Horse Stats

<page>
<title>Horse Stats</title>
<summary>Game statistics for horses of various sorts, defined.</summary>

    <p>The noble steed charges the gallant knight's enemies,
    scattering them like flies.  The ancient nag pitifully drags the
    merchants wagon on to yet another town.  The ominous black
    stallion in his bone armor swiftly carries the Deathdealer to his
    next victim.</p>

    <p>Horses can (and should!) play a substantial role in fantasy
    roleplaying campaigns.  In fact, that's what <em>Don't Eat
    Them</em>'s all about.  Horses are currently given the shaft: a
    few monster entries, prices lists, and carrying capacities.  The
    rules should allow horses to develop and grow as characters in
    their own right.  Let alone the roleplaying aspects of this: a
    15th level fighter or 21st level wizard should have a steed to
    match.</p>

    <p>To accomplish this, the character experience system is
    normalized, and horses (and other mounts) are allowed to take
    levels in classes.  In addition, a new character class, the
    Warmount, is provided.</p>

    <p>Note that applying levels to horses removes us from the realm
    of any trademark licenses, and restricts this article to be
    released only under the <OGL/></p>

  <head>Applying experience</head>

    <p>Two systems are provided for providing one's mount with
    experience.  This choice is up to a game master, but should be
    applied consistently across the campaign.</p>

    <ol>
      <li><p>
        <strong>Training:</strong> Every two months of training (under
        a competant trainer and training regime) grants a horse 1000
        experience points.  A successful Handle Animal check against
        DC of 15 plus the animal's current character level must be
        made to successfully train the animal.  No retry is allowed.

        <note>Some indication of how many such trainers are available
        in typical towns.  Research how long a warhorse trained before
        it was considered competant to enter battle.</note>
      </p></li>

      <li><p>
        <strong>Experience:</strong> At the GM's option, horses may
        gain experience points through adventuring, just as heroes do.
        Keep in mind that this effectively creates an additional NPC
        travelling with the party.  Horses should only get experience
        for directly participating in events and tasks.  An
        animal-intelligence creature should not get a share of story
        rewards that require unreasonable understanding, for example.
        Use your better judgement.
      </p></li>
    </ol>

  <head>Effect of Experience on Price</head>

    <p>According to the <SRD/>, a heavy warhorse costs twice that of a
    heavy horse.  Also, a light warhorse costs twice that of a light
    horse.  One can postulate, then, that the first level of training
    doubles the value of a horse.</p>

    <p><note>Beyond that is yet to be determined.  Logarithmic?
    Linear?  Does the value of a horse become meaningless at some
    point?  Or does the value taper off?</note></p>

  <head>Untrained Horses</head>

    <p>Horses, being prey animals, are not particularly keen on
    unusual, surprising, or dangerous seeming situations.  Battle,
    unfortunately, is all of these.</p>

    <p>Most horses have a Spooks Special Quality.</p>

    <entity>
      <title>Spooks (DC)</title>

      <p>Some types of creatures, such as horses, are inherently
      skittish, and do not like unusual situations.  If such a
      creature is a mount, then if such an event occurs, the creature
      may try to bolt, or otherwise disobey the rider.</p>

      <p>This special quality is associated with a DC, which is the DC
      of a Ride check that the rider must beat to maintain control of
      a horse if something that might spook the horse occurs.  This DC
      is breed-specific.  As normal, if the Ride check fails, the
      character can do nothing else that round.</p>

      <p>Levels of training reduce the DC.  Each character level
      reduces this DC by 20.  Typical breeds have a DC of 10 to 30,
      and so after a couple of levels of training, the beast will no
      longer spook.</p>

      <p>A circumstance modifier of -4 to +4 can be applied to the
      roll, depending on how scary, noisy, or unusual the event in
      question is.</p>
    </entity>


  <head>Example Horses</head>



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