As for the drawbacks from heavy armor and resource allocation - the scarcity of the resource matters less than it's utility. At 300 gp you can get one heavy warhorse. At 600 gp you get two. Still less than a trait, but much more than a feat. Getting mounted also makes irrelevant quite a lot of heavy armor drawbacks.

@EugeneRyabtsev ...your evaluation of just about every resource mentioned in that comment is, in my considerable experience, not just inaccurate, but wildly so. Two heavy warhorses aren’t even close to worth a feat. Feats (the ones worth taking, anyway) are worth tens of thousands of gold. Feats are also better than traits, for the most part; a few anomalous traits are absolutely ridiculous, but for the most part (good) feats are better than (most) traits. Also, using any animal that isn’t a class feature is often an exercise in futility; they die really easily. Not a good solution.

Well, you seem not to be getting the joke. I'm quite aware that you can get two traits for a feat and that replicating a feat costs tens thousands gold. This makes no difference for a 2nd level character. You are thinking long-term, but clerics just don't need more power long-term. If anything, they need less. A 3rd level cleric not willing to trade all the feats he already has for one griffon in a world that caps at lvl. 11 would be an utter fool, and that is less than ten thousand gold for whatever number of feats. You should think short-term here. Level 2: horse beats a feat.

@EugeneRyabtsev I still disagree massively. I do think it’s a bad idea to invest any longterm resources in a problem that only exists at 1st or 2nd level, and will be gone pretty much on its own at 3rd or 4th. Which is what we have here.

Well, then we agree to disagree - I would not dedicate anything to solving a non-problem.

This is an extensive answer and I think there are at least two points that you probably won't disagree with that are not in this answer. While the stats are rather strangely allocated, this should not be a big problem if the player dominates out-of-combat activity and fixes the combat short-term by spending something of which he will surely have more long-term. Of those things to spend, I will once again name (1) money (steep progression with levels) and (2) actions (can always do more). Not necessarily a mount, but you should just mention these two resources and your idea of using them best.

@EugeneRyabtsev For now, money is quite limited; it’s hard to recommend more than armor and shield, because there isn’t money to do more. As more money becomes available, there are many things to do with it (including improve survivability). I am not sure how you think actions should be used. In combat, there is positioning (important, but so also is acting), and out of combat you can heal up (e.g. with the mentioned cure light wounds), but I get the impression you mean something aside from these. Mounts probably deserve some mention, I suppose, but I'd never use one; too much hassle.

@EugeneRyabtsev added a thing about mounts, which reminded me that Paizo recently broke non-animal-companion mounts

Hi! I would agree with "quite limited", but mounts are extremely cheap. A heavy warhorse is about the price of a suit of armor or a masterwork weapon. Would you agree it is better than a masterwork weapon? It also dominates action economy, all at a price of a second-level potion. Affordable, I'd say.

@EugeneRyabtsev doesn't dominate action economy any more

unless it's an animal companion, directing a mount to do anything costs you a move action plus whatever actions it's using to comply

which, among other things, makes it impossible to direct your mount to perform any full-round action

because you'd need a move action and a full-round action

it's pretty much the most awful thing Paizo's come up with in a long time; it's even worse than the Flurry=TWF ruling

Riding is not directing, is it?

@EugeneRyabtsev yup, it is

anything you want your mount to do

it's ridiculous

Cite a source?

looking

bah, they deleted all the comments, including the "come to chat" comment

paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/skills/ride.html#ride - Mounting or dismounting normally is a move action. Other checks are a move action, a free action...

@EugeneRyabtsev very recent, not sure that's been updated

chat where I learned about it

doesn't have the actual link though

must have gotten that from Gareth elsewhere

(@Lord_Gareth is a developer for Dreamscarred Press, a Pathfinder third-party publisher)

here is a thread about it, but not the one I was linked to

Well, I see people's horror, but so far, no major problem with any rule actually cited. Care to pinpoint?

@EugeneRyabtsev been trying

just throwing out the things I've found so far

> Control Mount in Battle: As a move action, you can attempt to control a light horse, pony, heavy horse, or other mount not trained for combat riding while in battle. If you fail the Ride check, you can do nothing else in that round. You do not need to roll for horses or ponies trained for combat.

"You do not need to roll" says nothing about not needing the move action

further, Handle Animal:

> Handling an animal is a move action, while “pushing” an animal is a full-round action. (A druid or ranger can handle her animal companion as a free action or push it as a move action.)

I believe Handle Animal does not apply (Ride takes precedence). As for the phrase, it's likely a bad wording. Not clear why the original RAI archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20050201a should not sway the interpretation.

@EugeneRyabtsev Skip Williams spoke for himself with almost-nothing in the way of editing, and I strongly suspect that much of those articles was written before the book was finalized, and they missed things

that makes it extremely unreliable, even for talking about the authors' intent

moreover, Paizo explicitly changed some of these rules

"Control Mount in Battle" section that I see is unchanged.

right, but that was always OK

you used your move action

your mount moved or more

and that was fine

because that's how you used your move

but now you need move and additional actions

Still, have to see it to believe it. Feels way to moronic to be real.

OK, I believe this is the FAQ entry: paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1fm#v5748eaic9ru6

bah, copied the wrong thing

"Using a mount past the early levels tends to require that you get one as a class feature..." - or spend more (i.e. level appropriate amount of) cash. That works at least until level 8.

nope, copied the right thing, misstated my case somewhat

charging requires that you charge

but if it's not an animal companion, directing the mount in combat, itself, is a move action

so, having done that, you can't charge

which screws a lot of people over, but probably not a buff/support cleric

and other actions aren't affected, as I thought/claimed they were

@EugeneRyabtsev if there's availability for better animals to ride, possibly. and if they don't get too big to bring into dungeons

Tight dungeon is exactly the place where the fighter occupies all of the paths between you and the opposition. Cha 18 with diplo is exactly the way to have what's there to be had. Otherwise, yep.