Ok this opens it up to all characters and the Cultural Virtue of Mounted COmabt is flushed out with all the do dads in the Riders of Rhovanion background in the Rohirrim thread as specific to them.

MOUNTED COMBAT RULES
Untrained characters suffer a -4 Combat Disadvantage while mounted in addition to any other combat disadvantages.

NEW BACKGROUND TRAITS

Horseman
When mounted you can withstand long hours of toil and travel far without rest, or under extreme conditions.

NEW MASTERIES

Mounted Warrior
This mastery allows a bonus of plus two on combat complications (up to a maximum of nil) in mounted melee.

Mounted Archer
This mastery allows a bonus of plus two on combat complications (up to a maximum of nil) in mounted missile combat.

Mounted Charge
This mastery may only be learned once. Mounted Charge allows a mounted character to utilize the weight and speed of their mount in a charge. After the Volley Phase the Character with a war trained mount may ‘charge’ their adversaries. This initial attack allows the mounted character to attack first unless surprised and move immediately into the Forward Stance. On this single attack the character achieves a piercing blow on any great or extraordinary success.

I originally raised this in the Riders of Rhovanion thread, but I believe it pertains directly to mounted combat:

Should a mounted knight be allowed to wield a long spear (or lance) 1-handed while mounted.

The long spear deals more damage and possesses a higher injury TN than the (shorter) spear. Normally, the long spear is usable only two-handed (on foot), but should the momentum gained by a horse allow this weapon to be used 1-handed (and allow the cavalier a shield)?

If so, should it be only usable when fighting forward? Historically, early cavalrymen would quickly drop their spear after the initial charge and than draw a secondary weapon for close-quarter fighting.

How should that work?

Ha ha, I think that I have got a bit lost as well Tel.

Mounted Combat - cultural blessing for Riders.
Mounted Warrior- Wisdom mastery gift for any culture
Mounted Archer- Wisdom mastery gift for any culture
Horse Whisperer- cultural virtue for Riders
Animal husbandry-speciality background trait
Horseman- speciality background trait
Warhorse-cultural virtue for riders
Horse lord - cultural virtue for riders
Horsehair Plume- cultural reward for Riders
War horn - cultural reward for Riders
Lance of Leod- cultural reward for Riders (or Cavalry mount)

Cavalry mount- these are the horses of the regular warriors of the settled peoples and of those Horsefolk who have not yet trained a Warhorse. They are prohibitively expensive and a character can only start a game with one of these if taken as a reward. While less aggressive than Warhorses, they will not shy away from battle and can avail of the charge rule. They are also much less skittish when faced by servants of the enemy. Even characters without the Cultural blessing of Mounted Combat or the Mastery of Mounted Combat/archer only suffer a -2 combat complication instead of the usual -4 for a standard riding horse.

Just when you think you've got there...........

Hal,
your loosing me with all the +/- 2's and 4's.

Glor,
I am down with long spear being used one handed while mounted.

Sorry Tel,
There are two levels of combat complication on the complications table. These are -2 and -4.
In mounted combat I am trying to reflect this. Thus

An untrained rider on a Riding horse/Pony suffers a -4 complication penalty reflecting his lack of experience on a horse that just wants to get out of danger.

An untrained rider on a Cavalry Steed suffers a -2 complication penalty. His horse is not trying to pull him away from the battle but his lack of experience still hampers his ability.

A trained rider on a Riding horse/Pony suffers a -2 complication penalty. His combat ability is hampered by his skittish mount.

A trained rider on a Cavalry Steed suffers no combat complications. His horse isn't trying to escape and he can concentrate on beating his opponents into submission, which he is quite good at.

Definition of a trained rider (for above purposes) is- any rider who has the Cultural Blessing-Mounted Combat(Rohirrim and Horsefolk) or any character who possesses the Virtue/Mastery- Mounted Warrior or Mounted Archer.

Don't be confused by the Cavalry Steed reward. The -2 referred to in the blurb refers to the -2 shown in the complications above. It isn't anything extra, just poor wording on my part.

A Warhorse is the Cavalry steed of a Rider of Rhovanion who has taken the appropriate virtue. No extra effect on complications but lots of extra abilities.

I made the addition that the minuses for fighting mounted stacks with any other combat disadvantages. So a player could conceivably be at -8.

