Beast Rider Mounts

[MerlinRedbead]

In the Ultimate Combat book, the cavalier archetype Beast Rider is giving me some trouble. It says that the animal must be large enough for the beast rider to ride upon (large or huge for a medium creature), but all the animals listed for fourth level are medium creatures with not enough strength to carry any medium creature. The combination I was hoping for was a Vishkanya (bestiary 3) riding an ankylosaurus (bestiary 1), of which the section on beast riders permits. Am I supposed to take the actual creature size for the monster listed in the bestiary, or use the animal companion section made for it? If the former is correct, what does it mean about effective druid levels? What would I be gaining at 7th level then? Here is a link to the problem page: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateCombat/classArchetypes/cavalier. html

[redward]

Randompicturedude wrote:

In the Ultimate Combat book, the cavalier archetype Beast Rider is giving me some trouble. It says that the animal must be large enough for the beast rider to ride upon (large or huge for a medium creature), but all the animals listed for fourth level are medium creatures with not enough strength to carry any medium creature. The combination I was hoping for was a Vishkanya (bestiary 3) riding an ankylosaurus (bestiary 1), of which the section on beast riders permits. Am I supposed to take the actual creature size for the monster listed in the bestiary, or use the animal companion section made for it? If the former is correct, what does it mean about effective druid levels? What would I be gaining at 7th level then? Here is a link to the problem page: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateCombat/classArchetypes/cavalier. html

According to the Design Team, the list of available mounts for a Medium Beast Rider expands from a horse and camel at 1st level to a horse, camel, and the additional mounts listed at 4th level. Only you must select a Large mount. So a horse or a camel.

In other words, you can't use those mounts until level 7.

[jjaamm]

at first level you have to choose-Medium beast riders can choose a camel or horse mount at 1st level.
At 4th level, a Medium beast rider can also choose an allosaurus, ankylosaurus, arsinoitherium, aurochs, bison, brachiosaurus, elephant, glyptodon, hippopotamus, lion, mastodon, megaloceros, snapping turtle (giant), tiger, triceratops, or tyrannosaurus as his mount
This is because it grows to large size to support you.
Now at 7th you get a special ability. if there is a mount that goes from small to medium that you really like, than you can choose to grow it to large size and use it.
your effective druid level is equal to your cavalier level.

[redward]

jjaamm wrote:

at first level you have to choose-Medium beast riders can choose a camel or horse mount at 1st level.

At 4th level, a Medium beast rider can also choose an allosaurus, ankylosaurus, arsinoitherium, aurochs, bison, brachiosaurus, elephant, glyptodon, hippopotamus, lion, mastodon, megaloceros, snapping turtle (giant), tiger, triceratops, or tyrannosaurus as his mount
This is because it grows to large size to support you.
Now at 7th you get a special ability. if there is a mount that goes from small to medium that you really like, than you can choose to grow it to large size and use it.
your effective druid level is equal to your cavalier level.

No. According to the RAW, a Cavalier's mount functions as a Druid's Animal Companion. This means that all of the companion choices listed for Medium Beast Rider's at Level 4 are Medium creatures. Which according to RAI (but not RAW) is not a suitable mount for a Medium rider. But that oversight is moot since few, if any, of the Medium creatures have the strength to hold a Medium character and its gear.

I don't believe this is the intent of the archetype. I think whoever wrote the archetype didn't realize there was a size mismatch (perhaps they were looking at the Bestiary animals instead of the Druid Animal Companions).

However, according to Michael Brock in the post I linked above, he spoke to the design team and they're sticking to their guns. So the official word is that the animals listed at Level 4 for Medium Beast Riders should be considered the same as Feats for which you don't have the pre-requisites. They are options--just options you cannot select.

[MerlinRedbead]

Another Beast rider question-At 7th level, it says to apply this template:

"Size Large; Ability Scores Str +2, Dex –2, Con +2. Increase the damage of each of the mount's natural attacks by one die size."

But the 7th level enhancement of the ankylosaurus, for example, is this:

"Size Large; AC +2 natural armor; Attack tail (2d6); Ability Scores Str +8, Dex –2, Con +4; Special Qualities stun."

Which one is the appropriate template?

[Korpen]

Randompicturedude wrote:

Another Beast rider question-At 7th level, it says to apply this template:

"Size Large; Ability Scores Str +2, Dex –2, Con +2. Increase the damage of each of the mount's natural attacks by one die size."

But the 7th level enhancement of the ankylosaurus, for example, is this:

"Size Large; AC +2 natural armor; Attack tail (2d6); Ability Scores Str +8, Dex –2, Con +4; Special Qualities stun."

Which one is the appropriate template?

The first one is for making animal companions that normally (as in bestiary) is large, but only is medium after the animal companion advancement, such as the Bear. So it is only applied to mounts that have already had an advancement.

For animal companions such as the dino that become large after advancement you use the template for the specific animal.