Anything more permanent? I bring all these suggestions, and the DM responds with ‘If I [insert subject here] with a Bandit, it couldn’t make death saves.’ He recently said this line, which I find funny- ‘If you rode a Bandit into battle, it wouldn’t make death saves’.
For instance, ‘If I Gave a Bandit Mage armor’, ‘If I gave a Bandit plate’, and ‘If I had something riding a bandit with a feat’ are some examples.
The minute your DM said that. Give up playing a mounted fighter. He hates mounts and is looking for excuses to kill it. He's not the DM you'll enjoy this concept with.
I don't think the DM is being ridiculous, just sticking with PCs being the only things in the world that get death saves.
He's sticking with that concept for completely arbitrary reasons to the detriment of his players. He could give the mount death saves if he wanted to; it's part of the rules. The only purpose the "dead at 0 HP" convention serves is speed of play when you're fighting throwaway monsters.
Anything more permanent? I bring all these suggestions, and the DM responds with ‘If I [insert subject here] with a Bandit, it couldn’t make death saves.’ He recently said this line, which I find funny- ‘If you rode a Bandit into battle, it wouldn’t make death saves’.
For instance, ‘If I Gave a Bandit Mage armor’, ‘If I gave a Bandit plate’, and ‘If I had something riding a bandit with a feat’ are some examples.
The minute your DM said that. Give up playing a mounted fighter. He hates mounts and is looking for excuses to kill it. He's not the DM you'll enjoy this concept with.
Now, now. My DM is a great DM, and usually fair. He has taken the time to DM for me and others. Don’t go insulting him, please. I have so far enjoyed it, I was just looking for ways to make my horse special so that he could make Death Saves.
Anything more permanent? I bring all these suggestions, and the DM responds with ‘If I [insert subject here] with a Bandit, it couldn’t make death saves.’ He recently said this line, which I find funny- ‘If you rode a Bandit into battle, it wouldn’t make death saves’.
For instance, ‘If I Gave a Bandit Mage armor’, ‘If I gave a Bandit plate’, and ‘If I had something riding a bandit with a feat’ are some examples.
The minute your DM said that. Give up playing a mounted fighter. He hates mounts and is looking for excuses to kill it. He's not the DM you'll enjoy this concept with.
Now, now. My DM is a great DM, and usually fair. He has taken the time to DM for me and others. Don’t go insulting him, please. I have so far enjoyed it, I was just looking for ways to make my horse special so that he could make Death Saves.
I apologize if I came off as harsh. I'm not meaning to insult your DM. I'm not saying he's a bad DM I'm saying he's probably not he DM to really enjoy this concept with.
Everyone has their prejudices and I've generally found "npc followers" are one of those things that.... a lot of people don't like having to "look after" them. I've come to consider mounts to be like necromancy, the player and the GM have to both think it's a cool idea or the player will never get to feel like the concept is "full realised". I had the same issue years ago back in 3rd edition. I tried to make a Halfing Outrider, mounted archer. Being small my medium sized mount could be in a dungeon... That mount just keep getting nuked. In the end the character was never as fun to play as I hoped for and I changed him out. I should say that happened when the GM said my mount wouldn't fit on the elevator, so I fed my mount a potion of Spider Climb and descended on the wall next to the elevator... the Grell attacked my mount first, paralyzing it and we both fell over 100 feet to our deaths before the Grell engaged the rest of the party on the elevator.
The real question is this: if you would enjoy this exception, and it wouldn't unbalance or hurt anything else, then why is the DM purposefully not doing a simple thing he could do in order to make the game more enjoyable?
If the DM thinks it would unbalance the party/campaign/game, that's one thing. But if the reason is just "the rules don't say I have to so I'm not", that's a selfish reason. The DM in that case is prioritizing his own happiness about having a small rule a certain way over a player's happiness at having a relatively small boon to a character. Just selfish.
Imagine a wizard asking if his summoned familiar could be a dove. DM checks the spell: "Doesn't say dove, nope." Player: "Is there a reason why? Would having a dove be too powerful, or go against some rule of the world we're in?" DM: "No. I realize I could let you have a dove. But the rules don't say I have to allow it, and it's not on the list, so no."
Sorry. Not saying the DM is a jerk overall as a person, but unless there's a good reason given, that's a DM who is placing pointless rule-following over the enjoyment of the game. Boo.
