Cavaliers...Did UA have it right?

[steeldragons]

[RE Thread Prefix: consider the prefix "Any D&D...and Pathfinder"

RE Thread title: I mean the original/1e Unearthed Arcana]

In the 1e Unearthed Arcana, among it's many other shake ups, Paladins were moved from a sub-class of Fighter to falling under the newly presented "Cavalier" class of that manual.

In devising my own World of Orea game system, I find myself questioning whether Paladin belongs as a primarily presented class or, more intuitively, Cavalier [or "Knight", if you prefer] is the class that should be presented...with Paladin's then being a more specific type of the Cavalier.

I mean, both are a sub-set/specific kind of Warrior. That's a given. The "subclass/what should shouldn't be a subclass" is not the point of this thread...please refrain from making it one.

The question is, in your view, does it make more sense that Paladin and Cavalier should be their own individual classes?

Or is Cavalier the more "general/broadly applying" archetype: the heavily armored fighter, bound and empowered by their oaths/orders, who excels in mounted combat and battlefield command stuff, and the Paladin is a specific type of that: their oath/orders are specifically religious/divinely-inspired in nature?

Or is the line clear/defined enough for them to be separate but equally strong archetypes and it doesn't matter which a game offers first...or at all?

Or, probably the least likely to my mind, is the Cavalier really a subset/variation of Paladin? Namely, they are inspired and empowered by their oaths vs. their faith. IOW, is a/could the Cavalier simply viewed as a non-magical/non-divine oriented Paladin?

The paladin has more history, I know. A lot of D&D-style or retro-clone games include some form of Paladins...but the knightly, chivalrous, vows/oaths devoted [but not to a deity/religion] warriors are just supposed to be a fluffed/appropriately-supplied Fighter variant.

But it seems, lately, I am feeling like the Cavalier never really got a full shake...since it was in UA and generally viewed as overpowered or superfluous, and/or frankly silly to be separated out from the Fighter [Warrior] classes instead of subsumed by it.

Not saying I would be creating a UA style Cavalier...but the PF one seems to have a really nice base of stuff that could be fluffed into an interesting non-magic-using class.

Maybe, even, the Paladin could be relegated out of full "Class" status altogether and, going back to a BECM-style "prestige-like" class, that Cavaliers (and Fighters...and even, Clerics) might "take on Paladinhood" at a certain level? "You've been such a great advocate/warrior/exemplar for X cause, a deity affiliated with that cause/alignment/concerns is now supplying you with some divine juice." Does something like that work or seem too immersion-breaky?

Can a game get away with a Cavalier as a specific Warrior-type and a Paladin as a specific Cavalier-type? Or are Cavalier and Paladin both as separate/individual Warriors more palatable?

Discuss.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

There is no right answer here, I think.

Mostly, it depends on your setting, and how you want players to think of the classes involved.

The first question to answer is whether you want "Knight" and "Holy Warrior" to be the same thing. It doesn't matter whether they were in the real world, it matters what you want in your setting. If you do want them to be the same thing, then you're going to want Paladin and Cavalier to have a relationship where one is the subclass of the other. If you want there to be plenty of "knights" (or samurai or whatever, it's all essentially the same thing) who aren't very closely linked with religion, you probably want two separate classes.

There's also the question of whether you want a warrior who fights for a cause or for a code to automatically be associated with horse-riding, heavy armour, and so on. That will impact what kind of Cavalier class you pick.

Speaking purely mechanically, I don't think there's much point in having a Cavalier class unless you're going to give them some fairly funky abilities which are different to both Fighter and Paladin. If you just want a less-religious Paladin, then you might want to look at the Champion class from Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Evolved.

 

[delericho]

I mean, both are a sub-set/specific kind of Warrior. That's a given. The "subclass/what should shouldn't be a subclass" is not the point of this thread...please refrain from making it one.

I'm sorry, but that's my answer. The Paladin, by virtue of having divine spells, is just barely deserving of its own class/subclass. The Cavalier is just a Fighter build.

However, if you are going to have both anyway...

Can a game get away with a Cavalier as a specific Warrior-type and a Paladin as a specific Cavalier-type? Or are Cavalier and Paladin both as separate/individual Warriors more palatable?

