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I am very confused about the way horses are handled.
I liked that they were inclusive enough to add language that allows a horse to be medium so my halfling champion can ride around on a divine pony.
But I cannot take any of the feats that would improve that mount without it increasing size to large and ending up unrideable for my halfling.
Other than asking my GM nicely, is there any way to prevent this from happening? Is this an oversight we can get an FAQ for?
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1. No, there isn't any option to take those feats without making your mount bigger, without houserules.
2. But that does not make your mount unrideable by a halfling in any way.
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It annoys me so much I always house rule it.
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There's nothing that would make a Large creature unrideable to a Halfling (or other small creature); you can still mount and dismount the creature, because the only requirement is that you can't mount a creature of your same size category or smaller. Since it's Large, and Large > Small, you can still mount it the same as a Medium creature.
The issue is that people dislike it when the encounter area is too small for such a creature to go through. In which case, that's by design: Sometimes you can't take a Large creature everywhere. Does it bite that you feel forced to increase the size of your mount when it's already big enough? Sure. But it is what it is, and I imagine Paizo knew what they were doing when designing horses and other equines.
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In which case, that's by design: Sometimes you can't take a Large creature everywhere.
I sort of disagree. There are a number of mechanics that treat size increases as purely beneficial and mandatory. Feel like it makes more sense that some of these are oversights and not Paizo trying to create a weird corner case to nerf a very specific build if you happen to be walking down a narrow hallway.
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In which case, that's by design: Sometimes you can't take a Large creature everywhere.I sort of disagree. There are a number of mechanics that treat size increases as purely beneficial and mandatory. Feel like it makes more sense that some of these are oversights and not Paizo trying to create a weird corner case to nerf a very specific build if you happen to be walking down a narrow hallway.
Per my recollection, PF1 had animal companions grow to large normally as part of their level advancement. I think the size increase may be a holdover concept that wasn’t something the designers believed needed or wanted changed.
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In which case, that's by design: Sometimes you can't take a Large creature everywhere.I sort of disagree. There are a number of mechanics that treat size increases as purely beneficial and mandatory. Feel like it makes more sense that some of these are oversights and not Paizo trying to create a weird corner case to nerf a very specific build if you happen to be walking down a narrow hallway.
Purely beneficial is something I would disagree with, since spells like Enlarge do incur penalties in the way of conditions (such as with Clumsy 1), unless you either can ignore the penalty (no way that I am aware of), or are already incurring the penalty from something else (such as Giant Instinct). There's also the factor of painting a target on your back for the enemies if they feel a larger creature is more threatening than a character in robes, for example, and can be affected by more creatures as a result, which may be good, or bad, depending on the situation.
Mandatory is also subjective, based on your build. For example, lacking an Attack of Opportunity or similar reaction would mean the added reach isn't any more required than the Lunge feat. It's nice in certain cases, but it's otherwise not an absolute, must have effect in every fight. And the damage boost can be helpful, but it's literally only 2 to 4 bonus damage per hit, which doesn't stack with other sources (such as Inspire Courage).
As for it being an oversight, I would disagree simply because Horses are more powerful than Ponies, as evidenced by comparing them in the Monster Family, and as you gain levels and sink feats into your animal companion, it's simply getting more powerful. It makes sense from both a narrative and mechanical standpoint; it's growing in power, so mechanically its size increases. Ponies don't remain ponies forever, either, so eventually it will grow up the older and more powerful it becomes.
And no, Paizo isn't trying to nerf anything, this is just a result of the consequences of being a non-Medium/Small size. Other Large size creatures deal with this same problem too, should we just let them ignore the consequences of being Large all the time? No, because increasing or decreasing your size should have mechanical implications, because the game has quantified them so.
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Purely beneficial is something I would disagree with
In the example provided we're talking about taking a feat to make your companion stronger.
Wild Shape also stands out as an example, where improving your stats using the ability is tied to size increases. These are upgrades to the abilities.
Mandatory is also subjective, based on your build.
The aforementioned animal companion loses mathematically necessary benefits by skipping out on upgrade feats. An unupgraded companion is, by design, not going to be able to hold its own at higher levels.
