My players don't use horses!

[Alcore]

Hmm... think the animal companion rules for 3.5 would work in 5e?

HD doesn't translate to BAB there so that would be fine. Might need to half natural armor gain. Perhaps remove all specials except evasions. Maybe 'attune' to them like a magic item...

Something to think about to make the horse more useful in 5e

[Pex]

Is it inevitable at some point in a campaign every DM thinks their players don't have horse sense?

[Elbeyon]

Apparently, horses are red shirts.

[Telok]

Hmm... think the animal companion rules for 3.5 would work in 5e?

HD doesn't translate to BAB there so that would be fine. Might need to half natural armor gain. Perhaps remove all specials except evasions. Maybe 'attune' to them like a magic item...

Something to think about to make the horse more useful in 5e

Nah, the ranger class already did the air breathing mermaid thing to that. You couldn't make it any better than the trashy ranger pet from the PH and it's already pretty much the worst already.

I've realized 5e D&D has lots of air breathing mermaid issues, but that's not for this thread.

[Segev]

Nah, the ranger class already did the air breathing mermaid thing to that. You couldn't make it any better than the trashy ranger pet from the PH and it's already pretty much the worst already.

I've realized 5e D&D has lots of air breathing mermaid issues, but that's not for this thread.

Technically, it's not an air-breathing mermaid issue because there was no baseline assumption of animal companions before that one, but that's me quibbling over definitions of "air breathing mermaid." It's definitely bad design.

Also, 5e has a habit of having alternate or optional class features that are just better than previously-published ones as unacknowledged patches for things. Homebrew can absolutely make something better.

[VoxRationis]

I would have to rate the tactical value of horses as being rather larger, in spite of all the downsides. First, being mounted provides the ability for hit-and-run attacks against slower opponents using ranged weapons or magic. Second, it allows use of mounted lance charges, the efficacy of which depends on the system and edition, but they usually bear the advantage of not being within the enemy's reach until the attack actually occurs. Third, it provides heavily-armored characters the ability to flee a combat that has turned sour. In the D&D campaign I'm in at present (technically on hiatus), we lost half the party when the battle lines we were participating in collapsed and the heavily-armored characters couldn't withdraw fast enough by virtue of their lower movement speed. Having been mounted would have avoided that. Fourth, it allows the mounted character to more swiftly move to reinforce a distant position and potentially intervene several rounds sooner. Fifth, the horse represents a means of carrying more weight, either in cargo or in weapons and armor. Sixth, any attack eventually done against the horse is an attack not directed at a party member. If being dismounted caused 1d6 damage but the attack that caused the character to be dismounted (and thus was not directed at the character, but rather the mount) was 2d6+12, that's still a gain. Even if the horse did absolutely nothing else in that action, it saved a healing potion.

(Obviously, many of these considerations represent a bias towards a campaign style where much of the action takes place outdoors and are often actual pitched battles, and thus will probably be of lesser value in campaigns centered around large dungeons, palace intrigues, and so forth.)

Now, obviously the horse represents a point of vulnerability, but this can be shored up in a few ways, depending on the system/edition. A simple low-level sanctuary spell in D&D can make the horse unlikely to be attacked in the first place. The Mounted Combat feat in 3.5 may be even more effective at preventing physical attacks, depending on PC Ride skill and NPC Will saves; its 5e counterpart is even better. Common area-of-effect spells can be anticipated and the horse included in the list of recipients of defensive spells (resist energy, etc.); this might not even be a significant resource burden depending on the level of the caster and the edition. (And of course, in some non-D&D systems, the horse is tougher than the person riding it.)

@OP: If you are concerned that the players don't use horses, if you consider it a problem that they don't, I would communicate to the players that speed will be a relevant factor in scenarios. Have NPCs estimate dates, or even give specific dates, for when an event will occur, so that the players know that if they invest resources into moving faster, they can make palpable gains. Hell, give them the opportunity to change a scenario from an assault on a fortified opponent to a defensive battle where they've already looted the dungeon with no opposition by beating their opponents to a location. Include battles where mobility is rewarded, such as against slow but strong opponents, or ones where the PCs may need to be present at several points.

