So recently I played with one of these mammoth riders of the druid type. His mammoth did lots of damage with strong jaw and animal growth, and had druid buffs like air walk and barkskin. Plus 2 other PCs had big cats pouncing. The casting and versatility was arguably better that a ragelancepounce of overkill.
I'm making a Mammoth Rider backup character, one I hope I won't need to use. This thread was of tremendous value when making him. I went with a flanking combat pet Mad Dog instead of a mounted combat Mounted Fury, though, because I'll have more fun with that, which I think is worth the small sacrifice in combat effectiveness.
My character is a Scion of Humanity Agathion-Blooded (Idyllkin) Aasimar, and he has the Celestial Servant feat. That gives the tiger a lot of great defenses, and darkvision (which I gave him to open up the Nightstalker monster feat, for the benefit of ignoring the size penalty to stealth). Also, the tiger has Narrow Frame and Lithe Attacker, to help limit the situations where my PC will have to leave him behind. I figure that by the time the tiger grew to huge size, my character would have gotten him a Belt of the Weasel. I didn't leave space in the tiger's feat plan for light and medium armor proficiency, so no Rhino Armor for him. I took Improved Natural Attack twice. I would have taken it a third time, but I'm hoping to argue that since the rake damage is the same as claw damage, and is obviously using the claws, then the Improved Natural Attack: claws should improve the rake attack, too. Let's hope my GM agrees.
My concept is a larger than normal human (though still medium), with a tiger that grows to huge size. I made him Mwangi, and named him "Kibwe". It's Swahili for "a very small pebble". I named his tiger "Doa", which is Swahili for "Spot". Essentially, I named a very large man "Tiny" and his striped big cat companion "Spot". I wonder if my group will notice? :D
Anyway, thanks for the great information and discussion. Before I found this thread, I was contemplating a Beast Rider cavalier, or an Empyreal Knight paladin, though neither could fulfill the concept of starting with the tiger, and I hate the idea of just replacing a long-time companion or trusted steed. I also thought of a ranger or druid. All of them had class features I didn't want (mostly spells; I suck at playing spellcasters), and all but the druid needed Boon Companion to make it worth it. I never thought of a barbarian, before finding this thread. Once I did, my first instinct was to make a size small PC, for that added category of difference, but then I found the name Kibwe, and what it meant. It was too perfect to pass up. Not scrapping the size small, but maybe just putting it on the back burner. Gnome sorcerer mammoth rider? Too bad there isn't a tiny race, like the 4e pixie. :)
Thanks again, everyone!
First, great thread everyone. I did a mammoth ridding druid in 3.5 and its nice to see I could do something similar again.
Lab_Rat wrote: 9 levels of Nature Oracle as an Aasimar: Your a freaking spell caster with all kinds of buffs to pass on to your mount (quicken divine favor your mount), Aasimar can make mount celestial, Aasimar (or elf) can add 1/2 lvl / lvl to mount lvl (@ 9 lvls of Oracle + 1 mammoth rider you have a lvl 14 animal companion). Probably your best choice is a tiger.
Has anyone found anything that says you can get the AC's level higher than your character level?
I've been messing with some of the builds mentioned here in HeroLab and its capping out the AC level at what ever level the character is.
Is this a HL issue or a rules issue?
Sadly I thinks its a rules issue.
JD
I have a 6th level samurai, aiming for Mammoth Rider for his 10th level. I built him to have as much fun as possible with him, so he is a two-weapon fighter. I plan to make the mount a Large Dire Tiger (so, big cat companion), essentially a gigantic sabretooth tiger. While I can see the benefits of a Mounted Fury build, after seeing what mine will look like, I don't think I could make one without the full animal companion.
8 Cavalier of the sword because who doesn't want to add that insane str modifier to your own attacks/2 Barbarian for mounted fury. You and your mount can rage, this adds a lot of damage to a charge attack with spirited charge.
I saw this thread had been necro'd, so I figured I'd share some ideas I've had regarding this build.
As mentioned previously, 1-10 Mounted Fury / Superstitious Barbarian. Level 11 picks up Mammoth Rider. Level 12-19... Sohei Monk. Level 20 is Barbarian again for Greater Rage.
At level 6 Sohei - character level 17 - you get to flurry with any of the Fighter Weapon Training groups... you pick spears and get to flurry with a lance. Now you're attacking up to 6 times (@ lvl 20) for double damage with great saves, and damn near full BAB (17/20.) You also get a bonus to initiative from your Sohei class, and Ki Stand or Deny Death are both good options if you decide to go Qinggong.
Here's the kicker... Sohei bonus feats can be taken from the Mounted Combat feat list. Like other Monk feats, you don't have to qualify for them to take them, so you get Mtd. Skirmisher as early as level 12.
Build follows: http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=983231
Biggest drawback is you're required to start with a non-lawful (Barbarian requirement) and alignment shift around the time you become a Mammoth Rider to any kind of lawful (Monk requirement.) Some DMs may handwave this for the rule-of-cool, and others may require a role play to make it happen, but otherwise it's perfectly doable. The switch to drop lawful again between level 19-20 could be tricky for some games, but not too hard to justify (as you get more powerful, you may see the application of law as less important...) if your DM requires it.
