Mounted Combat

Riding Animals

Characters may fight from the back of mounts, such as horses or bears. Trained mounts can be ridden by any character, and can be bought or rented in towns from stablemasters. Taming and riding a wild animal requires a series of skill checks revolving around the Animal Handling skill.

War Mounts

Some mounts are trained to attack in tandem with their rider. Like characters, each mount has a Major and Minor action on its turn. They can use the Major action to bite, claw, or otherwise attack if it makes sense for the type of mount to do so. These attacks are treated as a Basic Attack from a 1h longsword unless the Storyteller rules otherwise. Mounts are usually levels 1-3.

Going Into Battle

In combat, a character riding a mount should follow these rules:

The mount will, by default, act on its rider’s turn and does not have a separate place in the Initiative order
The mount has a Major and Minor action which it can use independently of the rider
The mount can take actions before or after the rider’s actions
Mounts have separate stats and HP from their riders

If an animal is not trained for combat, a DC 10 Animal Handling check each turn is required to prevent the animal from freezing or fleeing (50% chance of either one). This check costs a Minor action.

Attacking From the Back of a Mount

Attacking from the back of a mount can only be done with one-handed weapons, with the exception of a bow or lance. Characters may use a passive to negate this requirement.

Defending Mounts

Attackers can choose to target a rider or their mount.
If a ground-mount dies to the attacker’s strike, the rider falls from the mount and suffers d10 damage for a small or medium sized mount, and 2d10 damage for a large or giant mount.