[LordCdrMilitant]

There are only two games I can think of where horses are preferable to walking. First is Ocarina of Time (and that's only because it's faster than walking... and even then, you pretty much only use your horse to cross Hyrule Field to reach new areas, then once you get the warp spell for the new area you don't need the horse anymore.)

Second is... well, a couple series actually: Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors, and Warriors Orochi (which a crossover between the first two.) And even then, unless your character is particularly good at mounted combat (in DW5, for instance, Ma Chao was THE best horseman in the game, and considered top-tier when mounted, right up there with Lu Bu) you pretty much only used your horse to get from place to place faster, and you hopped off your horse to do actual fighting because on foot you're more maneuverable, and most characters while mounted would just simply swing their weapon in an arc that it was kind of difficult to hit anything with.

In D&D, horses are just... a liability. They need to be fed and groomed and more importantly paid for, and unless you want to spend your RP time taking care of your horse you have to hire someone to tend to them for you, and if THAT NPC dies not only are you directly responsible for his death but you have to take care of the horses yourself. Furthermore, the warrior classes are notoriously starved for skill points, so either you spec FULLY into being a horseman with Ride and Handle Animal, or you spend those skill points somewhere more useful, like Craft: Underwater Basket Weaving. And if your horse dies, your feats and skills are now completely useless, which means you're pretty much stuck with your crappy basic attack that you haven't specced for until you can get a replacement horse, AND you have to either replace your horse armor or somehow pry it away from whatever killed your last horse, which you're at a major disadvantage for because you don't HAVE a horse, which you've built your character around.

Alternately, you could ignore the existence of horses and completely ignore all the problems I just described. Hmm... I wonder why most players tend to go with the latter route...

As far as travel time? Riding a horse actually isn't particularly faster than just walking. It's less tiring, but there are spells and magic items and so on that remove fatigue and exhaustion.

There just plain isn't any incentive TO use horses, and lots of players have experienced their mounts either being killed, stolen, or spooked and running off, thereby losing any investment they had, to care about them anymore. Horses are only worth it IF you've specced for it, AND your horse doesn't die, and players have zero control over the latter, so why risk it?

I will offer the Mount and Blade series for a video game RPG where being mounted is desirable. Though the title might give it away, it is pretty much required to be mounted unless you want to play the game in hard mode. Not only is your overland speed on foot abysmal compared to mounted parties [who will either avoid you if you're stronger or just run you down if you're weaker], once combat is joined fighting dismounted puts you at a huge disadvantage both in basically all three of mobility, offense, and defense. Of course, the game is designed around mounted combat.

[Alcore]

I will offer the Mount and Blade series for a video game RPG where being mounted is desirable. Though the title might give it away, it is pretty much required to be mounted unless you want to play the game in hard mode. Not only is your overland speed on foot abysmal compared to mounted parties [who will either avoid you if you're stronger or just run you down if you're weaker], once combat is joined fighting dismounted puts you at a huge disadvantage both in basically all three of mobility, offense, and defense. Of course, the game is designed around mounted combat.

I disagree. A common tactic i use is get a horse lord to follow me and try to beat him to a mountain. My *faster* infantry make short work of *slower* calvary on the near virtical slopes. Depending on the type of infantry they are in fact better for seiges.

Form up spearmen into a circle with archers in the middle if found in the open. Only a rookie, or the over confident, lets their troops rush the enemy horde style.


Mounted only is devastating when used right but it is not the focus of the game. Otherwise why does only one kingdom rely on it? Often i am the only one mounted with a few pack horses in inventory for extra speed.

