[PrC] Mountbonded

[Fax Celestis]

Mountbonded are practitioners--nay, masters of the Twin Spirit discipline. They share a special bond with their mount which allows them to perform incredible feats of martial prowess. Their mounts are preternaturally strong and are capable of withstanding incredible damage--some are even known to know the powers of maneuvers themselves.

Prerequisites
Feats: Mounted Combat, Ride-By Attack
Skills: Ride 8 ranks
Maneuvers: Two Twin Spirit maneuvers, one Twin Spirit stance

Class Features
HD: d8

Skills (4+Int): Balance, Bluff, Craft, Diplomacy, Handle Animal, Heal, Intimidate, Knowledge (Nature), Martial Lore, Listen, Profession, Ride, Sense Motive, Spot, Survival

Proficiencies: A Mountbonded is proficient with the lance and with light and heavy shields.

Maneuvers: At each even numbered level, a Mountbonded gains a new maneuver from the Iron Heart, Stone Dragon, Twin Spirit, or White Raven disciplines. You must meet a maneuver's prerequisite to learn it. You add your full Mountbonded levels to your Initiator Level to determine your total Initiator Level and your highest-level maneuvers known.

At third, sixth, and ninth levels, you gain an additional readied maneuver.

Stances: At second, sixth, and tenth levels, you gain access to a stance from the Iron Heart, Stone Dragon, Twin Spirit, or White Raven disciplines. You must meet a stance's prerequisites to learn it.

Martial Mount: At first level, you designate a mount of your choice that you currently possess. You forge a personal bond with this mount, and they gain specific benefits according to your Initiator Level: see the table below. If you have a special mount already (such as through the Paladin class feature), you may count those class levels as full Initiator Levels for the purposes of this class feature. Alternatively, you may stack levels with this class with the class that grants you a mount for the purposes of determining your mount's bonuses. You may only benefit from one of these options at a time.

If a Mountbonded's martial mount perishes, they take a -2 penalty to all skill checks, saves, and attack rolls for 24 hours, after which they may designate a new mount by spending 1000 gp x their Initiator Level and an amount of experience equal to 1/10th that amount.

Mountbonded Movement: Starting at second level, while you are in a Twin Spirit stance and are mounted on your martial mount, your mount gains an enhancement bonus to their fastest speed equal to 5' times the stance's level, to a maximum bonus equal to your Mountbonded level times 5'.

Bonus Feat: At third, sixth, and ninth levels, a Mountbonded gains a bonus feat. This feat must be one that has Mounted Combat as a prerequisite, and any prerequisites must be met as normal.

Bondpowered Strike: Starting at fourth level, whenever you initiate a maneuver while mounted on your martial mount, your mount's attacks in the same round deal extra damage according to the following table.

{table=head]!Maneuver Level | Bonus Damage
1st-2nd | +1d6
3rd-4th | +2d6
5th-6th | +3d6
7th-8th | +4d6
9th | +5d6[/table]

Mountpaired Boost: Starting at fifth level, whenever you initiate a maneuver with a range of Personal and a target of You while mounted on your martial mount, you may choose to grant your martial mount the benefits of the boost in addition to receiving their benefits yourself.

Powerful Charge: Starting at seventh level, whenever you make a charge while mounted on your martial mount, you may expend a readied maneuver to multiply your damage by x2. This multiplier stacks with the effects of charging with a lance, the Spirited Charge feat, and similar multipliers.

Mountbound Stance: Starting at eighth level, while you are mounted on your martial mount, your mount may choose to utilize one of your stances that you are not currently using.

Incredible Charge: At tenth level, you become a paragon of mounted combat and are capable of incredible feats of martial prowess. While you are mounted on your martial mount and make a charge action, you may activate any strike you know with an initiation action of 1 standard action or less as part of the charge. If the maneuver has a saving throw, increase it by +2.

