PFS, whole party buys combat trained horses..now what?

[GM Chyro]

Hello folks.

It doesn't matter what [insert outdoors scenario] PFS this is, my group's taken the Venture Captain's wording a bit literal.
While the VC said the group would have better luck reaching their destination via land by either foot or horse, the group decided to all buy combat trained light horses.

Okay, something interesting, certainly.

It seems to me that, if they want to utilize combat trained purchased horses, they need to roll DC 10 Handle Animal, correct?
Handle Animal is a trained skill only, however.
Only 1 of them has a rank in handle animal (paladin)
The barbarian has it as a class skill, but untrained.

With the other three not having Handle Animal on their class skills list, only the paladin would be able to use the horse in combat, correct?

[RainyDayNinja]

The "trained only" for Handle Animal only refers to using it to train animals, not to issue commands. So anyone can use it untrained to simply ride a horse.

[GM Chyro]

Ride can be done untrained.

Handle an Animal, DC 10
This task involves commanding an animal to perform a task or trick that it knows. ?

Just to be sure, so i don't accidentally cut down their plans.

[Matthew Downie]

Steering an animal in battle doesn't require commanding it to perform a trick. Ride skill is what they need.

[LazarX]

The Ride DC to fight with a combat trained mount is 10. To control a non combat trained mount in battle is 20.

Read the Ride skill text thoroughly. It answers almost all of the relevant questions.

Also remember that aside from animal companions, bonded mounts etc... purchased mounts do not advance their HD or gain any special bonuses.

[grandpoobah]

Combat mounts can be useful in Tier 1-7 adventures, as they provide a little extra combat power and potentially much greater mobility.

If they are not mounted on the animals, they will need Handle Animal to get them to do things.

Handle Animal:

It is a DC 10 Handle Animal to get a mount to perform a trick it knows. This means that anyone can attempt the Skill check, because even Trained Only skill checks can be made untrained as long as the DC is 10 or less.

The Combat trained mount only knows attack, come, defend, down, guard, and heel.

The DC increases by 2 (making it 12 and not possible for untrained people) if the animal is wounded

However, I assume they will be mounted when they're using them, which requires using the RIDE skill.
Common Checks (and it can be done untrained - it's a DEX based skill and Armor check penalties apply):
RIDE
DC5: Guide with knees. You use this if you want both hands free and don't need the mount to attack
DC10: Fight with mount: You use this if you want the mount to attack with you.

Encumbrance:

A Light horse has a STR of 16, which means a light load (triple for a large quadruped) is 225 pounds. That's typically not enough for a medium size creature in armor with any reasonable amount of gear. A wizard is probably OK.

A heavy horse has a STR of 20 (with the advanced template), which means a light load of 400 pounds. That probably covers most medium PCs, even in heavy armor.

A horse does have a decent attack sequence, especially for Tier 1-7.

Attacking:

A light horse only has two secondary hoof attacks (a pretty poor attack of -2 to hit for 1d4+1 damage)

The Heavy horse gains a Primary bite attack (and +4 STR), so his attack sequence is +5 bite for 1d6+5 and two hooves +0 for 1d4+2.

The horse is an ally, and can benefit from Flank, a Bard's Inspire Courage, the Bless Spell, etc.

A horse is also an expensive investment (110gp for a light combat horse and 300gp for a heavy combat horse). Plus you'll need about 30gp-60gp for bit and bridle, saddle, and feed. I would recommend they also invest in

barding:

It's worth investing a bit in keeping your horse alive. A horse is not trained to wear armor. But just like a PC, that just means applying the armor check penalty of the armor to a lot of things. if that penalty is zero, then no big deal!

Leather barding has no armor check penalty and costs 40gp (x4 price) and gives +2 AC. A Light Horse has an AC of 11 and a Heavy horse an AC of 15 (thanks to the Advanced Template), so that barding is important.