[Quertus]

Unless you can fast talk the GM into house-ruling the game to better match reality, the rules of the game *are* the reality that the characters live in. Claims that characters are "metagaming" by noticing those roles are fallacious - it's actually bad role-playing for them to act like their world matches ours in ways that is clearly doesn't.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: like our world unless otherwise noted. Germaine to this conversation, rules for overland movement are usually sufficiently detailed to qualify for the "otherwise noted" clause.

In any world resembling reality one horse would be a huge benefit to the group. In a dangerous place horseman can scout ahead of the group without slowing it down and will find it easier to escape if he finds any trouble; in a settled place outrider can ride ahead to reserve places and make general preparations so the group will be able to rest sooner or better;

That… sounds an awful lot like the lovechild of the cardinal sin of splitting the party and spotlight hogging: splitting the party for the express purpose of spotlight hogging. I'll not deny that a house could be useful in such scenarios, just that it's difficult to make such uses [good].

Which segues nicely into the issue of modern gamers wanting their characters to do things under their own power. Better to just walk under your own power until you can teleport under your own power, I recon.

Lastly, the *real* reason to avoid horses? "I put all my skill ranks in Ride(Dragon)!"

[King of Nowhere]

That… sounds an awful lot like the lovechild of the cardinal sin of splitting the party and spotlight hogging: splitting the party for the express purpose of spotlight hogging. I'll not deny that a house could be useful in such scenarios, just that it's difficult to make such uses [good].:

so, the characters should make decisions based on convenience. except that here some decision results in splitting the party, so they should not take that decision? both can't be true at the same time.
and it's actually common, at least at my table, to split the party for scouting. you want to send the guy with high spot and hide to do it, not the bumbling brute in heavy armor that stands out like a beacon to anyone looking that way.
and when instead you need to scout with magic, divinations and stuff, then the caster takes the spotlight. it's how the game works, sometimes someone is best at a task and takes the spotlight.

you can't make an argument against horses by claiming that somebody with a horse would be more efficient, and hence he would hog the spotlight, so no horses. or someone else could make the same argument for spells. or skill points. Just imagine this: "if you take ranks in diplomacy, then you can get invited to the duke's party and learn stuff. and that's terrible! you'd split the party and hog the spotlight!"
it doesn't seem such a compelling argument any longer...

[Trafalgar]

My Lizardfolk Barbarian uses horses for:
Breakfast
Second Breakfast
Elevenses
Luncheon
Afternoon Tea
Dinner
Supper

[Ravens_cry]

My Lizardfolk Barbarian uses horses for:
Breakfast
Second Breakfast
Elevenses
Luncheon
Afternoon Tea
Dinner
Supper

Are you sure your Lizardfolk isn't three feet and change with fur bearing insteps?

[Alcore]

Are you sure your Lizardfolk isn't three feet and change with fur bearing insteps?

Have you not met the Goblin King?

Goblins of wealth clearly believe in all those meals too!

[LordCdrMilitant]

I disagree. A common tactic i use is get a horse lord to follow me and try to beat him to a mountain. My *faster* infantry make short work of *slower* calvary on the near virtical slopes. Depending on the type of infantry they are in fact better for seiges.

Form up spearmen into a circle with archers in the middle if found in the open. Only a rookie, or the over confident, lets their troops rush the enemy horde style.


Mounted only is devastating when used right but it is not the focus of the game. Otherwise why does only one kingdom rely on it? Often i am the only one mounted with a few pack horses in inventory for extra speed.

Okay, this is true, but ish. Only 2 factions don't have cavalry, [I'm confused as to what you mean by only 1 faction relies on it? By my count Kergit, Swadia, and Sarranid all pretty much have a cavalry backbone, and Vaegir still have knights], and I know Nord Huskarlar have a speed boost to compensate.

On foot, and with foot infantry, moving up hills or engaging in forests is advantageous over the AI, but that's largely because you're fighting an AI, and you're doing that to overcome the mounted advantage.

