[Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

Mount is the DX/Average skill of being ridden. The only default is DX-5. and no skills default to it. If you have higher skill than your rider’s Riding skill, they get to use the average of the two skills, but if you know this skill at all, the rider gets +1. To throw off your rider, use a Quick Contest of Mount vs. their Riding. Mount appeared in the Horseclans setting book, as Riding (Being Ridden).

Riding is the DX/Average skill of riding animals, or anything else that can be ridden in the same basic way. The default is DX-5, or Animal Handling for the same kind of animal at -3, Teamster has a default to Riding, and it’s a prerequisite for Lance and Horse Archery. Roll when you mount up, and when anything happens to frighten your mount, or which it will have difficulty with. Specialisation by animal is required, and the GM is required to decide on default penalties between types; the maximum quoted is -10 for defaulting (Dragon) off (Horse). Modifiers include +5 if the animal knows and likes you, bonuses for the animal’s Mount skill, and up to -10 if the animal has not been trained for riding. Riding dates from GURPS 1e.

Riding is ubiquitous on templates for low-tech settings, and is still reasonably common up to TL8. Mount is, naturally, much rarer, since it’s only meaningful for creatures who can carry other characters for extended periods. The main Mounted Combat rules are on B396-8, and make it clear that you need Riding-12 or better. Riding is also mentioned in plenty of other places in the combat rules, whenever being mounted makes a difference. Animal training and riding animals are on B458-60. The undead horses of Banestorm: Abydos are trained in Mount, as are the Fabulous Animal figurines of DF. DF16 has riding gear, streamlined mounted combat, and skill levels in Mount for various kinds of horse. Fantasy has gifted horses, riding without stirrups, and several techniques for Riding and Bow. Gun-Fu (and Tactical Shooting) has a lot about Riding and shooting, and Low-Tech has lots of historical detail, including riding gear and horse-training. Magic has Rider, and Create Mount, and Thaumatology has Hasten Mount. Martial Arts has plenty about mounted combat, and Power-Ups 3 and 7 have examples for these skills.

Should Mount require specialisation by the species -- or at least body plan -- of the rider? Is the skill confined to mounts with extraordinary training, or is it normal for properly-trained riding animals? Or should it be confined to sapient mounts?

I’m sure you’ve used Riding in a game for basic travel. What have you done with or around it that was strange?

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

One of The more unusual uses for riding that came up in one of my campaigns was a PC who had a small goblin character who was a member of an anything goes type dark horde. He had a skeletal centaur as a mount and rode inside the (Armoured) rib cage.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

I would note that LT has details on riding camels as well as horses, including the difference between a front saddle, a top saddle, and a rear saddle.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

In our pre-DF fantasy campaign, the dwarf warrior had Riding(Pachycephalosaurus). Both loved ramming things.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

Riding also caps any weapon skill (B397), which makes sense to a degree but can seem a bit harsh for people with higher skill levels. For example, a master rider with Riding-20 may still have his Sword-30 or Guns-30 skill effectively penalised by -10 when he's sitting on his horse.

I've seen some alternate house rules, but can't recall them specifically. Maybe something like: apply (18 - Riding skill) as a penalty instead of using it as a cap, i.e. Riding-12 gives -6 to weapon skills, Riding-16 gives -2.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

I've found it annoying, as it seems the skills main use is to act as a tax/surcharge to wanting to play a mounted character

It isn't quite as bad as battlesuit, as there are SOME rules for rolling riding, but not many

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

I think there are more rules that call for for using Riding than for most non-weapon skills.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

True, it does have a fair number of things you can roll it for

Still seems its primary purpose is to add a surcharge for a wannabe mounted combat character, as every single time want to raise a weapon skill need to raise riding first. Gets very irritating.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

On the specific topic . . . first, Riding, this is a pretty binary skill in my experience

Either characters

A - don't have it (they are not a mounted fighter)
or
B - Have it, have spent a lot in it, have related techniques and perks and such to go with it (they are a mounted fighter)

Also, I don't recall ever seeing a character take riding without also having the buy in of an Ally mount

Generic off the shelf horses seem to be very expensive, very flimsy, and not particularly helpful, so anyone dreaming of being a mounted fighter wants an Ally

The most common I've seen in play is Riding (Pegasus), followed by either Riding (Horse) or Riding (Dragon), and also seen Riding (Dog), Riding (Clockwork Hummingbird) and Riding (Void Manta) . . . the latter three being one offs

Mount - Almost all Ally mounts will put 1, and only 1, point in this. I don't recall ever seeing any deviation from the 1 and only 1 approach

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

I've seen a whole lot of characters take Riding at 1-2 points. They use it for transport, not combat.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

Yeah, Riding is really required for low-tech characters who want to get around. One can sit on a horse and just kind of hope, but that's asking for the GM to (rightly) point up the problems with any kind of fast or rough-terrain journey.

