How to give a cavalier a Heavy Warhorse
 

When creating a cavalier and you add its mount (Cavalier tab > Animal Companion link), you can select a Horse, but there's no option to select a heavy horse.

Once you select "Horse" as the cavalier's companion, you can then edit the animal companion, but I can't find where to make it a heavy horse.

In the Pathfinder Bestiary, there's only one entry for Horse, and under that it specifies that heavy horses gain the "advanced simple template." I've looked in HeroLab under my cavalier's horse animal companion but can't find where to give it the advanced simple template.

There's a significant difference between a regular horse and a war-trained, heavy warhorse, and when I output the character to text or the character sheet PDF, I'd like to see the statistics for the companion as a heavy horse, with proper attack bonuses, number and type of attacks, etc.

Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated!

To clarify my question a bit, it seems that HeroLab may be applying (incorrectly), the heavy horse template or some mix of horse and heavy horse, but it isn't listed as a heavy horse when you output to PDF. More importantly, the stats are wrong as shown onthe HeroLab character sheet.

HeroLab character sheet cavalier's horse companion stats:

Animal Companion, Male Horse - CL3 - CR 3
STR 17 (+3), DEX 14 (+2), CON 15 (+2), INT 2 (-4), WIS 12 (+1), CHA 6 (-2); Fortitude +5, Reflex +5, Will +2 HP: 26/26; Init: +2; Speed: 50 feet
Attack Bonus: +1; Armor Class: 17 / 11Tch / 15Fl
Acrobatics +6, Fly +0, Perception +5, Stealth -2, Survival +2
Bite (Horse) +4, 1d4+3, 20/x2
Hooves x2 (Horse) +0 x2, 1d6+1, 20/x2
Unarmed Strike +4, 1d4+3, 20/x2
Special: Combat Riding [Trick], Evasion (Ex), Fetch [Trick], Low-Light
Vision, Scent (Ex), Stay [Trick]


The horse's stats should be higher, according to the Pathfinder rules (+4 to all regular horse stats for a heavy horse, which uses the advanced simple template). They should be Str 20, Dex 18, Con 21, Int 2, Wis 17, Cha 11 -- reflecting a normal horse's ability scores, +4. Also, the to hit numbers appear to be wrong.


Below are the Pathfinder rules for creating a heavy warhorse:


Regular horse (not combat trained):

Regular horse to hit stats (Bestiary p.177): BAB +1 and Str 16 (+3) give it a +4 to hit. It has 2 hoof attacks which are secondary attacks (see "Docile (Ex)", below), incurring a -5 penalty. So, instead of +4 to hit with hooves, it should have a -1 to hit. However, the Bestiary lists it as -2 to hit. Is this a typo or am I missing something?


Docile (Ex) Unless specifically trained for combat (see the Handle
Animal skill on page 97 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook), a
horse’s hooves are treated as secondary attacks.

>>> This means that a __combat trained__ horse's hooves are primary attacks. So for a heavy warhorse, this means there is no -5 penalty for hoof attacks.




Heavy horse (not combat trained):

A heavy horse gains the advanced simple template (Bestiary p.177). Advanced simple template: +2 natural armor bonus; +4 to all ability scores (Bestiary p.294) In addition, it also gains a bite attack that inf licts 1d4 damage, and its hoof damage increases to 1d6.

Heavy horse to hit stats: BAB +1 and Str 20 (+5) give it a +6 to hit. It has 2 hoof attacks which are secondary attacks (see "Docile (Ex)", above) incurring a -5 penalty. So, instead of +6 to hit with hooves, it should have a +1 to hit. It also gets a bite attack, which we assume is a primary attack that incurs no penalties and should be at +6 to hit.




Heavy WARHORSE (trained for combat):

Same as a heavy horse, but since it's combat trained (see "Docile (Ex), above), its hooves do not count as secondary attacks. This means they are primary attacks, and don't suffer a -5 penalty to hit.

Heavy warhorse to hit stats: BAB +1 and Str 20 (+5) give it a +6 to hit. It has 2 hoof attacks which are __primary__ attacks (see "Docile (Ex)", above), at __+6__ to hit. It also gets a bite attack, which we assume is a primary attack and should be at +6 to hit.





Primary Attacks (Bestiary p.302):
Primary attacks are made using the creature’s full base attack bonus and add the creature’s full Strength bonus on damage rolls.

Secondary Attacks (Bestiary p.302):
Secondary attacks are made using the creature’s base attack bonus –5 and add only 1/2 the creature’s Strength bonus on damage
rolls.

The cavalier isn't supposed to have access to a heavy horse companion - the only horse option available is the Horse companion option, from the Druid's list of companions available (Core Rulebook, pg . 54).

If your GM has house ruled that and said you may have a heavy horse, you'll find the templates in the classes tab. Scroll past the classes in that list to find the templates, and add the "Advanced Creature - Animal" template.

Ahh, thanks! Yes, going by the RAW (rules as written), it does only say "horse", not "horse or heavy horse."

That's too bad -- it really makes sense for a cavalier, modeled after the knights of old, to have a heavy horse to support his armored weight in combat.

And thanks for pointing out where to add the advanced creature template in HeroLab. I never would have thought to look there.
Also, the "click here to add class levels or hit dice" link on the Classes tab was very confusing, since it was gray-colored which I thought meant it was disabled. Also, it would be great if HeroLab could change its hyperlink formatting to something that more obviously looks like a hyperlink, rather than just text. Or, if nothing else, add a mouseover effect that displays an underline under each link when you mouse over it. Still a great tool, though!

Also, to answer another part of my own post, it turns out that I didn't factor in the additional -1 to hit for a horse because it is a size Large creature.

Does HeroLab take into account that the cavalier's horse is combat trained (see cavalier's mount description in the APG) and so its hooves are primary attacks, not secondary attacks (see the Bestiary, Horse entry, under the Docile (Ex) ability)?

If they're primary attacks, they should have the same attack bonus, unless I'm wrong there.

Here's the cavalier mount's stats from HeroLab (note the +0 to hit for the hooves):

Bite (Horse) +4, 1d4+3, 20/x2
Hooves x2 (Horse) +0 x2, 1d6+1, 20/x2


Thanks for responding to this thread so fast, Mathias.

Okay, there was a bug that was allowing the Docile ability to work on a regular horse, but not on an animal companion horse. I've gotten that fixed for the next update.

This.. seems to have been backwards, or in any case is still happening. Combat Trained horses should have primary attack hooves (Have a 7th level ranger with boon companion and it's showing up as secondary).

At 4th level Animal Companion, a Horse should have all primary attacks.