Knight's Birthright Mount - House rule

[Steerpike]

What do you guys think of this?

For flavor reasons, we don't really want the Knight in the campaign to have to sell his 'birthright' mount, which is a riding horse, in order to get a warhorse that doesn't give penalties in combat.

So we're contemplating this: whenever the Knight is in combat on the horse, the horse will get an equivalent amount of XP to the Knight for that encounter. When the horse achieves 1000 XP it becomes 'trained' and takes on the characteristics of the light warhorse listed in the Knight's character description.

That way the Knight doesn't sell a 'birthright' to buy a warhorse after the first couple of adventures.

[serleran]

I don't give knights a birthright mount, primarily because I don't have knights in the game... but, if I were, I would make it something like the paladin mount of yestermorrow... wait until 2nd level, and then one comes to the knight. That is, he can train any horse, but only have one such horse, at a time... I do not like the idea of the knight just bingo-bango getting a horsey. But, I am vindictive.

Your way works, but it opens a whole can of worms... what about animal companions the druid collects? Why can't they earn XP and improve, too?
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Serl's Corner

[Steerpike]

Yeah, good point about other animal companions. I'll have to think about that.

Since the birthright mount is a riding horse, and a light warhorse is relatively cheap, it seems like the knight would sell the birthright mount at the first opportunity and get a warhorse. Having the birthright mount level up seems more interesting, but if other players, like druids, clamored for their animals to level up it would be a problem.

[Relaxo]

I like it, and I favor XP for animal companions and familiars.

maybe not as powerful as 3e, but some scaling to match the PCs themselves.

[Lord Dynel]

I think that would work pretty well, Steerpike. I did something like that myself - when the knight was ready to make a purchase of a warhorse, for 75% of the price of the new mount, I allowed him to to find a trainer and "train" his riding horse into a warhorse. Easy-peasy. No crazy complex rules to work through. It went off without a hitch in my game, too, so whatever you decide to do hopefully you'll have the same luck!

Sometimes those complex rules are fun, though.
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[Maliki]

Steerpike wrote:
What do you guys think of this?

For flavor reasons, we don't really want the Knight in the campaign to have to sell his 'birthright' mount, which is a riding horse, in order to get a warhorse that doesn't give penalties in combat.

So we're contemplating this: whenever the Knight is in combat on the horse, the horse will get an equivalent amount of XP to the Knight for that encounter. When the horse achieves 1000 XP it becomes 'trained' and takes on the characteristics of the light warhorse listed in the Knight's character description.

That way the Knight doesn't sell a 'birthright' to buy a warhorse after the first couple of adventures.

I don't think this will cause any problem, and kind of makes sense. IMC I simply allow the knight to start with a warhorse, but I'm a nice CK.
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