Paladin Mount

[Changing Man]

Greetings,

Is there any particular rule which would explicitly prohibit a paladin with a mount that they already have prior to gaining their Divine Bond from forming their bond with the mount that they have already been adventuring with, provided that the mount in question has established rules for advancement and such as an Animal Companion, Mount, etc.?

[thebigragu]

The rules don't specifically mention what you seem to be talking about. What is the specific situation? How did your character acquire the mount your're asking about?

[Changing Man]

Essentially, the character in question (a fighter) at around level 2 and a half purchased/was gifted a trained Hippogriff for use as a mount. The character continued on through 3rd level as a fighter, and then 'felt the call' to become a paladin. The character in question has now reached 5th level in paladin, and has access to the divine bond ability, and would very much like to form said bond with the mount he's been adventuring with for these past seven levels or so.

(one of the other characters is a ranger with the Sable Company Marine archetype, and everyone has access to flight in one form or another, so flying as a party im-balancer is a non-issue. It really has to do with, 'is this a legal Divine Bond mount, or is there some rule that says 'no'?)

[David knott 242]

It could have worked with an ordinary warhorse as the mount. However, a hippogriff is a magical beast with no animal companion stats, so how could that work?

[Changing Man]

David knott 242 wrote:

It could have worked with an ordinary warhorse as the mount. However, a hippogriff is a magical beast with no animal companion stats, so how could that work?

well, that's just it- there are animal companion stats located here in the blog. Granted, it's a special case for an archetype, but there are animal companion stats presented in an 'official' form.

FWIW, the GM is ok with allowing it, but requested that I ask the rules-gurus first, in case there was something he'd missed somewhere (probably considering that he'd already allowed it as an animal companion for the ranger at a much lower level, whereas the fighter-turned-paladin has had to deal with all manner of difficult skill checks in the meanwhile, devoting skill points that could have gone elsewhere).

[DesolateHarmony]

PRD link

PRD wrote:

The second type of bond allows a paladin to gain the service of an unusually intelligent, strong, and loyal steed to serve her in her crusade against evil. This mount is usually a heavy horse (for a Medium paladin) or a pony (for a Small paladin), although more exotic mounts, such as a boar, camel, or dog are also suitable. This mount functions as a druid's animal companion, using the paladin's level as her effective druid level. Bonded mounts have an Intelligence of at least 6.

The quote above says that the mount is usually a heavy horse or pony, but can be more exotic, such as boar, camel or dog. This leaves what the mount actually is firmly in the hand of the gamemaster. For PFS, it is limited to the listed choices, but that is a campaign rule.

The GM should understand that a hippogriff is probably more powerful than a horse, but it seems to me from your description that it really follows the campaign quite well.

[Michael Sayre]

I would think that using the hippogriff stats from the Sable COmpany Marine would be an excellent way to simulate your player's hippogriff becoming the focus of his divine bond. As DH noted, mounts outside of the core horse are basically GM fiat territory, but it's fiat you as the GM are specifically empowered and encouraged to utilize in your home games.

On a slightly tangental note, if you're doing a campaign with a lot of aerial combat and common flight, I strongly recommend you check out Companions of the Firmament from Geek Industrial Complex. The first chapter of the book takes all of the flight and falling rules (as well as the various methods by whic you can get flight) from the Pathfinder core materials and puts them in one quick and easily referenced location. The rest of the book introduces archetypes, weapons, flying companions, special rules for advancing a companion creature who isn't gained via a class feature like Divine Bond, and lots of cool rules for simplifying or expanding aerial encounters. It's seriously awesome, and is currently one of my favorite 3pp books.

[Queen Moragan]

Since your paladin is making a Divine Bond with his god, there shouldn't be any problem for the god to turn the hippogriff into a divine mount.

I would drop the bonuses to ride and saves, as I see those as being specifically for rangers, and the paladins abilities should surpass them anyway.

You might also want to get Boon Companion too.

[Lifat]

Strictly RAW I don't think it is possible. Especially not for PFS.
But RAI? Who knows.
Personally speaking from what you tell us of the campaign and all I would allow it as a GM unless it was PFS.
Truth be told, tying the Bond to an existing companion seems to me WAY cooler than suddenly going *poof* guess what just showed up.

[DesolateHarmony]

Queen Moragan wrote:

Since your paladin is making a Divine Bond with his god, there shouldn't be any problem for the god to turn the hippogriff into a divine mount.

I would drop the bonuses to ride and saves, as I see those as being specifically for rangers, and the paladins abilities should surpass them anyway.

You might also want to get Boon Companion too.

PRD wrote:

This mount functions as a druid's animal companion, using the paladin's level as her effective druid level.

The mount functions as an animal companion, so it works much the same way as hunter's bond. It also uses the full druid level, so there is no use for Boon Companion.

edit: yeah, the special bonuses in the ability like hunter's bond don't apply. Use the divine bond ability and the stats for the hippogriff companion.

[Queen Moragan]

DesolateHarmony read the whole post, fighter-3/paladin-5.;)

Nice self-edit.

[Changing Man]

Thank you everyone for your replies, discussion, and clarification on this matter. I've gotten a green light and thumbs up from the GM :)