Was the dev intent for a Paladin Mount to start with an animal with an adv. template?

[Dom C]

I do apologize for everyone who has rehashed this, but none of the answers I've found in the forum archive were ever responded to by any official source.

The Paladin Divine Bond text mentions that they are usually Heavy Horses for medium sized creatures. This makes sense to me being that they classically are Heavy Warhorses (in the older D&D games). The stats in the Bestiary for a Heavy Horse bears this out.

However, here's why I have pause: it mentions a Dog for small paladins (not Riding Dog), and the other options are all basic animals *without* the advanced templates. It also states that these mounts are created per Druid Animal Companions.

When you look at the Druid Animal Companions, it includes a number of animals, one of which is a Horse but not HEAVY Horse. It says that additional options are in the Bestiary, but doesn’t mention anything for or against animals with advanced templates.

So, the question I would really like some official clarification on (if I may be so bold), which was meant?

1. A Paladin Mount through Divine Bond is an exception to the Druid Animal Companion Rules, and you can choose Heavy Horse per the Bestiary stat-block instead of the Horse in the Druid section.

1.2. You can also take Riding Dog instead of Dog?

2. The Heavy Horse is really a misprint that wasn't changed before printing for whatever reason, and the Druid Animal Companion rules trump the Heavy Horse term (which also poses no further questions about Riding Dogs).

Thanks for your patience and help!

[Dom C]

So does that mean no one knows? Not even a link to something I missed (though I spent days trying to find it myself...) or reply? *sniff*

I'm in maryland right now, which is suffering from snOMG II: SNOW HARDER, so I have little more to do than check this. :)

[Quandary]

I'm kind of hoping the next (hopefully soon) Errata/Update will clarify these things and others.
For instance, the Paladin currently doesn't really have any restriction whatsoever to Companion Type. If the Paladin Companion/Mount wording is clarified in this regard, hopefully it would be detailed enough re: Light Warhorse/Heavy and so forth.
I think it came up once that some of the base Companions aren't even War-Trained by default RAW wording, so hopefully that will be fixed for ALL Companion classes.

[Dom C]

The issue for me is that I thought it was clear that a Heavy Horse is allowed out of the gate for a Paladin. When I tried to select it on Hero Lab, I couldn't - so I reported it as a bug. Simple enough.

However, the HL dev contends that I am incorrect, and that Paizo intended for the Paladin to be limited to the Horse selection in the Druid's Animal Companion section of the Core Rulebook - which means it's NOT a bug, and should not be selected.

Rather than argue the issue, being his word against mine, I was hoping for offical clarification. Having found none in the archives, I can only post here.

[Pathos]

If you look at the druids horse companion stat block, you'll see it already incorporates some of the heavy horses abilities. Attack forms and combat training. It's just not gaining the +4 bonus to all its stats across the board.