|
Grab you animal companion a Belt of the Weasel. Narrow corridors do noy slow down my mammoth rider.
Also, make sure your competent without your mount. In my case, I don't use a lance while mounted, I use a falacata both on and off my mount. It means that in either case I am fighting with my best weapon.
|
|
I love the hunter. Melee hunters have become my favorite class.
Because you and your pet get Outflank for free at lvl 2, instead of having to wait until lvl 4 (at the earliest, normally only if you retrain or dip fighter), you can take advantage of some really awesome stuff.
My favorite is when you ride your animal companion--like what you're asking about.
At level 1 take Escape Route. When you and your mount have this you're immune to AoOs from moving. At level 2 you get Outflank. At level three take Combat Expertise and Pack Flanking. At level 3 now your companion has all of your teamwork feats. Now you and your mount are always flanking.
From then on you can take things like Paired Opportunists and use a high crit threat weapon. When you crit, because of Outflank (and Pack Flanking) your pet will get an AoO. Now because of Paired Opportunists, you also get an AoO. At some point make your weapon keen and take Combat Reflexes to keep this us. If you take Broken Wing Gambit, then it's the same thing. If you or your pet hit, you activate BWG, then you both get AoOs when attacked.
THIS build uses a lot of these concepts, but focuses on having a Worg companion. There are stronger pets available, but the Worg is great at level 4 before other pets get large, only stays medium so can go everywhere (obtained via Monstrous Mount). It also has really good strength at lvl 4--20 without including the hunter's animal aspect.
A small race works really well for this so you can have a medium mount. Then you don't have to waste feats/gear/consumables (i.e. money) making it so that your large mount can go in caves/dungeons/buildings that a medium mount can do just fine. Halflings are popular, but I like Wayangs because they have really cool racial abilities and are a flavorful race. These two work well because they don't have strength penalties where nearly every other small race does. A human would also work if you took your bonus feat as Undersized Mount--you'd also have to use one of your hunter spells for Ant Haul so your mount could still carry you.
Specifically about your weapon, if you go this route I'd forego using a lance. I still carry one around on my characters, but only use it in very rare circumstances. This is because almost no animal companions have reach, so you can't really take advantage of always-on-flanking if your mount doesn't also threaten your opponent. If I do use my lance, it's only when I can't get directly adjacent to my opponent (and since mounts usually have really high movement speed this almost never happens). Usually I only use the lance if I'm in a bottlenecked hall and there are allies in the way.
|
|
You want to own face?
You want to be able to stay on your mount 99% of the time?
You want Coolness factor?
You want to be able to solo some scenarios?
Take a gander at my PFS character Fruian Thislefoot the famous Gecko Rider. Last wall forward scout, boarderland keep commander, and Halfling freedom fighter.
A halfling with the strength to break a full sized human in half and crush evil under his big thistled haired feet.
|
|
Mounted is more than a horse.
An AC can be used as a mount.
I've played mounted for almost 9 levels and had to dismount 1 time and fought a single half-elf (favored enemy) and still beat them down. But I have never had a big problem riding my gecko in weird places. If the DM has issue through a inferior NPC you can tell them mount goes too or he gets no help from the society or you can intimidate them into stfu and standing aside.
|
|
You can do mounted combat in PFS just fine. I ride my worg into the briefing room every time he sits at a table. If a GM doesn't allow you to bring a mount in, ask them to have the wizard leave his familiar/bonded object outside, too. Or the fighter to leave his weapon. Or the monk to cut off his fists (and the rest of his limbs).
And there are plenty of ways to go up or down besides just a ladder.
|
Yeah... not exactly a low-level solution. Halflings and their riding dogs are infinitely superior at low levels as they are (almost) immune to DM fiat with all that dungeon stuff.
Personally I would be lenient on a Mounted Combat oriented human on a horse as they already invest so many feats. Yes it looks silly underground, but it's an abstraction I accept in favor of not unduly penalizing this particular build.
|
|
Combat trained gecko is 150gp.
Wont need flight till level 5+ IMO. So natural spider climb will solve most problems at levels 1-5. Hell its so useful I've lost count how many times I've made environment challenges like fort walls equal to a speed bump.
I remember one scenario I took 2 ropes tied together up a fort wall, tied it off, and began 1 shotting critters on the wall while my team casually climbed up. Before the team got up I had all the critters dead. Gecko makes easy mode. Roc and Gecko are kings of mounted combat.
|
Medium mounts are great. My mounted character is an unfortunately now illegal grandfathered APG summoner. If someone tries to keep Fluffy Maulington from entering an establishment, Fluffy just strikes up a conversation, sufficiently confusing them to slip by :)
Only been dismounted twice. Once, got hit by Hydraulic Push, sending Pipsqueak the Feral Halfling flying 30 feet through the air. The other time we got Black Tentacle'd, Fluffy broke out first, and went herself to deal with the pesky mage.
|
|
Here are other ways that large mounts can travel with you:
- Narrow frame feat
- Reduce Animal spell
- Reduce Person spell -- This works only if cast by the pet owner.
- Carry Companion -- A spell on a number of different spell lists. If you can't cast it, someone in your party likely can. Get a 5-scroll pack of it for 2PP.
My favorite of these is Carry Companion. So many uses!
EDITED to ADD: Ah, I see you're already considering Narrow Frame. Good!
|
|
Panther, if you play a hunter Carry Companion will be on your spell list. You just need to own the book it comes from.
I just wish that I had known about the spell before playing a certain opera house scenario where my partner, Omar, died. We managed to resurrect him, but boy was that expensive.
The GM told us that under no circumstances could we have brought the tiger in. With that spell, we most certainly could have done so.
|
|
Ir may or may not be what you're after, but it's quite possible to make a mounted halfling/gnome/wayang Summoner, even after Unchained. You just have to work with your limited feats and your lean evolution pool. Eidolon takes the important stuff like Reach (bite) and Mount. Climb of Swim if you want the exotic movement style. Keeping it medium sized saves on points, too.
The Evolution Surge line is your friend in this situation, letting you have the benefits of a larger mount on demand, without getting in the way when you don't want to deal with it. The feats take a while to kick your character into full Chargemode Overkill, but meanwhile you have access to spells to help keep you busy.
Just try and start it off at level 2 if you can. Otherwise you'll find yourself playing a featless, low AC Halfling Fighter with a longspear and 40 feet of movement speed. At least at 2 and up your mount can attack at the same time as you, making it roughly comparable to an early level Cavalier of the same race for damage.