101 things that go wrong with mounts [Archive] - Wizards Community

101 things that go wrong with mounts [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Solikawa
12-12-06, 10:10 AM I thought I'd share some of the funny things that my friends and I always run into when we buy horses.

My character meticulously goes over the route we are planning to take and buys supplies that reflect where we are going and whatever his needs are. I had gone through lists of mundane things like soap, ink, whetstone, flint+steel, oil etc and packed it all on my horse. I went into so much detail with reasons as to why I bought that stuff. The next game, the DM has blue and white dragons and dragonkin attack the city and we find that our horses are being eaten as we flee ;/

In our current campaign, we were investigating dissapearing livestock in a farming community. We come to find out that a gentleman by the name of Mr. McKinninens has gone missing, but all of his livestock and wealth is still intact, while everyone else in the village has had something killed. So we decide to spend the night in the house and keep a watch out, so we put our horses in the barn. After all, its mysterious that this guy hasn't had anything attacked :P First watch doesnt hear/see anything (bad rolls) second watch, same, and on third watch they hear the horses screaming. We go to investigate and we find that all of the animals have been torn apart... including our horses and we now have to fight some sort of dog-like demon our twisted DM came up with

In our last game (this is hilarious, but kind of sad) we decided to bring our new horses into a tower we were spending the night in. My character (an illusionist) and the kientictist go to explore the tower and we somehow cause a door to seal and trap us on the 3rd floor. So I start looking for switches to flip, and I find one, but its the lights. The whole tower lights up and it attracts all the outlying orcs :D We somehow find a reset button on the roof of the tower and the rest of the party goes to fly from the bottom to get us (the Kientictist tried to blow up the door and they couldn't hear what happened beyond the door) and they see all of the orcs and the lit tower. They lead the horses to the roof. The orcs invade, I take out 30 with a fireball, and they get into the tower with their dark clerics and we fight in the library. So the Kientictist decides to use energy cone(fire) and lights the library on fire.

We get to the roof and we see the horses and we all slap our foreheads. We argued for 45 minutes IRL to decide what to do... I ended up casting illusions over the horse's faces and we push them off the roof. ><;

Share yours!
Pippa
12-12-06, 11:27 AM The mounts our party had, had quite some emotional value, especially for our ranger who would have her own horse as an animal companion later, or so we agreed.
During the campaign, we had to flee the temple we were in through the sewers - our mounts stayed outside. After the incident, we didn't find them back.

When at the end of the campaign, they still hadn't showed up yet, and as I had volunteered to DM a little adventure to bring us from campaign A to campaign B, I put the mounts in the life-stock carrying ship that would bring them to the starting site of campaign B.

The new campaign's DM, whose character was the ranger, had forseen a ride with giant eagles that would lead the PC's to some major plot-point. He had to get rid of the mounts, and thus sunk the ship, with his own character's beloved horse, in a storm.
ShadowDragon8685
12-12-06, 12:23 PM I think D&D needs some ability or potion or magic item to grant hit dice to non-Companion Animals that can raise them in line as far as survivability with Companions...

Because really, one Fireball amd all the mounts and pets are done for, except the Druid's, the Paladin's warhorse, and the spellcaster's familars, who are safe in their robes.
Kitaki
12-12-06, 01:27 PM Eberron campaign, i'm playing a half-vampire, in the Mournland (for those that don't know, its a wasteland), I have to drink blood to live, suffice to say the warforged eventually had to be rigged up to the wagon as the horses "mysteriously" disappeared in the night.
Mecha_Pope
12-12-06, 02:37 PM I think D&D needs some ability or potion or magic item to grant hit dice to non-Companion Animals that can raise them in line as far as survivability with Companions...

Because really, one Fireball amd all the mounts and pets are done for, except the Druid's, the Paladin's warhorse, and the spellcaster's familars, who are safe in their robes.

The leadership feat. Get a celestial warhorse, and give him class levels. See also, griffon, legendary horse (MMII) Horse with Monster of Legend template (MMII) Dire horse (buy one or make it celestial so it can be a cohort) (MMII) anything else that can be a cohort and be ridden.

Or how about this, homebrewed, feat.