A few final notes:
- The horse won't attack unusual creatures (that's a special trick) even if you're riding it. That means it will only attack humanoids, animals, giants, and monstrous humanoids. That's most things you see at Tier 1-5, but not all.
- Some GMs want animals to go on separate initiatives (if you are not mounted). This can make matters complicated. I personally don't do this as a GM (because I feel it adds unnecessary complication).
- You can't take them everywhere. At some point they're getting tied up outside a cave or in a parking lot in a city.
- I am assuming they are buying combat mounts. non-combat trained mounts are a horrible liability for little savings. Non-combat mounts are difficult to control in battle and likely easily killed.
- In the end, the PCs are making a decent investment. They can always sell the animals back for half price (if the animal survive).
- At Tier 4-5 and Tier 6-7, if the mounts enter combat there is a decent chance they'll die. They've got AC and HP less than 20, and a smart opponent might attack the mount to bring the rider down. If the mount goes unconscious, It's a DC15 Ride check to make a "soft fall" and not be prone.

Hope this guide helps you!

[thistledown]

Why would you ever spend 110gp on a combat trained light horse when you can spend 75gp on a combat trained Bison? 3 times the hit points, 3 times the damage, more AC, and trample. Can be ridden the same as a horse and do far more than a horse can.

And a party full of them - your stampede will be amazing.

[Philo Pharynx]

James Anderson wrote:

Why would you ever spend 110gp on a combat trained light horse when you can spend 75gp on a combat trained Bison? 3 times the hit points, 3 times the damage, more AC, and trample. Can be ridden the same as a horse and do far more than a horse can.

And a party full of them - your stampede will be amazing.

And a Bison is tastier if you need to kill it for food.

[FLite]

Also around level 5-6 many encounters have area effect attacks. it takes very few fireballs to kill a purchased horse.

[LazarX]

James Anderson wrote:

Why would you ever spend 110gp on a combat trained light horse when you can spend 75gp on a combat trained Bison? 3 times the hit points, 3 times the damage, more AC, and trample. Can be ridden the same as a horse and do far more than a horse can.

And a party full of them - your stampede will be amazing.

Because rideable bison aren't available for sale perhaps?

[grandpoobah]

LazarX wrote:

James Anderson wrote:

Why would you ever spend 110gp on a combat trained light horse when you can spend 75gp on a combat trained Bison? 3 times the hit points, 3 times the damage, more AC, and trample. Can be ridden the same as a horse and do far more than a horse can.

And a party full of them - your stampede will be amazing.

Because rideable bison aren't available for sale perhaps?

I just referenced the Horse option, as it is in the CRB and the most commonly available option. It's very well supported by the rules and shouldn't involve any rules discussion (other than a summary like one I presented).

I have not done an exhaustive search of other mount options, although a quick check of Ultimate Equipment shows that a Combat Trained Dire Bat is 450gp - but then you've got to worry about encumbrance and flying rules (on top of everything else).

I wouldn't be surprised if a "combat trained bison" is an option somewhere, but I'm not going to look for it. It just seems inherently abusive, and I'd expect any GM to request a source for it.
(unless that was a joke?).

I think most players would be happy with a simple, effective, low cost solution - and Combat Trained Heavy Horse (or pony) are probably that.

[TetsujinOni]

grandpoobah wrote:

LazarX wrote:

James Anderson wrote:

Why would you ever spend 110gp on a combat trained light horse when you can spend 75gp on a combat trained Bison? 3 times the hit points, 3 times the damage, more AC, and trample. Can be ridden the same as a horse and do far more than a horse can.

And a party full of them - your stampede will be amazing.

Because rideable bison aren't available for sale perhaps?

I just referenced the Horse option, as it is in the CRB and the most commonly available option. It's very well supported by the rules and shouldn't involve any rules discussion (other than a summary like one I presented).

I have not done an exhaustive search of other mount options, although a quick check of Ultimate Equipment shows that a Combat Trained Dire Bat is 450gp - but then you've got to worry about encumbrance and flying rules (on top of everything else).

