Medium beast rider cavalier with a lion?

[JDCAce]

My cavalier player just hit level four, so he can choose an exotic mount. The beast rider entry specifically states a medium sized beast rider may choose a lion as a mount (which is treated as a druid's animal companion), but the lion animal companion is size medium (that may advance to large at 7th level).

So which is accurate? Can my medium player choose a lion at level 4 or does he need to wait until level 7?

[James Risner]

JDCAce wrote:

So which is accurate? Can my medium player choose a lion at level 4 or does he need to wait until level 7?

She can pick Lion, but can't ride it unless she is small or level 7 AC.

[Alfred Dumplepumpkin]

pick it and use it as an unsuitable mount with ride -4

[FrodoOf9Fingers]

The tiger has to be able to carry the rider. Traditionally, that means it has be also be one size category bigger. I always figured that it would be considered an unsuitable mount with a -4 even when it's big enough to carry him, tigers really are not built to carry people like a horse.

[blahpers]

Unsuitable mount aside, how encumbered is that tiger going to be bearing a rider with only 13 Strength? Even with the 1.5x multiplier for being a Medium quadruped, that's only 75 lbs of rider before it slows down, and twice that before it gets to heavy encumbrance. Riding your undersized tiger doesn't seem like it'd be a good idea.

[JDCAce]

Wow. Thanks, blahpers, I hadn't considered that! Hopefully he can find a worthy replacement.

[blahpers]

But hey, at 7th level, when Large size, +8 Strength, and a further doubling of carrying capacity kick in, that tiger becomes a murderer of a mount. : D

[Reynaldo Mondok]

I am in a similar situation.

My first question is that a lion is listed as a large animal (Bestiary pg. 193). So when you pick one up as an animal companion do you get a smaller one?

My second question is about HD. If this lion was picked at level 4, does it go off the Druid level 4 or Druid level 1?