I've not seen real Riding challenges other than maintaining speed brought up in play much, though. It's probably something that GMs ought to think about more. "A fine horseman" is one of the classic attributes of the pre-modern hero, after all, and getting somewhere despite obstructions is a proper action "bit".

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

Riding isn't like sitting in a car. You need to use your legs fairly continuously to keep from being jolted to a pulp. This is simple enough that you learn it in your first day's familiarisation, but it's why people who have never ridden at all find the first day so bad.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

My favorite is changing all capping skills to 'averaging' skills. Though I think I saw it in the context of environment suits and swimming rather than riding though.

I typically use riding vs hiking as one of the markers of wealth vs commoner in a low tech society.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

Regarding riding as a limiting factor of skill. Time use increases riding at a fairly steady rate (depending on the campaign).

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

In my current DF game, the PCs started off hiking from the town to the dungeon. It's a pretty long walk, so they eventually acquired some horses (from some dead bandits) and learned to ride a bit, just to make the commute more comfortable. But they didn't hire guards for their horses, and the third or fourth time they left them unguarded outside the dungeon, the horses disappeared. The PCs still have no idea who took them. (Nobody with Tracking skill or the right Information spells.)

One tip: if your IQ is 3+ points higher than your DX, it's as cheap or cheaper to buy Animal Handling instead, and default Riding from it.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

I've seen a lot of people buy horses for pulling carriages and wagons, and a few for travel. The biggest advantage I've seen is that when trouble strikes, you may be able to just ride away from it. Without good barding (which is expensive) a horse is a nice big target for people with low skill, and it's surprisingly easy to take a leg off of it with an AOA(Strong), so you have to be careful if you plan on riding one into battle. The initial charge and slam into a rank of enemies can be devastating though, and it lets you use a lance to devastating effect.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

A very large fraction of cavalry use missile weapons or reach weapons. A mounted PC would be wise to do the same - it's a lot harder for anybody to kneecap your mount if you stay two yards away from them at closest approach. Three+ yards is a lot better than two. With the right Maneuver selection, you should even be able to stop the first one who tries to Wait-AoA rush you.

Mounts also mean saddlebags, which are a delightful way to cut down on your encumbrance problems without the...extremely poor cross-country performance of a wagon.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

One of my players got the power to turn into a bear, and then broke another PC out of prison. I was one of those memorable moments when I asked the player being rescued to make a Riding (Bear) check.
Of course they got loads of bonuses, that in hindsight the check was rather meaningless, but it was still a fun moment for us all when I asked for it.

Surprisingly I've seen the Mount skill get a decent bit of use (well, compared to almost never), usually for characters who can turn into, or are ridable creatures. I've also used it once as a human to represent being good at giving people piggyback/shoulder rides.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

Those moments are often the most fun :)

That reminds me, I've never been sure - do flying supers (or wizards or whatever) who carry a teammate with them use Mount?

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

Not if the teammate is held in their arms. That's just ordinary lifting and carrying, or maybe Lifting skill. If they're flying horizontally, and the teammate is on their back, Mount might be suitable.

Or I suppose you could give Mount to an acrobat whose stunts include being on the bottom of a two- or three-man stack of people. That would be an entertaining use of the skill.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

Ooh, I may need to try that! Thank you!

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

As a weird question, does any book have rules for how long it takes to get on a horse, and what techniques and skills can improve that? Quick mounting and dismounting seems to be a staple of westerns.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

Basic, p. 396, "Mounting Up." If the horse is saddled and has stirrups, getting on in 1 turn only requires a roll vs the best of Acrobatics, Jumping, or Riding. I'd let you buy an Average Technique to improve that by up to +4. I'm not sure if it would be a different technique for no-stirrups mounting, which is the same roll at -3.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

the mounted combat section. Of course. I was looking in skills and in the animals section. Thank you very much!

