I need help picking a mount!

[MammonAzrael]

I'm playing a Bone Knight (from Eberron-Five Nations) and it grants you a special mount as a paladin. Normally it's a Skeleton War Horse, but my DM is letting me take Undead Leadership to get a cohort and treat that as my special mount. So, GitP, I need your help! What are some great options? This is a high-powered, gestalt, fairly optimized game, hence the asking for opinions.

I'll be playing a level 18 Lesser Aasimar ToB Samurai//Cloistered Cleric/Bone Knight/Divine Oracle with a 24 Charisma.

[Jade_Tarem]

First off, HOLY BUILDS OF DOOM, Batman!

Here are some mount options:

Nightmare - good for intimidation and the special effects. You're riding a horse made of darkness and fire!

Dragon of any sort - flight, breath weapon, it's just a good idea, because at your level it's possible that you could end up with one big enough to ride - maybe even a huge one! Remember to give it some fun feats from the back of the MM to match it's HD - I recommend hover and whirlwind, if you can manage it.

Mammoth - no one will ever see this coming. They tend to be huge (and can be enlarged to gargantuan) and have very good fighter-type moves, like bull rush. Since this is a cohort, you can slap a couple of fun templates on it, like half-dragon awakened mammoth or something, and then you can give it levels in fighter for more feats and hit points, and it will be able to spray fire from it's trunk every 1d4 rounds.

Heavy Warhorse - the simple things are sometimes the best. Add awakened, then half-celestial, then a bunch o' levels in barbarian or monk or something that increases movement and damage.

[MammonAzrael]

OK, first off, that Mammoth is hilarious.

I like you suggestions, but I'm aiming for an undead mount for fluff reasons. And I am taking Undead Leadership. Would it simply be a better idea to choose a monster, then apply an undead template to it?

[Recaiden]

You may want to consider a zombie, mummified, necropolitan, or revived fossil template of a normal creature. If you can get a large enough skeletal or Vampiric Dragon, that would be nice.
Perhaps a boneyard from Libris Mortis if you are allowed to, especially if you can change it's feats.
Nightwing

[Jade_Tarem]

OK, first off, that Mammoth is hilarious.

I like you suggestions, but I'm aiming for an undead mount for fluff reasons. And I am taking Undead Leadership. Would it simply be a better idea to choose a monster, then apply an undead template to it?

Ah. Then you may want to do as Recaiden says and slap an undead-type template on something. You could even make the mammoth undead (and awakened! +4 LA for those two) if you wanted to. And as a cleric, you can cast Iron Bones or a number of other corporeal undead-boosting spells and make it and your leadership-accrued undead minions truly disgusting (in a good way).

[Adumbration]

A dire rhinoceros could be nice too, if fossilized or otherwise undead-ified.

[Epinephrine]

I'd avoid zombified mounts, as they're slow. Also, skeletal mounts lose flight, since their wings don't provide any lift.

[The Demented One]

A request from your DM: Keeping the mount under Huge size would be really nice. Not a strict requirement, but given that we're going to have six players, a handful of cohorts, probably a few summons, and whatever your enemy is on the map, smaller makes things much less cramped.

EDIT: Ghoul Template might be useful, since it's only +1 LA and doesn't hurt the mount's speed.

[Stormageddon]

OK, first off, that Mammoth is hilarious.

I like you suggestions, but I'm aiming for an undead mount for fluff reasons. And I am taking Undead Leadership. Would it simply be a better idea to choose a monster, then apply an undead template to it?

I got it!

Undead Mammoth!

[MammonAzrael]

It's tempting. Right now the top candidate is grabbing a Nightmare. It advances 4 HD to a total of 10 HD since I count as a lv 10 paladin, and then slapping on some templates (though it's intelligent, so I guess I could do class levels) to increase it to whatever the max is that I can have as a cohort/special mount combo. That way even it it's skeletonized, it can still fly since it's flight is magical, not biological.

And TDO, I promise not to go above Huge. Hell, it's always struck me as strange enough how you can be a medium creature riding a huge mount and still make attacks...

[Jade_Tarem]

I got it!

Undead Mammoth!

*Sniff* It's like I don't even exist...

[MammonAzrael]

*Sniff* It's like I don't even exist...

Awwww. Don't worry, I saw yours too. He just seemed so enthusiastic about it, I was afraid I'd crush that youthful pixie optimism if I didn't respond to it.

On that note, the only mammoth I can find is in Frostburn. And right above that is a Saber-tooth Tiger! Sweet.

[Stormageddon]

*Sniff* It's like I don't even exist...

Opps Didn't mean to bit your style.... Just did not see you there.

[The Demented One]

If you want a sabertooth tiger or mammoth mount, I would advise you to start off with just a normal mount, and pick it up at some point in the past. 'Cause nothing's cooler than animating a sabertooth skeleton and watching it break out of a glacier.

[dyslexicfaser]

If you want a sabertooth tiger or mammoth mount, I would advise you to start off with just a normal mount, and pick it up at some point in the past. 'Cause nothing's cooler than animating a sabertooth skeleton and watching it break out of a glacier.

That would indeed be badass.

Note to self: dress warmly for trip to the past.

[Thiel]

There's a cool mental image.
A herd of undead mammoths breaking out of an ice plain.
There's a serious encounter for you.

