Fully Rideable Horses

[orth]

For characters who have reached at least 15th level, you may now purchase a rideable horse.  The one and only horse merchant is on Dregar in Orcs Watch. You will need a saddle if you buy a horse, also available from the horse vendor.  Horses cost about 18,000GP, and saddles cost about 250GP.   Horses work in a very similar fashion to oxen.  You "talk" to your horse to ride it, lead it with a rope or tie it down.  You will need to manage your horse location as you would do for your ox.  To dismount the horse, use your saddle's unique power on yourself.   Horses do not give you any storage space like oxen do, but they will give you a 50% increase in speed over any terrain.   There are 5 kinds of horses available for purchase:  

• Black horse
• Brown horse
• White pony
• Brown pony
• Dappled (brown and white) pony  

Full-sized character races (humans, elves, etc.) will be able to buy horses. Small-sized character races (halflings, dwarves, etc.) will be able to by ponies.   There is a horse tracker system, like with oxen, if you misplace your horse.   If your horse dies, you'll have to buy a new one, though you can keep your saddle.   NOTE:  This system is not the same as the Paladin Warhorse system.

[Shadowblade225]

Orth I'd give you the biggest hug if I could right now.

Edit - I'm thinking the answer to this one is a no, but it can't hurt to ask - with the paladin war horse system I know you must be pure class 15th level paladin, but what about a combination of divine paladin/paladin like (champion) levels - like 10 paladin/5 champion or something like that?  It'd make sense to me from an RP standpoint.  Would this ever be approved or feasible ever?

(course I'm fine with buying a horse and saddle, but I thought it couldn't hurt to ask)

[Dorganath]

Hey...orth didn't do the horses... *grumbles*  On second thought...go ahead and hug orth..hehe
  Paladins need to be level 14 in Paladin levels to get their warhorses.  The general public needs to have 15 character levels. 

[Shadowblade225]

Ok then, how abouts a lvl 9 paladin 5 champion? (I'm thinking this will always be reserved for pure class paladins - but I wanted to ask anyhow because of the nature of a champion prestige class.)  Thoughts?

[Pibemanden]

Or the Lucindite paladins with free wizard-multiclass?

[Dorganath]

14 Paladin levels.
  Edit:  Keep in mind, a paladin's warhorse is better than what can be bought by the general public.  There's no reason why a multi-classed paladin couldn't by a standard horse.  But it won't be a warhorse.

[Leanthar]

Good job on the horses Dorg.
  And yes, it is paladin levels. I will think about the champion thing but it is likely that I will keep it at paladin levels only.

[Shadowblade225]

That's fine - thanks for giving it a bit of thought.  The mere fact that you (the team) brought rideable horses to the public (among everything else) is really appreciated.

Edit: *hugs Dorg*...heh

[s0ulz]

This is absolutely awesome. Big thanks to orth and Dorganath, you have done amazing. For me personally, the only thing more from this area would be like boars, wolves and rams to ride on. That would make the choice perfect.

In no way does that decrease the credit of you guys and my respect towards you. Once again great job!

[rusleBIFFEN]

Excellent !

*Hugs the entire dev staff*

* Looks at the 18K cost to get horsies when they die*
One question, can I cast invisible spells on the horse and myself, and
be invisible while riding ? ( i.e I can invis my ox to get him into mines undetected)

-Hali

[Dorganath]

Yes.

[Chrys Ellis]

orth - 1/1/2006 8:18 AM Horses do not give you any storage space like oxen do, but they will give you a 50% increase in speed over any terrain.

    I am wondering how this would apply to monks.  Would the 50% increase stack with my monk speed?  If not, that's totally fine.  If it does, however, I personally would not buy a horse as Xiao unless there was a good RP reason his horse could run faster just because he was riding it.
  I have thought of one possible explanation for this.  The monk learns to channel the Ki energy through his own body and into the horse, making it run faster, just as he/she does.  This would be no small feat, though.  I personally would request to have a CDQ run to find an NPC monk who knows how to do this and have him train Xiao in this art before buying a horse.  I would suggest any other monks or barbarians wait to buy a horse until this question is answered.  This is all if the horse would run faster as a default, of course.   
  If any GM's want to test this with me, just contact me IG.  I could buy a horse to test it, then get my gold back after the test.  If the horse doesn't run faster, then buying it would be silly for Xiao, and if it does, I'd want to wait for the CDQ I suggested.  Comments, ideas?

[Leanthar]

I don't think it will stack, but I am not entirely sure. We should take it for a test to find out.

[Aragon]

Can you attack from horseback?  Cast spells? Or can you merely travel and have to dismount to fight?

[Dorganath]

You should be able to do all of those things, though there is no bonus for doing so.

[Chrys Ellis]

Leanthar - 1/2/2006 6:31 AM I don't think it will stack, but I am not entirely sure. We should take it for a test to find out.

    Is it ok if I buy one just to test it, then get reimbursed the gold?

[Dorganath]

Yeah, go ahead.  When you're done, have a GM kill your horse and give you back the gold.
  Oh...and the horse merchant can be persuaded to knock 500 off the price, so keep track of how much you actually paid

[Talan Va'lash]

Dorganath - 1/2/2006  10:51 AM

You should be able to do all of those things, though there is no bonus for doing so.

Will your horse take damage if you fight while on it?  or is it one of those things where you take all the damage untill they kill you, then the horse would start taking damage?

-TV

[Dorganath]

From a technical stanpoint, when you're riding a horse, your phenotype changes, so that you and the horse are one and the same.  There's no difference between you and the horse, because it's one model.
  Right now, there's no provision for dying while mounted.  I suspect your horse would be restored along with you if you respawn or are resurrected.  However, I probably should set it so that if you die while mounted, your horse appears beside you and then is on its own in terms of fending for itself...it'll probably die too from combat, but that's the chance you take.  These aren't warhorses, afterall.
  In fact...I'm going to do that right now.

[Dorganath]

Look for the following regarding horses in the next patch, coming soon:
- Horses are now tougher and harder to kill.  They will defend themselves if attacked but shouldn't go charging into battle. Paladin warhorses have been adjusted upward as well. Thanks to Ice for the help with the creature mods.
 
- Saddles have been updated with the following functions:
+ Dismount + Set speed to normal. (Mounted horse travels at normal PC rate)
+ Set speed to fast. (Mounted horse travels at 50% faster rate)
+ Description added to saddle item (use ox pack to refresh an existing saddle)
Use the saddle's unique power on yourself while mounted to access these features.  Thanks to Pankoki for the suggestion on speed.
 
- Equiping a tower shield while mounted is no longer permitted.  If you mount a horse with a tower shield equipped, it will be unequipped.  Be sure to manage your inventory.  If it is full, your tower shield will be dropped on the ground and may get hit by the clean-up script.
 
- If you die while mounted, you will fall off your horse and the horse will be left to fend for itself. This will probably mean the horse will die too.  Think long and hard before entering combat on horseback. Thanks to Talan for planting that bug in my ear.
 
- Cross-server speed persistence issues should be resolved. Thanks to Reventage for the report.
 
- GMs may interact with any player horse as well as inspect them to see which character owns the horse.  Interaction includes leading, tying and riding horses that belong to PCs and those that don't.