D&D General What ever happened to the Cavalier?

[doctorbadwolf]

And really, there's a reason for that. If the game wants you to traipse around in dungeons, there's not much place for a shining knight astride a valiant steed, so making a class (or subclass) based around mounted combat is actually less problematic, apparently, than shoving a kung fu guy into your quasi-European fantasy game.

Anything quasi-European should have stuff from outside Europe in it. Europe has never been remotely isolated in recorded history.

And enough folks eschew dungeons that there would be nothing wrong with putting mounts more front and center in a single class.

Plus, if you have to rely on a real horse, and not a magical horse, ala the Paladin, that presents it's own problems.

Though, as an aside, I would find it hilarious for Cavaliers to become a subclass of Paladin, the complete reverse of 1e's Unearthed Arcana.

The Cavalier fighter would be cool if it wasn’t randomly also the defender fighter.

5e doesn’t do a good job of having the sort of warrior who has a bond with a mount and fights astride it using speed and agility, light and ranged weapons, and hit and run tactics, in spite of that being a very common historical warrior archetype. It’s odd.

 

[GreyLord]

1e Cavelier was literally just a better fighter in every way. The problem isn't so much with the concept of a cavalier as providing one that is balanced with other classes. Typically since 3e arrived, such concepts are trading away skill at general combat for skill at mounted combat which for most campaigns would be a net loss in effectiveness given the difficulties with steeds.

Except that if they were played by the rules, they occasionally became suicidal maniacs that, by the rules, were mandated to charge into something that probably would kill them rather quickly...and anyone else who chose to follow them into their single minded pathway to death.

 

[James Gasik]

Except that if they were played by the rules, they occasionally became suicidal maniacs that, by the rules, were mandated to charge into something that probably would kill them rather quickly...and anyone else who chose to follow them into their single minded pathway to death.

I have a joke about this trait of Cavaliers. "So a line of armored knights on horse prepare to charge towards a group of pikemen. They identify which of the pikemen is the strongest opponent, and they all charge that one guy!"

 

[Thomas Shey]

But, that's exactly my point. Anyone not on a horse who isn't a longbowman or a long-ranged spellcaster will find the action done before they get close enough to do anything useful, sitting around bored while everyone else has all the fun.

I can't say I've run or played many game systems where the action was over in two rounds, and that's even been true of relatively gritty modern games. Of course I don't find it particularly natural in most games to have characters who have no ranged options at all, either, so...

 

[Thomas Shey]

It is an interesting space, things that no small portion of gamers might want to play, but the game historically hasn't done well with the implementation.

Some of it is an accidental artifact of a number of D&D features: the original dungeon-centric tendencies, the lack of scaling that you mention, and magic making both a mount's transit functions and pack functions less and less important over time. As I noted, there are other fantasy games where pretty much none of that is true.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If they're going to be fully integral to how a character works, I'm not sure they should be able to die at all.

Eh. While its a cold-blooded view, outside of some specific cases, they're replaceable equipment. The difficulty of replacement may vary, but that's true of the equipment, too. If you're operating outside a system that considers important equipment a character trait rather than a separate thing in a meaningful way that's different, of course, but D&D has never rolled that way.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Eh. While its a cold-blooded view, outside of some specific cases, they're replaceable equipment. The difficulty of replacement may vary, but that's true of the equipment, too. If you're operating outside a system that considers important equipment a character trait rather than a separate thing in a meaningful way that's different, of course, but D&D has never rolled that way.

D&D is, like it is in a lot of situations, pointlessly complicated in its relationship to this. It can freely admit that your character is complete garbage without something, then present a thousand ways to take that thing away because 'lol'.

 

[Thomas Shey]

In the game, many fantasy NPC races train different fantasy beast to act has mount. I dont get why the humanoids played by the PCs are forced to use real-life horses if those horses are useless to the adventurers.

Well, a complicating issue is that even non-horse mounts are a moving target in their functionality, and a heavily mount-focused character probably doesn't feel right discarding the old one every couple levels.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Well, a complicating issue is that even non-horse mounts are a moving target in their functionality, and a heavily mount-focused character probably doesn't feel right discarding the old one every couple levels.

Yeah, a Feat that increases the HP of your mounts and good rules for bardings would be a good start.

 

[Cruentus]

Certainly, you can go that way but I think I'm going to experiment with them being like the character's shield, armor or weapons. I've never once seen someone declare "I'm attacking his shield!", and beyond effects like heat metal or rust monsters (who have a special attack), pretty much the same for armor. Now, you can disarm someone of a weapon, like you could possibly dismount someone from a mount, but its relatively rare it happens. Adjusting the rules the characters focus primarily on the rider, not the mount, I think is a feasible state to get player's minds into.

More difficult will be the "drop them off at the dungeon entrance", but that's kinda like parking a car - the players should generally expect to be coming back out near where they exited in most cases. If not, might consider modifying things so it's possible to bring the mount. As a last resort, I suppose magic could be invoked, but that's really my last resort.

Agreed. If I was going to use some kind of Cavalier in 5e, I'd put some of those abilities into the background of the character (as part of Noble, Soldier, or create a background with a riding focus).

I primarily run OSE now, and there is a Knight class in the Advanced rules, and that comes with baked in mounted abilities. My PC's also routinely hire hirelings to tend the horses or drive the cart to keep an eye on things while they're dungeon delving. Our delves don't take multiple days (since you can't get a good night's rest down there, and thus its harder to heal naturally), so there isn't that much of a risk to the animals. I mean, random encounters could happen, but any hireling worth his salt would get out of the area, then come back.

When we played back in the days of Ad&d, with an adversarial DM (cause we didn't know any better), then we never bothered with mounts, or realized they were like one way plane tickets. Nowadays though, I don't pick on the mounts and other animals unless the characters are using them offensively (they're attacking the enemy).