And no, Paizo isn't trying to nerf anything, this is just a result of the consequences of being a non-Medium/Small size. Other Large size creatures deal with this same problem too, should we just let them ignore the consequences of being Large all the time?
"Other large creatures" are NPCs, which are designed for the environments they're built in, so the comparison doesn't hold. A huge creature placed in a dungeon is going to have space to accomodate it, and even if it doesn't, that too is part of the encounter design.
When we're talking about PCs, we're talking about things largely outside their control rendering some potentially significant component of their build crippled or nonfunctional. That's absolutely a nerf, just by definition.
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I don’t have a stake in this debate, but a pony does remain a pony it’s whole life. Ponies are not baby horses, but small horses. They don’t grow up to be full-sized horses. You may be intending to say foal.
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In which case, that's by design: Sometimes you can't take a Large creature everywhere.I sort of disagree. There are a number of mechanics that treat size increases as purely beneficial and mandatory. Feel like it makes more sense that some of these are oversights and not Paizo trying to create a weird corner case to nerf a very specific build if you happen to be walking down a narrow hallway.
I don't care what Paizo wanted. Most human buildings are not designed for large creature to walk around in, let alone be ridden inside. Arbitrarily allowing large creatures to not have penalties inside breaks verisimilitude for me in a major way.
But frustratingly they have hopelessly empty rules around squeezing and then always have 10ft+ tall corridors everywhere even in kobold warrens. No is it too much for me!
When I GM large creatures will have size problems in some places indoors. To compensate companions don't have forced size upgrades.
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I don’t have a stake in this debate, but a pony does remain a pony it’s whole life. Ponies are not baby horses, but small horses. They don’t grow up to be full-sized horses. You may be intending to say foal.
Ever have one of those moments when you are brain dead and say something completely out of context to the discussion? Yeah…this would be where I would insert the popular Homer Simpson backing into the bushes meme.
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I don't care what Paizo wanted. Most human buildings are not designed for large creature to walk around in, let alone be ridden inside. Arbitrarily allowing large creatures to not have penalties inside breaks verisimilitude for me in a major way.
I don't disagree with you, which is why I think mechanics like these should make size increases optional. Letting a player choose between the pros and cons of being larger is an interesting choice informed by the player's desires and the dictates of the campaign.
It's tying size increases (and all the ramifications involved) to important math fixers that ends up creating frustration more than the difficulties being large themselves.
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It is like suggesting that if you teach your chihuahua skills and train it hard, it will grow to the size of a great dane. That would never happen.
It wouldn't in real life, but that's basically how the mechanic works in PF2.
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Don't feel bad at all, you were totally correct. If you didn't say something I probably would have. Ponies are specific breeds of horses that do stay small all their life. It was wrong for the poster to claim they would "grow up". It is like suggesting that if you teach your chihuahua skills and train it hard, it will grow to the size of a great dane. That would never happen.I don’t have a stake in this debate, but a pony does remain a pony it’s whole life. Ponies are not baby horses, but small horses. They don’t grow up to be full-sized horses. You may be intending to say foal.Ever have one of those moments when you are brain dead and say something completely out of context to the discussion? Yeah…this would be where I would insert the popular Homer Simpson backing into the bushes meme.
Paizo says that's how it works for equines in their universe, so that's how it works here. If that's not how it work in the real world? Too bad. How it works in the real world doesn't necessarily matter when mechanics > realism.
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In real life, the term pony can be used in general for ANY small horse, regardless of its actual size or breed. For competition, the official definition of a pony is a horse that measures less than 14.2 hands (58"). To further complicate things, you can have a horse that's under the pony cutoff height but still called a horse and can be in horse competitions.
So it's factually incorrect to say a pony can't grow up to be full-sized horses: they sure CAN depending on the context it's used in as the term covers both small breeds of horses to horses of a particular size no matter it's age: both a foal and a small horse breed can be called ponies.
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Simple solution.
Have a small pony, which then grows to medium size when it matures. Yes you won't be able to ride it until then. But then people with regular horses can't ride their horses till then either.
Or you get the medium sized one and when it's time to grow, you... send it to a glue factory upstate and get a new small one they grows to medium. No need to spend levels not riding.
