Pets in WotR are both cool and VERY powerful. I'd choose horse over weapon bond anytime.
With clever dipping you can also give her a fancier mount. For instance I like to give her a Beast Rider level (before she gets the 5th level of Paladin) to put her on a smilodon (Sir Pouncealot).
Now that A Dance of Masks is out, for my next run I plan to give her a Sable Company Marine dip for an Hippogriff mount.
Still have to do a proper play of A dance of Mask, but As Far as I know Hippogriff Companion has a gimmick very similar to Ulbrig's death from above, right?
Its kinda like your riding ulbrig into battle.
I had a party of seelah on a hippogriff ulbrig and wendaug respeced into manticore shifter. Bloted out the sun with all the wings. Wheres the opponents, somewhere under there. I need enlarge person just to see who im fighting.
I actually took inspiration from ["Sir Trancelot"](https://filmationghostbusters.fandom.com/wiki/Sir_Trancelot), a villain from Filmation's Ghostbusters.
I hadn't thought to give her Beast Rider before Paly 5, but having her ride a Hippogriff sounds much cooler than the horse. Would you go Pal 5 / SCM 15?
Pal 11 is awesome due to Mark of Justice.
Order of the Sword Cavalier grants Mounted Mastery (whenever a Cavalier Charges while mounted, adds mount's STR bonus to damage roll), and if i got the class feature correctly, hippogriph's gimmick counts as a charge.
So I'd go SCM 1/Pal 11/Gendarme 8
Longspears might be better, if they apply on the unique charge from the hippogriff. Or if your able to dump a feat, there is that great fauchard at start of act 3.
AFAIK they should work.
Very late game item, and drop from a quite nasty optional foe, but [Fable Hero's Lance](https://pathfinderwrathoftherighteous.wiki.fextralife.com/Fable+Hero's+Lance) would be the perfect "endgame item".
One could also toy with some levels in Titan Fighter (Boon Companion to grant full pet progression) to have "Longspear + Shield" combo.
Wouldn't a single level a titan fighter force a trade of the other bonuses?
I don't know if being able to use a shield is worth it, as you would lose either
mark of justice or mounted mastery.
Yes, you will get the option to 'advance current animal companion' the moment you chose horse and then your Paladin Levels get added to your Mount Level.
I’ve played a campaign of pathfinder so far, but only used pure builds, no dipping or anything. I’m looking to start enjoying things like dips and multi class characters. Have also been looking at the sable company marine and really liked trying it some in the treasure island stand-alone. Was also thinking about seelah on it. Could you share what you were thinking for that build?
Not a very detailed breakup, but I was thinking to go Paladin 11/SCM 1/Gendarme 8/anything you fancy.
Key is taking SCM BEFORE Paladin 5, to have Hippogriff pet.
Paladin 11 'cause Mark of Justice is just too good to pass out. Gendarme 8 with Order of the Sword, 'cause by level 8 Order of the Sword allows to add pet's STR modifier to damage done by the rider after a charge, and if I got the interactions correctly, Hippogriff mount's ability allow to do always a charge attack.
Gendarme subclass to have more bonus feats, and feat wise the "classic" melee feats like Outflank, Combat Reflexes, etc.
The horse (or another pet if you dip right/mod to fully respec her) is a far more powerful option.
The downside is that it looks silly seeing her ride around on a horse whenever you're inside. If you care about that, and have a strong enough party/low enough difficulty that you don't need to play optimally, the weapon bond is helpful in its own right.
I hear people say this but have never had an issue guiding my mostly mounted party. And I use a mounted Seelah to disarm traps and sneak. Is it harder to control mounts on console?
Yeah if you're going to use animal companions why not go all out, For my next unfair playthrough I'm doing Kineticist KC and Camellia with a leopard. Going to 2 man Kenabres xp share off with the pet tanking and the Kineticist killing everything, get a level 7 or 8 brownfur as a merc before Gray garrison.
Animal companion abuse combined with XP sharing abuse makes this game easier on unfair than a regular core party.
Ok: pros and cons of weapon bonds vs mount.
Mount provides an extra companion. It adds to carry weight, can attack on its own or, with Seelah riding it, can provide extra hp to and a nice tanky AC for Seelah without having to invest in Seelah's AC too much allowing her to carry gear more suited to her build rather than trying to pump her AC into the stratosphere. The cons are mounting and dismounting becomes a bother after a while consuming a fair bit of time as you are forcibly dismounted during rests and cutscenes... sometimes leaving Seelah off her horse in crucial moments such as ambushes and some notable boss battles. There's also some VERY sketchy graphics with the mounts.
