How Do I Handle These Horses?

1.69 introduced rideable horses and all the functions that go with them as standard content. For those that have questions, or just want to try them out before you find them in Aenea, I recommend spending some time at the Riding Academy (a small module you can download and vote for here).

I played it, and it will answer 99.99% of questions you might have about using horses in NWN.

Huzzah!

Giddyup!

Amen! All this running about is wrecking my brand new boots...

A really cool idea - hey, why not add something like this to Aenea? (A riding academy/horse merchant thingie, I mean!)

I don't mean to crush Amethyst under an ever-increasing workload ...

There is a horse seller now. I don't plan on a riding lesson area, since that's a lot of time and effort for an area that few will visit more than once.

And the small, no-haks-needed Riding Academy module already has everything you could need to know for less than 100kb in download time.

Where is the horse seller

Whoa! Paladins can get their special mounts now? Neat! Now I have to see when I can fit in the Mounted Combat feat.

Amilmar Te'fenocen wrote:Where is the horse seller

Look around civilized areas in the region of Valorian's Vale. There will be more such merchants added soon.

I dunno ... I was never a big fan of horses for my D&D, so I don't really see what the fuss is about - but let me ask this, do horses speed things up? Do the horses in Aenea have saddlebag storage? Or let me ask another way: what are the benefits to owning horses? Call it my need to know! Anyone, feel free to educate me on the benefits/advantages of horsie use!
(Yeah, I know, I could play the small horse mod, but I'm lazy, and my kids bother me, and playing that would mean less time from Aenea [not that I'm spending any sort of time there now!]!)

Yes, horses increase movement speed, and the speed stacks with speed effects (like from Haste). There are some instances were being on foot is faster, like when you are a high level monk, but the horse movement is pretty fast.

Yes, the horses have "saddlebags". You can manipulate their inventory as you would a henchman's.

Even better, you're immune to shape-shifting spells while mounted, and the horse cannot be harmed while you are riding.

There is, what seems to me, an exploit associated with riding a mount if you have the Mounted Combat feat. It operates different from the table-top version - you are constantly adding a d20 + Ride skill to your AC. With a 43 Ride skill (40th Char Lvl), you could be adding a minimum +44 to your AC while mounted. [Unless I missed something during the module].

Thank you, Svair! Perhaps I shall play that little moddie after all!

Yes, horses will increase your speed.

You can use saddlebags, but only those of horses that have them visible.

While the horse cannot be damaged while you are riding, if you are damaged when you dismount, a portion of that damage will be transferred from you to the horse.

The AC boost from the Mounted Combat feat is equal to:
[(1d20 + Ride Skill) - 10] / 5
So let's assume (40th lvl, 43 ranks, no dex bonus, no magic bonus to the skill = +43 Ride).
Min 1+43=44...44-10=34...34/5= +6 to AC (system rounds down).
Max 20+43=63...63-10=53...53/5= +10 to AC.



For those with a sense of humor, common names for horses of PCs in my pen & paper campaigns have run along the lines of "Alpo XII" "glue" and "dragonsnack".

Once you have a horse and it is assigned to you (and you are not mounted), try horse renameto xxxxxx in the Talk channel (replace xxxxxx with the new name of your horse).

Eric of Atrophy wrote:Thank you, Svair! Perhaps I shall play that little moddie after all!

FYI, I have a pretty good PC (relatively speaking vs the original Recommended System Requirements), and experienced a massive FPS hit when running the module that only increased the longer I played. It was still worth it toughing it out until I learned and practiced the lessons.

Amethyst-Dragon wrote:You can use saddlebags, but only those of horses that have them visible.

You can have multiple horses at any time, but if you have henchmen, you can't access those horse's inventory until you "unassign" them from henchmen that are riding them.

Amethyst-Dragon wrote:While the horse cannot be damaged while you are riding, if you are damaged when you dismount, a portion of that damage will be transferred from you to the horse.

That is good to know! What if you heal (potions/spells/regenerate/etc) while mounted? While your mount still take the total damage? Is the damage a mount takes mitigated by any circumstances such as the ones mentioned?

Amethyst-Dragon wrote:{(1d20 + Ride Skill) - 10] / 5}

Neat!

I still have a hundred questions related to this though :-) When can I get my Lance for starters :-).