Mountbonded Progression
{table=head]Level | BAB | Fort | Ref | Will | Special | Maneuvers Known | Maneuvers Readied | Stances
1st | +1 | +2 | +0 | +0 | Marital Mount | 0 | 0 | 0
2nd | +2 | +3 | +0 | +0 | Mountbonded Movement | 1 | 0 | 1
3rd | +3 | +3 | +1 | +1 | Bonus Feat | 0 | 1 | 0
4th | +4 | +4 | +1 | +1 | Bondpowered Strike | 1 | 0 | 0
5th | +5 | +4 | +1 | +1 | Mountpaired Boost | 0 | 0 | 0
6th | +6 | +5 | +2 | +2 | Bonus Feat | 1 | 1 | 1
7th | +7 | +5 | +2 | +2 | Powerful Charge | 0 | 0 | 0
8th | +8 | +6 | +2 | +2 | Mountbond Stance | 1 | 0 | 0
9th | +9 | +6 | +3 | +3 | Bonus Feat | 0 | 1 | 0
10th | +10 | +7 | +3 | +3 | Incredible Charge | 1 | 0 | 1[/table]

Martial Mount Benefits
{table=head]!Initiator Level | Strength Bonus | Natural Armor Bonus | Bonus HD
1-5 | +0 | +1 | +0
6-9 | +2 | +2 | +2
10-12 | +2 | +3 | +4
13-15 | +4 | +5 | +6
16-18 | +4 | +7 | +8
19-20 | +6 | +9 | +10[/table]

[Stycotl]

this is pretty cool stuff. i really like the idead of a mount, for a lot of reasons, especially ones that actually make sense in the real world (increased mileage per day, tactical advanatges, etc), and this serves to make a mounted character even more appealing.

this is the first time i have seen the demented one's twin spirit discipline, and it seems pretty cool too (can't post on that thread, so i'll comment here...).

i like the idea that the discipline is open to swordsages; i think it fits an expert horseman very nicely.

at the same time, i think it fits the horse nomad concept too, and would suggest adding it to the discipline list for the radical taoist's sublime ranger variant. it would make a cool mounted archer.

aaron out.

[The Demented One]

Woo, Twin Spirit stuff! I like it.

[Triaxx]

Am I dense, or did you just forget to list prereqs? I'm probably dense.

Anyway, even without TOB I can see this would be completely awesome when combined with my homebrew Cavalier. Fantastic work.

[boomwolf]

Shouldn't a PrC have entry requirements?

[Fax Celestis]

Added missing prereqs and HD.

[Triaxx]

Ooh, looks like I'll have to update my Cavalier so it can qualify for this. X5 Lance damage...

[Neftren]

I like the class, but if the prereq is Ride-by-Attack and the class is mostly lance based... unless I'm missing something... but anyway, nicely done. What would happen with maneuvers that say... involve charges? I know there's one out there, but the name slips me at the moment. Could you combine the charge abilities with the maneuver's charge ability?

Ooh, lets say Salamander Charge or whatever.



Erm, now I just need people to go read my homebrews :smalltongue: . Darn you and your insanely amazing prestige and skill at writing things! Maybe you should write a PrC: Fax_Celestis class...

[Proven_Paradox]

I've already spoken to you about this, but I'll reiterate what I said before. I think this is overpowered on a number of levels.

Firstly, the prereqs are basically nothing; anyone who seriously uses the Twin Spirit discipline is -going- to have those. As is, it's essentially a prereq free class. I think it needs a riding focused prereq that isn't a given for someone who uses mounted combat. Skill Focus (Ride) or Animal Affinity would be a good idea; this way, the prospective Mountbound has to actually invest a feat into getting into the class.

The bonus feats I think should go; this is a powerful class, and dead levels are not something that are going to make it something no-one would take.

Bondpowered Strike is too powerful, especially when combined with some of the things you can do with the Twin Spirit school. I remember one maneuver that allows a full attack by the rider AND the mount at the end of a charge. I suggest you slow the progression; perhaps 1d6 for 1-3, 2d6 for 4-6, 3d6 for 7-8, and 4d6 for nine. Also, you told me before that it's only supposed to apply on strikes, not boosts. You need to tighten the wording so that that is clear.

Mountpaired boost needs some sort of cost. Yes, I know wizards/sorcerers can do the same thing with their familiars, but familiars are liabilities in direct combat, while a mountbound mount will actually be quite potent in combat. (I make no excuse for the druid.) I think it could perhaps require you to expend another maneuver, or make it so that you cannot initiate a boost next round. Perhaps the user's choice between the two.