Animal companion
General
Prerequisit Handle animal 7 ranks

Taking this feat allows the aquisition of an animal companion as the druid class feature. Your druid level for the purposes of this feat is half your charicter level. This feat causes ranger levels to be equivilant to druid levels for the purpose of an animal companion. Levels in the cavalier prestige class alows advancement of animal companions as a druid of the caviliers level (so a ftr 8 cavalier 4 would count as a druid 8 for animal companion abilities)

Not to mention that the natural bond feat in complete adventurer would allow you to add 4 to your effective druid level as long as is does not excede your class level.
GaffeR
12-12-06, 03:43 PM http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a
Slurg
12-12-06, 10:33 PM I'm a half-orc barbarian who carries a blunt 800 lb. Golden Axe (thats right its 800 pounds and its blunt) that I took off a giant. Because of the weight of all my items, I can't ride normal mounts, so I steal a blue dragon egg to ride (involved much running and dragon shin kicking) after months of feeding and training I finally ride it, two minutes into the first battle as I'm beating on some enemy fliers in the air, I get hit by about a dozen arrows as my dragon plummets from the sky, I lived but the dragon died... needless to say the rest of the battle was my crying barbarian beating people to death with the body of the dragon. (Now he rides a skeletal blue dragon... named frank..)
TheChilliGod
12-12-06, 11:00 PM I've recently had my party meet up with the Wayfarers Union (Complete Arcane; basically a teleporting guild) about two sessions ago. So far, the party has used the guild twice (one for free, the other for a favor/sidequest). Both times, they had to get to the guild by horse, and both times, they had to leave their horses behind.
The second time was okay, because the party simply borrowed horses from the lord of the city they arrived in, which could be returned without hassle.
However, one PC has a favored horse that he left behind when using the guild for the first time. The PC's background featured his horse prominently IIRC, and it's such a shame.

Horses go missing quite often in my campaigns... Not just because of stray fireballs. :D
ressurrector
12-12-06, 11:09 PM Clockwork Steed from MM IV (one of few reasons to get the book)
Magebred Heavy War Horses (ECS)
Valenar Riding Horse (ECS)
Warbeast Template (MM II)
Various exotic mounts such as Pegasi and Griffons.
Sybill
12-13-06, 11:59 AM The entire party got mounts as we were planning on a long journey... I decided to splurge and get a heavy warhorse for my rogue (who knows, could be useful!). A few adventures later we ended up in a landslide and all the horses died... except mine!

My warhorse lasted quite a while until the party wizard lightning-ed him because he was near an enemy. The horse was trying to help the wizard too.
Solikawa
12-13-06, 12:26 PM The entire party got mounts as we were planning on a long journey... I decided to splurge and get a heavy warhorse for my rogue (who knows, could be useful!). A few adventures later we ended up in a landslide and all the horses died... except mine!

My warhorse lasted quite a while until the party wizard lightning-ed him because he was near an enemy. The horse was trying to help the wizard too.

=/
Pippa
12-13-06, 01:58 PM Since we, in our latest campaign, found ourselves having two characters that can wildshape for quite a while in our group, whenever we have to be somewhere fast, the druids wildshape in to horses (and the halfling can ride the druid's wolf companion).

So in this case, the 'mounts' are thougher than me.
Elessara
12-13-06, 03:02 PM I wasn't in this adventure but I heard about it from others (2nd edition):

The entire party has horses. They ride up outside the dungeon. They tie the horses up and enter the dungeon. They search every square inch of the dungeon, sometimes multiple times. Its a fairly large dungeon. By the time they get out, about a month or so has passed and they find that their mounts have either died from starvation/dehydration or passing wild animals.

They DID tie the poor horses up after all!

Ele~
AegisShade
12-13-06, 03:21 PM In one fantasy/western/steam age campaign, I was playing a ranger cowboy (accent and all) who came from a clan of Robin Hood-esque bandits. He was fairly young, naive, and still in training, so his first trip alone to the big city was pretty daunting.

Being a 1st-level ranger, he didn't have a campanion yet, but he was pretty attached to his horse (as cowboys should be), and for all purposes, it pretty much acted like a rather insubordinate animal companion.

It became a bit of a running gag that every time my character went indoors, the horse would run away no matter how well he tied it off. A few minor sidequests were dedicated to finding it, and due to one accented pronunciation of "horse," another joke came into being.

