Cold Riders prefer undead mounts, but they don’t have any way of controlling such creatures. Am I missing something?

[Reksew_Trebla]

I was looking for a good choice to use for a mount for one, since for some reason, when Paizo converted their own monster from D&D 3.5 Pathfinder to Pathfinder 1e, they left out some things, like its ability to create an unique undead mount tied to it.

So now, you just have to find something else that can squeeze into the allotted exp total of the encounter, and hope nothing gets broken from this combo.

In its description, it says it prefers undead or cold resistant mounts, yet it has no way of controlling an undead mount, which almost always would be unintelligent and thus attack the Cold Rider no matter how much it may overpower the undead creature.

It would be acceptable if it was also undead, but it isn’t, as it is a fey. So undead mounts will try to attack the Cold Rider as it is riding them.

Am I missing something here?

[VoodistMonk]

Cold Riders can cast Phantom Steed at will as a 10th CL SLA... which means it can walk on water. It's better than nothing.

You can bump up the CR a little bit and have it riding a Twilight Unicorn. Just don't spawn the Shadow Demon when the unicorn dies... or do, I would, but it's another CR7 critter to add the the encounter.

A CR8 Cold Rider with a CR7 Twilight Unicorn, and the possibility of a CR7 Shadow Demon if they kill the horse... hovering right around a CR10 encounter with just those.

But Twilight Unicorns are immune to cold, which is something that you are looking for.

[LordKailas]

Reksew_Trebla wrote:

I was looking for a good choice to use for a mount for one, since for some reason, when Paizo converted their own monster from D&D 3.5 Pathfinder to Pathfinder 1e, they left out some things, like its ability to create an unique undead mount tied to it.

So now, you just have to find something else that can squeeze into the allotted exp total of the encounter, and hope nothing gets broken from this combo.

In its description, it says it prefers undead or cold resistant mounts, yet it has no way of controlling an undead mount, which almost always would be unintelligent and thus attack the Cold Rider no matter how much it may overpower the undead creature.

It would be acceptable if it was also undead, but it isn’t, as it is a fey. So undead mounts will try to attack the Cold Rider as it is riding them.

Am I missing something here?

There are options, though I agree the cold rider doesn't have anything built in that hints at those options.

To start with, there are undead creatures that could serve as mounts that are not mindless. Since they have an int of 2 or less the cold rider can use handle animal on them

Handle Animal wrote:

Low Intelligence Non-Animals You can use this skill on a creature with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2 that is not an animal, but the DC of any such check increases by 5. Such creatures have the same limit on tricks known as animals do.

Ghoul, Wolf(Dire)

Mummified Horse

Plagued Horse

Juju Zombie Horse

Weirdly, skeletal horses don't seem to be an option because as you've pointed out skeletons are mindless and skeletal champion can only be applied to a creature with an int score of 3 or higher. Which means that you can't use handle animal on anything you could turn into a skeletal champion.

I found other undead with sufficiently low int scores (eg. giant crawling hand) but all of them were too small to serve as a mount for the medium sized cold rider.

If you really want to use a mindless zombie or skeleton as a mount there is the Death's Head Talisman. It allows the bearer to control undead tied to it at it's creation.

[Artofregicide]

LordKailas wrote:

Reksew_Trebla wrote:

I was looking for a good choice to use for a mount for one, since for some reason, when Paizo converted their own monster from D&D 3.5 Pathfinder to Pathfinder 1e, they left out some things, like its ability to create an unique undead mount tied to it.

So now, you just have to find something else that can squeeze into the allotted exp total of the encounter, and hope nothing gets broken from this combo.

In its description, it says it prefers undead or cold resistant mounts, yet it has no way of controlling an undead mount, which almost always would be unintelligent and thus attack the Cold Rider no matter how much it may overpower the undead creature.

It would be acceptable if it was also undead, but it isn’t, as it is a fey. So undead mounts will try to attack the Cold Rider as it is riding them.

Am I missing something here?

There are options, though I agree the cold rider doesn't have anything built in that hints at those options.

To start with, there are undead creatures that could serve as mounts that are not mindless. Since they have an int of 2 or less the cold rider can use handle animal on them

Handle Animal wrote:

Low Intelligence Non-Animals You can use this skill on a creature with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2 that is not an animal, but the DC of any such check increases by 5. Such creatures have the same limit on tricks known as animals do.

Ghoul, Wolf(Dire)

Mummified Horse

Plagued Horse

Juju Zombie Horse

Weirdly, skeletal horses don't seem to be an option because as you've pointed out skeletons are mindless and skeletal...

I think it's just an oversight, because canonically they ride rotting undead elk or similiar creatures I believe.

Cold Riders are one of my favorite monsters, hands down.

[Matthew Downie]

You could have the Cold Rider be in league with an undead creator/controller, who has ordered the mount to obey him.

[Rysky]

Could also have the mount be a graveknight if you want a hard challenge.

[Artofregicide]

Rysky wrote:

Could also have the mount be a graveknight if you want a hard challenge.

Graveknight Giant Elk?

I love it.