I am making a sorcerer / wizard or bard that wants to make good use of the phantom steed spell. I am looking for ways to improve on the durability and effectiveness of the steed in combat especially. I prefer to use CRB material (APG might be ok later), other sources are unlikely to be permitted. We start out at lvl 6 using only the CRB afterwards, we 'might' be able to use material from the APG as well.
Obvious things seem to be to take the mounted combat feat and cast a mage armor on the steed to increase it's AC to 22, any other ideas to keep my steed alive or increase it's effectiveness ?
EDit: We do not start with magic items but it might be possible to craft relatively simple items in the course of the campaign.
In core there isn't a lot IMO. You could cast invisibility or similar on it, it's not going to need to make an attack, but that costs an action which you won't want to spare in combat. Similarly with expeditious retreat; haste might be best because that aids your other party members too, making it a better use of an action.
An orange ioun stone raises your caster level which makes it better - but that's expensive enough to be a way off.
I'm with Santerus on this one, Phantom Steed isn't really effective for combat, or, more accurately, reliable, especially at the level when you get it when AoE's become more prevalent.
In my opinion it isn't worth it to invest even more spell slots in an attempt to protect it. There are too many angles at which the Steed can be harmed and trying to protect it from all of them is an effort in futility.
That said the Ride skill and some of the linked feats are your best bet. I just don't think they're enough I'm afraid.
In the end there is a CRB legal way to fix your problem: Spell Research. Modify Phantom Steed to be more combat effective. Sadly, this likely means giving up parts of the current version to keep it at its level or making a higher level version. I have a feeling neither of these are options you particularly care for, if spell research is even an allowed option for you to begin with. I still think its worth a shot to at least discuss it with your GM. For what its worth I think there's little as cool as having your own unique (signature) spell as a caster.
I thought it would be cool if not optimal, a mount is pretty decent to keep up movement even in combat in an area that is 'horse-friendly', with a better AC than I have any attack made on the mount rather than me is still a good thing.
Also the immediate action to gain cover is nice when attacked. Also you can move and still take full-round actions and even 'run' while still taking actions with only slight inconvenience.
I might have to settle with just a mount spell though that is difficult to control in combat.
increasing con won't do much since it doesn't have a con score or hit dice unfortunately.
A light warhorse as animal companion would have been cool but that isn't possible with just the CRB.
I guess I'll have to invest in craft construct to make wooden, stone or steel steeds later.
Hm. There are a few permanent buff spells that can be cast on something, but they're all pretty expensive and the permanency spell is pretty high level. You could go with normal buff spells, but those would better serve the party as a whole then your horse. You could put some barding (Horse armor) on him, but you'd probably have to either enchant it to stay on him or lug it around most of the time. Maybe give him some magical horseshoes with a +1 to bludgeoning, if that's a thing...?
If you can get the Monster Summoner’s Handbook approved, you can get Alter Summoned Monster as a 2nd level spell. Cast your heightened [communal] mount spell, then ASM a horse into another critter more suited to what you want. It lasts as long as the mount does, but will have different base stats than a horse. Could have much better durability. Also, there is divided opinion about it being able to make attacks, since the Mount spell does not mention it either way.
/cevah