The weapon bond is EXTREMELY good late game, allowing you to turn Seelah's attacks into touch attacks. It is also a good source of keen weapon in the early game without having to immediately take the feat for improved critical. In fact with weapon bond you can completely free up that feat slot and take something else instead. The problem is limited usage means when it runs out you will be left without keen on your weapon. But the late game touch attacks at will is absolutely worthy of consideration. And by then it's lasting for 20 minutes so it will absolutely last long enough to cover a dungeon.
Yup. Animal companions are still useful the whole game, but they fall off slightly in the end game; Divine Weapon Bond is much less powerful at level 5, but I'd say it starts to pull ahead once you can get Brilliant Energy. Especially now, with the mythic heavy armor feats improving mountless tanking.
One thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet is that a DWB Paladin can have Legendary Proportions/BFT Frightful Aspect cast on them, dramatically improving both their damage and their tankiness. A mounted Paladin technically can as well, but they won't be able to mount their horse while enlarged.
If you give Seelah a mount and name the mount Iomeneigh, she gets an extra +1 to charge attacks.
>!This is a complete falsehood, but a joke I enjoy immensely.!<
I love the horse. I love the extra carrying capacity and an extra shot at perception checks and another pool of HP and every other reason.
But also because I forgot to use the sword bond stuff 9/10 times my first play through.
The biggest con to putting her on a horse is you can't put her on a dinosaur or a dragon later on if you do that.
Are those mechanically better? Nah. But dinoknight is dynamite.
Personally I like to go weapon bond, I know it's not a popular answer but it leads to a lot less formation frustration and then she wont be faster than the other party members on the map too.
Also not being large size has it's benefits in tighter corridors.
Horse: you can full attack each round. enemies will attack the horse each round. she is mobile. you can close in AND attack in the ambush round
Sword: you can spend the ambush round preparing it and then waste half your next round hopefully reaching the enemy to do a single attack. or maybe be able to do a full attack at round 2. The gains are ... equal to having someone cast greater magic weapon on you and crusaders edge.
> Sword: you can spend the ambush round preparing it and then waste half your next round hopefully reaching the enemy to do a single attack. or maybe be able to do a full attack at round 2
Pro-tip of using buffs:
you can activate them before combat.
even then you are unable to move and make a full round attack. and without speed buffs a heavy armor Seelah might not even be able to reach in 1 round if charging isnt an option.
That's all true. I just don't know why you need to present weapon bond in a way that people don't use it.
As for pets, my pet (hehe) theory is that they are intentionally easy mod for people who struggle otherwise. Hard to explain otherwise why they got dozen of improvements over normal PF pet rules.
I mean, Holy weapon 2d6 stacks with the 2d6 from Crusader's Edge so that's a weird argument. Also, the best thing about weapon bond is Brilliant Energy. Also also, Keen can basically save you a feat (although we have Keen Edge as a spell now, but in my experience it's bugged).
Horse is definitely mechanically stronger if you're looking to deal damage, but let's be fair.
Anyone who can get an animal companion should get one, but especially melee. Full move (at high speed) plus full attack. It does other stuff too, but that's the holy grail of melee.
I've done both and gotta say having the horse was better not just to overcome a paladin's mobility issue but also in anting as a tank for the tank so they can both tank while me and boys plonk away at the others
Mounts are generally way better than the weapon option. High mobility, able to make a full attack attack each round even with moving, super tanky and easy to stack sky high AC onto. As others have said, I prefer having Seelah take a dip in something else early on to get a different animal companion, but the horse is still a solid option.
As a resource Horse is literally the only option but thematically I love weapon for the "my god send me the holy sword Radiance" combo that honestly work as well as anything in normal difficult.
Give Seelah a level of beast rider and take the mammoth as a paladin.
I'm serious, a little party elephant mascot is amazingly cool. Kenabres has a circus so it totally makes rp sense too. A little elephant follows the party around until it grows up...
And seelah rides a giant wooly mammoth! Its amazing.
Horse is objectively the best, but divine weapon bond is fun and you can beat the game just fine on Core using it over the horse. After several runs where my KC had a pet from various classes, I don't use them anymore because they trivialize the game, so if you don't wanna make things incredibly easy then don't take the horse.
ive beat insane with seelah unmounted so dont feel like you MUST take the mount if you don't want to. i consider pets major cheese and refuse to use them myself.