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Paizo says that's how it works for equines in their universe, so that's how it works here. If that's not how it work in the real world? Too bad. How it works in the real world doesn't necessarily matter when mechanics > realism.
That's how it works for animal companions here. In real life, ponies don't normally grow powerful enough to kick demigods, either.
Maybe the ones who can do grow larger and it's just never come up.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Per my recollection, PF1 had animal companions grow to large normally as part of their level advancement. I think the size increase may be a holdover concept that wasn’t something the designers believed needed or wanted changed.In which case, that's by design: Sometimes you can't take a Large creature everywhere.I sort of disagree. There are a number of mechanics that treat size increases as purely beneficial and mandatory. Feel like it makes more sense that some of these are oversights and not Paizo trying to create a weird corner case to nerf a very specific build if you happen to be walking down a narrow hallway.
1e also had the option to let you choose not to increase your animals size, and instead you got a bonus to Dex and Con instead of the other bonuses for advancement.
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I don’t have a stake in this debate, but a pony does remain a pony it’s whole life. Ponies are not baby horses, but small horses. They don’t grow up to be full-sized horses. You may be intending to say foal.
Right and this more than anything is my issue. The visual here is patently absurd to me. And so is the roleplay. My pony shouldnt just BECOME a horse.
The hobbits ride ponies not horses.
Merry could not possibly ride that horse he and Eowyn share.
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I don’t have a stake in this debate, but a pony does remain a pony it’s whole life. Ponies are not baby horses, but small horses. They don’t grow up to be full-sized horses. You may be intending to say foal.Right and this more than anything is my issue. The visual here is patently absurd to me. And so is the roleplay. My pony shouldnt just BECOME a horse.
The hobbits ride ponies not horses.
Merry could not possibly ride that horse he and Eowyn share.
So I was just looking through AoN and could not find any rules specifying what height a large creature is. As many creatures are considered large but stay relatively low to the ground due to their multipedal structures (ankhravs coming to mind), I imagine that lack of information is intentional. The other issue here would be the pony’s waist size which doesn’t necessarily have to increase in a dramatic way. The only real defined component (beyond bulk capacity) with the game rules is that the large pony would now take 4 squares on a grid instead of one. I know it takes a bit of reimagining, but you can still make it sized down enough to be acceptable for your needs.
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The only real defined component (beyond bulk capacity) with the game rules is that the large pony would now take 4 squares on a grid instead of one.Don't forget narrow passages (for Large creatures). That is the main rules problem I think.
They don't even define narrow passages. I mean maybe this is where we should be doing Squeezing? But the rules don't even give a hint.
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No, not defined. The dividing line between whether you treat it as difficult terrain or whether you treat it as so tight that only slowly squeezing through at non-combat speeds is a judgement call about the actualy creature's body type, not something formally defined.
On the other hand, I'm not sure I'd want it formally defined (because you'd probably end up with a definition based entirely on creature size that made no sense a lot of the time, since very few creatures are actually cube-shaped).
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No, not defined. The dividing line between whether you treat it as difficult terrain or whether you treat it as so tight that only slowly squeezing through at non-combat speeds is a judgement call about the actualy creature's body type, not something formally defined.
On the other hand, I'm not sure I'd want it formally defined (because you'd probably end up with a definition based entirely on creature size that made no sense a lot of the time, since very few creatures are actually cube-shaped).
Difficult Terrain and not being enough space are different things.
Yes I'm quite happy as a GM to make up modifiers and exceptions if I think it is reasonable. Example I think snakes are the type of creature that are going to be least effected by tall grass and I wouldn't have that be difficult terrain for them nor for Giants. Though I would for eveyone else.
But the default situation for Squeezing is not defined. They say some smaller spaces are just going to effect your movement LIKE difficult terrain. But the success result for a squeeze is You squeeze through in 1 minute per 5 feet. Which means it is a totally non combat thing. So it seems squeeze is really only for contortionists. But if squeeze is just going that slow it means Quick Squeeze is compulsory if you want to do it in an encounter situation. Still far too slow to be a viable tactic in combat unless running away is your only hope of survival.
Paizo just need to come out and state what Squeezing is.