So every time I couldn't make it to a game, it was said that the cowboy had gone off in search of his (w + horse + s). :ayyyy!:
Good times, good times.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Solikawa 12-12-06, 10:10 AM	I thought I'd share some of the funny things that my friends and I always run into when we buy horses. My character meticulously goes over the route we are planning to take and buys supplies that reflect where we are going and whatever his needs are. I had gone through lists of mundane things like soap, ink, whetstone, flint+steel, oil etc and packed it all on my horse. I went into so much detail with reasons as to why I bought that stuff. The next game, the DM has blue and white dragons and dragonkin attack the city and we find that our horses are being eaten as we flee ;/ In our current campaign, we were investigating dissapearing livestock in a farming community. We come to find out that a gentleman by the name of Mr. McKinninens has gone missing, but all of his livestock and wealth is still intact, while everyone else in the village has had something killed. So we decide to spend the night in the house and keep a watch out, so we put our horses in the barn. After all, its mysterious that this guy hasn't had anything attacked :P First watch doesnt hear/see anything (bad rolls) second watch, same, and on third watch they hear the horses screaming. We go to investigate and we find that all of the animals have been torn apart... including our horses and we now have to fight some sort of dog-like demon our twisted DM came up with In our last game (this is hilarious, but kind of sad) we decided to bring our new horses into a tower we were spending the night in. My character (an illusionist) and the kientictist go to explore the tower and we somehow cause a door to seal and trap us on the 3rd floor. So I start looking for switches to flip, and I find one, but its the lights. The whole tower lights up and it attracts all the outlying orcs :D We somehow find a reset button on the roof of the tower and the rest of the party goes to fly from the bottom to get us (the Kientictist tried to blow up the door and they couldn't hear what happened beyond the door) and they see all of the orcs and the lit tower. They lead the horses to the roof. The orcs invade, I take out 30 with a fireball, and they get into the tower with their dark clerics and we fight in the library. So the Kientictist decides to use energy cone(fire) and lights the library on fire. We get to the roof and we see the horses and we all slap our foreheads. We argued for 45 minutes IRL to decide what to do... I ended up casting illusions over the horse's faces and we push them off the roof. ><; Share yours!
Pippa 12-12-06, 11:27 AM	The mounts our party had, had quite some emotional value, especially for our ranger who would have her own horse as an animal companion later, or so we agreed. During the campaign, we had to flee the temple we were in through the sewers - our mounts stayed outside. After the incident, we didn't find them back. When at the end of the campaign, they still hadn't showed up yet, and as I had volunteered to DM a little adventure to bring us from campaign A to campaign B, I put the mounts in the life-stock carrying ship that would bring them to the starting site of campaign B. The new campaign's DM, whose character was the ranger, had forseen a ride with giant eagles that would lead the PC's to some major plot-point. He had to get rid of the mounts, and thus sunk the ship, with his own character's beloved horse, in a storm.
ShadowDragon8685 12-12-06, 12:23 PM	I think D&D needs some ability or potion or magic item to grant hit dice to non-Companion Animals that can raise them in line as far as survivability with Companions... Because really, one Fireball amd all the mounts and pets are done for, except the Druid's, the Paladin's warhorse, and the spellcaster's familars, who are safe in their robes.
Kitaki 12-12-06, 01:27 PM	Eberron campaign, i'm playing a half-vampire, in the Mournland (for those that don't know, its a wasteland), I have to drink blood to live, suffice to say the warforged eventually had to be rigged up to the wagon as the horses "mysteriously" disappeared in the night.
Mecha_Pope 12-12-06, 02:37 PM	I think D&D needs some ability or potion or magic item to grant hit dice to non-Companion Animals that can raise them in line as far as survivability with Companions... Because really, one Fireball amd all the mounts and pets are done for, except the Druid's, the Paladin's warhorse, and the spellcaster's familars, who are safe in their robes. The leadership feat. Get a celestial warhorse, and give him class levels. See also, griffon, legendary horse (MMII) Horse with Monster of Legend template (MMII) Dire horse (buy one or make it celestial so it can be a cohort) (MMII) anything else that can be a cohort and be ridden. Or how about this, homebrewed, feat. Animal companion General Prerequisit Handle animal 7 ranks Taking this feat allows the aquisition of an animal companion as the druid class feature. Your druid level for the purposes of this feat is half your charicter level. This feat causes ranger levels to be equivilant to druid levels for the purpose of an animal companion. Levels in the cavalier prestige class alows advancement of animal companions as a druid of the caviliers level (so a ftr 8 cavalier 4 would count as a druid 8 for animal companion abilities) Not to mention that the natural bond feat in complete adventurer would allow you to add 4 to your effective druid level as long as is does not excede your class level.