[Mastikator]

An awakened horse, heavy with levels: Paladin 6 (fallen)/Blackguard 3(+) and with the Death Knight template. Should count as a effective level 14 (I think), which is well within the leadership score.

[Frosty]

An awakened horse, heavy with levels: Paladin 6 (fallen)/Blackguard 3(+) and with the Death Knight template. Should count as a effective level 14 (I think), which is well within the leadership score.

What class feature would an Awakened horse get upon reaching Paladin level 5th?

[The Demented One]

An awakened horse, heavy with levels: Paladin 6 (fallen)/Blackguard 3(+) and with the Death Knight template. Should count as a effective level 14 (I think), which is well within the leadership score.

A...an awakened warhorse. An awakened warhorse with Blackguard levels. An evil horse. A...bad horse.


He rides across the nation,
The Thoroughbred of Sin.
He got the application
That you just sent in.

It needs evaluation,
So let the games begin.
A heinous crime, a show of force
A murder would be nice of course.

Bad Horse
Bad Horse
Bad Horse
He’s Bad

The Evil League of Evil
Is watching, so beware.
The grade that you receive
Will be your last we swear,
So make the Bad Horse gleeful,
Or he’ll make you his mare.

[Recaiden]

I'd go with a revived fossil mammoth and cast awaken undead on it. Or you could awaken it and make it a ghoul or something.

[MammonAzrael]

I...I don't know what to say.Nightmares give me flight. But Warhorses give me song.

This will prove more difficult than anticipated.

[Jade_Tarem]

What class feature would an Awakened horse get upon reaching Paladin level 5th?

"Special" Rider: At fifth level, an awakened horse paladin receives the ability to call forth a mighty knight, which situates itself upon the horse's back. Unfortunately, like most paladin/warhorse pairings the horse typically has significantly better mental ability scores than the knight, who will frequently charge headfirst into battle at the slightest provocation. Upon the initial summoning, the horse must roll a fortitude save or be afflicted with the deadly "Leroy Jenkins Syndrome," as his knight is, unfortunately, a player character.

[Epinephrine]

If you go with a warhorse, remember to work on your evil laugh. You wouldn't want your horse to out do you, and Bad Horse surely works on his terrible death whinny.

[Frosty]

"Special" Rider: At fifth level, an awakened horse paladin receives the ability to call forth a mighty knight, which situates itself upon the horse's back. Unfortunately, like most paladin/warhorse pairings the horse typically has significantly better mental ability scores than the knight, who will frequently charge headfirst into battle at the slightest provocation. Upon the initial summoning, the horse must roll a fortitude save or be afflicted with the deadly "Leroy Jenkins Syndrome," as his knight is, unfortunately, a player character.

rofl. part of this can work. Got a serious version of this?

[MammonAzrael]

Hmmm...Awaken states that an Awakened Animal can't be a special mount. And Awaken Undead only gives mindless undead 4+1d6 Int unless the base creature had a lower Int to begin with.

Right now it's looking like my best bet is to awaken an animal, then make it undead. The is if it's best to go with giving the mount class levels. It's a shame outsiders can't become intelligent undead.

[Jade_Tarem]

It's a shame outsiders can't become intelligent undead.

Um, I probably shouldn't be telling you this, because it tends to turn even sane and decent roleplayers into crazy munchkins, but the correct manipulation of the major and minor rituals from the SSG can allow you to take an outsider and make it undead - or circumvent virtually any racial restriction, really, up to and including the entire ECL system if your DM doesn't stop you. In this case all you need is a little gold and some xp on the part of the creature you want to convert - convert it into a creature type that can be undead without transferring the features, and then undeadify it. It will burn some of your gold and a little bit of the mount's xp.

And then your journey to the dark side will be complete.

Just out of curiosity, which outsider did you have in mind?

[MammonAzrael]

Well, I'm not looking for anything broken. I am planning to keep the flavor of the Bone Knight, power plays second fiddle to that (but it's still an important fiddle! )

The Outsider in question is the Nightmare. The thing that originally attracted me to it was the good fly speed (that's magical, so it doesn't go away with undeadification), and traveling to the astral plane is always fun.

But once you guys started tossing PC levels on (since it's both a special mount and a cohort) I lost track of what would rock the most.

One idea I had that was vastly amusing was giving it Warlock levels and then the Necrolock PrC by Krimm. My undead mount could go around raising it's own army!

EDIT: Oh and what does SSG stand for?

[Jade_Tarem]

SSG stands for the Savage Species Guide. It hasn't been updated to 3.5 (and definitely not to 4e), but if you double check whatever creature you're looking up against the 3.5 Monster Manual and ensure that you're using the updated version of the creature, you end up ok. Most of them are the same in 3.5, many are better, and one or two (Rhakshasa) are worse.

And yeah, combining monsters and PC classes can be a lot of fun. Just remember that whatever you end up with has to have an ECL at or below 16, unless you have other abilites in this regard: Legendary Leader does some wierd things with leadership, and I don't know how undead leadership works.

[MammonAzrael]

Undead Leadership basically treats my leadership score as 2 higher for attracting undead. So it may be better to just take normal Leadership, since at this point that bonus doesn't help me any.

And I will avoid SS abuse. ^_^

[Jade_Tarem]

And I will avoid SS abuse. ^_^

So be it, Jedi. *Lightning*