Powerful charge is redundant. At the very least, you're going to be doing x3 damage with your lance charges already. That could easily get far higher. Regardless, you're going to reduce anyone you charge into a fine red mist already; this is unneeded overkill.

Like mountpaired boost, mountbound stance needs some sort of disadvantage or cost I think. On this, however, I don't have a good suggestion for you...

Incredible charge I actually like a lot. One thing you might consider doing is giving it to the class earlier, but make the bonus to save DCs scale (perhaps in place of the bonus feats). You could also perhaps give the class some versatility by allow it to get some other charge-based abilities; perhaps instead of higher save DCs they can choose to reduce the penalties on AC for charging? Or perhaps they can turn once during a charge? Maybe they can leap over one obstacle during a charge instead? I think you should develop this line more; I'd make it the class's distinguishing feature.

If you do that, and want a new capstone for incredible charge, perhaps something to further enhance your mount? Perhaps the mount gains the ability to run over water? Ignore difficult terrain? Fly? Perhaps a breath weapon, or the ability to use Twin Spirit strikes up to level X without the guidance of its master X times a day/encounter/whatever.

It definitely needs to be eased back in power, but there are still some cool things you could do with this.

[Kioran]

The martial Mount Actually makes the Epic-Mount cheese more feasible (having a "meatsack" character and and Animal PC), using Paladin 5/Ranger 1/Druid 2/Warblade 1/Beastmaster 1/Halfling Outrider 1/Mountbonded 1/ Halfling Outrider 2-9 for:

lvl 15 companion (18 with natural Bond) + lvl 14 Paladin Mount + lvl 11 Martial mount for:

+ 20 HD/ +21 Nat Armor/+10 Str/ +5 Dex/Improved Evasion

This problem becomes somewhat more significant in Epic lvls: Taking Epic Halfling Outrider add +2 HD/+1 Str and Dex/+2 Natural armor every 3 lvls from companion and +2 HD/+1 Str and Int/+2 Natural armor from Paladin, +martial mount benefits for free every 6 lvls. But Epic is borked anyway........

Regardless, martial mounts are incredibly cheap, I´d dip for one any time of the day if I were cavalry-based, not necessesarily based on maneuvers, simply for the Mount-upgrade I can get for 2 lvls (1 Warblade, 1 Mountbonded).

[Fax Celestis]

The martial Mount Actually makes the Epic-Mount cheese more feasible (having a "meatsack" character and and Animal PC), using Paladin 5/Ranger 1/Druid 2/Warblade 1/Beastmaster 1/Halfling Outrider 1/Mountbonded 1/ Halfling Outrider 2-9 for:

lvl 15 companion (18 with natural Bond) + lvl 14 Paladin Mount + lvl 11 Martial mount for:

+ 20 HD/ +21 Nat Armor/+10 Str/ +5 Dex/Improved Evasion

This problem becomes somewhat more significant in Epic lvls: Taking Epic Halfling Outrider add +2 HD/+1 Str and Dex/+2 Natural armor every 3 lvls from companion and +2 HD/+1 Str and Int/+2 Natural armor from Paladin, +martial mount benefits for free every 6 lvls. But Epic is borked anyway........

Regardless, martial mounts are incredibly cheap, I´d dip for one any time of the day if I were cavalry-based, not necessesarily based on maneuvers, simply for the Mount-upgrade I can get for 2 lvls (1 Warblade, 1 Mountbonded).


If you have a special mount already (such as through the Paladin class feature), you may count those class levels as full Initiator Levels for the purposes of this class feature. Alternatively, you may stack levels with this class with the class that grants you a mount for the purposes of determining your mount's bonuses. You may only benefit from one of these options at a time.
Reread the last line.

[Triaxx]

My oh my. Given a two level dip to pick up this, my Cavalier only loses his final Mount Tier, third domain, and one bonus feat. Given that he can add his Smite Foe to the attack, (+5 vs. C/N), triple damage from Lance Knight, added with powerful charge (x5 damage). *drools*

It says I 'may', it doesn't say I must. So I can split those levels, (Paladin X/Mountbonded X) and gain the benefits of two seperate classes, just like normal. I don't mind, Cavalier get's better benefit's anyway.