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Old 02-15-2009, 11:29 PM   #71
nik1979
 
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Philippines, Makati
Default Re: Horses, encumbrance and travelling speed

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A pony foal costs about P15-20,000 $300 to $400. They can be trained to ride for only a year. There was about 60 horses, many with an age of 3-15 years. Although 300lbs were the most they would carry a total encumbrance of 200lbs was the ideal. Again considering this is a novelty (they are bred for tourists than for actual work) this price would be considerably lower in places that still use horses extensively.

It just means a horse would be better performing at light encumbrance than medium (near its maximum riding capacity). Still many of the ponies would be within the ST20 range. Given that the horses need running now and then, I could only compare the speed of their gallop to my personal running speed and these sure ponies may have a ground speed 7 or 8 with a rider on light (how much faster i can guess they are compared to me running on the same ground). Probably Move 6 with ground speed 1/2.

According to our guide, these ponies are meant for the mountain terrain of the local province. Many times in the trail there were times a hiker on foot would have taken extra time negotiating, the horse seemed to have as similar challenge.

Since they were raised and trained in these paths and they had the difficulty of being in Light Enc (-1 DX) I would give them a DX 11. I would let the horse make a running DX based roll and for a faster paced hiking a hiking DX based roll.

Given our frequency of breaks and the sweat i could feel and see while I road the horse and my questions with the guide. I figure that these horses would have an average HT11. Still I think that they could easily have a HT12 if they were privately own, had better equipment, and feed.

I think given better quality feed and better care, I think these horses could be much stronger, probably ST21-22. At 21 the horse is already fit for skirmishing cavalry. At 22 they would be enough for light lancers (like the goths in the 6C gothic war with Belisarius).

IMO players should be able to purchase horses at their untrained price (1/3) their cost. Unlike a car, a horse requires familiarity and a high level of involvement with its owner. It would be only natural for a character to purchase the horse at foal costs and train it themselves. I think one can use Int based Riding check to train a horse, but Animal Handling would have a huge difference in training time. Animal Handling would probably allow a character to prevent many bad traits from setting in. Training horses with just the Riding skill would give the horse probably a bad trait, a few bad quirks and would have familiarity penalties with other riders.

Allowing players to purchase horses at 1/3 would be appropriate if they were adventurer types and those with Skill-12+ (Since these characters have horses part of their daily regiment). Other non-adventurous characters with riding-12 should pay 1/2 the cost for partial training or for the full cost for horses that can be used by anyone.

Byzantine Warhorses were roughly 7 solidi ($2,520) purchased by soldiers. Fully trained horses sold were 3x the cost (21 solidi). These were untrained since soldiers were expected to train them (Strategikon). Assuming these horses were a much more refined breed compared to the legendary horses of the Fargana Valley (Warhorse: Cavalry in Ancient Warfare by Philip Sidnell) of ST13.5-14 hands, I think they would have ST23+.
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