I wouldn't be surprised if a "combat trained bison" is an option somewhere, but I'm not going to look for it. It just seems inherently abusive, and I'd expect any GM to request a source for it.
(unless that was a joke?).

I think most players would be happy with a simple, effective, low cost solution - and Combat Trained Heavy Horse (or pony) are probably that.

Animal archive.

[FLite]

TetsujinOni wrote:

grandpoobah wrote:

LazarX wrote:

James Anderson wrote:

Why would you ever spend 110gp on a combat trained light horse when you can spend 75gp on a combat trained Bison? 3 times the hit points, 3 times the damage, more AC, and trample. Can be ridden the same as a horse and do far more than a horse can.

And a party full of them - your stampede will be amazing.

Because rideable bison aren't available for sale perhaps?

I just referenced the Horse option, as it is in the CRB and the most commonly available option. It's very well supported by the rules and shouldn't involve any rules discussion (other than a summary like one I presented).

I have not done an exhaustive search of other mount options, although a quick check of Ultimate Equipment shows that a Combat Trained Dire Bat is 450gp - but then you've got to worry about encumbrance and flying rules (on top of everything else).

I wouldn't be surprised if a "combat trained bison" is an option somewhere, but I'm not going to look for it. It just seems inherently abusive, and I'd expect any GM to request a source for it.
(unless that was a joke?).

I think most players would be happy with a simple, effective, low cost solution - and Combat Trained Heavy Horse (or pony) are probably that.

Animal archive.

It is one of those "this is probably a typo" things that has just never been fixed. Should almost certainly have been 750.

[GM Lamplighter]

James Anderson wrote:

Why would you ever spend 110gp on a combat trained light horse when you can spend 75gp on a combat trained Bison?

Because some people actually want to be adventurers themselves, and not just watch a bunch of purchased livestock kill things for four hours?

Or perhaps because the game isn't all about trampling things.

[pezlerpolychromatic]

TetsujinOni wrote:

grandpoobah wrote:

LazarX wrote:

James Anderson wrote:

Why would you ever spend 110gp on a combat trained light horse when you can spend 75gp on a combat trained Bison? 3 times the hit points, 3 times the damage, more AC, and trample. Can be ridden the same as a horse and do far more than a horse can.

And a party full of them - your stampede will be amazing.

Because rideable bison aren't available for sale perhaps?

I just referenced the Horse option, as it is in the CRB and the most commonly available option. It's very well supported by the rules and shouldn't involve any rules discussion (other than a summary like one I presented).

I have not done an exhaustive search of other mount options, although a quick check of Ultimate Equipment shows that a Combat Trained Dire Bat is 450gp - but then you've got to worry about encumbrance and flying rules (on top of everything else).

I wouldn't be surprised if a "combat trained bison" is an option somewhere, but I'm not going to look for it. It just seems inherently abusive, and I'd expect any GM to request a source for it.
(unless that was a joke?).

I think most players would be happy with a simple, effective, low cost solution - and Combat Trained Heavy Horse (or pony) are probably that.

Animal archive.

Talk about a noble steed.

[kinevon]

@Grandpoobah: Your attack numbers are incorrect, as the OP said they were combat trained.

That attack is for a horse that is not combat trained. The ones mentioned would be combat trained, so they would lose the Docile ability:

Untrained:
Melee 2 hooves –2 (1d4+1)
Docile (Ex) Unless specifically trained for combat (see the Handle Animal skill on page 97 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook), a horse’s hooves are treated as secondary attacks.

Combat trained:
Melee 2 hooves +3 (1d4+1)

[Rock Lord]

I can't help it... as soon as I saw the title of the thread, only one response popped into my brain:

"PFS, whole party buys combat trained horses..now what?"

"Now...we ride!"

Or the Browncoat answer:

"If wishes were horses we'd all be eating steak."

[grandpoobah]

kinevon wrote:

@Grandpoobah: Your attack numbers are incorrect, as the OP said they were combat trained.

