Mounts

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Revision as of 01:26, 3 April 2021 by Pteri (Talk | contribs) (Cross-referenced from ‘Upkeep’ to the ‘Assess’ section re. skill requirements.)

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Horses are a type of mount, plural every mount. Camels are not yet in the game, but they are in the help files as mounts, so might come in later.

Horses as the first mounts were added on April 2, 2021.

For the wild animals see Horse (Bestiary) and Camel (Bestiary).

For the skills, see Adventuring.movement.riding.horse‎‎ and Adventuring.movement.riding.camel.

Usage

Horses can be used for riding, carrying equipment and combat.

  • To mount a horse, you need to learn the mount command from another player (needs 25 base levels in adventure.movement.riding). You do not need to be able to mount a horse to use it for carrying equipment.
  • Horses provide a fast travel system using the ride command, traversing routes between locations they have been taught at much faster speed than normal travel.
    • Note however that, unlike magical & divine methods of travel, they do actually traverse the intervening space and the trip can be interrupted mid-way (e.g. due to the horse running out of stamina).
    • Horses can also be ridden or led through magic & divine portals, though they cannot remember routes that involve them.
  • Horses can fight both alongside their owners and under their owners. The charge and storm commands are combat special attacks that can only be performed while mounted.

How to obtain

  • Horses can be rented & purchased at the stable on King's Down (northern Ankh-Morpork).
  • Rentals are only available during April 2021.
  • Default prices before haggling range between &&&&&&&&&+120000 A$300 and &&&&&&&&&+360000 A$900.
  • You can haggle to lower the price when buying a horse, this involves a people.trading.buying skill check.

Upkeep

You need to feed and groom horses and get their diseases treated regularly.

  • There a horsespital in the south corner of the King’s Down stable, where Jimmy Doughnut offers treatment for ill horses. Typically this costs $50 to $60.
  • Witches can treat diseases using turpentine.
  • Horses must be properly shoed, otherwise they will rapidly become injured (cracked hooves).
    • Camels will not require shoes, per the help files, though there is currently no known way to rent or buy a camel mount.

Since you cannot even begin to ascertain the status & needs of your horse until you can assess them successfully, which requires a crafts.husbandry.animal.grooming bonus of at least 215, it is recommended you do not buy a horse before developing substantial levels in the relevant skills:

See the Assess section for more details.

Otherwise, you will very likely not be able to care for it, and it will become at first disobedient (walking off on its own, and refusing to follow you or let you ride it) and then ill (eventually leading to the death of the horse). At the very least it will require frequent trips to the horsepital, at significant expense.

Note: horses emit roomchats that ‘’seem’’ like they might be conveying its needs, such as that their tummy rumbles or they poke around at you for food, but they can be difficult to interpret (and it’s not yet proven that these horse emotes are actually conveying the horse’s needs, and not just random)

Needs

To be healthy, a horse needs certain things. You can see most of those things with assess <mount> needs.

  • Burden: Must not be too high from stuff on the horse.
  • Fibre: Feed hay, but not too much or it could become sick.
  • Calories: Feed oats, but not too much or it could become sick.
  • Clealiness: Groom the horse to keep this up.
  • Stamina: Regenerates over time. (sickness probably reduces this)

There's other things to keep in mind:

  • Keep dry: If wet for too long the horse will get sick. There's now a big towel sold at the stable to dry horses.
  • Shoes: Without iron horseshoes (not the cheaper kind) the horse will get hurt.

Traits

There are five traits:

  • Vitality determines the stamina of the horse. Stamina is consumed during fast travel and combat - if it runs out, the horse may stop mid-travel, or be less effective in combat.
    • Stamina is not consumed during regular room-by-room travel (including journeying in terrain using “journey <direction>”).
  • Docility determines how easy the horse is to use (i.e. adjusts the skillchecks up or down).
  • Speed determines how quickly your horse travels, and how much it can carry.
  • Strength determines your mount’s effectiveness in combat (in combination with your fighting.special.mounted), and how much it can carry.
  • Intuition determines how many routes & places your horse can remember, and how engaged it can be in combat (from weakly fighting beside you at low intuition, to being a powerful warhorse upon which you trample your enemies, at high intuition).

Thus while vitality & docility apply universally, only two of the other three matter for each of the horse’s three uses:

  • Speed and strength are important for carrying.
  • Speed and intuition are important for riding / fast travel.
  • Strength and intuition are important for combat.

Horses’ traits improve through use. It is not yet known if they decrease if not used.

Breeds

Breed vitality speed intuition strength docility
April foal 3 high 1 poor 1 poor 1 poor 3 high
Chalk pony 1 poor 2 decent 1 poor 2 decent 3 high
Il Drim dreamhorse 1 poor 3 high 2 decent 1 poor 2 decent
Sum Dim horse 3 high 2 decent 1 poor 1 poor 2 decent
D'reg warpony 1 poor 1 poor 2 decent 2 decent 3 high
Al-Khalian 2 decent 2 decent 1 poor 2 decent 2 decent
Copperhead mining pony 2 decent 1 poor 2 decent 1 poor 3 high
Llamedos pony breed 2 decent 1 poor 1 poor 2 decent 3 high

Note that there are believed to be at least four levels (implied by the help files regarding intuition), but the higher level(s) might only be achievable through ‘training’ (using the horse such that it improves the relevant traits over time).

Assess

Skills
Scale
  • Full (100%)
  • Very high
  • High
  • Low
  • Very low
  • Empty (0%)
Needs

Marginal success (Minimum bonus required: 215)

The sorrel horse:
  Burden ..................... Empty
  Fibre ................... Very low
  Calories ............... Very high
  Cleanliness ................. High
  Stamina .................... Empty

High success

The dark horse:
  Burden ....................... ~0%
  Fibre ....................... ~90%
  Calories ................... ~100%
  Cleanliness ................. ~90%
  Stamina .................... ~100%
Health

Untrained

The brown horse:
  To your untrained eye, she seems to be in good health.

The brown horse:
  To your untrained eye, she seems to be sick with some sort of horse illness.
Traits

Failure

The red roan horse:
  Vitality ............. Unknown
  Speed ................ Unknown
  Intuition ............ Unknown
  Strength ............. Unknown
  Docility ............. Unknown

Marginal success

The red roan horse:
  Vitality ............. Very high
  Speed ................ Very low
  Intuition ............ Very low
  Strength ............. Very low
  Docility ............. Very high

Helpfiles

See also