How many Paladins have gotten to the point where their horse can charge? And does anyone know if using the quintains helps improve fighting from horseback, or improves your jousting skill?

My horse just earned the charge skill a few days back, so far I haven't found it to be anything to get excited about (other than the fact that my bond increased which is awesome), but I'm playing with the skill to see if there's anything or any way to make it so you "joust" a critter by charging them with a spear for example. They way it works, it almost seems like you could, but I can't quite figure out the exact method or timing. I noticed that if you are not facing a critter, and signal the horse to charge, it will not immediately do so, almost as if it is waiting for another command, or for you to actually charge it yourself? or maybe it's a glitch that you have to signal twice before it will do the whole charge thing, unless you are already facing the target, then one signal works.

Anyhow, if anyone has this skill, and has anything useful to add to the effort at figuring out how this skill comes in as useful, let us all know.

Thanks,
Darthor

<<Anyhow, if anyone has this skill, and has anything useful to add to the effort at figuring out how this skill comes in as useful, let us all know.>>

I haven't found it to be any more useful than a normal pole to melee charge-type of attack. It's too bad someone doesn't step up and take control of the horse-system, it has so many possabilities.

As far as your quintain question it seems to be only fluff and not help you with any skills whatsoever. Further, the bond does not seem to aid bonding at all, only training halberds/pikes and shield seem to (stances don't even seem to matter).

--Just a "clueless" Squire

>>I don't read the ranger boards myself but was told there was some message over there saying there finally is a new horse GM,

GM Ceiswyn was (re-)introduced at Simucon as the new GM in charge of the horses system. She was one of a few prodigal GMs that have returned to the fold after quite a bit of time wandering. Welcome back, Ceiswyn!

Killing you softly with his song,
- Stormsinger Shavay

---

"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."
- W. Wonka

Darthor sorry I didn't see your post earlier. Congrats on getting Charge!! I can share how I use the Charge move. It makes it quite advantagous to use if you ask me.

So hopefully these will be some "insightful" answers.

On another note GM Ceiswyn has come down to talk to me about some bugs that I have found on two ocassions now. So yes she is working on horses.

Couple this with the wonky facing of horses when you are ground fighting with them that was fixed, and we are seeing some improvements.

So back to how to use the Charge move.

First off you'll want to get the horse so that it attacks on it's own and shows up in Assess. You know how to do that. Anyone that doesn't ask here and I'll explain in a seperate post. Or come find me in the game.

Next you'll need to set up some hot keys. For it is difficult to get Charge to work right without them.

Charge will only work on the 1st creature in the room. So this is an added difficulty. But if you are hunting alone or there is an invasion it is not that big of a deal.

Only if you want to charge again on a creature you have wounded, and another enters does it become a problem.

If you use the Wizard, make your first hot key:

signal horse charge \a\rretr\rretr\r

Now what this will do is signal the horse to charge your last attacked creature, then retreat twice.

You can set the \a string (which is the last attacked creature) by typing Cast Creature. So say you are fighting gargs, you would type Cast Garg and it would be set up. You are not casting a spell, just tricking the Wizard. Heh

When you charge the first time, you end up at melee, but the horse is facing at Missile. This is likely a bug, and I have posted on it in the past or others have.

You can't charge at melee, so you need to then retreat twice.

Set up a second hotkey, right next to the first, with:
signal horse charge \a\r

This will charge a second time, and both you and the horse will end up at melee. And you will be BEHIND the creature.

The horse will get an attack with the Charge and if you are fast enough you will get a hit or two on the critter from behind before it turns to face you.

Best effect with this is to do it from missile range. Or right away before either of you are even at missile. If the critter is advancing, you might get the second charge off when it gets to pole, and unless you have a pole range weapon you won't be able to hit until it finishes it's advance.

Sometimes the creature advancing messes up the charge in a way that leaves the critter still advancing or at pole range. Not sure on this, but it seems buggy also.

And again you need to be at range or the Charge just won't work.

Also if there is someone with a similiar name in the game charge will have a parser problem. Viperas will mess up vipers, and Leucius will mess up leucros. Damn ya Leucius!! :::shakes fist::::

You can get around this by Signal Horse Charge Thicket Viper. Or Signal Horse Charge Black Leucro. Unfortunately the Wizard hot keys won't work for a two word string, so you have to use a Macro in this case.

Fairly simple one is below:

put Signal horse charge %1 %2
put retr
waitfor You retreat back to pole range.
put retr
put signal horse charge %1 %2

I name my macro named Chr and have a hot key set up for it's use:

,chg @

This calls up the Command line macro (,chg) and leaves a pause (@) where I can enter the complete creature name.

Good luck!

~ Salute ~

Candidus