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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2011844" data-attributes="member: 18387">By John Grigsby, Staff Reviewer d20 Magazine RackInitiative RoundThe Cavalier’s Handbook is a Dungeons & Dragons supplement from Green Ronin Publishing. This 96-page perfect-bound black & white softcover by Robert J. Schwalb has cover art by Britt Martin depicting a cavalier leading his company into danger. Martin, Kent Burles, Steve Lawton, and Toren “Macbin” Atkinson contribute to the interior art. The Cavalier’s Handbook retails for $19.95.For those not aware, the cavalier is a throwback to the days of 1st edition. With the debut of Unearthed Arcana (the original one, by Gary Gygax), the cavalier was introduced as a new core class, with the paladin being moved to the stature of a subclass beneath this new position. The cavalier was the quintessential horseman, standing tall in the saddle astride his mighty steed. An excellent fighter by any means, his real strength came when he was in the saddle, attacking from horseback. The Cavalier’s Handbook harkens back to those glory days.I’ll confess now that I never really liked the cavalier. They struck me as being self-righteous jerks. They were relatively useless in a dungeon environment, and in many ways, they were worse than any paladin ever was in terms of pompous attitude.The cavalier, as it appears here, shares a few similarities with the original class. The cavalier still represents the pinnacle of knighthood. They are armed with a d12 hit dice, the attack bonuses of a fighter, and the saving throw acquisition of a druid. On top of that, a special ability is gained at every level, the most common of which is Weapon Excellence, with grants them a +1 on attack rolls while mounted when using their weapon of choice. This bonus can be increased with each acquisition of the Weapon Excellence ability, and upon reaching +3, the cavalier may choose to select a special technique in place of another +1 attack bonus. Special techniques include Deflect Attack, Devastating Strike, Fearsome Charge, or Telling Blow; any one of which is more than equal to the Weapon Specialization option open to fighters. The other abilities gained are mostly minor in the grand scheme, but when coupled with the already powerful array indicated here, it makes the cavalier seem a little unbalanced. The modern cavalier (for d20 Modern) is a little bit differently portrayed, and works well as an advanced class option for a “road warrior” who lives by a personal code of honor.The Cavalier’s Handbook presents six prestige classes that build on the cavalier base class (though are not unique to it). The holy crusader is a pious warrior called to battle on behalf of his faith. The knight of charity champions the downtrodden and defenseless, whereas the knight of infamy sows evil and discord across the land. The knight of quality exemplifies all that is expected of the knighthood; bravery, honor, charity, and virtue, while the knight of renown builds on that base, the ultimate extension of the ideals of knighthood. Finally, the Sisterhood of the Sidhe describes an order of female elven cavaliers. Even so, of these six prestige classes, only the knight of quality (and, by extension, the knight of renown) requires levels as a cavalier (in the form of Weapons Excellence). Any of the other classes could be attained by a fighter or paladin just as easily.There are 40 new feats described in this book, again, many of which are just as appropriate to fighters and other warriors as they are to cavaliers. In fact, warriors of every stripe will be clamoring to take advantage of feats such as Parry (allowing them to deflect melee attacks) and Shield Focus (increasing a shield’s defensive potential), while Heirloom (by which a character inherits a masterwork or possibly minor magical item) will be on everyone’s list. These are fine feats that will really increase a warrior character’s range of options, but none are specific to cavaliers. In fact, most of these feats could serve to make a cavalier out of an ordinary fighter.The Social Class and Lineage rules add new depth to character background, helping players build a character history. As with other supplements in this book, this is intended for use by all classes, and basically involves a percentage die roll, modifier by race and class, to determine the social class your character originates from (from destitute to royalty). This, in turn, determines how many rolls on the history table you are permitted, as well as the modifier to your starting monies. For each roll on the history table, a number of possibilities abound, dependent on social class, from a significant disaster that befell your family to having a folk hero in your lineage (which gives you a bonus on social class).Variant and optional rules include adjusting the cavalier class to better suit a particular campaign (such as Green Ronin’s Testament setting) and a system for generating your character’s coat of arms and armorial bearing. This section also provides game effects for such, and an explanation of what the different terms mean.Retainers and Steeds are discussed at length, including a system of novice classes not unlike the apprentice system described in the 3rd edition DUNGEON MASTER’S Guide. In fact, this system could easily be used to run a campaign centered on novice characters that are “fresh off the farm,” so to speak, with no appreciable skills or talents in their chosen class. Templates are a new system that add minor features to a character without changing any fundamental qualities, and are intended for use with a cavalier’s retainers (and thus, can be applied only to those characters with an NPC character class). The section of steeds not only offers five different levels of quality in mounts and some unique traits, but also a selection of truly exotic steeds (in Monster Manual format).The Armory describes some new abilities for armor, shields, and weapons, as well as a few specific armors, shields, weapons, rings, wondrous items, and artifacts. Finally, there are detailed notes on tournaments (including mechanics for jousting events) and knightly orders. Rules for building your own knightly order are also provided.Critical HitI like the Social Class and lineage rules. This really adds some depth to characters and encourages the PCs to detail a little of the history of their character. Likewise, I think that the prestige classes offered here show a lot of potential, but as I noted, they really don’t need the cavalier base class. If you replace the Weapon Excellence requirements of the knight of quality with Weapon Specialization, then that class is just as viable as the others. Finally, the template system will be useful to any DM who is looking to make one commoner different from another without adding a PC class. Not every minstrel is a bard, or every spy a rogue, after all.Critical FumbleAs I noted, with good Fortitude and Will saves, the base attack bonus of a fighter, a d12 hit dice, and the ability to increase one’s skill with a chosen weapon, the cavalier seems to outshine every other class in the game. In fact, given that there are relatively few drawbacks to playing one, I can’t see why anyone would opt to play a less-powerful fighter when this class is available. Sure, you lose the extra feats and the ability of Weapon Specialization, but Weapon Excellence more than makes up for that, and you get Skill Focus a total of three times (in addition to a +2 to Sense Motive and Diplomacy checks), Leadership as a bonus feat, immunity to fear (and the ability to make allies within a short distance immune to shaken effects), and the ability to extend the AC bonus for fighting defensively to allies in adjacent squares.Okay, so you have to adhere to a specialized Code of Conduct and remain lawful, but what happens if you violate it? Oh, you simply become a black knight, retaining all abilities, but unable to further advance as a cavalier. I’m sorry, but I just don’t see this as being balanced. The idea is solid, but the class needs some fine-tuning. I think the cavalier would work well as a prestige class that must be earned, but as a base class, it is too powerful and really, just isn’t necessary.Coup de GraceI still don’t see the need for a cavalier base class, but outside of that, The Cavalier’s Handbook contains a lot of good material. In fact, this would make an excellent addition to the library of any DM who owns The Noble’s Handbook (also from Green Ronin), or anyone looking to design a knightly character. If you’re missing the cavalier of old, though, then the one presented here does quite a bit for reviving that feeling of nostalgia (or revulsion, as the case may be).The artwork is of mostly good quality, and it seems to be pretty much relevant to the text (though a few pieces are used as fillers, but still fit the theme of the book overall). Everything short of artwork has been designated as Open Game Content, and the layout is easy to get used to and makes finding what you need pretty simple. It lacks an index, but the table of contents is thorough enough to keep that from being a big problem.Final Grade: B</blockquote>

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