If you, the player, are mounted and have a mounted party/party with lots of horses in it, you can chose your engages better than you can otherwise.

Infantry are better in sieges.

[Misereor]

There is this weird thing I've noticed when playing RPGs with my group. Maybe it's just us, but my players don't like using horses.

Same here, both as a player and DM.
Adventurers go into dungeons, but horses don't. Horses have to stay outside, so you either bet that no wandering encounters happen, leave a party member outside to watch them, or get a hireling tough enough to beat a level approprate encounter, none of which are good investments. Even if you don't plan to enter any dungeons, random crap happen, and you then have to spend game time and energy dealing with mounts instead of heroic stuff. The result is that noone bothers with mounts until the cost is trivial, or as part of a build (character or adventure).

Also. Time factors are fine if the adventure warrants it, but if the DM was obviously inserting a time factor to the adventure in order to force us to use monuts, as a player I would probably just shrug and say "Deus ex machina. Not my !"#¤%&/ problem." and let the chips fall where they may.

[Segev]

Same here, both as a player and DM.
Adventurers go into dungeons, but horses don't. Horses have to stay outside, so you either bet that no wandering encounters happen, leave a party member outside to watch them, or get a hireling tough enough to beat a level approprate encounter, none of which are good investments. Even if you don't plan to enter any dungeons, random crap happen, and you then have to spend game time and energy dealing with mounts instead of heroic stuff. The result is that noone bothers with mounts until the cost is trivial, or as part of a build (character or adventure).

Also. Time factors are fine if the adventure warrants it, but if the DM was obviously inserting a time factor to the adventure in order to force us to use monuts, as a player I would probably just shrug and say "Deus ex machina. Not my !"#¤%&/ problem." and let the chips fall where they may.

You could get a lot of hirelings and set up a defensible camp, which relies on the same thing that anything other than high level adventurers do to survive. I leave that nonspecific on purpose; something permits the world to have travelers who are not high level.

[GloatingSwine]

@OP: If you are concerned that the players don't use horses, if you consider it a problem that they don't, I would communicate to the players that speed will be a relevant factor in scenarios. Have NPCs estimate dates, or even give specific dates, for when an event will occur, so that the players know that if they invest resources into moving faster, they can make palpable gains. Hell, give them the opportunity to change a scenario from an assault on a fortified opponent to a defensive battle where they've already looted the dungeon with no opposition by beating their opponents to a location. Include battles where mobility is rewarded, such as against slow but strong opponents, or ones where the PCs may need to be present at several points.

None of those really suggest "get a horse" in a meaningful way. Unless your players have a list of travel times and distances and they know what the date is, they're not likely to think "we need horses to get to those places in time". They're going to think "better set out now" and use the transport they were already using.

Especially not in D&D when it's a super short period of time where horses are reasonably available and not yet obsoleted by magic.

[VoxRationis]

None of those really suggest "get a horse" in a meaningful way. Unless your players have a list of travel times and distances and they know what the date is, they're not likely to think "we need horses to get to those places in time". They're going to think "better set out now" and use the transport they were already using.

Especially not in D&D when it's a super short period of time where horses are reasonably available and not yet obsoleted by magic.

1) I fail to see how the same person could think that the situation was pressing enough to abandon whatever they're doing where they are so as to leave immediately but not think that it would be worth looking into a faster form of transport. "If I move faster, I could leave later to get there at the same time. Then I could spend the extra time doing something useful." (Or, of course, get there even earlier and get more time at the destination to make plans and preparations.) Anyone who's weighed different options for a commute has done that sort of analysis.

2) If the DM is providing dates for things in the game, the players likely know what the date is.

