TOEE lacks pack animals and animals to ride. Why ?

I would love my posse to be able to ride into hommlet, six guns on their hips, hats pulled down low so their eyes are in shadow.

 

Actually...

...there were first edition cross-over rules in the DMG for "Boot Hill". This was a Wild West RPG. One famous character in Gygax's Greyhawk actually became elevated to a quasi-diety status...Murlynd. He carried a pair of Colt .45 Peacemakers, and his magical castings tended toward the technological. He also had some Paladin levels (have gun, will travel) in additon to the magic user (and some others, too I think).

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Murlynd...
...a "quasi-diety" character...

*rummages carefully through piles of dusty tomes and fragile scrolls, comprising the library of forgotten first edition arcane knowledge*

Ahem...


...Murlynd is prone to carry technological weapons (variously called "45s" "six shooters" and "hog legs") which he is able to employ in both left and right hands. His special aura enables these devices to function even on Oerth, for instance. Each weapon sends forth three missiles per round, if he so desires. These projectiles will strike even the most powerful of magical creatures and inflict 2-8 points of damage when they hit. The range of these arcane weapons is the same as the range of a light crossbow.

Murlynd is a 12th level Paladin, Magic User, and Illusionist possessed of varying Psionic ability and 35% magic resistance. He travels alone most of the time, but at other times can be found in the company of one or more other personalities, including Heironius, Heward, Koeghtom, Mordenkainen, and Zagyg.

These weapons were brought to the Greyhawk campaign as cross-overs from the "Boot Hill" Old West RPG, and are the only ones ever to do so... in this edition, anyway.

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I suppose he had a special warhorse, too.

 

Pack and riding animals have their uses ...

I still think that any game that pretends even slightly to resemble 'real life' ought to have pack animals and animals that can be ridden. If this seems all too difficult then something is wrong with the way game designers think. The real world has pack animals, and animals that can be ridden, like horses. This is not something wierd or comical, it is a fact of life. A good rpg should anticipate this and include it in the options for game play. The game designers could have gone the extra distance and made this a reality if they really wanted to. Sure it might have meant a bit of extra work, but the quality of the game would have increased and so would the enjoyment, I think. As for horses not being useful in a predominately dungeon based game I disagree. TOEE has outdoor travelling, a lot if you travel back and forwards between Nulb, Hommlet, The Temple, and all the other external sites multiple times, as happens in TOEE. Also I think animals that can be ridden can be very useful in combat situations: height advantage; power of the charging animal; platform from which to attack; carrying multiple attackers; animal has its own attacks, and so on.

Horses are not the only reasonable animals to ride; there are elephants, oxen, large wolves, large boars, giant lizards, dragons, and many others. Pack animals aren't restricted to mules either. Also even though much time in TOEE is spent underground mules by the way can still be used.

 

Pack animals would have been great and would have helped this game immensely. I don't care for the loot/encumbrance system in the game as it exists. No one should be able to carry several hauberks of mail in their backpack.

Dungeon Siege, as I understand it, had pack horses and mules to account for 'loot'. Too bad ToEE didn't have them.

 

Mules only, and it was a great fantasy hack & slash. The point is that ToEE is missing the encumbrance mode of Vampire: masquerade R., NWN, D.S. and Sacred, where every item had its own size in inventory and so an armor would fill something like 6 squares against a ring that would fill 1. More realistic for sure....
Back to horses & co, of course it would be great but I ask myself: how much it would influence on graphic performance adding 8 more horses and allowing enemies to ride other horses or similar? With them, I doubt that ToEE would still run under older PCs and I wouldn't change my PC just to play a videogame.

 

Anything for a horse...

...eh, Keolander?

;-)