Would a mounted character work well in the Jade Regent adventure path?

Question

I am about to be a player in the new Jade Regent adventure path from Paizo. It seems like there's a lot of overland travel in Jade Regent and I was considering playing a cavalier or another character heavily invested in mounted combat.

I almost never do that, because in most games it inevitably becomes a screwjob where you can't reasonably bring a horse with you to much of the adventure and you get to put a large chunk of your feats and your animal companion away for a couple months of play.

What's the read on how much of the time a mounted character would be able to participate in Jade Regent? Are any of those chapters spent exclusively in a city, dungeon, or other location a mount won't be welcome, or is much of the action in freeform wilderness? I'm going to be a player, so I have not read the adventures and don't want spoilers. I know three chapters aren't out yet so answers would have to be preliminary.

Answer 1

Well, I didn't get an answer here so I tried in other locations before the campaign started.

On the Paizo forums I was told that though there is a lot of overland travel in Jade Regent's first three chapters, most of what happens when you might be on your mount would be random encounters and roleplay encounters, and that most bosses and major things are in caves/dungeons where mounted combat would be tough. I wheedled information to the same effect out of my GM.

When the campaign started, I played a samurai (cavalier alternate class from Ultimate Combat), which still has a mount, but was not planning on specifically taking any mounted combat feats so as to not make that my character's primary focus.

The character worked out OK (in fact with his bow he was hell on wheels), but I didn't get to use my mount much in the campaign. Character sheets and session summaries from the campaign for those interested in the details: geek-related.com/session-summaries/jade-regent.

I tried to get some mounted work in early on (and rode right into a goblin pit in the first chapter), but then most of the multiple chapters of caravan travel used a "minigame" kind of combat instead of normal combat so during the time you'd think I'd be charging people/monsters across the taiga, not so much. And of course in the late game as usual it's all dungeons and castles and such.

Since I didn't invest options into mounted combat it didn't hurt to have a horse around occasionally, but having completed the AP I would not recommend anyone use a mount centric build in it.

Answer 2

I'm unsure about the specifics of the campaign, but generally if you play a small sized character you can ride a medium-sized mount (like a wolf), which will still fit in most dungeons.

Despite weapon downsizing, dpr will still be obscene if you take spirited charge & ride-by-attack. The Gendarme archetype will help you get all the prerequisite feats fairly early.

Further down the line, most medium mounts grow to large size, but that can be fixed with a 'wand of reduce animal' (Take the dangerously curious trait to get 'Use magic device' as a class skill so you can use it).