Why take... any paladin mounts at all?

[Lago_AM3P]

In the description of the ride skill in the 3.5E, it states that riding unusual mounts entails a -5 penalty. This also specifically extends to BIPEDS, which, fortunately for us, includes freakin' humanoids.

That said, there's no reason to take paladin levels past 4 at all (and only if you're playing with divine feats or qualifying for prestige classes), since you can just pick up, with no twisting of the rules at all, leadership and ride around on the shoulders of your human singh rager / devoted defender / 3.0E non-quite-as-suck Drunken Master. Or am I missing something?

[Username17]

The paladin mount gets the shared spells, that's occassionally useful.

The other thing to keep in mind is that humanoids generally have a much smaller carrying capacity than do horses and wolves. A human, for instance, can only carry 100 pounds of equipment + rider + rider's equipment even with a strength of 18. Contrast this to a light horse which can carry 150 pounds without being slowed down. And a horse is a riding beast, so it can continue to carry characters heavier than that and only suffer penalties (this same ability does not extend to humanoids, who are generally difficult to make into "riding beasts").

So it can be done - it's just hard.

-Username17

[Thoth_Amon]

Movement, Flying, and a sense of style.

You can go the Master Blaster route, but it is super lame.

"Two men enter...Or one guy and another guy carrying a midget weenie-man...one man leaves."

TA

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Plus, horses have a lot of meat on them. Gotta keep that in mind.

[Maj]

Eh... I think they ought to have made Ride like Perform 3.0 - where one rank allows you the savvy of riding a particular type of creature. Two ranks nets you the know-how to ride two different types of creature... Etc.

What does

If you attempt to ride a creature that is ill suited as a mount, you take a –5 penalty on your Ride checks.

mean anyway? Is your dragon cohort that says "Hey, I don't mind carrying you around" ill-suited as a mount? Or is it just dragons who say "Touch me and I'll kill you"? Or maybe it's all dragons in general...?

[Thoth_Amon]

Or just horses wearing tuxes that don't fit?

TA