3) The period in D&D between horses becoming available and magical means of long-distance travel outpacing them is longer than you give it credit for, though it depends somewhat on what the party makeup and spell selection and the availability of particular magic items (I find it rare that one can assume access to enough of a particular magical effect via item that one can count on consistently being able to apply it to the whole party). Most low-level mobility enhancing spells are too short in duration for overland travel. Phantom steed will either take a prohibitive number of spell slots or a prohibitive amount of time to cast on a party of any reasonable size. 3e's overland flight isn't available until 9th level, and will only work on the caster. Teleportation circle in 5th is only available by 9th level at the earliest, and even then is of limited utility. If you're riding horses until you get above 10th level, that's still the better part of most campaigns and half of all but the very longest.

[GloatingSwine]

1) I fail to see how the same person could think that the situation was pressing enough to abandon whatever they're doing where they are so as to leave immediately but not think that it would be worth looking into a faster form of transport. "If I move faster, I could leave later to get there at the same time. Then I could spend the extra time doing something useful." (Or, of course, get there even earlier and get more time at the destination to make plans and preparations.) Anyone who's weighed different options for a commute has done that sort of analysis.

In order to do that though, they need to already have the habit of using different forms of transport, otherwise they just won't think of it as an option. Remember the players don't know what's in your head, and the only things in the world are things you've told them.

If you want players to think about using horses, everyone else they pass on the road needs to be riding and the first thing they need to see in every town of any size is a livery stable. (And using horses for most of the things they're going to do on the road needs to not take skill investment or they'll feel like it's a bad choice).

[StragaSevera]

I have never DMed in my life (because I'm too anxious to do so), but if I would encounter this problem, I would try to solve it via magic items. Something like this rough draft:

Saddle of Wise Adventurer. This magic saddle imbues the horse with a tiny part of her rider's essence, granting following benefits:
1) At the start of combat, your horse gains bonus hitpoints and saves based on her rider's level. This bonuses work for a surprise round (if any) and the first round of combat. The bonus hitpoints are spent first.
2) You can telepatically command a horse to run away from danger. If you are riding her at the time of the command, the saddle can slide you down, dismounting you with no action cost.
3) You sense the direction where the horse has gone, and can telepatically call back the horse. She tries to come back to you to the best of her ability, and you can sense if she for some reason cannot do it. This telepatic bond works in a certain radius [TBD, did not think about the balanced distance].

I think this item, if it does not cost much money, would solve many problems with having horses and still make combats kinda realistic - of course, some goblins can try to kill and eat the horse, but a wise horse owner would protect his steed from such attempts =-)

[GloatingSwine]

Unless those are a standard off-the-shelf item like a standard longsword, that's not going to build the habit of riding a horse in your parties.

It would be a way to give a player who already wanted a horse a bit more utility, but it wouldn't make the whole party think "we should ride everywhere all the time", which was what the thread started with. Habitual riding.

To do that you have to do several things:

1. Normalise riding in the presentation of the world. Regularly meet riders, make livery stables a standard fixture of basically every significant civilisation and stabling a fixture of every inn, and specifically call them out in your descriptions even if the players don't have horses yet.

2. Shave off the inconvenience of horses by default. That means finding a way for them to not be mega-squishy in combat (sharing HP with their rider, for instance), and making riding in combat and fighting from horseback to at least some degree not require skill investment. (Remember, fighting is a day to day activity for adventurers). Also figure out how these horses are going to be secured in the wilds, using only skills that characters are likely to have taken anyway.

3. Give a mild bonus for riding when they could have walked in all situations not just "but now it matters because time".

[StragaSevera]

Unless those are a standard off-the-shelf item like a standard longsword, that's not going to build the habit of riding a horse in your parties.

It would be a way to give a player who already wanted a horse a bit more utility, but it wouldn't make the whole party think "we should ride everywhere all the time", which was what the thread started with. Habitual riding.

Why not? For example, there is a cult of druids who think horses should not suffer for the questionable decision of their riders, and they are distributing such saddles en masse =-)

[Misereor]

You could get a lot of hirelings and set up a defensible camp, which relies on the same thing that anything other than high level adventurers do to survive. I leave that nonspecific on purpose; something permits the world to have travelers who are not high level.