Amethyst-Dragon wrote:For those with a sense of humor, common names for horses of PCs in my pen & paper campaigns have run along the lines of "Alpo XII" "glue" and "dragonsnack".

"Bait" will not be demeaned by purposeful attempts at humor. He is a show-horse and will not be disparaged.

Svair wrote:That is good to know! What if you heal (potions/spells/regenerate/etc) while mounted? While your mount still take the total damage? Is the damage a mount takes mitigated by any circumstances such as the ones mentioned?

I still have a hundred questions related to this though :-) When can I get my Lance for starters :-).

Wow. Late replay from me.

If you heal before dismounting, the mount takes less (or no) damage when you dismount.

I don't have lances in, since they only really function in scripted cutscenes (as far as I've read).

I know this was already asked once and a clue was given. But after 2 days of wandering and finding all sorts of nasties that live to decimate a lower level toon , I still have yet to locate a merchant who sells horses, I have however, found saddlebags! So my question would be is it possible to get one more hint as to where one might find said merchant? Thanks.

If you found the saddlebags, you're close. Just wander around inside the walls of Mountainholm Castle.

More horse merchants are in the works.

I found the lil feller! He was doin a fine bit 'o hidin' he was.

Is it possible to make an item that allows you to use the Paladin's summon mount ability? That seems easier than having to buy a new horse every server reset...

You could just take 5 levels in paladin. It's one of the perks of the class.

Heh...I like the horses. But Phyllick gets a pony when he rents one.

I heard no end of it last time he was riding around from other PCs

The horses are sized to the PCs when they are ridden.

I know, and I wasn't complaining per se

But the jokes wounded poor Phyllick. He might have tried to throttle someone, but he's afraid of heights and was holding onto the reins for dear life.

*sings* My little pony... my little pony.....

MannyJabrielle wrote:*sings* My little pony... my little pony.....

See! See!

So - How do I "Stable" my horse? There are stables - that seem to fire a script - but My horse just continues to follow me to the next screen.

Can I "park" this guy somewhere to stay put?

Do I really need to buy a new horse every reset?

Thankyou

When you are within a "stable area" (you've seen how the game lets you know), just type horse stable in into the chat bar.

When you get back to that same stable area, you can get your horse back by typing horse stable out into the chat bar.

Keep in mind that the stabling does not save the horse's saddlebags or anything in them.

Odd, in another PW I play, horses stay with you. But the thing with those is they are summoned via an item. Like, "Reigns on the Black Warhorse" I'm guessing it is diefferent here.

Can I rent a horse somewhere?

I went to the stable in the vale, but it seemed only for if you already owned a horse.

Ramana Jala wrote:Can I rent a horse somewhere?

I went to the stable in the vale, but it seemed only for if you already owned a horse.

You can purchase a horse in one of several places (currently Mountainholm Castle, Macedone, and Calthia). The stables are for keeping your horse when you don't need it (when logging off).

Anyone can purchase a basic riding horse. If you want a stronger horse with better barding, you'll need several ranks in Ride to get that option. You can also purchase saddle bags from a Mr. Mard in Mountainholm Castle if you want to add those to your horse.

I bought a horse in Calithia for 500, but the server crashed before I could finish my mission and get it to a stable. I arrived back in the start area without it, so I don't suppose I own one anymore?

It was my second trip overland all the way to Calithia, and the server had crashed the first time also and spit me back to start that time too-- what a hassle since it's so far to get to. Server seems a bit crashy lately, I thought it was my network adapter, but others have told me it's not just me. It happens, but oh, for anchor respawn points in all the major cities, I'd anchor as soon as I got somewhere, to be able to stay in the area I'm questing in when I log back in, or when I get crashed! By the way, I could get you information about how to make anchor respawn points (my last PW had them all over), but I don't know how much time and trouble it would be to insert that feature into Aenea.

There is a set of Boots that allows one to set respawn points. But after a reset, one has to go to the Sleeping Dragon initially, I believe. See here:

https://aenea.aforumfree.com/t1922-partially-used-binding-points

That would be great, now to just find them and afford them. Thanks!

If you have ranks in Use Magic Device, you may also wish to learn of one of Aenea's (iny my opinion) coolest features of all:

Teleportation Magic.

