I have a player in my group who has decided to play an Elven Cavalier 2/Cleric 2.
Here's the problem, he wants a large boar as a mount. I have decided to grant this request. I'm going to treat his having a larger mount as a "variant" of the normal rules.
My question is, what class ability should he have to sacrifice to use this mount? At first glance, it looks like giving up the Tactician ability might be the way to go.
That said, I'm open to other suggestions. What do you all think?
I think you should give him a horse and call it a boar. You might want to change a few things, but don't give him something that's stronger than a horse.
An Elf riding a boar? really?
I guess that would me a more quick and dirty way of solving the problem. It might take a few adjustments (turning hoof attacks into gore attacks, etc), but it might work.
I'm thinking about including this option along with the 3HD large boar I generated. The only difference would be that with the horse-as-boar option, he wouldn't have to give anything up. The change would be cosmetic only.
Thanks for the suggestion! :)
This sounds like a fun idea.
I think just having him take the "Improved Familiar" and call it "Improved Companion" would be sufficient.
Add to the list a boar with the giant template.
Why not just let him have the boar, as-is? Use the same stats, i.e., do not change any stat, except it is large instead of medium. I think you are making this more difficult than it has to be.
Since your player is already taking two levels of cleric, he is already sub-optimal. If he wants to max out his mount, he'll have to pay the feat-tax for "boon companion". So, there is not an issue of the build mechanics making the PC unblanced, is there?
To be honest, I know I can juggle stats around and rename animals and such, but I was really disappointed that boars don't end up as being a viable mount for medium sized characters.
We had a dwarven cavalier that really wanted to go this route, and even in the core rules it mentions dwarves riding boars, but apparently none of them are members of classes that have animal companions.
Why not just let him have the boar, as-is? Use the same stats, i.e., do not change any stat, except it is large instead of medium. I think you are making this more difficult than it has to be.
+1 to this, use the boar, call it large, give it the changes to stats at level 4 like normal.
+1 to this, use the boar, call it large, give it the changes to stats at level 4 like normal.Why not just let him have the boar, as-is? Use the same stats, i.e., do not change any stat, except it is large instead of medium. I think you are making this more difficult than it has to be.
A lot of good suggestions here! I like the idea of making it it a cosmetic change (just using the stats for a horse). I also was able to use a monster generator, and came up with a 3HD large boar with a 16 AC and 30 HP. It's gore attack is a bit more powerful than either boar in the animal companion listing. I was thinking that if he wants to use this version, I could use variant rules and replace a class ability (Tactician perhaps).