That would quickly become prohibitively expensive for low level adventurers.
It's something I would enjoy for a planned expedition, say the exploration of several jungle hexes, but that would also require some funding I think.
As for what allows low level travellers to survive, the answer is "adventurers who clear out dungeons and roaming monsters" :)

[tangent]
I actually ran a campaign at one point where the players were forcibly enrolled in a penal unit assigned to do sweep and clears of known dungeons, as he lawful evil society they were in didn't have many philantropic adventurers, and those there were tended to end up in trouble with the authorities. That party didn't have horses either, but of course that was to make it harder to escape until they had been sufficiently brainwashed to no longer think such thoughts.
[/tangent]

[Democratus]

I have mostly found that horses complicate things (mechanically and narratively) more than they help.

There are games where horses are much better, like Pendragon, because they are more central to the identity of the idiom.

But in most other games, they are too vulnerable. This results in them dying early or often - or then getting some kind of illogical special protections to prevent such. Both are narratively sub-optimal.

[Xervous]

In my current campaign I’ve had great success with getting players onto mounts, baggage trains and ships (they’ve bought multiple ships and haven’t sunk one yet). More than a few are veterans of horrendous episodes like the Foggy Boat Scuffle and have good reason to dread setting foot on anything destined for the open sea.

The Squirrel Prophet has his goose gryphon mount that he steers clear of combat. The party has a small menagerie of pets and hirelings (okay they don’t care about the hirelings for some reason) but these don’t tend to be put in harms way.

I suspect their comfort in the ongoing campaign stems from transparency and consistency. If they announce they’re planning to sail along the coast and I remind them there’s been pirate sightings there (wereshark pirates no less) they took precautions and were not upset over sustaining damage and losses.

Generic travel is a default of no risk. If they were to encounter pirates, krakens, or eldritch grues every time they had the audacity to move from one area to the other I’m sure they wouldn’t have quite the entourage nor would they bring along the ship if they could help it. And furthermore how could the world even function if these random hazards cropped up with such frequency? Even making only one trip a year to sell goods at a neighboring market a farmer probably wouldn’t live to see twenty years.

Random mandatory attrition as a consequence of travel is something that boils down to an Oregon Trail event minus the PCs being much at risk (inherent in the definition of attrition ). Player survival being mostly expected, “you see bandits ahead and behind, its an ambush!” boils down to “lose 1d4 horses and 2d4 hirelings”. If the intent is attrition and the encounter is tuned such that the players can’t trivialize it (and thus avoid attrition) you might as well just roll the losses and move on with the game. With this understanding in place the only winning solution is to remove the resources from harms way. And again, if hirelings die this frequently who would want to be one?

But if the players see a big ol nasty beastie and decide to have a hireling poke ‘im with a stick? They’ve earned the ensuing combat and losses.

Inform the players, give them invitations to conflict as the general norm. Make normal travel safe (random encounters being at most 5% initially hostile). Flumph the sahuaghin, the party didn’t get on the boat to find combat, they did so at the suggestion of your plot hook leading them to another town. Show them it’s perfectly safe and fine. Reward dangerous PC actions with dangerous prizes. Let the safe and quiet path be just that. If the world as presented appears consistent to them, with inputs yielding hazard or safety as expected, then they’ll be more willing to interact with things like horses and boats rather than adopting a mindset that will serve them well against the perceived adversarial GM.

[Quertus]

IMO, all this talk of making things easier is fighting for with fire - it's how we got here in the first place.

Horses were in more common use when things were *hard*, when we couldn't count on the GM to make things move at the speed of plot, when treasure and encounters weren't "balanced", and both whether you could flee, or how much you could bring back from successful venturers actually mattered.

you can't make an argument against horses by claiming that somebody with a horse would be more efficient, and hence he would hog the spotlight, so no horses.

Well, clearly I can, seeing as how I just did so. However, I could make that argument several much better ways.

