The Cavalier and the Barbarian are fine.
Whatever "Lord Gygax" said about the Unearthed Arcana being rushed it certainly has nothing to do with these already playtested and intrinsic D&D elements.
(What do you mean? The Emperor has a longstanding post here? What is thy bid-... Oh, sorry!
)
These two classes didn't unbalance anyone's game except the "game" of the Queen of The Second Edition, former president of TSR, Lorraine Williams. Her "game" was to get you to buy into canned storytime instead of using Gary's "Products of Your Imagination". Why? You ask? Because storytime is available everywhere and hollowed out adventures where you can superimpose your players into was real, real scarce.
"Story time" served spoonfuls of fantasy to the somewhat new reader market but it nixed the game's past of the barbarous war and violence of the grognards (term for wargamers).
From her (can I say damned?) perspective this was clearly represented by what a few years earlier had everyone cranking out these characters left and right.
And they have been flayed and flayed and guess what I think of this?
Stop it! Please!
The cavalier is the knight.
Who rules the lands of D&D?
Not the lands of Faerun or Living Greyhawk or Kalamar or the Scarred Lands or Ravenloft or any campaign setting but the historical medieval landscape or your (yes, your) imagination? The world that you would walk out of a college history course thinking about, who rules this land?
Knights! That piece right next to the bishop. To make it legit the original cavalier class has in their progression of levels not a speculated progression but an actual historical progression. Their class custom tuned to represent those of power.
But that's munchkin they say?
Horse manure! (No pun intended!)
That's life! If your DM likes a lighter game keep them as NPCs then.
As for the Unearthed Arcana barbarian class, yours and others problem with the magic items is the hands down most roleplaying fun ever for me and quite a few other people. If your DM can't hold a party with a spellcaster and a barbarian together then that shouldn't have been the reason for taking out something so many of us have enjoyed. He just needed more practice motivating adventures.
Everything about the barbarian is justified by the slow progression and the penalties. A rude and crude reflection of the fighter and the ranger and indeed master of the wild (hey, where have I heard that before?). Whole civilizations topple before their strength and you want them to stop riling up your game night? Well, that's your choice make them into NPCs but don't take them away from those of us that want to use them by just saying that only they get angry!
All this talk aside I think all these concerns would be dropped if we had options in the SRD to compensate for all editions of the game and yes, Hackmaster as well could be initiated into the fold.
Variants.
Choice.
Means anti-partisan conspicuous consumption!
Go look it up now!
Oooooooooooooooooo!
