I'm planning to play a halfelin character with a mount.
The idea is to have the nice damage dealt with all the feats about mounts. Also the small size of halfelin allows for a medium sized mount so much easier in dungeons.
1st thing : I don't want to play a paladin.
I'm then left with 2 options : Going for my own developement or trying to have a great mount.
The only way I found was to play druid at first level (to have the animal companion), then take all level at fighter to have extra feats. Then, when I can, I take levels in "Beastmaster" from complete adventurer.
This will give a nifty +3 levels to my animal companion. I can also take the feat from the same book which is called "natural bond" I believe which also adds levels to your animal companion.
In the end I should have a character which knows how to fight on a mount and having a mount who also kills at lot of monsters and which is tamed.
Is there any other dark way of getting cool mounts ? Unicorn or sth ?
Thanks !
The ubermount builds are usually halflings.
Here is a big issue you will hit. All the good mounts are paladin mounts. Have you considered
- Alternative alignment paladins
- Asking your DM not to be super restrictive on the alignment thing because its a pain for everyone
I find the CG paladin has a theme to it that most DMs won't "Hey that isn't LG you fall LOL" on you. Afterall, just be a generally nice guy who helps people and does what he wants.
Mount Handbook = http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7414.0
Paladin 5ish/Halfling outrider 10/Beastmaster 5. Take the wild cohort feat to snag a companion. (level -3) and take natural bond to make it a full companion.
You have one horse/cool thing that has all the animal companion and paladin benefits, +some from beastmaster.
Loads of feats float around to sub stuff out, but read animal companion/paladins mount. You can swap them for cool stuff right away just sort of "because".
The wild cohort path is viable, but even more feat intensive...
and theres no combination of druid and paladin alignments that work together
theres alternate class stuff for each, but the only ones that net the same alignments either don't have the companion or the mount explicitly
might get a dm ruling on whether the evil one should count specifically as "special mount"
Many/Most DMs will ignore alignment restrictions. If they don't, they usually do for anyone but monks and paladins. If they still don't you found yourself a rare DM.
In fact, those look like long-term optimization.
Campaign starts at level 1 and should end around level 16 because DM is not too fond of higher levels. The fact that the paladin waits for 5th level to have a mount is not so appealing to me.
My question to make the final decision will be :
What is considered mountable for fighting purpose ? The rules mention that a horse not used to war will be scared and so on.
How about a dire wolf ? Can you mount if it it's your animal companion ? The paladin cool mounts only arrive at late levels while I think the combo involving the druid and beastmaster involve more direct coolness with the animal companion but they never mention what animal is ridable or not.
I just saw this post which gives creatures that are ridable but I'm still not sure about the criteria (i.e. who said they were ridable, is there a specific condition for them to be ? are they harder to ride than horses ?)
forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=353118
I'm so much dreaming of a halfling mounting a spider ...
PS: I apologize for the races,feats,classes mispelling as I have the books in another language, I have to remember how things are called in the english version and I often neglect the spelling of those :-)
Keep in mind that the paladin offers some of the most useful and durable mounts there are. A mount must be trained for war if it has intelligence of 2 or lower or it will run from combat. A paladins mount is always at a higher intelligence so doesn't need to even be trained.
Also the alternate class feature in Dragon Magic allows you to get a Drakkensteed instead of a horse at lvl 5. That's a flying mount at lvl 5 that hangs around for 10 hours a day. Even the wizard can't fly for that long at such low levels.
Combine that with the supermount build and you have a truly awesome halfling that can take on just about anything.
You can ride anything that is one size bigger than you, non humanoid, and trained to do so via the handle animal skill.
Handle Animal Hyperlink SRD
Combat Riding (DC 20): An animal trained to bear a rider into combat knows the tricks attack, come, defend, down, guard, and heel. Training an animal for combat riding takes six weeks. You may also “upgrade” an animal trained for riding to one trained for combat riding by spending three weeks and making a successful DC 20 Handle Animal check. The new general purpose and tricks completely replace the animal’s previous purpose and any tricks it once knew. Warhorses and riding dogs are already trained to bear riders into combat, and they don’t require any additional training for this purpose.