Horse has +0 dex mod, so Mage Armor is not the way to go. Assuming it's something like Chain Mail, you get 16 AC on the horse, so Bark Skin wouldn't be worth it either. Instead you get it a +1 to +3 protection enchantment on it giving the horse up to a 19 AC. Then you grab something like the the horse shoes and give them the Regeneration property.
5e isn't like 3.5e, you can't just make magic items a la carte; they're strictly in the DM's control. So saying "oh, just slap a bunch of amazing magic items on your horse" isn't very actionable.
Mage armor is still a cheap, easy solution to get any common mount's AC up, especially at lower levels. Barding is great, but it's also expensive; chain mail barding would cost 300 gp.
If feats are an option, then by far the best solution is to take Mounted Combatant feat. That renders your mount invulnerable to attacks as long as you're riding it (and not incapacitated), so its AC is largely irrelevant. It also automatically negates half the damage from most damaging area effects that use Dex saves, so it's twice as hard to reduce to 0 HP with spells like Fireball.
At higher levels, when its maximum HP is more likely to be a problem and 2nd level spells aren't quite as expensive, clerics can cast Aid to increase its max HP.
300 GP isn't a ton, especially compared to magic items
It may not exactly be cheap, but it is a valid option if you have more than 300 gold
Then again, Elephants cot 200 gold and an exotic harness is 50 gp...
I believe you will need to upgrade from a riding horse if you're going to put armor on it. A riding horse, back in my day, was for transportation, not pulling heavy carts or riding into war.
The minute your DM said that. Give up playing a mounted fighter. He hates mounts and is looking for excuses to kill it. He's not the DM you'll enjoy this concept with.
He's sticking with that concept for completely arbitrary reasons to the detriment of his players. He could give the mount death saves if he wanted to; it's part of the rules. The only purpose the "dead at 0 HP" convention serves is speed of play when you're fighting throwaway monsters.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Now, now. My DM is a great DM, and usually fair. He has taken the time to DM for me and others. Don’t go insulting him, please. I have so far enjoyed it, I was just looking for ways to make my horse special so that he could make Death Saves.
Extended Signature! Yay! https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/off-topic/adohands-kitchen/3153-extended-signature-thread?page=2#c21
Haven’t used this account in forever. Still a big fan of crawling claws.
I apologize if I came off as harsh. I'm not meaning to insult your DM. I'm not saying he's a bad DM I'm saying he's probably not he DM to really enjoy this concept with.
Everyone has their prejudices and I've generally found "npc followers" are one of those things that.... a lot of people don't like having to "look after" them. I've come to consider mounts to be like necromancy, the player and the GM have to both think it's a cool idea or the player will never get to feel like the concept is "full realised".
I had the same issue years ago back in 3rd edition. I tried to make a Halfing Outrider, mounted archer. Being small my medium sized mount could be in a dungeon... That mount just keep getting nuked. In the end the character was never as fun to play as I hoped for and I changed him out.
I should say that happened when the GM said my mount wouldn't fit on the elevator, so I fed my mount a potion of Spider Climb and descended on the wall next to the elevator... the Grell attacked my mount first, paralyzing it and we both fell over 100 feet to our deaths before the Grell engaged the rest of the party on the elevator.
The real question is this: if you would enjoy this exception, and it wouldn't unbalance or hurt anything else, then why is the DM purposefully not doing a simple thing he could do in order to make the game more enjoyable?
If the DM thinks it would unbalance the party/campaign/game, that's one thing. But if the reason is just "the rules don't say I have to so I'm not", that's a selfish reason. The DM in that case is prioritizing his own happiness about having a small rule a certain way over a player's happiness at having a relatively small boon to a character. Just selfish.
Imagine a wizard asking if his summoned familiar could be a dove. DM checks the spell: "Doesn't say dove, nope." Player: "Is there a reason why? Would having a dove be too powerful, or go against some rule of the world we're in?" DM: "No. I realize I could let you have a dove. But the rules don't say I have to allow it, and it's not on the list, so no."
Sorry. Not saying the DM is a jerk overall as a person, but unless there's a good reason given, that's a DM who is placing pointless rule-following over the enjoyment of the game. Boo.
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)
300 GP isn't a ton, especially compared to magic items
It may not exactly be cheap, but it is a valid option if you have more than 300 gold
Then again, Elephants cot 200 gold and an exotic harness is 50 gp...
I believe you will need to upgrade from a riding horse if you're going to put armor on it. A riding horse, back in my day, was for transportation, not pulling heavy carts or riding into war.
Keep in mind DND uses very loose terms. Riding horse, draft horse, war horse. It's simple stat blocks and don't get lost in details that don't matter.