Both should be independent. The Cavalier archetype presupposes a whole bunch of things that the Paladin does not - one can quite easily picture a Paladin who is not the mounted-warrior.

 

[Celebrim]

I'd only be introducing a Cavalier class into my game if I wanted to get rid of the traditional D&D style fighter and rogue. So Cavalier would become a hybrid Fighter + Aristocrat, and I'd introduce some new class like 'Ruffian' that would be a hybrid Fighter + Rogue.

It's very hard to have both Cavalier and Fighter, without Cavalier being a strictly better fighter.

 

[Starfox]

You can probably turn the Paladin into a Cavalier AT, but I see little reason to do so. To me, classes and ATs are primarily metagame constructs and only to a lesser degree social phenomena in the game world. And Pazio seems to share this idea, considering that they made cavalier orders for upholding the rights of the common folk - the cavalier is a set of in-game abilities, not a knightly social class. And if you accept this argument, the paladin is mechanically different enough from the cavalier that there is no benefit of making it a cavalier AT. A paladin AT for the cavalier would either have to drop either so many cavalier abilities and/or so many paladin abilities that it could not resemble both parent classes.

 

[steeldragons]

There is no right answer here, I think.

Mostly, it depends on your setting, and how you want players to think of the classes involved.

Yeah. I just like to hear what other folks think sometimes. Sometimes someone can sway me one way or the other...sometimes not.

Speaking purely mechanically, I don't think there's much point in having a Cavalier class unless you're going to give them some fairly funky abilities which are different to both Fighter and Paladin. If you just want a less-religious Paladin, then you might want to look at the Champion class from Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Evolved.

Well right. There's the other/another option...is an overarching "Champion" class preferable? Then just make the bulk of the abilities mechanically the same, that are generally fluffed as religious or not (with one or two individual/separate things), respectively. Seems inspiring and/or defensive stances "areas/auras", heavy armor preference/proficiencies, attack bonuses/combat expertise, etc... are easily enough done the same, but fluffed with "divine-magic" or "commanding presence" (or somesuch). Then add "Healing Hands" for a paladin and "Mounted Expert" for a cavalier, etc...

I'm sorry, but that's my answer. The Paladin, by virtue of having divine spells, is just barely deserving of its own class/subclass. The Cavalier is just a Fighter build.

Completely valid views.

However, if you are going to have both anyway...Both should be independent. The Cavalier archetype presupposes a whole bunch of things that the Paladin does not - one can quite easily picture a Paladin who is not the mounted-warrior.

True.

It's very hard to have both Cavalier and Fighter, without Cavalier being a strictly better fighter.

Really? I would think the only "strictly better" built-in thing for a cav would be the mounted aspect. Otherwise, I see them on equal footing for combat ability. Other defining traits of the Cavalier, as I see them, would/could include leadership/inspirational abilities (bonuses to saves, morale, etc...), giving defensive/strategic bonuses to their allies, stuff like that...that the fighter doesn't necessarily need to have but the paladin certainly could (possibly should).

You can probably turn the Paladin into a Cavalier AT, but I see little reason to do so. To me, classes and ATs are primarily metagame constructs and only to a lesser degree social phenomena in the game world. And Pazio seems to share this idea, considering that they made cavalier orders for upholding the rights of the common folk - the cavalier is a set of in-game abilities, not a knightly social class. And if you accept this argument, the paladin is mechanically different enough from the cavalier that there is no benefit of making it a cavalier AT. A paladin AT for the cavalier would either have to drop either so many cavalier abilities and/or so many paladin abilities that it could not resemble both parent classes.

Good points.

Keep 'em coming.

 

[Umbran]

Or is Cavalier the more "general/broadly applying" archetype: the heavily armored fighter, bound and empowered by their oaths/orders, who excels in mounted combat and battlefield command stuff, and the Paladin is a specific type of that: their oath/orders are specifically religious/divinely-inspired in nature?

Anecdotal only - I haven't run into many cases in D&D where someone wanted to play a heavily armored fighter, good in mounted combat, who was bound and empowered by oaths... where those oaths *weren't* religious in nature. So, I see no particular need for the cavalier. Give me a a paladin, and a fighter who can be good at mounted combat, and I'm set to go.

