Riding

Riding is a Will-based skill that allows the player to ride any of their pets or allies.

Usage

To ride a pet, apply the Riding skill in the direction of a pet; to dismount, apply the skill on yourself (space, enter, or numpad 5). Riding costs 20 stamina points, regardless of whether mounting or dismounting. You cannot ride yourself, but the attempt still costs 20SP. While mounted, the health of the mount will be displayed, as it can be hit and killed in combat. To train riding, you must fight creatures with physical attacks (melee or ranged) while mounted--simply riding around, fighting with magic, or letting the mount hit enemies will do nothing.

Drinking healing potions or casting healing spells will heal the rider and the mount at the same time. Effects that increase speed will always be aimed at the mount, though slowing effects may be aimed at the mount or rider, and will have no penalty in the latter case. Area damage (such as Line or Ball spells) will attempt to hit both.

Riding a pet will alter your speed to a percentage (up to 100%) of your mount's speed. Your speed makes no difference, so items that boost speed should be equipped to your pet instead. Note that seven league boots (or other gear with the "improves travel progress") equipped to a mount will confer the hidden speed boost, but will not improve your travel speed on the world map; you must equip them to yourself to benefit from that effect, even while riding. Riding prevents tired and starving-type status effects from affecting your speed, though the various levels of burden still will. If your character is already very fast, riding may actually slow them down.

The trade-offs are that your pet's speed will be reduced (thus it will only attack and heal very slowly), your chance to hit is lowered, spell casting chance is decreased and heavy weapons (4.0s+) have their chance to hit lowered by an additional amount relative to how much more than 4.0s the weapon weighs. Weapons with exactly 4s receive either no penalty or a very small penalty that can be offset with the two-hand skill, but it grows exponentially from then on, reaching more than 100% penalty to hit at 8s. Equipping a shield that weighs more than 4.0s will give the same warning as equipping a heavy weapon, however, there is no apparent effect. The level of your Riding skill affects the pet's speed loss and accuracy penalty.

If the pet's speed is too high compared to the limit allowed by your riding skill and its own strength, your mounted speed will receive a penalty of a couple speed points for every speed point above the limit. Give your pet strength-enhancing items or take away speed-enhancing ones in this case. Keeping your pet's speed at or below the limit is recommended even if it means taking away a speed ring and leaving the ring slot empty, as increasing its speed past the limit can slow your riding speed considerably.

Some pets cannot carry your weight effectively, resulting in the message "This creature is too weak to carry you" and severe loss of speed (down to 10). Known examples include Bells and other members of the Metal race. This is caused when the bit flag cNoHorse is turned on. Turning it off via modding makes that pet rideable. Turning the bit flag cHorse on makes the pet a dedicated mount (like horses and little girls). More testing is needed to determine how a pet with both bit flags turned on will behave.

N.B. : For more information, see the complete list of NPCs with the mount bonus and mount penalty, the cHorse and cNoHorse bitflags.

When adding body parts to a pet above the 13 parts limit, the pet will get the same speed penalty that mutant characters get due to "complicated body" (5% penalty to speed per body part after all bonuses/penalties to speed have been factored). This will penalize the pet's speed while unmounted but it has no effect on your speed while mounting said pet. That is, if you objective is to give as many body parts to your mount as you can so it can equip as many speed enhancing items, complicated body is nothing to worry about. However keep in mind that pets may only carry 20 items at the same time, including equipped items, so adding more than 20 body parts is generally useless. Additionally, the pet's own speed receives a penalty while it's being mounted which is reduced by your riding score and the pet's strength, up to the pet's buffed speed BEFORE the complicated body speed penalty. This means your pet can also act at its full speed while being ridden, disregarding the "complicated body" penalty it would have when unmounted.

Riding speed formula:

Speed = MountSpeed * 100 / limit(100 + MountSpeed - MountStrength * 1.5 - PlayerRidingSkill * 2 - 50 * cHorseBit, 100, 1000)

Using the Tyrannosaurus as an example and solving for the required Riding score:

Riding = (MountSpeed - MountStrength * 1.5) / 2 = (208 - 105) / 2 = 52 (rounded)

Elona+ changes

Starting from Elona+ 1.31R, you can tell the pet you target to ride you when applying the Riding skill. If you do so, the pet will gain the benefit of riding instead, using their own Riding skill, and your own speed will be reduced.

In Elona+ version 1.37, mounts who have the skill riding can help decrease the speed penalty of riding when you ride them.

In Elona+ version 1.43, The method of obtaining Riding skill experience has been changed from "attacking with a physical attack" to "passage of turn while riding" (This makes it the same as Stealth.) The character being ridden will also gain Riding experience. Pets riding you will gain twice as much experience.

In Elona+ version 1.45, Riding skill experience is now awarded for the steed and the player when receiving and evading physical attacks.