There is a certain shrine to the mistress of Magic near the Vale. One can make a donation to obtain magical paper with the power of teleportation. Either a One use contract of Translocation that needs to be recharged at an altar for 2,000 gold after use, or regular spell scrolls of Teleport.

The contract of translocation can be used twice. The first use "sets" your current location as the spot that you will be teleported to. The second and last use (until recharging) will execute the teleport to the "set" location.

The scrolls are my favorite because you can use the ;;tp set xx command to set your current location as "teleport slots" You get anywhere from 25-50 slots (depending on class, arcane casting classes get more slots).

Once you have a spot saved in a teleport slot, you then use the command ;;tp xx to select which slot you want to have as your "destination".

Once the destination is set, you simply use a scroll of teleport, or a helm of teleportation, and BOOM! You appear at the selected saved teleport spot.

I wasn't really interested in the 2k gold per trip option of the contract, that's too expensive.

I did pick up a scroll of Teleport, but I'm still figuring out how much UMD is required to use it. Because I accidentally used a scroll of Dispel Magic (not remembering that I'm a low-level again), and it didn't spell but was gone, without any warning that the scroll was over my UMD.

So I need to know if we are on the original NWN UMD Required chart (i.e., Class Restricted Item of 4800 gp or less needs 5 ranks in UMD, and most scrolls are under that cost). Which didn't seem the case because she had 5 UMD when she tried a scroll of Dispel Magic. If you can clue me in about the UMD chart for Aenea, I'd be appreciative, as I don't want to invest more in UMD than is necessary for just using scrolls (to level 9 spells), at least not right away, as she's got a lot of skills I need to parse.

I did see the Helm of Teleportation in Mountainholm, which is totally on my wish list, but at 30k will be a while before I can afford it.

Thanks for the tips!

The DC of a UMD check for using a scroll is based on nothing more than the spell level of the spell on the scroll. The math is DC 25+spell level.

However, some scrolls are made to be easier to activate than this. Scrolls like greater restoration, raise dead, resurrection, etc, for ease of use are able to be used without any UMD requirement, to make up for the fact that in an online NWN PW you wont always have a PC of the right class and level to provide this much needed magic.

I believe teleport scrolls are a third case, where UMD is still required, but the DC is FAR more reasonable to activate them, something like DC 10 or 15, so even with just 1 rank and a decent charisma you could have a 50% or better chance of getting it to work. With Max ranks and decent charisma you shouldnt have much trouble at all.

You also have the option of creating a magic rod with teleport spells associated as a 20k custom item (available from approx 8hrs play) ....

You can get the following for 20k ((19501gp)) on a rod ...
Cast Spell: Magehound (9) 1 Use/Day
Cast Spell: Summon Ally (11) 1 Use/Day
Cast Spell: Teleport (9) 2 Use/Day

These three spells will allow you to get to where you want to go, and bring a friend.. or get to a friend... they are really useful and custom items can be used without any UMD ranks ... .. a custom tp item is the first thing I create for my new PC's ... ...


The there is always the great and vast Wanderers Portal network of Gort... which is great once you find the "key" item hidden away in a certain valley (portals exist in most locations throughout Aenea that you may wish to get to) ....

So, let me get this straight about UMD. You're saying that the max DC for spell scrolls is 34, based on 25 plus spell levels to 9. So does this mean that to beat it, I have to roll my UMD + a d20 variable roll? And I mean variable in the sense that it's not like Disable Device or Open Lock, where Out-of-Combat that's always a Take 20 roll. So if it's variable, I would need to have at least 33 in case a 1 is rolled(assuming that here a roll of 1 is not an automatic fail), to be guaranteed success and not potentially waste an expensive scroll. That seems pretty severe to have to have 33 points in UMD to just guarantee 100% success with your average scroll. Unless it is a Take 20 roll, in which case, I'd only need 13 points in UMD to always succeed. So is it Take 20 action or not?

And about that rod, that sounds awesome and it would have been quite nice to have known all this back when I had the opportunity to choose the 20k Custom Voucher, but being totally new to Aenea and since I was broke at the time and without any good armor or equipment, I chose the gold. (I do have the 40k voucher now though.)

The portals, well, I've been wandering out there and spreading arrows as breadcrumbs there for several reallife weeks now without any clue.

Here is some info on UMD (note the Hardcore setting remarks):

http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Use_magic_device

I believe max is 34 DC (ie; 25 + 9); min is 26 DC (ie; 25 +1).