GaffeR 12-12-06, 03:43 PM	http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a
Slurg 12-12-06, 10:33 PM	I'm a half-orc barbarian who carries a blunt 800 lb. Golden Axe (thats right its 800 pounds and its blunt) that I took off a giant. Because of the weight of all my items, I can't ride normal mounts, so I steal a blue dragon egg to ride (involved much running and dragon shin kicking) after months of feeding and training I finally ride it, two minutes into the first battle as I'm beating on some enemy fliers in the air, I get hit by about a dozen arrows as my dragon plummets from the sky, I lived but the dragon died... needless to say the rest of the battle was my crying barbarian beating people to death with the body of the dragon. (Now he rides a skeletal blue dragon... named frank..)
TheChilliGod 12-12-06, 11:00 PM	I've recently had my party meet up with the Wayfarers Union (Complete Arcane; basically a teleporting guild) about two sessions ago. So far, the party has used the guild twice (one for free, the other for a favor/sidequest). Both times, they had to get to the guild by horse, and both times, they had to leave their horses behind. The second time was okay, because the party simply borrowed horses from the lord of the city they arrived in, which could be returned without hassle. However, one PC has a favored horse that he left behind when using the guild for the first time. The PC's background featured his horse prominently IIRC, and it's such a shame. Horses go missing quite often in my campaigns... Not just because of stray fireballs. :D
ressurrector 12-12-06, 11:09 PM	Clockwork Steed from MM IV (one of few reasons to get the book) Magebred Heavy War Horses (ECS) Valenar Riding Horse (ECS) Warbeast Template (MM II) Various exotic mounts such as Pegasi and Griffons.
Sybill 12-13-06, 11:59 AM	The entire party got mounts as we were planning on a long journey... I decided to splurge and get a heavy warhorse for my rogue (who knows, could be useful!). A few adventures later we ended up in a landslide and all the horses died... except mine! My warhorse lasted quite a while until the party wizard lightning-ed him because he was near an enemy. The horse was trying to help the wizard too.
Solikawa 12-13-06, 12:26 PM	The entire party got mounts as we were planning on a long journey... I decided to splurge and get a heavy warhorse for my rogue (who knows, could be useful!). A few adventures later we ended up in a landslide and all the horses died... except mine! My warhorse lasted quite a while until the party wizard lightning-ed him because he was near an enemy. The horse was trying to help the wizard too. =/
Pippa 12-13-06, 01:58 PM	Since we, in our latest campaign, found ourselves having two characters that can wildshape for quite a while in our group, whenever we have to be somewhere fast, the druids wildshape in to horses (and the halfling can ride the druid's wolf companion). So in this case, the 'mounts' are thougher than me.
Elessara 12-13-06, 03:02 PM	I wasn't in this adventure but I heard about it from others (2nd edition): The entire party has horses. They ride up outside the dungeon. They tie the horses up and enter the dungeon. They search every square inch of the dungeon, sometimes multiple times. Its a fairly large dungeon. By the time they get out, about a month or so has passed and they find that their mounts have either died from starvation/dehydration or passing wild animals. They DID tie the poor horses up after all! Ele~
AegisShade 12-13-06, 03:21 PM	In one fantasy/western/steam age campaign, I was playing a ranger cowboy (accent and all) who came from a clan of Robin Hood-esque bandits. He was fairly young, naive, and still in training, so his first trip alone to the big city was pretty daunting. Being a 1st-level ranger, he didn't have a campanion yet, but he was pretty attached to his horse (as cowboys should be), and for all purposes, it pretty much acted like a rather insubordinate animal companion. It became a bit of a running gag that every time my character went indoors, the horse would run away no matter how well he tied it off. A few minor sidequests were dedicated to finding it, and due to one accented pronunciation of "horse," another joke came into being. So every time I couldn't make it to a game, it was said that the cowboy had gone off in search of his (w + horse + s). :ayyyy!: Good times, good times.