I. Size	-	II. Quality	-	III. Training
Dungeons & Dragons	Advanced Dungeons & Dragons	Monsters	Dragon magazine	The Dragon #92

In the real world, a horse buyer usually
has a good idea of what kind of horse he is
buying in terms of quality and training, and
pays an appropriate price. In the world of
the AD&D®game rules, however, this is not
the case. Characters may specify the size of
horse they want to buy, but after that
they?re at the mercy of the dice. This state
of affairs seems unnecessarily oversimplified,
especially since the mounts of a
medium- or upper-level party (which are
often considerably weaker than their riders
in both hit points and armor class) can be
one of the adventurers? most vulnerable
points in a wilderness encounter.

The following rules are intended to alleviate
this problem by providing for variable
price and speed, and by linking a horse?s hit
points to its quality. Using this system, a
DM can ask a player to specify the size and
quality of horse desired by the character,
and then can quickly calculate its price, hit
points, and movement rate. In general, a 
buyer who is willing to pay can be more
certain of getting the type of horse desired;
a trained warhorse of high quality developed
under these rules is likely to be a
better-than-average mount (and far more
expensive than average, too). Conversely, a
character with little money can buy a poorquality,
badly trained mount for a mere
pittance. Note that the standard prices for
warhorses given in the Players Handbook
now become the prices for average horses of
their size class with basic training. 

I. Size
A warhorse's size determines its base
price, hit dice, base movement rate,
damage/attack, and encumbrance capability,
just as in the Players Handbook and
Monster Manual. However, its price, type <horse>
of hit die rolled, and actual movement rate
will all be influenced by its quality (as seen
in the section following this one).
 

Size	Base price	HD	Base move	Damage per Attack	Encumbrance  capacity
Light	50 gp	2	24"	1-4/1-4/-	300# / 500#
Medium	125 gp	2+2	18"	1-3/1-3/1-6	400# / 650#
Heavy	200 gp	3+3	15"	1-3/1-3/1-8	500# / 700#

Prices given are in gp, and are for broken
but otherwise untrained horses.

Damage/Attack figures are expressed in <edit>
terms of maximum damage, from a die of
the given type; for instance, a medium
horse does damage of 1-3/1-3/1-6 on its
hoof/hoof/bite attacks.

Encumbrance figures are in thousands of <edit>
gp of weight, and represent the maximum
possible load the horse could carry at normal
movement/half movement. For example,
the encumbrance capacity of a medium
warhorse is 4,000 gp at its normal movement
rate and 6,500 gp if it only moves at
half its normal movement rate.

II. Quality
Horses of five different quality ratings ?
poor, average, good, excellent, and superb
? can be found within each size class. A
horse?s quality affects its price and its movement
rate, and also determines the type of
hit dice rolled. When calculating a horse?s
selling price, the DM should start with the
base price for its size class and then, based
on its quality, add or subtract the percentage
of this price shown in the following
table

The horse's actual hit points should then
be determined by rolling the type of die or
dice shown (based on the horse?s quality)
for each hit die the horse receives. For 
example, for a heavy warhorse of good
quality, roll 2d4 three times and add 3 hit
points to the total; for a heavy warhorse of
excellent quality, roll d6 three times, add 6
hit points to that total (for the ?+2? part of
the hit die type), and finally add 3 more hit
points to bring the total up to the required
3+3 hit dice.

Finally, a horse?s actual movement rate
should be calculated by adding the amount
shown (which may be negative) to its base
movement rate in scale ?inches.?
 

Size	Base Price	HD	Move
Poor	-50%	d6	+(2d4-6)*
Average	--	d8	+(2d4-5)*
Good	+100%	2d4	+(2d4-4)*
Exellent	+200%	d6+2	+(2d4-3)*
Superb	+400%	d4+4	+(2d4-2)*

III. Training
A horse can have any of live different
levels of training -- none, broken, basic,
skirmish, or combat. Any horse can be
broken, but only actual warhorses can
receive basic or higher levels of training,
which represent true battle training. Horses
encountered in the game can generally be
assumed to be broken, unless captured in
the wild or bought from a character who
deals in newly captured horses.

The time required for each type of training
applies to any horse that a character
already possesses and wishes to have
trained, but is assumed already to have
passed when a character buys a trained
horse. (If the training of a previously
trained horse is upgraded, the cost and time
of the earlier training may be subtracted
from that of the new training.)

The panic & spell failure column in the
following table shows the percentage chance
that the horse will become unmanageable in
a crisis situation (as defined in the Monster
Manual). I allow spellcasters specially
trained in horsemanship to cast spells from
horseback, so I also use this percentage as
the chance that the caster will be jostled by
the horse in a manner sufficient to cause
spell failure (with potentially interesting
consequences).
 

Type of training	Time required	cost (gp)	Panic & spell failure
None	-	-	100%
Broken	2d4 days	5/day	90%
Basic	2d4 weeks	20/week	40%
Skirmish	2d4 months	100/month	10%
Combat	5d4+12 months	100/month	3%