I get what you are saying but it still seems overly complex to me. What’s the game play advantage to be gotten from this?

Sure I agree that it adds more detail but I think it detracts from the overall simplicity of combat and starts to get tweaky in regard to +/-'s.

I dunno Tel, I am a prime exponent of keeping it simple and it doesn't seem overly complex to me. All it adds is a slightly less devastating complication for trained horses as opposed to untrained horses.

Ok so how to integrate that?

I mean there is no money exchanges were you can save up and buy a better horse. What’s the mechanism to convey quality of a horse?

Ok, I'll come to that in a second. You make a point that a character could conceivably have a +8 TN due to complications. If you are a Dwarf, it could conceivably be a +12 TN complication. That is of course if a Dwarf player is stupid enough to try to fight mounted on an untrained horse in the midst of a raging torrent.

Back to the subject of differentiating between the untrained horse and the Trained horse/Cavalry steed.
The original idea was that this would be a cultural 'reward' and that combat trained horses would not be generally available for sale. This notion seemed to get lost somewhere along the way.
The Warhorse was supposed to come from my initial idea for the Horse Whisperer 'Virtue'. This, again, changed along the way(and for the better, I might add ).
However, the cavalry steed as a reward was exchanged for a weapon as a reward(also fine by me).

It is still easily solved though. There is a table in the AB that shows the availability of ponies and boats to fellowships based on their cultural prosperity level. We simply say that Cavalry Steeds are twice as expensive as riding horses/ponies and are never loaned(except in exceptional circumstances). That means that a 'Rich' adventurer can afford to purchase a Cavalry steed for one companion or riding horses/ponies for two.

It should be noted that Rider characters start with a cavalry steed. This should be a part of their Cultural Blessing IMO.

Hmmm it’s not stated explicitly that they do start with one. It’s assumed that the character would take War Mount but that further assumes that they would take Valour One and Wisdom Two...

I'll add something into the Horse Whisperer that says you start play with a trained mount. In that case the Cultural Virtue will provide the necessary horse.

Currently mounts only take wounds as a special feature of War Horse and there is a mechanism to both heal them and replace them there. So that's all set. (This integrates well with the Horse Whisperer Bonus for horse healing and goes together well.)

Could we just say that a trained cavalry horse costs one point of treasure to buy or replace?

(I see horse thieving becoming a big deal....)


EDIT: Of Rider of Rhovanion updated to start with a trained mount.

I think this needs some playtesting at this point:
I dont think I am going to use the trained and untrained aspects that Halbarad is going towards, but all the wording is there for those who want to to do so.

I'm going to play it out as a flat -4 for fighting from horseback unless the player off sets that with the mounted combat masteries and see how that goes.

It might be better to add it into the Cultural Blessing(Mounted Combat). That way, all riders of Rhovanion get their cavalry steed and it leaves Horse Lord & Horse Whisperer as variant starting options under Cultural Virtues.

Horse Whisperer is the cultural blessing as it stands right now with Horse Lord and Mounted COmbat and War Horse as the three expansions.

I suppose we'll agree to disagree then Tel.

The new Masteries need to be reviewed in the light of your present propositions though. Along with the difference in trained and untrained horses, these masteries were supposed to reduce the complications to zero.

You have two options I guess. Leave it as it is and explain away the remaining +2 TN as the fact that even a trained cavalryman suffers complications when fighting mounted, unless they are a member of one of the Horsefolk cultures.

Or

Change the modifiers to a +4 TN for both Mounted Warrior and Mounted Archer and level the playing field.

Well the mastery says +2 to a max of Nil. so taking it twice would get rid of the penalty.

Mounted Warrior
This mastery allows a bonus of plus two on combat complications (up to a maximum of nil) in mounted melee.

Mounted Archer
This mastery allows a bonus of plus two on combat complications (up to a maximum of nil) in mounted missile combat


The amount of energy and resources a non mounted culture would have to take to get even close in parity is part of how awesome they really are. Of course its a very specialized form of combat. I non horse culture character that dumped everything that had into mounted combat would still be at a disadvantage to the Riders of Rhovanion and the Mark.

Hmmm,I quite like that. Not how I envisaged the two Masteries Working but, Hey, that way of reading it works too......