Should be a fairly easy DC/handwaved for animals you can intrinsically communicate with like animal companion or paladins special mount.
I'll check what the DM allows and will post the character I ended up playing.
Thanks a lot for the replies !!!
My question to make the final decision will be :
What is considered mountable for fighting purpose ?
Pages 204 and 205 of the dmg are dedicated to that question. Coolest suggestion they make for a small rider (halfling) IMO is the dire bat.
I created my caracter yesterday and went for the Halfling Paladin. My DM is playing in "Pathfinder" universe so the paladin class in 3.75 rules (didn't know they came up with those rules for pathfinder campaign) has better will save than the normal paladin. I'm also going for the "Freedom" paladin variant from unearthed arcana which allows me for CG alignment (changing the law component in the special capacities to chaos).
The god I server is the god of bravery, wine and freedom. Sounds like a plan
The mount I'll take will be what I think is called "longclaw" in english, it's from the pathfinder campaign guide. Basically a medium-size dinosaur standing on 2 feet (kind of a tiny T-rex). I think this gives a nice style to my halfling freedom paladin :-)
Starting with a riding dog at level 1 though, have to start cheap.
I'll go with the Cavalier class from complete warrior afterwards (but requires me to be level 9 from a feat requirement perspective).
This was for the follow-up :-) Thanks again everyone
Thanks Uhm_Hol, I actually had forgotten about that part in DMG.
I created my caracter yesterday and went for the Halfling Paladin. My DM is playing in "Pathfinder" universe so the paladin class in 3.75 rules (didn't know they came up with those rules for pathfinder campaign) has better will save than the normal paladin. I'm also going for the "Freedom" paladin variant from unearthed arcana which allows me for CG alignment (changing the law component in the special capacities to chaos).
The god I server is the god of bravery, wine and freedom. Sounds like a plan
The mount I'll take will be what I think is called "longclaw" in english, it's from the pathfinder campaign guide. Basically a medium-size dinosaur standing on 2 feet (kind of a tiny T-rex). I think this gives a nice style to my halfling freedom paladin :-)
Starting with a riding dog at level 1 though, have to start cheap.
I'll go with the Cavalier class from complete warrior afterwards (but requires me to be level 9 from a feat requirement perspective).
This was for the follow-up :-) Thanks again everyone
If you go paladin, cavalier is imho a trap: the extra damage you get with cavalier is much lower then the extra damage you can do with paladin spells (most importantly but not exclusively) Find the Gap for touch attacks in combination with power attack and rhino rush, and with smite evil (remember, if you have x5 damage on charge attacks, every level of paladin is +5 damage on a mounted charge). See here for a few (some mounted) paladin build suggestions and at the end some conclusions on paladin and prestige classes.
What I'm wondering and what my DM is also unclear about is : what is exactly mutiplied with the charge ? We agree the smiting is, but how about the occasional +1d6 fire that a weapon might deal ? what about a +2d6 vs evil if the weapon is holy ? Are they multiplied to ?
If not, I'd prefer the magic item compendium add-on (I forgot the name) that just adds +5 to your weapon damage, so that that would be multiplied too.
If you can also state in which book this would be explained,so that I can convince the DM :-)
Nicolas
Nice remark. I'll keep it in mind.
What I'm wondering and what my DM is also unclear about is : what is exactly mutiplied with the charge ? We agree the smiting is, but how about the occasional +1d6 fire that a weapon might deal ? what about a +2d6 vs evil if the weapon is holy ? Are they multiplied to ?
If not, I'd prefer the magic item compendium add-on (I forgot the name) that just adds +5 to your weapon damage, so that that would be multiplied too.
If you can also state in which book this would be explained,so that I can convince the DM :-)
Nicolas
As far as I know, extra damage dice (like sneak attack, flaming weapon, holy) are never multiplied, but fixed amounts are. From the SRD:
Multiplying Damage
Sometimes you multiply damage by some factor, such as on a critical hit. Roll the damage (with all modifiers) multiple times and total the results. Note: When you multiply damage more than once, each multiplier works off the original, unmultiplied damage.
Exception: Extra damage dice over and above a weapon’s normal damage are never multiplied.