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

But it takes years to become a good rider. Use IQ-based Riding skill to determine another rider's level of skill!

If you want to treat riding animals as something other than cars/tanks with hooves, then the GM can be downright sadistic with use of riding skill.

Riding animals can be unpredictable and even the best mount can stumble. Those are the situations where a high level of Riding skill becomes critical if you want to keep your seat. (Rodeo sports like bull-riding or bronco-busting could be modeled as Hard techniques based on the appropriate variation of Riding skill.)

If you want to be brutally realistic, Riding skill might be required to realize just how much you can "push" your mount without injuring or killing it, especially if you're in difficult terrain, extreme weather, and/or in a hurry. Realistically, horses and similar creatures can literally run themselves to death.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

There's a technique called "Quick Mount" in GURPS Martial Arts which covers this.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

This seems fair to me, as being a mounted fighter who is effective when mounted (i.e. not just a warrior who used a horse for faster movement) was always a full-time job historically, and mounted troops always needed a lot of training compared to equally effective infantry.

One thing I'm not convinced is reasonable is that Driving and Piloting do not affect firing from a vehicle the same way.


An alternative if it's too hard for your games might be something like: Weapon skills are limited to DX if Riding is at DX+0 or less, to DX+4 if Riding is at DX+1, and unlimited if Riding is at DX+2.

Another option would be to make it a combat perk, and not having it apply a large penalty to all weapon skills when mounted, though this reduces the value of Riding (and presumably Battlesuit/Vaccsuit) skill quite a bit.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

Well, it's not just that - if you don't ride for a long period your muscles become unaccustomed to the work, and after an hour or more of riding when you dismount your legs a likely to be very painful for the rest of the day (and possibly the next one as well). It's not just about knowing how to ride, but about staying in 'riding shape', as with any physical activity.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

The offensive value of Mount in the quick contest to throw unwelcome riders is interesting, because it means the more a horse is trained to help you ride, the more it also is trained to impede your riding if it wants to. Is there a technique just for helping or just for throwing?

Horses with a quirk of Incompetence: Mount wouldn't be useful in helping unskilled riders, but would be horrible at throwing unwelcome riders, which could be preferable to riders who simply want to overwhelm and bully their horses instead of befriending them.

Fright Check Table 13 or 16 can give new mental quirks, so maybe the abusive "breaking" of a horse through isolation/exposure/starvation/whipping (like in Spirit : Stallion of the Cimarron) can be perceived of mental torture of horses until they acquire that quirk and their Mount defaults to DX-9 instead of DX-5, making it very hard for them to throw off the undesired rider. Direct penalties to DX from injury and penalties to all rolls from failed social contests probably also contribute and can succeed even when the quirk doesn't show up.

Mount-Incompetents who can still buck off undesired riders could maybe do something ST-based instead of DX-based? Stronger horses should be able to buck harder, but it seems like the ST 15 DX 10 Donkey would do better in the Quick Contest for trying to throw off undesired riders than the ST 25 DX 9 Draft Horse would, since Donkeys have default 5 while Draft Horse has default 4.

If you simply did "ST-based Mount" it would be very easy to win the contest and throw riders, at skill 20 for Draft Horse. That could work as a good explanation for why someone shouldn't try to ride an unwilling draft horse, or grapple/Intimideto inflict skill penalties first. It seems wrong for DX not to contribute at all, so what about an option to have Mount based on average of ST and DX? That would be 12.5 for donkeys, 17 for Draft Horse giving a default of 7.5 and 12.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

I'd describe that apparent paradox as the mount being more and more aware of the rider's balance. I created a technique for throwing a while back. I doubt there could be one for helping, because that's the major use of the skill.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

When I was a child we had a several ponies & horses, and the best one for learning to ride on -generally well-behaved, nice mannered, comfortable gaits, etc., was also the one that was by far the most skilled at removing riders she found tiresome, and she also had the trick of changing her gait slightly (especially her trot, already the hardest gait to ride comfortably) so that it became bone-jarring and extremely hard to keep time with.

Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding
 

This is true, at least for WW I and II. While you needed a minimum threshold of piloting skill to be an ace, gunnery skill could vastly exceed flying skill. It was discovered in WW2 that pre-war acrobatics pilots didn't do as well in combat as men who might not fly as well but who had a better grasp of combat tactics.