Moreover, I think that in the typical D&D world, there's a qualitative difference between power granted by oaths to secular authorities, and that granted by oaths to divine powers. The former we can abstract into a separate module all it's own that could be applied to anyone - fighter, paladin, rogue, wizard, or what have you. Cal it the "pseudo-medieval power structure" module...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm sorry, but that's my answer. The Paladin, by virtue of having divine spells, is just barely deserving of its own class/subclass. The Cavalier is just a Fighter build.

However, if you are going to have both anyway...



Both should be independent. The Cavalier archetype presupposes a whole bunch of things that the Paladin does not - one can quite easily picture a Paladin who is not the mounted-warrior.

That's pretty much where I am, but I'd remove the "just barely" language.

 

[the Jester]

IMHO there is no compelling argument for separating cavaliers from fighters in the first place, and if you do, how do you balance a cavalier vs. a fighter who specializes in mounted combat?

I'd keep both cavalier and paladin as subsets of the broader "Fighter" class.

 

[Celebrim]

Really? I would think the only "strictly better" built-in thing for a cav would be the mounted aspect. Otherwise, I see them on equal footing for combat ability. Other defining traits of the Cavalier, as I see them, would/could include leadership/inspirational abilities (bonuses to saves, morale, etc...), giving defensive/strategic bonuses to their allies, stuff like that...that the fighter doesn't necessarily need to have but the paladin certainly could (possibly should).

So, you began the discussion with the 1E Cavalier, lets return there.

The 1E Cavalier as presented only barely has a mounted aspect. More attention is paid to the Cavalier's relationship to his armor than to his mount. Much more attention is paid to the Cavalier's artistocratic background (another set of new rules in the UE) and his code of honor than to his mount.

The 1E Cavalier IIRC had the following abilities:

1) Improved mounted combat
2) Automatic specialization (equalivent, though slightly mechanically different) in the lance, sword, and a secondary weapon
3) Slow improvement in STR, CON, and DEX that was rougly equivalent (assuming you had a 16 or better) to getting a free wish to improve his attributes in each every level. This was particularly huge if you could start with 18 in those abilities, particularly strength.
4) Improved starting wealth
5) Fear resistance

And probably some other things.

It's not at all clear to me that the key element of this is, despite the name, horsemanship, but the idea of an elite upper class warrior trained from birth. The Cavalier is just the Westernized implementation of that general concept; Samurrii would be another example of the same concept in different cultural trappings. Certainly in play, the Cavalier was not inferior to the fighter, and was in fact probably superior to the fighter - even when not mounted. Combat by a player with a mounted Cavalier was rare in my experience, not that they weren't awesome when doing so, but that they were fully effective without it.

The problem I have isn't so much the balance issue now, which we have the tools to fix, it's that until the Cavalier came along and stole it mounted combat was also the priviledge of the fighter. It narrowed the concept of the fighter to create a mounted combat specialist.

Likewise, before them, inspiring and leading fighting men was also part of the domain of the fighter - as implemented by the idea that name level for a fighter was 'Lord' and would come eventually with the possession of followers and a castle.

Likewise, I feel that tactical skill and command in battle is also properly the sphere of the fighter.

What I've seen over 30 years of the evolution of D&D is increasing diversity of spells, all of which get grouped into one of the two main categories of spellcasters vastly increasing the scope and sphere of options of spellcasters in the process. At the same time I've also seen a vast increase in the number of classes, most of which are martial classes of some sort - Barbarian, Cavalier, Samurii, Knight, Marshall, Warlord, and so on and so forth - each of which coming with a range of narrow class abilities which then become their sphere of influence and all of which hedge out the same mechanical expansion of the original martial class(es) that is enjoyed by spellcasters via spell selection.

What I think you'd actually accomplish with a Cavalier class is just taking stuff from the fighter class, creating a new class that probably at least as effective in raw power as the fighter in combat, but which also has more versitility and more options in and out of combat. Ultimately, it would just further dismembering of the concept of the fighter until the fighter would be left with only 'hits things with sticks' in his concept and sphere of influence. Then people would keep complaining about how martial classes couldn't get nice things, and how D&D classes broke into tiers of spellcasters and non-spellcasters with spellcasters in the higher tiers, and we'd continue to see pushes to make all classes including the fighter defacto spellcasters with their own list of magical powers.