Level 10: RageLancePounce [Beast Totem]
Level 11: Mount RagePounces with you [Greater Ferocious Mount]
Level 12: LancePounce without Rage (but not with mount) [Mounted SKirmisher Bonus Monk Feat]
Level 13: Double your Str Bonus Damage with Pounce and (later) Flurry [Horn of the Criosphinx]
Level 17: Flurry with your Lance for 4+ attacks (1 Flurry + 3 BAB) [Sohei Weapon Training - Spears]
Level 18: LanceFlurryPounce for 5+ attacks (1 Flurry + 4 BAB) [BAB increase]
Level 19: LanceFlurryPounce for 6+ attacks (2 Flurry + 4 BAB) [Sohei level 8]
Level 20: All you really get here from Monk is Improved Evasion, you should take one more level of Barbarian here for the level 11 BAB and Greater Rage +1 attack & damage, +1 more attack and damage when raging [Greater Rage]
Note that I don't account for haste or ki point expenditure in my # of attacks listed...
My GM just approved the Hunter hybrid class, which was designed around fighting with an animal companion. Now I'm torn between Hunter 9/Mammoth Rider and just sticking to Hunter all the way. I'm finding it difficult to ditch my concept of a big man riding a big tiger, but I also think a pure Hunter might outclass a Mammoth Rider. Plus, as my GM pointed out, a large companion can go more places than a huge one, and is easier to care for.
I think it depends a lot on the campaign you're in JustynThyme, for example, Kingmaker? You'll be fine probably 90% of the time with a huge companion. Mummys Mask? It will suck a good chunk of the time most likely. Ask for your GMs advice on whether they think you can realistically use a huge companion much in the game you're playing, but also remember that a huge creature can Squeeze into a space half its width at a penalty to AC and can use escape artist to squeeze into an even smaller space (and ignore most penalties for doing with the Lithe Attacker animal feat), so it's not always the end of the world if you have to sometimes take one indoors/underground.
Anyone else use the Hunter build with mammoth rider? How does it stack up with mounted fury.
You should ask Damanta, he rode a hunter-mammoth rider through Eyes of the Ten.
Turns out spider climb and trample let you completely surprise harpies :)
I'm currently working on a goliath druid with Iron Gods chronicle sheets. The goal is to end up as a moss troll with a chainsaw on a dire tiger.
I am starting to think that the mammoth rider doesn't offer that much for the Hunter build using a 1 lvl dip. A Hunter can cast animal growth to get huge size with better bonuses. Compared to the barb, it could use its animal focus on str and con to emulate rage. It just loses the claws.
For a Mounted Fury barb, what would you recommend for a Megaloceros companion? It does have the powerful charge ability. With rage, it can get it's Str up to 34. Not sure on what feats to grab to either improve its charging ability or to stay up front with all those attacks coming from full attacking
xDemoquinx wrote: I am starting to think that the mammoth rider doesn't offer that much for the Hunter build using a 1 lvl dip. A Hunter can cast animal growth to get huge size with better bonuses. Compared to the barb, it could use its animal focus on str and con to emulate rage. It just loses the claws.
For a Mounted Fury barb, what would you recommend for a Megaloceros companion? It does have the powerful charge ability. With rage, it can get it's Str up to 34. Not sure on what feats to grab to either improve its charging ability or to stay up front with all those attacks coming from full attacking
Or, get a huge animal with Mammoth Rider, then make it GARGANTUAN with Animal Growth!
My Megaloceros has Improved/Greater Overrun, and Tribal Scars for the extra +2 on Overrun. Run over somebody, and when you knock them prone, everyone riding your mount gets an AoO on them.
Can't go wrong with Iron Will or Toughness, either.
I didn't think that MR size inrease stacks with animal growth. It just improves the stat difference.
What feats did you take on your Hunter?
xDemoquinx wrote: I didn't think that MR size inrease stacks with animal growth. It just improves the stat difference.
What feats did you take on your Hunter?
Not a Hunter. Here's the build, for the rider and mount.
As far as I can see animal growth and the Titanic Steed ability do stack, no reason why they wouldn't. Titanic Steed is a nonmagical class ability setting the size of your AC to Huge; no reason it wouldn't stack with Animal Growth. The only limit I'm aware of is that you can't have more than one magical polymorph/size-changing effect going on.
Has anyone thought to use the Primal Hunter? It got weakened a bit via errata, but it's still mighty powerful.
Two options exist to really get synergy:
With already having a Huge creature, and people abusing it with Animal Growth or whatever else, why not increase the size of the companion's weapon by one? Huge -> Gargantuan -> Colossal. The arsinoitherium begins with a 2d8 gore attack, so three steps up make it a very attractive 6d8 gore. Alternatively, the big cat gets pounce and can be absolutely absurd attacking with bite (1d8->2d8->3d8) + 2 claws (1d6->2d6->3d6). I am not 100% sold on the idea, but I believe that the wording of the Improved Damage evolution would stack with something like an Impact Amulet of Mighty Fists or Improved Natural Attack. Milking one more bump out of that would be absolutely massive damage.
With the primal companion, you can add neato tricks like flight, magic spells, grab on attacks that don't have it, or extra attacks. With regards to the big cat, a winged big cat getting 2 Wing Buffets, Tails, Tentacles, etc... It could get pretty big. I mean, at some point, your Lion turns into a Manticore, but who cares? Cool factor well over 9000 by then.
I always thought the idea of Mammoth Rider sounded v.dubious.... just cannot imagine huge shambling creatures in small adventuring spaces...
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"Ahem" Did someone mention that an Order of the Beast cavalier with some levels in Mammoth Rider could ride a huge dragon most of the day, perfectly RAW?
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