Help Making Awesome Horse

[DBlue]

I've put together a pretty fun looking human Fighter/Cavalier mashup. Expert Trainer is in there, so I get full mount/animal companion progression.

What makes for an awesome horse?

First stat boost is going to intelligence to qualify for all feats. Eye for Talent is definitely a consideration.

Definite Feats:
Power Attack
Improved Overrun
Charge Through
Greater Overrun

Under Consideration:
Dodge
Mobility
Spring Attack
Eldrtich Claws
Nimble Moves

Is it worth investing in magic items? Str boost, saves boost, amulet of mighty fists, horseshoes, and maybe enchanted armor are the ones that jump out at me.

Thanks!

[Shar Tahl]

If you are predominately fighting evil, amulet of mighty fists with Holy would be great. Any of the elemental damages are also good.

Enchanted barding is also a great addition, though it is gets pretty pricy if you want special materials like mithril.

Horseshoes of Speed are very good for charging and using overrun, especially when you have greater overrun and the knocked prone provokes AoO.

You may want to skip spring attack and just use the PC for Ride by Attack, then get spirited charge as well. Your companion does not have a large number of feats and you are already dipping in another class. You would be good to invest in Boon Companion to offset any level variances.

[RuyanVe]

Greetings, fellow traveller.

I would take the feats

• Toughness
  
• Weapon Focus (hoof)
  
• Imp. Natural Attack (hoof)
  

into consideration as well.

Instead of Toughness you might want to consider to bump CON to 18 past lvl4 of your companion, because I consider survivability as key - dead horsey = no damage.

Considering equipment ask your GM what (s)he allows. E. g. cloak of resistance that functions as a saddlecloth or crest.

I'm not sure whether you need feats to make your AC eligible for heavier armor, but I think you do, so if you want it to have plate barding, that would be two further feats you need to squish in.

Ruyan.

[Derwalt]

DBlue wrote:

Expert Trainer is in there, so I get full mount/animal companion progression.

How do you figure that?

PFSRD: wrote:

At 4th level, a cavalier learns to train mounts with speed and unsurpassed expertise. The cavalier receives a bonus equal to 1/2 his cavalier level whenever he uses Handle Animal on an animal that serves as a mount. In addition, he can reduce the time needed to teach a mount a new trick or train a mount for a general purpose to 1 day per 1 week required by increasing the DC by +5. He can also train more than one mount at once, although each mount after the first adds +2 to the DC.

Or do you just mean the "Boon Companion" feat?

[Oterisk]

The best possible horsey can only be made through the Empyreal Knight archetype of the Paladin class. It gets wings and the ability to smite evil by itself in addition to all of the normal paladin goodies like an intelligence of 6 so you could teach it to read and by stat boosting books for the horsey.

Outside of that, you could take the Leadership feat, go mostly fighter after level 7 or so and get the Horsey Awakened.

[peterrco]

If you going for a mounted character, then remember that there are going to be occasions where your mount cannot follow, where you've had to go up cliff's, down trapdoors, through small openings etc.

GM's also love to kill companions and mounts, so I'd make sure I was more mounted infantry than pure rider, unless your GM has made it clear that most combat is going to be fine for using your mounted feats.

Also invest in a wand of mount, a wand of mage armour and a wand of wartrain mount. That way if your are caught without your horse, and have a little bit of time to prepare, your Magic Users can create you a Disposable Light Warhorse, at 22.5gp for an hour.

[DBlue]

Derwalt wrote:

DBlue wrote:

Expert Trainer is in there, so I get full mount/animal companion progression.

How do you figure that?

PFSRD: wrote:

At 4th level, a cavalier learns to train mounts with speed and unsurpassed expertise. The cavalier receives a bonus equal to 1/2 his cavalier level whenever he uses Handle Animal on an animal that serves as a mount. In addition, he can reduce the time needed to teach a mount a new trick or train a mount for a general purpose to 1 day per 1 week required by increasing the DC by +5. He can also train more than one mount at once, although each mount after the first adds +2 to the DC.

Or do you just mean the "Boon Companion" feat?

My apologies, I meant to type Horse Master, for which expert trainer is a prerequisite. Horse Master lets you use character level to calculate your cavalier mount instead of cavalier level. Therefore, it is much better than boon companion over the long term if you qualify for it.

I'm not too worried about losing the mount. I will pick up the suggested wands, but I'm only putting a relatively small overall portion of my feats and resources into my mount. I've pretty much got the character figured out. It's the animal companion I'm still playing around with.

[Jak the Looney Alchemist]

If you're going to go split consider the roughrider archetype. I've been thinking about running a cavalier/roughrider split so I could get the massively boosted saves and decent mount damage.