Duh, bad math done in a hurry, I'm correcting my previous post. I assume this is Hardcore here, then. I'll look over that article again.

Ramana Jala wrote:So does this mean that to beat it, I have to roll my UMD + a d20 variable roll?

That's the case for rogues and assassins, bards however, doesn't have to roll a d20 to use scrolls (they just need as many points in the UMD skill as it takes to bypass any class restrictions).

Looked over that wiki entry, and Hardcore rules seems to indicate that for a level 9 spell I would have to equal or beat DC 34 (25 plus 9) by rolling a presumably variable d20 + my UMD. So, to guarantee 100% success, I'd have to have at least UMD = 33 (doesn't have to be all base skill ranks, of course, can be augmented by equipment or attribute bonuses).

Guess I've been spoiled elsewhere by UMD scrollcasting based on scroll cost or whatever, that made it so I only needed UMD 10 to cast all scrolls reliably.

And yeah, I noted what the wiki said about Bards. Also that having Rogue, ShadowDancer, Assassin levels prompt the special check, even if you also have the native class for the spell of the scroll.

I *think* you may be correct about being able to take 20 on an out of combat UMD check to use a scroll. That would make it much easier.... and jives with what I have experienced in game. I think you only have to worry about the d20 roll if you are in combat... but not 100% on that.

daveyeisley wrote:I *think* you may be correct about being able to take 20 on an out of combat UMD check to use a scroll. That would make it much easier.... and jives with what I have experienced in game. I think you only have to worry about the d20 roll if you are in combat... but not 100% on that.

Unless have changed the way UMD functions on Aenea, there's no take 20 on UMD rolls...be it in or out of combat.

Angel of Death wrote:

daveyeisley wrote:I *think* you may be correct about being able to take 20 on an out of combat UMD check to use a scroll. That would make it much easier.... and jives with what I have experienced in game. I think you only have to worry about the d20 roll if you are in combat... but not 100% on that.

Unless have changed the way UMD functions on Aenea, there's no take 20 on UMD rolls...be it in or out of combat.

I cannot recall ever failing an out of combat attempt; just a few during some lower lvl combats. And while I ain't positive, I may have all Rogues of some sort in my personal Vault. Teleport and UMD are too valuable to me, and even my Wizards love the tons of extra Skill pts.

Ramana Jala wrote: (I do have the 40k voucher now though.)

The portals, well, I've been wandering out there and spreading arrows as breadcrumbs there for several reallife weeks now without any clue.

You can get a very nice "utility" rod for 40k .... including tp spells... summon ally.. magehound.. invisibility.... and maybe one other ....


As to the portals.... several real life weeks warrants a bit of help... so read everything you can about Gort on the website ... select it all and export it to a notepad if you need to .... ....

Thanks for the tips, I'll investigate, the rod and about Gort, too.

I only wish there was a list of all these new spells I keep finding out about, that aren't listed on the Spell page, so I could know what's available to be put on such a rod. I only know about Summon Ally because Dave showed me, but what is Magehound? Is there a list of Aenean spells by Class somewhere, with spell descriptions?

To see all the new spells, you have to click the link labelled "New Spells"

Ramana Jala wrote:Thanks for the tips, I'll investigate, the rod and about Gort, too.

I only wish there was a list of all these new spells I keep finding out about, that aren't listed on the Spell page, so I could know what's available to be put on such a rod. I only know about Summon Ally because Dave showed me, but what is Magehound? Is there a list of Aenean spells by Class somewhere, with spell descriptions?

Magehound is basically summon ally in reverse ... it will allow you to go to someone in your ally list (instead of bringing said person to you)... in all honesty in some cases it can be seen as a gross misconduct and intrusion of personal space (the person has no clue/warning that you are about to appear beside them).. the only defence against it so to keep casting teleport barrier spells (the side effect being the person can't do any tp/sa/mh stuff either)... ...

Fortunately Aenea doesn't have many issues with griefers so this spell isn't really abused as much as it could be ... and of course you can always magehound someone to the bottom of a deadly fall, or pit of lava (Jay has done this before with Crideas ) ...

AFAIK, to use either Summon Ally or Magehound requires the cooperation of both parties as one must have 'marked' the other other for such transporation to work. And Transference should not be overlooked either; a real life/ quest saver at times.