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Griffon Mount Care

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Alright, my 6th level paladin has recently befriended a wild female Griffon who lost it's eggs and mate. After some roleplay and righteous retribution, I have befriended it and my DM has allowed me to use it as my Divine Bond mount. I have of course made all the Diplomacy checks to befriend it and at the next game I'm going to make the decision whether I keep this amazing creature or my initial horse.

I know that I'll need to invest in Handle Animal and spend several weeks working with her in order to start flying with her after I wait the initial 30 days to make her my official Divine Bond, as well as invest in an exotic saddle. Here's the deal breaker for me: Feeding her. Their diet consists mostly of horses, and while I can probably train her in the paladin art of not eating other people's mounts, I don't foresee every town having a steady supply of horse meat to sell as griffon feed, nor do I want to risk letting her hunt to often and end up eating a peasant's mount and have my paladin have to delay the group while he resolves the matter.

Does anyone have any advice on how to approach this matter and any other foreseeable problems accepting her as my willing mount might be. General care advice of mounts is also welcome, as I've never had mounts before now. The griffon is 15 years, kind of "royal" personality if you catch my drift, and has not been named yet if someone knows good paladin mount/griffon names. =)

I'm adding griffon mounts as a very big thing in a setting of mine. There will be infrastructure and rookeries to support them, but this is a bit macro above your level.
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You're an adventurer. Pigs are 3 GP a pop.

You could have you and or the griffon invest in the survival skill and hunt deer.

and still buy the occasional horse as a treat.

Horses and food is, as one player suggested, a big deal. A griffon would eat a lot.

Now you could feed it some carrion and broaden out its diet, see what the dm says.

Horse is simply it's favorite type of food. But it is an intelligent creature. And as your mount and friend, it's going to be cooperative enough that it's not going to just start eating random creatures. It's a magical beast, not just an animal. It also can likely understand common (it understands at least one language, but it may not be common).

It's obviously a carnivore, but you can probably convince it to deal with whatever type of meat you can get it. Whether it is horse, goat, cow, whatever.

Just don't feed it tofu.
BigNorseWolf wrote:

You're an adventurer. Pigs are 3 GP a pop.

You could have you and or the griffon invest in the survival skill and hunt deer.

and still buy the occasional horse as a treat.

Okay, so as long I keep his Survival up feeding him on the road shouldn't be a problem. Thanks! =)

DM Under The Bridge wrote:
I'm adding griffon mounts as a very big thing in a setting of mine. There will be infrastructure and rookeries to support them, but this is a bit macro above your level.

Well it'll still be at least 2-ish months before I can use her as a flying mount, so that was probably my DM's way of lessening our mounting power until we get to higher levels. Plus we've only got the one, not a whole group of them for the whole party.

The Exchange

For obvious reasons it will take special training for horses to ignore the smell of 'dangerous predator' that your griffon (and even you, after an extended period of riding) produces. Blocking the scent through magic is not a bad idea, if you can find a spell for that.

Simply to aid flavor, it might be a good idea to read a book or two about falconry so you have some idea of how things like Handle Animal and Heal are used on feathered creatures.

Lastly, remember that the creature is Neutral; you'll want to demonstrate the value that Law and Good have to you in hopes that she will emulate your ideals. This is probably best modeled by regular use of the Diplomacy skill - there used to be a 3.5 rule set for converting people to your alignment, but if I recall right it presumed that you had a common language with the potential convert. I'd consult with your GM on that.
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It's awesome to finally see that people other than myself actually like Griffons! Definitely dotting.

I am all about the griffons now. It came up in an anime I was watching, Log Horizon, and I wondered "hey, why don't my games have more griffons and flying adventurers?". Now I am moving to rectify that.
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Storm Sorcerer Arcturus wrote:
It's awesome to finally see that people other than myself actually like Griffons! Definitely dotting.