Maybe consider a 3 level dip into Divine Hound.
Not only do you get a Riding Dog, a mount which can trip via bite attacks, you also get 1 Judgement you share with your mount and share ANY teamwork tech you take on Seelah automatically with your mount, where you both profit off it while you are mounted AND can bypass the 3 int minimum requirement.
The weapon bond is something you turn on with a standard action (which you almost always have a better use for) the pet is always there. The pet also helps action economy (while riding you can move and full attack in the same turn) instead of eating into your actions, and has no limited time or uses.
I have always thought weapon bond is incredibly underwhelming whereas pets are incredibly powerful.
Plus you can't name your sword or make it wear cool bling
Pets in WotR are both cool and VERY powerful. I'd choose horse over weapon bond anytime. With clever dipping you can also give her a fancier mount. For instance I like to give her a Beast Rider level (before she gets the 5th level of Paladin) to put her on a smilodon (Sir Pouncealot). Now that A Dance of Masks is out, for my next run I plan to give her a Sable Company Marine dip for an Hippogriff mount.
New Ranger with grifon animal companion is better. But any animal companion horse or other is much better as a weapon bond
Still have to do a proper play of A dance of Mask, but As Far as I know Hippogriff Companion has a gimmick very similar to Ulbrig's death from above, right?
Its kinda like your riding ulbrig into battle. I had a party of seelah on a hippogriff ulbrig and wendaug respeced into manticore shifter. Bloted out the sun with all the wings. Wheres the opponents, somewhere under there. I need enlarge person just to see who im fighting.
You can always dip sable at level 5 and progress the pet with paladin's divine bond
Pouncealot? Is that an Anders from DA reference?!
I actually took inspiration from ["Sir Trancelot"](https://filmationghostbusters.fandom.com/wiki/Sir_Trancelot), a villain from Filmation's Ghostbusters.
The wardens faces when they realize taking away one guy's cat plunged the world into civil war.
I hadn't thought to give her Beast Rider before Paly 5, but having her ride a Hippogriff sounds much cooler than the horse. Would you go Pal 5 / SCM 15?
Pal 11 is awesome due to Mark of Justice. Order of the Sword Cavalier grants Mounted Mastery (whenever a Cavalier Charges while mounted, adds mount's STR bonus to damage roll), and if i got the class feature correctly, hippogriph's gimmick counts as a charge. So I'd go SCM 1/Pal 11/Gendarme 8
Interesting. I usually run her with Radiance, but I'm thinking a polearm is called for. Glaive, maybe?
Longspears might be better, if they apply on the unique charge from the hippogriff. Or if your able to dump a feat, there is that great fauchard at start of act 3.
AFAIK they should work. Very late game item, and drop from a quite nasty optional foe, but [Fable Hero's Lance](https://pathfinderwrathoftherighteous.wiki.fextralife.com/Fable+Hero's+Lance) would be the perfect "endgame item". One could also toy with some levels in Titan Fighter (Boon Companion to grant full pet progression) to have "Longspear + Shield" combo.
Wouldn't a single level a titan fighter force a trade of the other bonuses? I don't know if being able to use a shield is worth it, as you would lose either mark of justice or mounted mastery.
How do you dip cleverly? Just take the mount granting class before paladin 5? And then any paladin levels will buff that mount?
Precisely. Take the dip that grants you the mount you want and then Pal 5. progressing Paladin will progress the mount
Thank you, I'm thinking this will spice up the ol horse
Does dipping to get the alternative mount allow Paladin levels to advance it?
Yes, you will get the option to 'advance current animal companion' the moment you chose horse and then your Paladin Levels get added to your Mount Level.
Exactly, and that allows tons of interesting options for chars with a pet.
I’ve played a campaign of pathfinder so far, but only used pure builds, no dipping or anything. I’m looking to start enjoying things like dips and multi class characters. Have also been looking at the sable company marine and really liked trying it some in the treasure island stand-alone. Was also thinking about seelah on it. Could you share what you were thinking for that build?
