i found out last night how weak a horse is

so i stole a horse from one of the storm cloak camps and made my way to my destination. i ran into an ice wraith and the horse got hit once or twice and died! seriously?

Yeah, horses aren't that hearty, unless you're riding Shadowmere. I generally only use my horse for fast travel, when I'm overloaded. When I'm going to a new place, I'll usually leave my horse somewhere safe and then walk the rest of the way in, so they don't get killed trying to protect me. When I come out, I can "summon" the horse by fast-traveling to where I already am. Then I get all my loot and hop on.

If you are doing the dark brotherhood questline, you can get Shadowmere, who is a beast. I've seen dragons fall before Shadowmere. If you have the Dawnguard DLC, you can do the Soul Cairn portion of the quest, and come out with "summon Arvak" which is a skeletal horse soul you can summon. He appears, takes you where you want to go, and then disappears when you dismount. No muss. No fuss.

Yeah, dammit, and I always bond so deeply with my horse, too. Most of the time natural enemies don't take them down. It's the accidental hit YOU inflict on your horse that's lethal. When I lose a horse, I immediately go home and buy another from my steward, and go outside to see it. It's the same horse, so then I pretend it never died at all. That's the only way I can handle horse death--by denying it ever happened.

i was shocked how fast it died

i usually kill my horses just cause i cant find nothing else to kill

nightmare16 said:

i usually kill my horses just cause i cant find nothing else to kill

Click to expand...

oh, you're just a hoot and a half. No really.

crashhat69 said:

i was shocked how fast it died

Click to expand...

Must be the power of suggestion, but My horse died 3 short trips in a row. $3k down the drain within about 5 minutes!

I have a horse that survived an attack from an Elder Dragon, and then got killed by a frostbite spider 10 minutes later. What a load of old sh!t.

ColleenG said:

nightmare16 said:

i usually kill my horses just cause i cant find nothing else to kill

Click to expand...

oh, you're just a hoot and a half. No really.

Click to expand...

i actually never noticed it till today when a freaking stray arrow killed my horse one arrow that was it...

of course, of course

My current character is on his second horse. The first survived all sorts of encounters, mainly sprinting away from any trouble and getting hit with the occasional arrow or spell. I had to retire it to Whiterun stables after the slow effect from an ice spell seemed to become permanent and it was quicker to go on foot.

Aside from that they're reasonably tough I find, just make sure to leave them well away from the action.

Beating a dead horse. Yeah there have been many epic threads on the horse in Skyrim and it's uselessness. It would be cool if you could steal a horse and break it to make it your own.

I don't know much about horses any more. I kind of gave up on them when every single one died within 1/2 an hour of purchase by one thing or another.

While I agree about Shadowmere and Arvak, it's difficult to fit them in to most RP as, frankly, they would freak the heck out of almost anyone who saw them.

Personally I like Frost from Riften. At the moment my Promises to Keep (or something like that) quest is glitched in some way so now I have the horse (waiting at the Riften stables - for some reason, despite being stolen, he doesn't head back for home, he just stays there) and all the gold. Frost is pretty tough and, I've found, unless I kill him myself, he ALWAYS comes back.

Not much for riding horses usually though, although, I do luvs me some archery off the back of my horse.