Paladin Divine Bond: Weapon Enhancement or Animal Companion, which is better?

[Ed-Zero]

Just like the title says, which one do you think is better? I'm going to list a couple pros and cons of each.

Weapon:
Pros:
-Don't have to pay for Enchantments
-Can choose which enchantments you want when the time comes
-The enhancement will last for the duration of the fight no matter what, even at 5th level (aka: 5 minutes)
-Can still improve your weapon independently with permanent enchantments (up to a +5)

Cons:
-Weapon Enchantments are not active all the time and need a standard action to activate
-Effects can expire
-Once called, it is active for the full duration and unless you run into another fight right away, you lose the effects on the next fight.
-Can not bypass +5 bonus if you have a permanent enchantment
-Does not improve action economy
-Does not grant flanking bonus
-Does not grant additional forms of movement

Mount:
Pros:
-Improve your action economy as it can attack on its own
-Can improve your mount with barding, wonderous items and enchantments
-Can grant additional forms of movement not previously available (teleportation [blink dog for a small character], burrowing [bullete], flying [pegasus or hippogriff]
-Grants bonus to flanking if in position
-Mount is always there with you in combat

Cons:
-Have to spend some upkeep money if your GM makes you keep track of those things (ex: feed, grooming, oil for barding, etc)
-If your mount is Large, most towns will not like having a creature that big walk through it
-Can be hard to manuever through a dungeon with a Large creature, especially with low ceilings or tight corridors.
-Do not get free weapon enchantments whenever you want

In my opinion, the mount is the clear winner as the bonuses given clearly outweigh the semi-spontaneous standard action ability of the weapon enchantment.

So what do you think? Which one wins out?

[Marthian]

Depends on opinion and build. Some paladins make better mount riders, others are great with weapons.

[Booksy]

This question can be answered only by the player and GM having an open discussion. If you're going to be dungeon delving a lot, are you allowed to teach your mount tunnel fighting? If its a low magic campaign, divine weapon of smitey doom sounds ideal. Also, how high of a level is your GM feeling this may run to? At high levels getting magic items(usually) is going to be much easier then having a reliable companion who doubles as an extra perception roll, may assist with tracking, can flank in battle...and the list goes on. I'm probably the wrong person to assist you objectively, I'm very Pro Mount, and I love the many opportunities they create for back story and character growth.

[Ed-Zero]

For a little more clarification, my character is a strength based mace and tower shield Aasimar Paladin (with no Archetypes as most of the ones I would want get rid of Divine Grace which is pretty nice to have).

So far, the GM has put us in forested, town and dungeon combat. All areas have had space to accommodate for a mount and I believe future combats would as well. The GM has stated before that this could easily run into higher levels (15+).

[Elamdri]

Depends on your game. Every game I've ever played in, Familiars, Mounts, and Pets were favored targets for monsters, and that's not a lot of fun to have your mount consistently killed.

[WrathOfGod]

Niether. I use the holy symbol bond.

[Michael Sayre]

Yeah, campaign can play heavily into this discussion. The amount of wealth available, frequency of treasury drops, most commonly encountered types of terrain... It just depends on the game.

[EWHM]

Honestly, it really depends mostly on your GM.
A lot of GMs have a hardcore loathing of mounts---ESPECIALLY if you've got spirited charge et al. If that's your GM, you'll find he will engineer circumstances to make your mount much less useful and will kill off your mount with extreme regularity. GMs with old memories of 'Unearthed Arcana' back from 1st edition very frequently have this bias. Also remember that nothing stops you from getting a non-animal companion mount.
On the weapon bond---I've found that if your GM is the 'low magic (typically item, although a few remember to impose limitations on casters in any game with few magic items as well)' type, that weapon bond is terrifically useful (arcane archers shine here too. If you're a more typical wealth by level, mostly tailored to you or custom-made game, it is a lot less useful, although it does give you access to some goodies before you would otherwise just have them permanently enchanted anyway.
So know your GM and the particular campaign he's running before you make decisions like this.

[Booksy]

In that case, Ed, I stand by my stance of Pro Mount. A large creature shouldn't be a concern for a city - horses are large - and if its really unusual, wearing barding with a holy symbol, accompanied by a Paladin (hopefully with a good diplomacy roll) can solve most issues. And at higher levels they can gain the celestial template, making them obviously 'for the good guys'.

Even if you never use your mount in Mounted Combat, even a basic horse has a primary and two secondary attacks (bite/hoof/hoof), can be used as portable cover, has scent, is eventually combat trained and as a largee quadraped can carry a load 3x heavier as listed in carrying capacity.

@Elamdri - thats hard luck. I've never met a GM who purposefully targets your animal companions, familiars or pets - and unless you were dedicating a significant amount of resources to keep them alive it would get very frustrating and disappointing. Plus, if you have to fight your GM that way it becomes a 'Players vs GM' game instead of a 'Hey, you-guys-wanna-have-some-fun-rolling-dice-together?' game.

[Quandary]

Quote:

-Can grant additional forms of movement not previously available (teleportation [blink dog for a small character], burrowing [bullete], flying [pegasus or hippogriff]

umm... how are these options available? is there a feat or archetype?