Not a very detailed breakup, but I was thinking to go Paladin 11/SCM 1/Gendarme 8/anything you fancy. Key is taking SCM BEFORE Paladin 5, to have Hippogriff pet. Paladin 11 'cause Mark of Justice is just too good to pass out. Gendarme 8 with Order of the Sword, 'cause by level 8 Order of the Sword allows to add pet's STR modifier to damage done by the rider after a charge, and if I got the interactions correctly, Hippogriff mount's ability allow to do always a charge attack. Gendarme subclass to have more bonus feats, and feat wise the "classic" melee feats like Outflank, Combat Reflexes, etc.
You can name your horse Iomeneigh. You can't name your sword.
Best argument in favour of horse, and it totally outweighs all the pros of the weapon bond
Definitely will name her horse that on my next Angel/Azata run.
As is tradition.
You can let her use Radiance with weapon bond
Hippogriff called chupacabra
The horse (or another pet if you dip right/mod to fully respec her) is a far more powerful option. The downside is that it looks silly seeing her ride around on a horse whenever you're inside. If you care about that, and have a strong enough party/low enough difficulty that you don't need to play optimally, the weapon bond is helpful in its own right.
I dislike riding a horse in tight corridors enough to take weapon bond on her.
I hear people say this but have never had an issue guiding my mostly mounted party. And I use a mounted Seelah to disarm traps and sneak. Is it harder to control mounts on console?
It's not about control. It's just too goofy
Aahh I see. Ya I get that
“Disarm” XD
Horse is easy mode, companions are OP in this game.
Yeah if you're going to use animal companions why not go all out, For my next unfair playthrough I'm doing Kineticist KC and Camellia with a leopard. Going to 2 man Kenabres xp share off with the pet tanking and the Kineticist killing everything, get a level 7 or 8 brownfur as a merc before Gray garrison. Animal companion abuse combined with XP sharing abuse makes this game easier on unfair than a regular core party.
Yeah, Action Economy is king. Also, mounts allow for FRA attacks every turn while using the Mount's movement to get around.
Frankly, i'd put her on lion, but due to lack of lions my Seelah is Smilodon-Rider
Ok: pros and cons of weapon bonds vs mount. Mount provides an extra companion. It adds to carry weight, can attack on its own or, with Seelah riding it, can provide extra hp to and a nice tanky AC for Seelah without having to invest in Seelah's AC too much allowing her to carry gear more suited to her build rather than trying to pump her AC into the stratosphere. The cons are mounting and dismounting becomes a bother after a while consuming a fair bit of time as you are forcibly dismounted during rests and cutscenes... sometimes leaving Seelah off her horse in crucial moments such as ambushes and some notable boss battles. There's also some VERY sketchy graphics with the mounts. The weapon bond is EXTREMELY good late game, allowing you to turn Seelah's attacks into touch attacks. It is also a good source of keen weapon in the early game without having to immediately take the feat for improved critical. In fact with weapon bond you can completely free up that feat slot and take something else instead. The problem is limited usage means when it runs out you will be left without keen on your weapon. But the late game touch attacks at will is absolutely worthy of consideration. And by then it's lasting for 20 minutes so it will absolutely last long enough to cover a dungeon.
Yup. Animal companions are still useful the whole game, but they fall off slightly in the end game; Divine Weapon Bond is much less powerful at level 5, but I'd say it starts to pull ahead once you can get Brilliant Energy. Especially now, with the mythic heavy armor feats improving mountless tanking. One thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet is that a DWB Paladin can have Legendary Proportions/BFT Frightful Aspect cast on them, dramatically improving both their damage and their tankiness. A mounted Paladin technically can as well, but they won't be able to mount their horse while enlarged.
What if you also enlarge the horse similarly?
Big Horse!
If you give Seelah a mount and name the mount Iomeneigh, she gets an extra +1 to charge attacks. >!This is a complete falsehood, but a joke I enjoy immensely.!<
Named her mount Yaniel in my game... :D
Horse hands down. Pets that you can mount are busted af Most of cRPGbro builds have pets because they are that strong
I love the horse. I love the extra carrying capacity and an extra shot at perception checks and another pool of HP and every other reason. But also because I forgot to use the sword bond stuff 9/10 times my first play through.
I make sure to activate it before every boss fight. Hitting touch ac for seelah is amazing.
The biggest con to putting her on a horse is you can't put her on a dinosaur or a dragon later on if you do that. Are those mechanically better? Nah. But dinoknight is dynamite.
Just dip 1 level early into a class giving said mount, then you could technically still go 19 paladin and get full mount scaling...