That attack is for a horse that is not combat trained. The ones mentioned would be combat trained, so they would lose the Docile ability:

Untrained:
Melee 2 hooves –2 (1d4+1)
Docile (Ex) Unless specifically trained for combat (see the Handle Animal skill on page 97 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook), a horse’s hooves are treated as secondary attacks.

Combat trained:
Melee 2 hooves +3 (1d4+1)

I missed that - Thanks Kinevon.

[Qstor]

My friend used to do that in Living Greyhawk all the time buy a heavy warhorse as soon as he had the gold lol.

[grandpoobah]

Qstor wrote:

My friend used to do that in Living Greyhawk all the time buy a heavy warhorse as soon as he had the gold lol.

In Living Greyhawk, my wizard used to refer to his light warhorse as "DR 21/-"

They're still useful to have (Combat Mounts) - in the appropriate level range of 3-7. I think they were more likely to be used in other campaign systems. Pathfinder Society, by its nature, probably tends towards more dungeon exploration and "tight spaces" than other themes of adventuring.

Mounts were incredibly useful during the Kingmaker Adventure Path - much less so in the Shattered Star Adventure Path (outdoor exploration vs. dungeon crawling).

For <500gp - it's still a cool investment.

[Auke Teeninga]

grandpoobah wrote:

In Living Greyhawk

In LG mounts were added when calculating your average party level, so by bringing your horses to the table you could be bumped to a higher tier, even if you had to leave them outside the dungeon.

[Legio_MCMLXXXVII]

Auke Teeninga wrote:

grandpoobah wrote:

In Living Greyhawk

In LG mounts were added when calculating your average party level, so by bringing your horses to the table you could be bumped to a higher tier, even if you had to leave them outside the dungeon.

I would bring a high power mount to ever single game if that were a PFS rule. Almost all of my characters can reliably play up tier, so it'd be a great way to get that tasty out of tier gold, and high tier rewards. A well built character can reliably punch above their weight with very little penalty.

[GM Chyro]

So far only 1 horse is slightly hurt.
Still, i wouldn't be surprised if they'd lose a horse or two.

The mount of the dwarfess:

A pink my little pony unicorn.

[Legio_MCMLXXXVII]

The horse must die. In cleansing atomic fire, if it can be arranged. Probably the rider too, just to be on the safe side.

[GM Chyro]

You are referring to the dwarfess' choice, i assume?

Trust me, i was surprised when the spoilered questions of 'pink' and 'tie a fake horn to my pony'....came up.
But i said ok only to the 'fake horn' part, it's just that it's a mlp on the combat map.

[Legio_MCMLXXXVII]

Yeah, I'd still have to kill it. Damn ponies. I need a scenario with goblins, and their extreme loathing of equines.

[GM Chyro]

Man, that idea seems so funny.
Frostfur captives??

Thing is, they'd probably only take along the horses in scenarios where it's possible.
On the other hand, one proper 3d6 fireball or 4d4 burning hands could do away with the horses.

Edit: Your post is now among my favorites.
Too good not to.

[Qstor]

Legio_MCMLXXXVII wrote:

Yeah, I'd still have to kill it. Damn ponies. I need a scenario with goblins, and their extreme loathing of equines.

**in goblin voice** Kill horse!

[Wei Ji the Learner]

Came up with a person who was summoning ponies in a Risen from the Sands.

My Little Pathfinder: Flanking is Magic

[GM Chyro]

No...just no man, so wrong.

*Sends out the tiger onto the bird*

[Amrune Nolondil aka Mist]

Celestial Pony for the Win!

[Fromper]

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

Came up with a person who was summoning ponies in a Risen from the Sands.

My Little Pathfinder: Flanking is Magic

Back when master summoner was still allowed in PFS, I had a friend who played a pony summoner. She had a toy set of MLP ponies that were exactly the right size to represent large creatures on a PFS battle mat, and she'd bring them out one at a time, intentionally using different minis each time.

