Cavaliers...Did UA have it right?

[Starfox]

If you call a class "paladin", the connection to western culture is hard to avoid. You could pick up similar themes in other cultures, holy warriors exist in different forms in Islam, Persian myth, Russian orthodoxy, Greek orthodoxy, germanic crusaders and in the Spanish reconquista. I am pretty sure India has similar themes, China has the Chinese knight martial arts concept, Japan has its yamabushi. The closer to our own time we get, the more controversial this gets - if I added jihadists and southern baptists to the list, most (including me) would object, even tough they think of themselves as holy warriors. But each of these archetypes has a cultural context. Saying that yamabushi is the Japanese equivalent of paladins is not exactly wrong, but the relationship is not exact nor simple.

So, when we're discussing the similarities and not between cavaliers and paladins, I think we must primarily look at the Occident. Sure, we can discuss what separates a yamabushi and a samuai in the same thread, but drawing conclusions on the relationship between cavaliers and paladins from the relationship between yamabushi and samurai is irrelevant.

What can be interesting to discuss is how the similarities who in fact do exist came to be, between two cultures so completely separate from each other.

PS: The paladins, sometimes known as the Twelve Peers, were the foremost warriors of Charlemagne's court, according to the literary cycle known as the Matter of France. /Wikipedia

 

[gamerprinter]

If you call a class "paladin", the connection to western culture is hard to avoid.

Oh, definitely, but that the paladin was a creation from early on D&D and its historic context was obviously built-in. However, using the class build as is, looking at the PF paladin, for example, no where is there a class feature involving a mount, charging or other specific ability that implies 'cavalier'.

I can easily see a low-born person, trained and equipped by a church of lawful good and trained as a heavy infantryman, charioteer, a naval marine (or other combat niche), swearing to a strict oath, and in every other way conform to the features and intentions of a paladin, yet not fit the concept of high born holy knight who rides a mount into combat.

In my mind the class name can be a disservice to the potential of that class's concept by limiting it to the concept of the name only. For example the PF ninja if renamed, and 'Ki' changed to some other title with a less Asian flavor, I can see a European styled assassin using everything that class offers, and not having to only fit fantasy Asia. So, yes, paladin is derived from Charlemagne's Peers conceptually, but that doesn't mean a holy warrior using all the paladin class features has to look like one, nor duplicate their equipment and fighting style.

Just looking at the PF paladin: immunities, bonuses to fight undead and evil outsiders, mercies, lay on hands, access to some divine spellcasting, requirements of lawful good alignment and adhering to a code - none of that specifically invokes mounted knight, does it?

 

[Starfox]

Just looking at the PF paladin: immunities, bonuses to fight undead and evil outsiders, mercies, lay on hands, access to some divine spellcasting, requirements of lawful good alignment and adhering to a code - none of that specifically invokes mounted knight, does it?

Divine Bond has a steed option, and Smite Evil synergies VERY well with lance charge and Spirited Charge. Also, the paladin lacks mobility in armor, and really needs a mount to move about. So I'd say the Pathfinder paladin still has a mount aspect.

What is new in Pathfinder compared to earlier versions of the Paladin is that it now has the option to NOT be a mounted warrior. Now it can be either. But the mounted option is still there, much more than for the fighter.

 

[gamerprinter]

Divine Bond has a steed option, and Smite Evil synergies VERY well with lance charge and Spirited Charge. Also, the paladin lacks mobility in armor, and really needs a mount to move about. So I'd say the Pathfinder paladin still has a mount aspect.

Indeed, and I'm agreeing that concept of mounted knight and paladin is certainly one possible archetype - it certainly belongs.

Divine Bond has a steed option, its not the only option (I did forget that feature, though). Smite Evil synergies well with any weapon and fighting style that causes large amounts of damage. Lots of martial classes in heavy armor are hampered in movement and yet many combats are restricted to pedestrian fighting only. Many campaigns spend extensive periods in dungeons or the Underdark and bringing a mount is simply impractical, yet paladins still belong in those kinds of campaigns. So the mount aspect is certainly one of the potentials, yet at the same time not exclusive to available aspects. Class concepts shouldn't restrict any specific aspect, rather be open to whatever a given player wants to portray, as long as it fits the spirit of the class - and really that's what archetypes are for.

 

[Starfox]

Smite Evil synergies well with any weapon and fighting style that causes large amounts of damage.

Actually, it does not.

It synergises well with many attacks (because each attack gets the full bonus) and with attacks that multiply your full damage (like lance charge and Spirited Charge). It works well with low damage attacks and Weapon Finesse, as the smite damage makes your base damage less relevant. It works well with archery, as archery allows many attacks. It works well with Two-Weapon Fighting for the same reason. It works with high-damage attacks and Power Attack, but the synergy there is actually negative - the cost of reducing either the accuracy or the number of attacks increases when you smite.

