People on Horses

Is there a general quick and dirty way to figure out how much a person weighs in STONE for purposes of the load limits for riding a horse?

I was thinking of saying that if you knew the weight of the person for some reason, divide by 14. If you didn’t, each person would have a minimum weight of 1 STONE per point of STRENGTH. (Plus all equipment on top of that of course)

I remember reading somewhere in ACKS or this forum that a full-grown adult is ~20 stone (i.e. roughly 200lb).

1 Stone = roughly 10lb in ACKS, but it’s a measurement of difficulty in carrying something as well as raw weight.

According to the Autarchs: “In honor of Car Wars (each human weighs 150lbs), I’ve always treated each rider as weighing 15 stone!”

I’ve gone with 10lbs is one Stone, plus of course the encumbrance of their gear. The players have also told me how much their PCs weigh.

Which given everyone is often mounted in my game, matters. It’s the reason a lot of them have medium riding and war horses (no one has just one mount).

Well, the Riding proficiency with a warhorse means extra attacks while mounted. That’s a pretty sweet deal, given that even a 14th level Fighter only gets one attack per round.

Only if you charge. Otherwise you have to choose whether rider or mount attack.

And while a 14th level Fighter may only get one attack per round, they get up to 14 Cleaves, so chances are against weaker opponents they’ll be getting a lot more than one attack per round anyway.

I made some tweaks to riding for my game, adding some more conditions under which you need to save against being unhorsed (with a Reflex save - ie Petrification/Paralysis), beyond not having a war saddle and taking damage. Those were being hit by a mounted charge/fixed spear and a natural 20. Then I gave anyone with the Riding Proficiency +2 to those saves and any other involuntary dismounts.

Not quite. You only need to choose if you attack after a normal move. When either charging or stationary, both rider and mount may make their attack routines.

[ACKS 110: “After combat movement, either the mount or the rider (but not both) may attack an opponent in range.”]

[ACKS 112: “If the rider and mount remain stationary, both may attack.”]

[ACKS 112: “Under some circumstances, a warhorse (or similar creature, e.g.
dire wolf) and its rider may both make an attack after a running
move, called a charge.”]

Ah, I missed that little nuance.