Draft Horse

A draft horse is a piece of equipment with a heartbeat. It pulls the wagon, it carries the dwarven fighter's plate, it gets a name on the second session and becomes the party's emotional pet by the fifth. Stat block-wise, there is almost nothing here: AC 10, 15 HP, 40 ft. walk, a Hooves attack at +6 for 6 damage (1d4+4). That is the design. The draft horse is for the logistics layer, not the combat round.

Use the Strength 18 for the carrying capacity and pull weight, which is what the party actually bought it for. A draft horse hauls heavy loads across roads that will not take a wagon's wheels, drags loot back to town when the party cannot carry it, and crosses country at a sustainable trot of 4 miles per hour without breaking down. When the party rides one, it is the slowest mount in the SRD (riding horses go 60 ft.), but it is the only one that can pull a fully loaded wagon up a switchback. Treat it as a tool with feelings.

In combat, the draft horse is a casualty waiting to happen. 15 HP average and AC 10 means a single arrow can drop it. Do not roll initiative for the horse. If the party gets ambushed, narrate the horse's fate based on what makes the scene work: the horse rears and bolts, or the horse takes a stray hit and goes down screaming, or the horse is cut from the wagon traces by a quick-thinking ranger. If the players are paying attention to the horse, you have a free emotional beat. Use it.

Name the horse. Write the name on the party's character sheets, not just yours. The horse is the party's first NPC and it dies sooner than the players expect.

A draft horse as an adversary is a stretch and the brief says to commit to the stretch openly. The realistic frames: a panicked plow horse charging through a market crowd because something spooked it, a war-trained draft pulling a runaway siege wagon, or a stable of warhorses that the party has to get past without spilling civilian blood. The conflict is logistical, not lethal. The party is not fighting the horse, they are trying to stop it without killing it.

Run this as a skill challenge with combat-adjacent stakes. The horse has 15 HP, AC 10, walk 40 ft., and Strength 18. A single round of hostile attacks from a party will kill the horse, which is the lose condition for the scene if the players are supposed to recover the wagon's cargo, calm the animal, or return it to a grieving farmer. Reward Animal Handling, Athletics to grab the harness, and Acrobatics to roll under the wagon. Penalize anyone who draws steel.

If you absolutely need a fight (a magically maddened horse, a ghost-ridden destrier, an animated draft horse pulling a hearse), use the stat block: Hooves at +6 for 6 damage (1d4+4), narrated as a kick. The draft horse does not have extensive combat actions, so you are running it as a single threat that moves and attacks. Flag this for your players: I am running this horse with a Hooves attack for tonight.

The lesson the players take away is that even the gentle creatures on the road have weight and inertia. A draft horse running flat-out weighs 1,500 pounds. Do not let them stand still in the lane.