptor, which was huge before the errata.

[Jack Mann]

By RAW, you can't do that. 1) You can only increase size via hit dice if the entry includes increased sizes for increased hit dice, and 2) there is no advancement for horses. By the rules, regular horses and light warhorses have three hit dice, and only heavy warhorses have four. To make a larger horse, you effectively have to create a new animal. Which is fine. I mean, to be huge, it's going to have to be around sixteen feet long. When it's that big, is it still a horse? Might as well stat out something new anyway.

EDIT: I was referring to JaronK, incidentally. Fizban posted while I was still typing away.

[bladesmith]

Just an idea, but if the DM permits(not quite sure what the actual rules are pertaining to this) but maybe an advanced Nightmare/Cauchemar would be an option. Or a bulette. Or an advanced chimera. Or...

Basically, the way I've worked it before, whether it is right or not, is to take the leadership feat, then use your cohort as your mount. However, at ninth level that may not work out so good(I was doing it at higher levels). All the same, it's an idea. From what I can see, mostly once you have a "mount" you can make it into a "special mount" whenever you like. Like I said though, I'm not all that clear on the rules.

[Fizban]

Yeah, the limiting factor is his level, otherwise using a cohort for a mount would be great. I've heard about that special mount/cohort thing before as well, could someone find where it is and point it out?

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Hmm, I don't suppose level adjustment is calculated into cohort level, is it? That might make things easier for me.

Edit: By which I mean the one with the leadership feat, not the cohort's level adjustment.

[Roderick_BR]

Do you have Defenders of Faith? I think they have some suggestions for tiny and large paladins there.

[Penguinizer]

Ogres riding rhinos into battle. Impossible to resist the mental image.

[oriong]

Is there anything that says the mount has to be Huge?

I don't see any at least, at worst you might have to be subjected to the -5 Ride penalty for an 'unsuitable mount' but that's most of the Huge possibilities anyway.

Most any Large quadraped with strength in the 19-20 range is big enough to lift him, if it's in the 22+ range it can carry him and some armor, and over 24 they can probably both wear armor.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Is there anything that says the mount has to be Huge?

I don't see any at least, at worst you might have to be subjected to the -5 Ride penalty for an 'unsuitable mount' but that's most of the Huge possibilities anyway.

Most any Large quadraped with strength in the 19-20 range is big enough to lift him, if it's in the 22+ range it can carry him and some armor, and over 24 they can probably both wear armor.

I vaguely remembering reading somewhere that the mount needs to be one size catagory larger than it's rider.

[Deus Mortus]

Well you could ask your dm to downlevel a huge dragon, depends if the dm is willing ot bend the rules a bit or not...

[Fax Celestis]

I'd recommend looking in the MM-IV in the Spawn of Tiamat section, particulary at the Whitespawn and Bluespawn.

...no, you can't ride a Bluespawn Godslayer.

[El Jaspero, the Pirate King]

Is there anything that says the mount has to be Huge?

Yeah, there is a rule somewhere that a mount has to be at least one size larger than its rider, but I'm not tracking it down immediately either. Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved has the Radont which is basically a CR 4 Huge horse.

Edit: Duh. PM me if you'd like the details.

[mikeejimbo]

An elephant! That would be awesome, if a bit overkill.

That's what, two size categories larger?

[El Jaspero, the Pirate King]

A t-rex or triceratops would be pretty darn cool actually.

[Arbitrarity]

Elephant is huge, so 1 size bigger. I tried that once.

"Can my half orc, permanent enlarged person, trip-monkey with a spiked chain, ride an elephant?"

I lost both the permanent enlarge person, and the elephant idea there. Then again, I was level 5. Hey, the enlarge person is only 2.96K...

[Fax Celestis]

Advanced Dire Rhinoceros?

[Fhaolan]

Okay, let's break it down... This may have changed for 3.5, but in 3.0 according to Defenders of the Faith, your mount needs to be Huge, and maxes out at 8th level with a CR of 5 (CR 4 if it's a flying mount).

So, can we find any Huge creatures with a CR of 5 or less? [I'm probably calcing the CR's wrong, can someone check me on these?]

A huge dire weasel of 7 HD would be CR 4
A huge dire badger of 7 HD would be CR 4
A huge dire bat of 5 HD would be CR 3 (flies, but it's still in the limit.)
Ooooh. A six-headed hydra is Huge, and has a CR of 5.
A giant constrictor is huge, and has a CR of 5. A huge viper has a CR of 3, so it's got room for improvement. :)

[Frosty Flake]

HIPPO! Weighing in at 3 000 kgs this tough beast could carry it's evil lord into battle, charging at speeds up to 50 km/h and attacking with the devestating force of it's powerful jaws. not big enough for you? Dire Hippo!

(Hippo's mark their taritory by taking a dump while they spin their tails around really fast, spraying the area with feces... c'mon, now, how cool is that for an evil paladin?)

[rhoass]

Me, I'm all for making him a half-dragon paladin of slaughter, therefore giving him wings (plus a nice bonus of extra strength). Then, see if your DM will let you swap your special friend ability for the charging smite, al la PH2. Now what you have is a flying large lancer, who can dive, charge, and hit with some power attack for X3 damage plus smite, somewhere around +100 damage. Oh, and if you miss, it doesn't waste a smite.