A player in our group wants to have the skill to ride a horse. I don't really see any existing skill to put that under, do you?

Assuming a new skill what would you link it to. Link it to Charisma but put it under Physical Skills? Or make it some sort of athletic check? If the later ANOTHER Agility Skill? Or Reaction perhaps, calling it "Pilot Animal"?

From my Average Joe knowledge of equestrian sports i see them as more mental than physical (though both of course).....coupled with buying a really good horse. So presently i'm inclined to make it a Physical Skill (so Enh. Artic. can help) linked to Charisma to represent the urging of the horse to do things.

Thots????

i'd call it reaction. partly 'cause agility has plenty. partly because it's the same attribute as pilot is based on. i would say actually riding is based on that anyways.

trying to urge the animal to go faster or something like that would be a charisma check aided by animal empathy quality, and maybe a knowledge skill or something? i dunno. maybe charisma + intuition (or willpower?) to push the steed to do more than it normally would. adds complementary dice to the critter's sprint check i suppose.

how does that sound? i'm mostly thinking while typing so it may not be so good =P

treat it as Pilot Exotic Vehicle

Interesting idea, using the rider's Charisma for the run checks. I like it.

Reaction, since negotiating terrain and obstacles at speed fall under that attribute.

Charisma + Animal Empathy can be for taming the horse in the first place (or getting it to do things it wasn't trained for). If your horsey is "off the rack" and pre-trained, there's no immediate need to build a relationship with it.

But I could see animal empathy stacking with the piloting checks when doing fancy things. if they just run around a basic track (not a steeple chase) or other basic horse riding, then no skill needed, however for a steeple chase, etc. you need a skill of some sort.

In my opinion, I'd probably make it into an interest knowledge skill (Intuition attribute). Sure, it involves "active" movement and skill, but in the Shadowrun universe, I don't see anyone (besides a maniacal roleplayer) raising points in that skill over, say, Automatics or Pilot Ground Craft. Even the maniacal roleplayer would be hard-pressed not to declare "horseback riding" as an "interest" or "hobby" (unless in the case of a Native American buffalo hunter... but, eh... ).

I'd probably also make Dancing, Skiing, and Painting into knowledge skills too. Yes, there's active skills for "Artisan", "Diving", and "Parachuting", but I just think those things fall more under the realm of hobbies and interests, because they individualize a character that might otherwise fall into the mold of "mage", "street samurai", or whatever.

But if you were dead-set on making Horseback Riding into an active skill, then go Reaction. Charisma is more like a force of personality. It'll do you well when taming an animal and training it to heel, but in the heat of the moment, I think the ability to react to new situations and command the animal through a couple movements would make more sense.

Now the REAL question is, can you jack into a horse and control it remotely? hmm...

Simple:
Train horse to respond to voice commands
Train horse to accept special harness with modified ear buds and sensor packages.
Subscribe said rig to commlink and give vocal commnds to the horse.

Alternatively, use a set of modified goggles to provide a virtual pathway for the horse to run on where you want it to run.

We have an Animal Handling active skill, normally linked to Intuition, with specialization based on the species of animal. One can also substitute an appropriate attribute (Reaction for trick-riding or special maneuvers in tactical combat, Charisma for "bonding" or calming an animal down, etc.) depending on the situation... there are many skills that do this attribute-switching game, like Unarmed Combat (Agility for offense, Reaction for defense) or resisting Intimidation (Interrogation) rolls (Willpower instead of Charisma).

Note that horseback riding is still prevalent among "tribals" in the Sixth World (just look at some of the tribal archetypes in SR1/SR2), and I'm sure that recreational horseback riding (or even paranormal critters) is common among the rich and famous. It's not a normal skill for a shadowrunner to have, of course. We joked that it would fall under Pilot Anthroform (Four-legged). *grin*

I saw that too, but I think exotic handles the situation.

Pilot Anthroform indeed would cover such things nicely.

Personally, I'd say it was a similar skill as athletics - gymnastics. Link it to agility. I've competed professionally and taught riding lessons for 10+ years. I've also trained horses from when they were foals. Getting along with your horse is always nice, but I've taught people to ride very well that had the personality of rocks (can charisma be a negative attribute?). It's those folks with no coordination and bad balance that just never figure it out... (those are the folks I teach "emergency dismounting" to at the first lesson).

Now, if you want to walk out into a field of horses that are all running around like crazy 'cause some idiot's been shooting off fireworks... well, that animal handling and empathy will come in very useful...

I can so see PETA up in arms over this. They generally appear, imo, to prefer a baby rat to live rather than a human baby any day of the week.

The big question though, would be what skill do you use to fire your horse-mounted minigun like they featured in that one full-page artwork in Tir Tairngire?

Horse-mounted minigun. It's just fun to repeat it.

no way, that's clearly gunnery.

the real question is what is the horse's pilot rating, and can it act as a drone? give it some skillwires and you can even load it with autosofts...

Nope, when the opposition locks onto the horses heat signature and returns fire, that horse is screwed.

the hard part would be training the horse not to fight the skillwires... i can't imagine the horse would much enjoy having someone else in control of it's muscles.

well, maybe you should condition it with psychotropic IC or something =P lol... the horse will be on BTLs or something so it won't even notice someone else is controlling it's body =P

'course, you'd need some kind of cybereyes or something... unlike (most) other drones, the horse does not come with a built-in sensor rating

hmmm... so, i guess the horse has a sensor rating equal to it's intuition?

what if you gave it cybereyes/cyberears that give it superior senses... would the upgrades to perception tests apply to sensor tests?

and yes, i have to say, i would never have suspected this sort of thing to ever come up either... might be interesting to put into your game sometime, just to see how the players react to a horse that's being rigged

I guess this adds a third option to the "Help your uncle jack off the horse" argument. That's because he'll jack in later, after he's installed the minigun.

I'm reminded of the advert in the old London Sourcebook for a pub whose main attraction was a cybercow.

It does if you've hooked it up to a simrig.

A Old West Style Rigger and his cyber-trained horse.
Or worse replace horses brain with a computer.