[Daniel Myhre]

Can't say I've ever seen a group that ever bought mounts, combat trained or otherwise. or any other critter to aid in combat. Which now that I think about it is kind of weird. All those adventurers walking everywhere they go even at high levels.

[Muser]

Lessee, three of my characters own mounts, one rides a t-rex, one has a ship, one a submarine, one runs(Endurance!), one flies and one just happens to be where he's needed most each time.

[FLite]

My bard rides a gecko. My barbarian rides a whirlwind. My Bloatmage flies. (I just noticed that my first 3 characters all had classes that start is B, Wierd.) My Summoner rides his eidolon (though he has ridden a horse when it is faster, his eidolon is really slow.) I've only played my proto-shield marshal for one game, and while he does not yet have a mount, he does have a puppy (Chronicle boon) (And now I am apparently playing all characters who start with S's.)

Of those, the gecko was a purchased creature (well several purchased creatures, at some point I started going though them fast.) and the puppy was a purchased creature granted for free by a chronicle.

[Finlanderboy]

Fromper wrote:

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

Came up with a person who was summoning ponies in a Risen from the Sands.

My Little Pathfinder: Flanking is Magic

Back when master summoner was still allowed in PFS, I had a friend who played a pony summoner. She had a toy set of MLP ponies that were exactly the right size to represent large creatures on a PFS battle mat, and she'd bring them out one at a time, intentionally using different minis each time.

And now we can not have nice things....

[FiddlersGreen]

FLite wrote:

My bard rides a gecko. My barbarian rides a whirlwind. My Bloatmage flies. (I just noticed that my first 3 characters all had classes that start is B, Wierd.) My Summoner rides his eidolon (though he has ridden a horse when it is faster, his eidolon is really slow.) I've only played my proto-shield marshal for one game, and while he does not yet have a mount, he does have a puppy (Chronicle boon) (And now I am apparently playing all characters who start with S's.)

Of those, the gecko was a purchased creature (well several purchased creatures, at some point I started going though them fast.) and the puppy was a purchased creature granted for free by a chronicle.

Wait there's a chronicle that allows you to get a puppy?

.... PM me the scenario please. I will want to GM this. XD

[Jayson MF Kip]

FiddlersGreen wrote:

FLite wrote:

My bard rides a gecko. My barbarian rides a whirlwind. My Bloatmage flies. (I just noticed that my first 3 characters all had classes that start is B, Wierd.) My Summoner rides his eidolon (though he has ridden a horse when it is faster, his eidolon is really slow.) I've only played my proto-shield marshal for one game, and while he does not yet have a mount, he does have a puppy (Chronicle boon) (And now I am apparently playing all characters who start with S's.)

Of those, the gecko was a purchased creature (well several purchased creatures, at some point I started going though them fast.) and the puppy was a purchased creature granted for free by a chronicle.

Wait there's a chronicle that allows you to get a puppy?

.... PM me the scenario please. I will want to GM this. XD

I imagine it's a Convention Boon. Ancestral Ally, possibly?

[Iammars]

Nope, there is a scenario that gives you a puppy if the stars align and the time is right.

Good luck on your quest!

[FLite]

James McTeague wrote:

Nope, there is a scenario that gives you a puppy if the stars align and the time is right.

Good luck on your quest!

And if you are not a jerk. Really, an awful lot you get the puppy for being nice people.

[FiddlersGreen]

Be a nice person, get a puppy. Ah...if only real life worked that way.

[Muser]

That's such a nice boon. The doge itself isn't useful, but it's a great gift in-character.

[Legio_MCMLXXXVII]

Dammit, now I want a puppy for one of my characters.

[FLite]

Muser wrote:

That's such a nice boon. The doge itself isn't useful, but it's a great gift in-character.

Well, it does have

Spoiler:

the track trick trained

which may come in useful

[Wei Ji the Learner]

Nice, and effective, and smart, and a head's up Pathfinder.

Funny how that all kind of works out. It's almost... synergy? Would it be time for a new paradigm?