Oh, let's start with your prompt:

or someone else could make the same argument for spells.

Actually, people *have been* making that argument about spells, for at least as long as "linear Fighter, quadratic Wizard" has been a meme. Most recently in the "why low magic" thread.

The post I was replying to talked about how, if *someone* had a horse, *they* could do this, and *they* could do that, quite literally leaving their party behind. It's one of the best arguments against horses I've heard.

Magic, OTOH, usually isn't quite so bad: everyone can stand around the scrying portal, making observations and commentary. Everyone can discuss what questions to interrogate their enemies with via Speak with Dead (in a certain web comic, the muggle leader was even the one *asking* the questions). Whereas the party cannot really participate in the spotlight opportunities of "having a horse".

Other posters have been harping on the disconnect between the fiction and the game. My point was that there are actually at least 3 layers: the fiction, the game, and the metagame. "Spotlight sharing" is a concern for the metagame. (Also, as I said earlier, with regards to travel speed, unless you can con your GM into making house rules to more closely match your vision of reality, the game *is* the fiction; insisting that the characters behave in accordance with a completely different set of rules than those of the world in which they live is… really odd.)

so, the characters should make decisions based on convenience. except that here some decision results in splitting the party, so they should not take that decision? both can't be true at the same time.
and

You should eat regularly, unless someone is actively trying to stab you in the face, in which case you should deal with that. Both can't be true at the same time.

it's actually common, at least at my table, to split the party for scouting.

Bleh! Hopefully, either your scout normally had severe spotlight deficit, or they'll find some nice, spotlight-friendly magic soon.

you want to send the guy with high spot and hide to do it, not the bumbling brute in heavy armor that stands out like a beacon to anyone looking that way.

Actually, they can make great scouts. Especially if they're tar babies, super tanks, red shirts, or straight-up decoys.

You could get a lot of hirelings and set up a defensible camp, which relies on the same thing that anything other than high level adventurers do to survive. I leave that nonspecific on purpose; something permits the world to have travelers who are not high level.

And furthermore how could the world even function if these random hazards cropped up with such frequency? Even making only one trip a year to sell goods at a neighboring market a farmer probably wouldn’t live to see twenty years.

Commonly dangerous random encounters should occur out "in the wilds", where traveling merchants don't dare (and needn't) go.

Random mandatory attrition as a consequence of travel is something that boils down to an Oregon Trail event minus the PCs being much at risk (inherent in the definition of attrition ). Player survival being mostly expected, “you see bandits ahead and behind, its an ambush!” boils down to “lose 1d4 horses and 2d4 hirelings”. If the intent is attrition and the encounter is tuned such that the players can’t trivialize it (and thus avoid attrition) you might as well just roll the losses and move on with the game. With this understanding in place the only winning solution is to remove the resources from harms way. And again, if hirelings die this frequently who would want to be one?

Removing such encounters removes the roleplay involved.

Make normal travel safe (random encounters being at most 5% initially hostile).

Strongly agree. Make Exploration and Discovery fun again!

[Xervous]

Removing such encounters removes the roleplay involved.

What roleplay crops up in “you fight 20 bandits, carving through them in three rounds, while two of your hirelings ate crit arrows and instantly died. These four hirelings were hit and need healing or will perish, same for that horse,” that you wouldn’t see in the 2d4 hirelings + 1d4 horses case (offset by considerable table time savings)? You still have an event with consequences and the opportunity for players to say they did X or Y, but you’re not wasting 30min or more on trivial combat resolution. Again, this is assuming such encounters are routine and the intent is resource attrition that the players cannot fully avoid.

One in twenty such events? Sure, play it out. Any time you decide to follow where the GM pointed the plot arrow? Probably worth streamlining.

If the players constantly get random ‘lose 1d4 horses’ encounters dropped on them that they can’t consistently turn into ‘lose 0 horses’ might as well just not take horses when the GM seems determined to ensure they won’t have any for the return trip anyways.

