Companions, Monsters, and Mounts, oh my!

[MNBlockHead]

I have a character with two dogs. These are custom dogs. I was trying to add them as companions or mounts, but these do not seem to come with stats, etc.

It seems that what I need to do is create them as new races and add them as allies to the characters POR file. Basically, I would take the Mastiff and make some modifications.

Can someone explain the meaning and proper use in HL of:

1. Companions, vs.
2. Mounts, vs.
3. Hirelings

If my character has a war horse, what the benefit of adding it as a mount rather than an additional "character" to the POR file?

[Aaron]

Companions are something which is added as a class feature, like the druid can get.
Mounts are subordinate characters associated with a certain hero, and hirelings are much the same (the difference being that the latter are intelligent and paid usually).

Adding it as a mount rather than a separate character is not really mechanically different. I'd say the association of ownership is the only difference as far as 5e is concerned. In pathfinder, things are a bit more complex, because we have some eval scripts which transfer from master to minion.

[MNBlockHead]

Thanks for the clarification. I'll have to play around with these options some more. In this instance, however, I still decided to add the dogs as NPC allies in the same POR. The reason for this is that I use some pet-action rules from an ENWorld article. By creating them as an NPC it was easier for me to add the feats to them. Maybe I can do this with hirelings/mounts, but, as I said, I need to play around with these options some more to get more comfortable with them. Adding as NPCs to the characters POR is working well for me for now.