Is the horse turned away at the entrance, like Bill the Pony outside the Mines of Moria? Is it forced into the dungeon (which recalls the old Sage Advice question about how one's centaur character could possibly climb a ladder)? In a game of not infrequent dungeon exploration, a warhorse presents certain challenges. As we've written before, the game often concerns the exploration of, well, dungeonsnot to mention tombs, ruins, abandoned keeps, forgotten temples, lost caverns, ghost towers, slave pits, inverted ziggurats, pyramids, and occasional jaunts around cities (forbidden or otherwise). Now, the utility (or at least, the constant utility) of a warhorse in many D&D campaigns might be debatable. The power and size of heavy warhorses allowed the heavily armed and armored feudal knights and nobles to crush all opponents not likewise equipped and mounted, until the longbow and pike proved themselves. The famous Clydesdales which you see in certain beer commercials on TV are horses of this type. "The heavy warhorse, the destrier, was a huge animal of 18 or more hands in height and massive bulk.
As Gary Gygax further described such horses in Dragon #74 ("Warhorses and Barding"): In other words, the paladin's warhorse was clearly a warhorse.
This warhorse was originally a very specific mount, befitting the image of the paladin as questing knightand very much grounded in the real-world history of cavalry. Players of 1st Edition may no doubt recall this Player's Handbook passage:Īt 4th level or at any time thereafter the paladin may call for his warhorse this creature is an intelligent heavy warhorse, with 5 + 5 hit dice (5d8 plus 5 hit points), AC 5, and the speed of a medium warhorse (18") it will magically appear, but only one such animal is available every ten years, so that if the first is lost the paladin must wait until the end of the period for another. Let's start with an homage to the paladin's warhorse.
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