Gryphons are great to cuddle up with at night, too. All those feathers. <3

(I own chickens. And while they aren't particularly fond of being manhandled, I can assure you that they are, in fact, quite soft.)
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Storm Sorcerer Arcturus wrote:
It's awesome to finally see that people other than myself actually like Griffons! Definitely dotting.

Are you kidding me? Griffons (variants with different spelling included) are great and make cool mounts for rangers, paladins, and cavaliers!

It's just that most GMs are afraid handling the--from their point of view--ensuing increase in player/PC power (beware! A martial character that can fly! M-u-s-t p-r-e-v-e-n-t.) that makes it such a rare thing to happen in the first place.
Not too happy with the addition the Inner Sea Combat book and the associated feat tax for monstrous mounts (which doesn't help making a mounted flying martial character happen IMO).

So yeah, you can (potentially) get one via Leadership--good luck with that one.

So congrats to Angry Wizard!

Ruyan.

[Edit] After re-reading my post it sounds a little rant-y, sorry for that.

Ring of Sustenance.

Animal Magic Item Slots

Griffon is probably somewhere between Avian and Quadraped (claws/paws).

Avians can use rings fine, apparently Quads can't.

Lem seems to think that Pathfinder Griffons have bird talons on their forepaws.

So, Ring of Sustenance.

If anyone gets grumpy about it, pay the extra cost to put the Ring of Sustenance enchantment on another slot.

Then the Griffon is sustained physically and you can still give it a horse for a treat from time to time.

edit: Doesn't matter how many times I do URL tags, I always screw them up the first time.
The Exchange
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Oh, who doesn't love griffons? They combine fluffy lovability with pounce and swoop options - what's not to love?

Sheldon: I was going to make a griffon. You know... half lion, half eagle...
Leonard: And mythological.
Sheldon: Irrelevant.

If the Ring of Sustenance thing doesn't -- ahem -- fly, you could always get the same effect with a clear spindle ioun stone, which is slotless.

You could even economize with a flawed one, especially if you have a cleric or druid who doesn't mind carrying around the Create Water cantrip. I mean, you could use it as a Paladin spell yourself, but it would eat up your level 1 spell slots.

Feeding a Griffon shouldn't be any more trouble than feeding any other carnivore mount (perhaps less than some, depending on whether Griffons are obligate carnivores or not, although most likely they would be).

Teaching it to only eat Griffon chow, rather than the wizards pony, would take some work of course, and giving it a Mr. Ed treat now and then would be nice, but meeting the nutritional requirements shouldn't be too difficult.

Animal feed (carnivore) is listed in equipment. 5cp per day and weighs 5 lbs. Of course survival skill or magic can also solve this issue.

Carnivore Feed is 5 CP per day, for Medium or smaller creatures. Larger creatures need "2 to 4 days worth of carnivore feed per day."

So, in the worst case scenario (4x5 CP) you need 2 SP per day to feed it.
RuyanVe wrote:
Storm Sorcerer Arcturus wrote:
It's awesome to finally see that people other than myself actually like Griffons! Definitely dotting.

Are you kidding me? Griffons (variants with different spelling included) are great and make cool mounts for rangers, paladins, and cavaliers!

It's just that most GMs are afraid handling the--from their point of view--ensuing increase in player/PC power (beware! A martial character that can fly! M-u-s-t p-r-e-v-e-n-t.) that makes it such a rare thing to happen in the first place.
Not too happy with the addition the Inner Sea Combat book and the associated feat tax for monstrous mounts (which doesn't help making a mounted flying martial character happen IMO).

So yeah, you can (potentially) get one via Leadership--good luck with that one.

So congrats to Angry Wizard!

Ruyan.

[Edit] After re-reading my post it sounds a little rant-y, sorry for that.

I should've said around my home city, my bad haha. Not too many people here are fans of the awesome mythical beast, and even less enjoy seeing one as a PC's companion (most of my fellow adventurers in my gamer circle would be quick to steal the eggs, or slay it simply for it being a beast..sigh)

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