Unconventional Mount
Somewhere in the blighted land of Ravenloft, my party once stumbled across a horrible mutated boar. This thing came crashing out of the woods, fixed its beady little eyes on the group, and charged straight for us. I’m pretty sure it had wandered over from Bloodbourne. It was man-height at the shoulder, heavy as our wagon, covered in weeping sores and squealing like a steam train. My paladin/rogue took one look at that thing, grinned like a mad woman, and said, “Ima ride it.” I’ll admit that I had some trouble staying on the full eight seconds, but hey, there’s no reason to limit your transportation options.
I’ve known gamers to ride dragons, oozes, and even each other. Laurel and I once worked out a cavalier / druid pairing that still makes me grin just thinking about it. The idea was for my gnomish knight to attach a howdah to her shell and repel boarders while she giant-snapping-turtled the shit out of the enemy. Sadly, that duo never saw play. I think maybe my GM didn’t want to deal with ruling on the interaction between mounted combat and a sentient steed.
The single greatest mount I ever had that actually saw play was a tower. We took months in-game enchanting the silly thing, but the results were well worth it. Carved from indestructible black glass, our tower stood hundreds of feet high and handled like a dream. It awed the shit out of the peasantry whenever we flew it around. I’m pretty sure Immigrant Song played spontaneously when we turned the ignition. If memory serves it’s still parked somewhere over the Isle of Terror in the Inner Sea Region, looming provocatively and causing an international incident.
What about you guys though? What’s the weirdest mount you’ve ever employed in-game? Let’s hear it in the comments!
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In my first 5e campaign, our Bard player dropped out because reasons, and so to replace him the GM made a Warforged Bard-like thing (I called it Biff the BuffBot; the GM called it B3-AT) based on the guitar guy from Mad Max: Fury Road. It had a guitar that was both an axe and a light crossbow and a custom spell list of basically every buff/support/sound-based spell out there. For added fun, since our Gnome Wizard’s cousin was the one who made it (to protect her), we added in a seat, so she could ride on its shoulder. While doing so, it also gave her the power to cast Vicious Mockery using the BuffBot’s stats as a bonus action. It was pretty metal.
Ha! Sounds like you managed to reference two Mad Max movies:
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/pEoAAOSwcF9UVASo/s-l300.jpg
I’ve never done this, but there’s a hilarious all-barbarian party build where each character is a different-sized barbarian. There’s some rage power you can take that passes bonuses down the stack.
From an article about it: “[An] Awakened Cat Barbarian riding a Gnome Barbarian riding an Orc Barbarian/Warchanter with war Drums riding a Minotaur Barbarian riding a Huge-Ass War-Mammoth is essentially 90% of the point of playing Dungeons and Dragons.”
The Bremen Town Contusions.
That’s what we refer to as “fireball formation.”
My first pathfinder character was also a summoner who used his eidolon as a mount. Although, his was more of a flying feathered serpent sort of thing.
GM: That doesn’t make any sense! He’s like a big anaconda. Your feet would drag on the ground!
Player: https://basicallybicycles.com/merchant/590/images/site/TeamRans2.jpg
that image doesn’t load for me
fixed
Still doesn’t load. Just delete the extra “g” at the end of “…Rans2.jpgg”
fixed properly this time. >:[
I once played a halfling Farmer-turned-Knight-Errant (Cavalier class) who rode on a pig.
It’s a little tame compared to some other people’s stories – at least April the pig was quadrupedal, mammalian and domesticated.
But that pig died to dragonfire, making her the bravest little pig ever.
At least you had freshly fried bacon to console you.
the most quaint yet awesome mount i ever had was Pouet Watson the dire corgi (pouet is basicly the french equivalent of “honk” like in a clown honking his nose).
Pouet was a horse sized corgi with stats to rival a warg except it was cute as ****
He was part of my collection of “silly things” ive used back then along with characters like John Magum, Kung-fu master and the chickenomancer which i believe ive mentionned before on this website in the past (not that i comment often for you to remember me i think.)
Pouet holds a special place in my heart just due to how awesome corgis are in real life tho.