Then again, as damage is so important, it might still be a good idea to use Smite with high-damage attacks - all damage adds up. But there is no real synergy there.

 

[Starfox]

I can easily see a low-born person, trained and equipped by a church of lawful good and trained as a heavy infantryman, charioteer, a naval marine (or other combat niche), swearing to a strict oath, and in every other way conform to the features and intentions of a paladin, yet not fit the concept of high born holy knight who rides a mount into combat.

Just to make my point clear, I agree with this statement - paladins in Pathfinder need not have high station or even wear expensive heavy armor. It is quite possible to make a Dex-based rogue-like paladin that fights with two knives or a sling.

 

[gamerprinter]

Actually, it does not.

It synergises well with many attacks (because each attack gets the full bonus) and with attacks that multiply your full damage (like lance charge and Spirited Charge). It works well with low damage attacks and Weapon Finesse, as the smite damage makes your base damage less relevant. It works well with archery, as archery allows many attacks. It works well with Two-Weapon Fighting for the same reason. It works with high-damage attacks and Power Attack, but the synergy there is actually negative - the cost of reducing either the accuracy or the number of attacks increases when you smite.

Then again, as damage is so important, it might still be a good idea to use Smite with high-damage attacks - all damage adds up. But there is no real synergy there.

Agreed, and I did get my synergy issue wrong, but the real point was, that lance is the not the only, nor best attack option (especially if you're build is unmounted), but many types of attacks work well with Smite Evil.

Perhaps its anecdotal, but my table hasn't played a primarily mounted combatant, nor used much charging attacks for paladins, nor any class that our players tend to play over the last few years campaigning - my players tend to stick to the same classes in every campaign, they don't experiment much (I'm the only experimenter in the group.) So when I think "paladin", charging from a horse isn't the first thing I imagine, even though its seems obvious to you.

Our homebrew games tend to be heavy woodlands or mountains when not in towns, ships, dungeons or the underdark - I can't think of a single instance where a large, open, flat and unencumbered terrain was a description for any encounter (in several years of gaming), except one and that was a huge cavern chamber deep underground - so nobody brought mounts to effectively use the area for charging on horseback anyway.

 

[SkidAce]

My first character was a farm girl whom whose deity told her to go forth and fight evil. So she picked up her father's spear and some old leather armor from her dead grandfather's war chest and went forth.

She was a paladin.

 

[steeldragons]

Well, none of those are part of the original Cavalier that appeared in Unearthed Arcana.

Ah! Well, no...and I see where some confusion (for you and others) might be. My invoking the 1e UA cavalier at the beginning of the thread was simply because the 1e UA made "Cavalier" a base class (along with Fighter, Cleric, Magic-user and Thief) and placed "Paladin" under the Cav. "banner" [if I can use that word without engendering more confusion?] instead of its previous place as a Fighter sub-class.

So my initial question was wondering if that worked or "made [a common amount of] sense" today/with today's "modern" [meaning 3e-and-later] systems. Did the Cavalier as a separate class work...and does a Paladin, then, work as a subset of the Cav. or vice versa (with the assumption that both are a subset of "Fighter").

I did not intend, in any fashion, to insinuate that I would be using/reinstating a 1e-style Cavalier (as far as abilities, background, etc... were concerned). No nuh-no.

But the ensuing/expanding conversation about the need for such a class, in the first place, and various flavors and origins of said classes is a lot more interesting than that.

 

[Starfox]

The issue has to be approached a little differently in different games.

In 1E (AD&D), they were different classes. The cavalier was more akin to a fighter, but quite powerful. Technically the paladin might have been made a cavalier subclass, but that had no practical effect.

In 2E, it could probably be a (very extensive) kit. But since 2E had no cavalier, I suppose cavalier could have been a paladin kit instead. Maybe there was a late cavalier in 2E that came up after I stopped buying new books.

In 3.5 there was a Knight class with some similarities to the cavalier. I kind of liked it, but it was a shy design, from one of the later books when the designers were so afraid of making things overpowered it actually ended up weak. In particular, the class abilities had too many specific hit dice limitations.

In Pathfinder, if there was no Paladin class and I was to make one from scratch, I'd probably make it a cavalier archetype. But as there is a paladin class already, it's moot. Pathfinder powered up both the paladin and the knight/cavalier significantly, making them quite different form the (also up-powered) fighter. (Power comparisons are to 3.5.)

In 5E, both probably are (and should be) sub-classes of the fighter, because of how 5E is designed.