Heavy Horse, Encumbrance, and Overland Speeds


Rules Questions


I'm a little confused about what seems like an inconsistency regarding a heavy horse's supposed encumbrance levels and it's overland speed listed on Table 7-9: Mounts and Vehicle (pg. 174 of Core book).

According to the Bestiary, a Heavy Horse is just a horse with the Advanced Simple Template. This means its speed remains 50, but it's strength goes up to 20. Using this strength score, and referencing Table 7-4: Carrying Capacity (pg. 171), their light load should be 399.

I came to this using the "Bigger and Smaller creatures:" entry regarding Quadrupeds, which reads:

Quadrupeds can carry heavier loads than bipeds can. Multiply the values corresponding to the creature’s Strength score from Table 7–4 by the appropriate modifier, as follows: Fine ×1/4, Diminutive ×1/2, Tiny ×3/4, Small ×1, Medium ×1-1/2, Large ×3, Huge ×6, Gargantuan ×12, Colossal ×24.

With this in mind, a Heavy Horse should be able to move at full speed while carrying a light load of up to 399 lbs., but in Table 7-9, it indicates that a Heavy Horse bearing between 229 and 690 pounds is already moving at a diminished speed.

Additionally, Table 7-9 also has the Heavy Horse moving at a slower speed in general than the Light Horse, which is not accounted for in the template. I know back in 3.5 they moved different speeds, but that's not the case anymore. Am I just seeing a carried-over inconsistency? Or am I missing something about the Heavy Horse in general?

ANy help on these issues would be greatly appreciated. (I tried to search for these on the messagebords, but came up empty-handed - if you know of the topic already covered, i'll gladly accept a link to read.)


Curious about this myself...

The PRD light horse has Str 16 (which would be 229 lbs), however this would then make the light horse listed in Additional Rules Str 14 (for 176 lbs).

If the regular horse WAS a heavy horse then that might explain things, however, the PRD horse entry itself states that this is for a light horse horse and that a heavy is this plus the advanced simple template.

I'd agree that there seems to be a conflict. I'm not even going to speculate on the speed changes.


Anyone? For the shedding of the light?

Liberty's Edge

Horses were consolidated in the bestiary into one stat block, but this decision didn't seem to influence some of the entries in the core rule book. Check out horses from the SRD. They bear the stats in question. The new horse is a completely (mark my pun) different animal.

Edit: Check out the first two blocks there. Those are the heavy horse and light horse in question, not the warhorses.


This SRD is for D20 generally, right? Not Pathfinder? What is the relationship there? Should these stats be used in place of those in the Pathfinder Bestiary?

Grand Lodge

Eben TheQuiet wrote:
This SRD is for D20 generally, right? Not Pathfinder? What is the relationship there? Should these stats be used in place of those in the Pathfinder Bestiary?

I'm willing to bet this is a copy/paste problem. Sounds like they didn't update the charts to reflect the changes in the bestiary.

Liberty's Edge

Eben TheQuiet wrote:
This SRD is for D20 generally, right? Not Pathfinder? What is the relationship there? Should these stats be used in place of those in the Pathfinder Bestiary?

The SRD was the OGL portion of 3.5 D&D. The PRD is specific to Pathfinder.


Spoiler:
Quote:
Heavy Horse: A heavy horse gains the advanced simple template. In addition, it also gains a bite attack that inflicts 1d4 damage, and its hoof damage increases to 1d6. As with a light horse, a heavy horse can be specifically trained for combat with the Handle Animal skill.

Source PFSRD -> http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/horse.html#horse

With this a heavy horse have
Str: 20 Dex 18 Con: 21 Int 6 Wis 17 Cha 11
BAB 1 CMB 6 CMD 20(24)
Init 2 Hp 19 AC 15
Fort/Ref/Will 8/7/3

Edit: as i saw you already added the template, shame on me

Another question which is maybe related:
Did a Horse level up? Otherwise no "normal" Horse, even if it's with the character since 10 level would survive a fireball etc.

Under Leadership:

Quote:

A cohort does not count as a party member when determining the party's XP. Instead, divide the cohort's level by your level. Multiply this result by the total XP awarded to you, then add that number of experience points to the cohort's total.

If a cohort gains enough XP to bring it to a level one lower than your level, the cohort does not gain the new level—its new XP total is 1 less than the amount needed to attain the next level.

Did this count also for "normal" followers?


Have nobody an idea?

I thinking about it, becuase my Inquisitor bought a horse now and I don't want to loose it. But if it stays at 19 hp, well the next Fireball will kill it...


It's a copy/paste error. The heavy horse in table 7-9 has not had the advanced template added. Hence why it has a medium encumbered speed with 229lbs>.

You're right, the correct light encumberance is 399 lbs.

And the advanced template says nothing about speed, so they have the same speed of 50'.

re Leadership & Cohorts: A cohort is generally an NPC with class levels, while followers are typically lower level NPCs.

There's nothing saying that you *can't* have an animal, but check with your DM as it's not implied in either the text or the table.

And no, the horse didn't 'level up', it gained a template (which raised it's CR).

You could always buy it horseshoes of fire resistance or whatever.

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