Was Pouet’s rider a fey corgi perchance?
i wish i had thought of that at the time. Nah it was during 3.5, we were all scrubs and didint even used internet for anything D&D. Pouet was basicly just a warg houseruled to the bones
I had a player’s halfling riding another player’s pegasus character, being thrown to safety by another players earth pony character.
In this same game the party did battle with a pair of over sized crows. More than one player ended up riding them and the pair of pegasus characters in the game spent over half their time catching the other players.
I remember reading a screed by a centaur player about how you never let anybody ride you. No saddles, no pulling the wagons, no sleeping in the stables. As a mount-like PC, you’ve got to draw those boundaries early.
I meant to go about doing this for a joke-campaign a couple years back but for Pathfinder there’s a Third-Party Race/Class combo called the Jotun/Jotun-Paragon.
The racial class allows you to grow to colossal size eventually, but for the levels we’d be playing, I’d just be a huge character. Anyway, my friend wanted to play a Gnome Alchemist and I was going to play an Ogre-kin Jotun that would carry around the gnome’s lab on my shoulders. I never got to play that with my friend though, since the campaign died in its design phase.
A couple months ago though, a couple of guys in a Beastlands (Planescape setting) campaign decided to go Fire-Gnome Blaster-Sorcerer and Half-Ogre Barbarian. It was actually pretty funny watching them do their thing for the six sessions we played that campaign for.
In case the joke has been missed so far, both are thinly veiled attempts to play the hero Alchemist from DotA2 (https://dota2.gamepedia.com/Alchemist).
I don’t play much DotA2. My impression of the game is that it’s designed to put as much weird character design as it possibly can onscreen at the same time. And also to provide an platform for swearing at people online.
I must be getting an itch for joke characters myself. I recently rolled up a merfolk hobo / bard. It’s been a blast flopping around after the party and asking folks if they can spare a can of beans. “I’m awful partial to beans.”
In case you didn’t know the history, DotA was originally a Warcraft mod, so it’s a case of just using the models they had to work with at first, and when Valve picked it up for re-making they casually tacked on lore and backstories after the fact. That’s how you end up in a game where some the characters are elementals or demons or entities from beyond the veil of time and space with the power to re-write reality, alongside characters are who “Dwarf that’s good with guns” or “Angry troll with axes”.
Sounds about as sane as a high level party with a Summoner and a Wizard teaming up with a Gunslinger and a Fighter.
Now I’m trying to figure out was those four would be doing together in the same comic.
I was gonna say, that sounds just like Alch from DotA. Well done!
Hmmmm. Celestial Spider Eater is the one that sticks out most. Awakened Tree has also occurred. Also giant dragonfly and giant vulture. I had a Shadowrun character with a spirit inside of them so I guess you could call them a mount?
Celestial spider eater? So it’s super creepy… but it’s holy… but it’s creepy… so it’s a good kind of creepy?
“This horrible monstrosity gives me a deep feeling of inner peace.”
Yeesh. I just can’t fit it in my head.
Ah the joy of slapping templates on things and watching people’s heads explode! =D
The Spider eater must have been from Australia. Supposedly there’s a rather cute a friendly spider that likes to help by eating other spiders that get in peoples homes. Problem is the feller is huge in comparison to most of the rest of the spiders, runs funny, and is super skittish of people.
If memory serves.
Thank you for not posting an image link. Jibblies.
Hasn’t actually seen play and isn’t exactly a mount, but the tower thing reminded me of an idea I had for encasing a psionicist in a levitating block of concrete with a Ring of Sustenance so they don’t starve; effectively creatig an armor that grants total cover while leaving the user able to act (since psionics don’t have somatic components)
Are you familiar with the Great and Powerful Turtle?
http://wildcards.wikia.com/wiki/Turtle
Oh yeah Mounts! Pathfinder game. My Goblin Cleric of Zura, was proudly riding a Frost Troll Skeleton, it was awesome! But then i remembered, that lesser animate Dead can only animate up to Medium creatues. Meaning my Troll would crumble instantly. Luckly our Goblin Party had just stolen a gigantic flying Goat from some Gnomes up in the Moutains. So we flew home on that, the Tears of my Cleric covering the Sky.
Also in another Game, our Ratfolk Psychic occaisionally uses our Oread Monk as a Mount, depending on Terrain. They even had themsevles made a Sattle for him! So the Ratfolk sits in his Neck.