It’s the difference between “that one time we had to rob a passing caravan for their horses to get back with the loot” and “I pay the MMORPG horse tax at the next town to refill this consumable”.

[Segev]

That would quickly become prohibitively expensive for low level adventurers.
It's something I would enjoy for a planned expedition, say the exploration of several jungle hexes, but that would also require some funding I think.

Typically, I believe, low-level adventures are not long expeditions where travel time is a massive concern. Expeditions to clear out dungeons multiple days' travel by horseback out that will require logistics such as carts or pack animals tend to start after the PCs have gotten some loot and wealth of their own.

As for what allows low level travellers to survive, the answer is "adventurers who clear out dungeons and roaming monsters" :)

Conveniently, the PCs' hireling encampment travelled there with such adventurers, who are clearing the nearest dungeon, so the monsters have to go through the PCs to get to the encampment, anyway.

IMO, all this talk of making things easier is fighting for with fire - it's how we got here in the first place.

Horses were in more common use when things were *hard*, when we couldn't count on the GM to make things move at the speed of plot, when treasure and encounters weren't "balanced", and both whether you could flee, or how much you could bring back from successful venturers actually mattered.

That's an interesting point. I think elaborating on it more might be useful. Could you please do so?

[Mastikator]

What roleplay crops up in “you fight 20 bandits, carving through them in three rounds, while two of your hirelings ate crit arrows and instantly died. These four hirelings were hit and need healing or will perish, same for that horse,” that you wouldn’t see in the 2d4 hirelings + 1d4 horses case (offset by considerable table time savings)? You still have an event with consequences and the opportunity for players to say they did X or Y, but you’re not wasting 30min or more on trivial combat resolution. Again, this is assuming such encounters are routine and the intent is resource attrition that the players cannot fully avoid.

One in twenty such events? Sure, play it out. Any time you decide to follow where the GM pointed the plot arrow? Probably worth streamlining.

If the players constantly get random ‘lose 1d4 horses’ encounters dropped on them that they can’t consistently turn into ‘lose 0 horses’ might as well just not take horses when the GM seems determined to ensure they won’t have any for the return trip anyways.

It’s the difference between “that one time we had to rob a passing caravan for their horses to get back with the loot” and “I pay the MMORPG horse tax at the next town to refill this consumable”.

Not to mention that as soon as one of the PCs have to travel by foot the others must slow down with their horses. The only benefit they could have at that point is if the PCs are trained knights AND the horses are trained war horses they will have tactical advantage in combat.

On the flip side it's weird that a GM would kill horses at all if they are attacked by bandits. Horses aren't exactly loyal to their owner, the bandits are just destroying the very loot they're risking their lives to acquire. Even an orc that may want to eat the horse should still consider riding into camp and THEN slaughtering it. Ultimately it's dumb for the GM to kill horses, it makes no sense in game and only discourages the players from having fun.

[VoxRationis]

In order to do that though, they need to already have the habit of using different forms of transport, otherwise they just won't think of it as an option. Remember the players don't know what's in your head, and the only things in the world are things you've told them.

If you want players to think about using horses, everyone else they pass on the road needs to be riding and the first thing they need to see in every town of any size is a livery stable. (And using horses for most of the things they're going to do on the road needs to not take skill investment or they'll feel like it's a bad choice).

1. Normalise riding in the presentation of the world. Regularly meet riders, make livery stables a standard fixture of basically every significant civilisation and stabling a fixture of every inn, and specifically call them out in your descriptions even if the players don't have horses yet.

Who are these players you have who don't think of horses as a transport option in a pre-modern setting? Do your players also have their characters only eat raw grain because you never mentioned gristmills in the setting? Have they all been going barefoot because you never talked about shoes? I mean, you'll never hear me asking for less setting detail and description, but both common understanding and popular depictions in media underscore the prevalence of horses for anyone who could afford them before the advent of the car.