Recommended mounts

• Wild horse
• Tyrannosaurus (requires high Riding skill as indicated above)
• Great race of Yith/Spiral King (lower speed than others but have four ring slots for speed rings)
• Cub (has cHorse bit enabled but low strength; will require strength-boosting equipment to ride at full speed)
• Kaneda Bike (similar to the Cub but is faster and has almost twice the strength)

Recommended mounts in Elona+

• Black Angel (Level 8 servant archer, first gift from worshiping Lulwy. Has the Boost special action, and learns Lulwy's Trick when evolved. Couple these with a low Ini value, and you get a mount that'll reach absurd speeds, at the cost of needing an extremely high Riding skill.
• Giraffe (level 40 horse warrior, can be bought from the horse trader in Yowyn when your level is higher and has cHorse like all horses)
• Yerles conbat plane (level 50 behicle predator, very high speed for its level but low strength and constitution. Also does ranged attacks often, but it lacks Control Magic so take away its grenade)
• Pascal (level 65 dog predator, can be found randomly and will offer to join your party when defeated, isn't a horse but has the cHorse bit enabled. Has the Boost special action. )
• Xeren electric tank (level 80 behicle wizard, very high speed for its level but low strength and constitution. Also casts Lightning Bolt often but it lacks Control Magic, may hit other pets or NPCs)
• destroy boar (level 117 largeanimal predator, has very high strength, constitution, and speed stats for its level but its attack action seems to only consist of Shadow Step, so it won't help you kill enemies while being ridden. It also gets enraged when hit, making it take 2x as much damage)
• Lityou (level 130 beast predator, can be found randomly and will offer to join your party when defeated, isn't a horse but has the cHorse bit enabled, very high strength, constitution, and speed)
• Kirin (level 150 beast warrior, isn't a horse but has the cHorse bit enabled, same speed as Lityou but higher strength and constitution and casts the Speed spell)
• Super-dragonewt (level 173 Lizardman predator, as fast as a Xeren electric tank but much higher strength and constitution. May explode under your butt when its HP gets low but you should be dead way before that happens)
• Kali (level 175 asura warrior, has very high strength and constitution. Not the fastest monster around but will slaughter everything even while being ridden)

NPCs with the mount bonus or penalty

Data valid for Elona+

ID	Name	Mount	Base Speed
3	putit	bonus	56
4	red putit	bonus	59
50	hound	bonus	110
51	fire hound	bonus	120
52	ice hound	bonus	120
53	lightning hound	bonus	123
54	dark hound	bonus	123
55	illusion hound	bonus	135
56	nerve hound	bonus	135
57	poison hound	bonus	130
58	sound hound	bonus	143
59	nether hound	bonus	150
60	chaos hound	bonus	160
164	cat	bonus	128
165	dog	bonus	107
166	little girl	bonus	102
176	younger sister	bonus	96
180	twintail	bonus	112
182	nurse	bonus	92
211	young lady	bonus	96
225	<Poppy> the little dog	bonus	86
229	lion	bonus	162
249	younger sister (mansion)	bonus	190
263	black angel	bonus	116
267	lame horse	bonus	127
268	Yowyn horse	bonus	175
275	Noyel horse	bonus	162
276	wild horse	bonus	145
277	wild horse (greater/thoroughbred)	bonus	189
345	<Kaneda Bike>	bonus	237
346	cub	bonus	190
361	older sister	bonus	96
364	older sister	bonus	96
372	military putit	bonus	61
383	<Reconciled cleaner>	bonus	400
384	<Lityou>	bonus	360
386	giraffe	bonus	225
387	kirin	bonus	360
491	<Leiki>	bonus	360
492	<Pascal>	bonus	230
493	lazy older sister	bonus	96
494	M girl	bonus	96
504	<Chaos Unicorn>	bonus	288
541	omega herakles	bonus	213
571	padangu	bonus	300
668	<Garziem>	bonus	900
671	R cleaner	bonus	174
694	shining silver wolf	bonus	327
695	blaze lion	bonus	336
768	ballistallion	bonus	340
770	dark horse	bonus	480
827	cucumber horse	bonus	135
212	Putit tank	penalty	192
324	quickling	penalty	900
325	quickling archer	penalty	1005
328	silver bell	penalty	678
329	gold bell	penalty	652
444	mimic	penalty	1024
460	bell of termination	penalty	2000
485	white young lady	penalty	96
502	Xeren satelite unit	penalty	1536
525	pro-jet	penalty	832
559	quick redcap	penalty	2000
568	chaos mimic	penalty	1338
593	bell of emergency	penalty	1455
685	<Fron> the tour planner	penalty	1680

Quotes

Mounting	Dismounting
"Awww." "Be gentle." "Let's roll!" "You should go on a diet."	"How was my ride?" "It was nice." "Phew." "Tired...tired..."

Trained skill

You may learn Riding from the trainers in Palmia and Yowyn.

Races

• Rabbit
• Horse Elona+ 1.99
• Rat Elona+ 1.99

Classes

• Archer
• Pianist

Wishing

• #riding may increase Riding by 1 level and train its potential, but may raise Gardening instead.

Elona Mobile

In mobile, Riding is a Will based skill. Select a mount by "casting" Riding in the Action section of the Magic tab in your inventory.

You can only ride allies that are "Suitable for riding" at first. For more "exotic" rides, you might need a Riding Licence (cost: 98 diamonds for first level, and 154 for second).