I always liked the idea of giant skeleton mounts since you can actually ride inside the rib cage. It’s like your’re your own necromantic monstrosity’s beating heart!
I never thought about it like that, thats cool, and yet so Disturbing.
I feel like I need to scrub myself down with soap every time Psion or whatever his name is is on-screen.
Good to know that Summoner is doing his job.
I’ve never been or ridden an exotic mount, but I did once serve as the party’s beast of burden. This was when we were new to D&D, so the DM let me become a werebear. I had maxed my strength score and was large size category, so I had some sort of ludicrous carry weight, and I pulled the entire rest of the party around in a wagon for the rest of the campaign. It was pretty fun.
Just joined a Pathfinder game with a Trox barbarian. Giant bug man’s first question: “How much do you weigh?” We need to get that boy a proper howdah.
I don’t know what system you’re in, but I would doubt he could carry everyone in a howdah in 5e, simply because carry weight isn’t super duper high until you get to the “wheeled vehicle” multipliers.
Pathfinder. Str 22. Large creature. Heavy load is 800 lbs. Howdah is 250 lbs. A remainder of 650 lbs should get three PCs off the ground.
Stupid? Yes. Illegal? Yes. (Howdahs are only for huge creatures.) Homebrew to allow it? You bet your ass.
What kind of 3 PCs only weigh 650 lbs? A dragonborn or half-orc would take up half that amount by themselves, and that’s before you get into other peoples’ carry weights and the weight of armor. At the end of the day the other riders are going to have to be short-changing themselves on their own carry weights to pull it off.
Unless you’re a party of gnome monks, consider me skeptical.
What if that summoner went Synthesist instead? Actually, it’d be interesting to see the characters with different archetypes in general
I’ll have to see if I can’t get Laurel to do something in her sketch feed.
I have a halfling summoner with a spider themed demon eidolon. He rides the thing into combat as a melee skirmisher. He even took a dragoon fighter dip for those oh-so-necessary bonus feats and lance proficiency. His damage output has hit a plateau, but due to a well timed level up and an unusual PFS boon, I might be able to race change him into an Oread to fix the issue.
It’s fun to have a literal Capitol-D Demon, chaotic evil and everything, as a controllable pet in a game that otherwise bans being evil. It usually works out pretty well, since pathfinder adventures have enough bloodshed to sate the demon’s needs. Failing that, live rats make an excellent treat.
I’m running with an imp familiar in a 5e game. As a multitude of immolated innocents can attest, that mess tends to come back to bite you.
I can imagine. But it could.be worse. I could be a cavalier. I haven’t seen any other kind of pet, evil outsiders included, be gated by GMs because “there’s no way you can get a horse in here.” Be it fancy parties or dungeons.
Our horse was slain in the third session, so since that time, our Aether kineticist has used telekinetic haul to push the wagon around everywhere we go, making her our (sort of) mount.
Can you… Can you be inside the cart while pushing it? Have you just invented the horseless carriage?
I was in a game that ran a few sessions of Storm Kings Thunder where I was a Lizardfolk Fighter (Cavalier) who rode a Giant Lizard. Those were fun sessions.
I’ve got a gnomish cavalier buddy who rides a giant gecko. Wall crawling + wheeling charge = some extremely silly charge paths. Nowhere is safe!
In my pathfinder game there’s a halfling assassin who rides in and shoots death attacks out of a giant mithril magic robot monk. (Custom race I created because I intended it to be a weird campaign, and it is.)
Well don’t keep us in suspense. Let’s see those custom race stats!
Being a construct, the race is extra powerful, so he’s one level behind. At level 1, he had no class levels, and just used his construct bonus hp and base ability modifiers to do stuff.
-2 cha, -4 dex, +2 str.
No constitution score. Constitution is treated as 10 for effects based on constitution
Darkvision 60 feet.
Low-light vision.
Immune to mind affecting effects.
Constructs can only be healed by the spell make whole or the craft construct feat.
Constructs are not subject to ability damage, ability drain, energy drain, massive damage, fatigue, exhaustion, nonlethal damage, or any effect that requires a fortitude save.
Constructs are immediately destroyed upon reaching 0 hit points and cannot be raised or resurrected.
