So I am a level 6 Druid with a wolf companion. Next level I plan on leveling up my wolf to a Dire Wolf. As he will then go from medium to Large size it stand to reason I could in theory ride him.
My question is this. Has anyone tried this before? Do I need any feets? If I bought a saddle would I have to buy an Exotic or could I get away with a Military or riding Saddle?
Your help wuold be apreciated.
Well... the wolf just goes to large at effective druid level 7. You could make an excuse that you always had a dire wolf, but it was a young pup (making it easier to train- the same logic applies to dinosaurs and rocs, which are smaller than their standard bestiary entry).
Doing a direct switch instead mostly seems like flavor (although it might have a mechanical disadvantage, since it is technically a different animal, thus you haven't taught it tricks with handle animal yet).
Since wolves are used by some races as mounts (such as halflings), I would say it wouldn't need an exotic saddle. And it isn't like their body is that different than a horse (we are not talking about a winged griffon or roc, or a slender snake, here.)
You will probably not need an exotic saddle, but check with your GM. A military one is probably recommended since you will be riding it in combat and don't want to fall off if you get severely wounded.
You don't need a feat to ride in combat, but ranks in the Ride skill might be useful. You might also have to/want to train the dire wolf for carrying a rider in combat. Check out the Handle Animal skill entry for tricks you can teach your animal companion. And remember, animal companions get bonus tricks periodically.
And while you don't need feats to ride your animal companion, there are some that are useful, particularly the Mounted Combat feat tree.
As a note about bonus tricks- your new animal companion would come preloaded with the bonus tricks you choose. But the normal tricks (3 per point of intelligence, if I remember right) have to be taught as normal with handle animal.
Thanks for your help. I'm sure i read in the rules that when it grew to large it changed to a dire wolf as you cant have a dire wolf from level 1.
I was thinking along the same lines. I have ride skill. I will start training my wolf to carry me so by time I level up should be fully trained.