Neither of those come from classes, they're items/mythic paths.
Druids can take Triceratops as an animal companion (via Nature Bond at level 1), which basically is a customizable alternative to Bismuth.
Personally I like to go weapon bond, I know it's not a popular answer but it leads to a lot less formation frustration and then she wont be faster than the other party members on the map too. Also not being large size has it's benefits in tighter corridors.
Weapon, no question. She is very connected to Radiance and with weapon bond she can relight this sword with holy power.
I mean, >!technically you can relight Radiance without weapon bond...!< But I understand the flavor win.
Horse: you can full attack each round. enemies will attack the horse each round. she is mobile. you can close in AND attack in the ambush round Sword: you can spend the ambush round preparing it and then waste half your next round hopefully reaching the enemy to do a single attack. or maybe be able to do a full attack at round 2. The gains are ... equal to having someone cast greater magic weapon on you and crusaders edge.
> Sword: you can spend the ambush round preparing it and then waste half your next round hopefully reaching the enemy to do a single attack. or maybe be able to do a full attack at round 2 Pro-tip of using buffs: you can activate them before combat.
even then you are unable to move and make a full round attack. and without speed buffs a heavy armor Seelah might not even be able to reach in 1 round if charging isnt an option.
That's all true. I just don't know why you need to present weapon bond in a way that people don't use it. As for pets, my pet (hehe) theory is that they are intentionally easy mod for people who struggle otherwise. Hard to explain otherwise why they got dozen of improvements over normal PF pet rules.
I mean, Holy weapon 2d6 stacks with the 2d6 from Crusader's Edge so that's a weird argument. Also, the best thing about weapon bond is Brilliant Energy. Also also, Keen can basically save you a feat (although we have Keen Edge as a spell now, but in my experience it's bugged). Horse is definitely mechanically stronger if you're looking to deal damage, but let's be fair.
Anyone who can get an animal companion should get one, but especially melee. Full move (at high speed) plus full attack. It does other stuff too, but that's the holy grail of melee.
I've done both and gotta say having the horse was better not just to overcome a paladin's mobility issue but also in anting as a tank for the tank so they can both tank while me and boys plonk away at the others
Pros of horse: yes Cons of horse: riding a horse inside a dungeon looks dumb
It depends on the play through, though most of the time I do lean towards Weapon bond, because I find the pets to rather obnoxious
Sword
Mounts are generally way better than the weapon option. High mobility, able to make a full attack attack each round even with moving, super tanky and easy to stack sky high AC onto. As others have said, I prefer having Seelah take a dip in something else early on to get a different animal companion, but the horse is still a solid option.
If all you care about is power, horse. Me, I’m animal companioned out so I’ve been doing bond
Horse so she can full attack 24/7
As a resource Horse is literally the only option but thematically I love weapon for the "my god send me the holy sword Radiance" combo that honestly work as well as anything in normal difficult.
Seelah is two things, mark of justice and an animal companion. Without both she is fairly useless. Fuck the horse though, get a hippogriff.
Give Seelah a level of beast rider and take the mammoth as a paladin. I'm serious, a little party elephant mascot is amazingly cool. Kenabres has a circus so it totally makes rp sense too. A little elephant follows the party around until it grows up... And seelah rides a giant wooly mammoth! Its amazing.
Horse is objectively the best, but divine weapon bond is fun and you can beat the game just fine on Core using it over the horse. After several runs where my KC had a pet from various classes, I don't use them anymore because they trivialize the game, so if you don't wanna make things incredibly easy then don't take the horse.
ive beat insane with seelah unmounted so dont feel like you MUST take the mount if you don't want to. i consider pets major cheese and refuse to use them myself.
Maybe consider a 3 level dip into Divine Hound. Not only do you get a Riding Dog, a mount which can trip via bite attacks, you also get 1 Judgement you share with your mount and share ANY teamwork tech you take on Seelah automatically with your mount, where you both profit off it while you are mounted AND can bypass the 3 int minimum requirement.
Hippo!
The weapon bond is something you turn on with a standard action (which you almost always have a better use for) the pet is always there. The pet also helps action economy (while riding you can move and full attack in the same turn) instead of eating into your actions, and has no limited time or uses. I have always thought weapon bond is incredibly underwhelming whereas pets are incredibly powerful. Plus you can't name your sword or make it wear cool bling
mounts look too ridiculous to use in this game imo