+20 hit points.
Constructs do not need to eat, breathe or sleep unless they want to.
Medium
40 feet speed.
+4 natural armor.
Unarmed strikes count as silver for dr.
That mess is all kinds of unconventional, but it looks weirdly well-balanced. Did you use the race building rules, or was this a “more art than science” situation? How did it work in play?
Also of note: I’ve always been slightly baffled by the Pathfinder “Monsters as PCs” rules:
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/bestiary/monstersAsPCs.html
I think that all works out to mean (and I could easily be wrong here) that a CR+1 critter starts with a level, gains no level at 2nd, gains his second level at 3rd, and then levels normally after that, always remaining 1 level behind the party. I think? Maybe? *head explodes*
I used the race-building rules (mostly), but yeah, it is really “more art than science”. The rules are really more of a tool for GMs, and should definitely be kept away from munchkins.
And yes, “1 level behind” is pretty much how we do it, and it works fairly well.
I played an Antipaladin who used Fiendish Servant to summon a Bebelith, and ride around on that. Having a mount that can rust enemy weapons, and with a Constitution Poison that isn’t actual poison so it works on everything is pretty great. Plus it was a giant terrifying demon spider.
Heh. My only encounter with a bebelith came when we triggered a summoning trap in a 10’ square room. Angry spider parts everywhere!
I once ran an encounter where a bebelith guarded a pit that looped back on itself (Like if you took a giant portal gun and shot both the floor of the pit and the ceiling above). This prompted the “genius” tactic of summoning random creatures above the monster and have them fall on it every round.
lol. How many revolutions before you’re just dropping hamburger meat onto a giant spider?
In my first campaign my players made a iron golem. There are no strict rules on what it had to be like, so they made it in the shape of a massive bull with one horn made of cold iron, and one made of adamantine. Then they cast overland flight on it followed by a permanency spell. They used that thing as a pretty awesome mount.
Well that’s pretty gnarly. I’d have made a PC with ranks in Profession (stock broker), just so I could shout battle cries about bull markets every time the thing charged.
Hmm. Well a pixie of mine (homegrown system) had a landshark. A dead animated landshark. A dead animated landshark with no head (that was mounted on the tower as a doorknocker). And a hole hole cut into the back of it to insert his travelling bucket (it’s a long story…)
I assume that, if it was both a mount and a door knocker, it had to be detachable. I am therefore curious how you kept the neighborhood kids from nicking it and going for a joyride.
I got to this page, and suddenly wanted to have MY summoner’s mount (aforementioned giant snake) EAT that obnoxious nerd. Giant winged multiheaded snek beats boobs any day.
Not in the swimsuit competition it doesn’t. 😛
so, it’s going to happen eventually – someone is going to ride someone else into combat. as a GM, I have seen it happen far, far, FAR too many times to count. my house ruling on it is simple – one of you, I don’t care who, is spending a move action to hold onto the other (much akin to a mounted character moving (mount’s move action) and making a full attack (player’s action)). It works surprisingly well as a balance limitation.
Rogue has Reliable Talent, over +20 to Acrobatics, and a flame tongue whip with extra reach and increased crit range. Fighter is a 20th-level Cavalier with 20 Str, Powerful Build, and a Swiss Army Polearm. Enough said.
I gather that you control Barter Town.
Currently in a campaign where my Deep Gnome Rogue/Ranger/Bard has a Gargantuan Razor Back Daeodon (look up Daeodon on Google – but Supersize it to the Size of a Divine Boar, as it was magically aggrandized by Drow intending to cook it for their feast – As an insult to the Drow, my Gnome stole it and because he rescued it they became fast friends) – they have a great deal of fun wreaking havoc together.
Laurel and I had planned to do a paired cavalier and druid in pf1e. It never quite materialized, but my cavalier was intended to be a dedicated aid-another-buffer while here giant snapping turtle went full-on vital strike. Some shenanigans got the bonus from aid another up to +14 and her bite damage into some equally silly category. The GM never quite pulled the trigger on that campaign though.
Maybe one day I’ll paint the mini we bought for it, howdah and all.
I should add that He has added a Howdah to it – and so he and a few of his Gnome buddies can sometimes work together to really create a bunch of chaos LOL