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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gamerprinter" data-source="post: 6280102" data-attributes="member: 50895">While both the cavalier and paladin are initially inspired by the European knight and Charlemagne's paladins, so the OP's consideration that thematically they fit together, either as both being 'subclasses' of fighter or a paladin as a subclass of cavalier. I get the connection in that reference.However, if we remove our Euro-fantasy blinders and look at the class concepts only. The cavalier is a mounted warrior which fits any culture that has the facility of putting warriors on horseback. Many cultures do. While many traditional/conceptual builds of a mongol warrior is usually viewed as barbarian, I could easily see a Mongol warrior cavalier build. This is just one example of mounted warrior not under the traditional knight, but still fits cavalier, thematically. On the other hand, a paladin is a holy warrior. There is no requirement for a holy warrior to ride a horse as part of the theme. Anyone can ride a horse, but there's not a necessity that a paladin needs to have special attributes for a mount specialization.For example, in my Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG), there is a paladin archetype called the <a href="http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/paladin/archetypes/rite-publishing---paladin-archtypes/yamabushi" target="_blank">yamabushi</a>. Yamabushi are ascetic warrior priests that follow the path of Shugendo, practicing dangerous rites like fire-walking, hanging oneself over the edge of a cliff, extended periods of meditation on mountains enduring the weather and isolation, or in mountain caves. While yamabushi can ride horses, they have no special affinity towards mounted vs. unmounted combat, and charging attacks thematically just don't fit. Yamabushi normally cannot wear heavy armor - the setting (as in feudal Japan) restricts heavy armor to samurai only. Because a yamabushi spends extensive time in mountainous wilderness regions in isolation, some woodland related skills are part of his skillset. Because the nobles in charge of Kaidan are all undead, and because yamabushi were historically outcast from society and considered practitioners of a banned religion, pitting the yamabushi vs. an evil and undead government as paladins seemed appropriate.In this light, one can see how a holy warrior could apply to a different culture and at the same time, in no way seem appropriate for concept of knight. Paladin doesn't necessarily have to fit the mounted warrior mold. So by this description, I think I've shown that paladin should not be a subset of knight or cavalier, that they should indeed be two different class builds having nothing to do with each other. Under the traditional Euro-fantasy concept a cavalier and paladin seem associated, but as soon as you look at other cultures (non-Europeans ones), the association fails altogether.There is no obvious connection between paladin and cavalier, unless you limit what the concept means to European familiarity - and there's no reason for that.</blockquote>

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