So the Cavalier appears in Xanathar's guide and it is a subclass inspired by a character class that goes all the way back to first edition D&D. The Cavalier in first edition D&D; appeared in the original book "Unearthed Arcana." So, in a way, when we were doing our "Unearthed Arcana" series of subclasses we thought "Well, of course, in a series named after the book, 'Unearthed Arcana' we should have the Cavalier in it." Although, we didn't end up including the acrobat which was another option in that book." says Crawford to D&D Beyond.
[video=youtube;KoFRbxfTN98]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoFRbxfTN98[/video]
"So, the Cavalier is in many ways the classic knight in shining armor with the added twist of being outstanding at horseback riding. Now, many people might think "Well, the game already has the classic knight in shining armor, and that's the paladin." The big difference between the Cavalier and the paladin is that the paladin is a holy warrior usually dedicated, if not to a particular god, to a cause of some kind, to a great concept like justice. Whereas, the Cavalier is a non-magical warrior. One who can be just as honorable as a paladin but who might be driven by allegiance to a particular monarch, a particular kingdom, to the Cavalier's family, a particular town. So, it has, in a way, more a grounded earthy feel than the paladin, who again is often this figure associated with these high ideals and divine magic."
So, we actually showed off more than one version of the Cavalier in our "Unearthed Arcana" series. Both version actually got kind of a mixed reception, to be honest, from fans - good enough to make it into the book, but, each time the score, the satisfaction score was just on the line enough that we kept saying, "Okay, we've got to do more work." And really, the dissatisfaction came down to the fact that the Cavalier relying on the use of superiority dice which is a mechanic that we borrowed from the "Battle Master" one of the fighter subclasses in the Player's Handbook. Now, we thought people might be interested in seeing this mechanic propagated elsewhere. But, instead, often the feedback we got was "No, that's the Battle Master's. We don't want to see it in other fighter subclasses. We want to see them do their own thing."
Feedback on the Cavalier also at times was very anxious about the role of the Cavalier's mount because, as cool as it is to be on horseback, or dragonback or griffinback, or whatever it is that you are riding in D&D, people know that often, if you go into a tight cave or a dungeon that mount is not a whole lot of good to you. And, so it then becomes problematic if too much of your class features rely on your mount being present because you could potentially wander into a particular environment and feel like "poof", half your character's abilities just got turned off. We wanted to make sure that in the final version of the Cavalier, the version that appears in the "Xanathar's Guide" we address those concerns.
So, in the version that's in the book is actually quite different from any version that people saw in the "Unearthed Arcana" series. What we ended up doing is, we took the parts that people liked best about the Cavalier. Then, we looked at some of the other subclasses we really released on the "Unearthed Arcana" series for the fighter, and that was the knight. And the knight and the Cavalier were super close to each other in terms of story. And again, story is our starting point with design for our subclasses. And we know as we were thinking about what was going to make it into this book, it was very unlikely that both the Cavalier and the knight were going to make it in. And, in fact, their scores were really close and the Cavalier just edged out the knight. And that's why the Cavalier ended up being the one that went in.
I have a feeling the Cavalier edged out the knight partly because of the nostalgia some people have for the name. You know, it goes all the way back to the first edition. It's also a name that appears in the "Dungeon's and Dragons" cartoon. Granted, for probably the most unlikable character
in the show... the strange Cavalier who does not have any kind of weapon and also does not have a mount. Poor Eric.
What we ended up doing for the final version is we went to the knight and looked at the features that people like the best there, took those, took the best features of the Cavalier and wove them together into essentially a brand new subclass. And really, the theme of this subclass and this is something that came up in both the Cavalier and the knight in their previous designs is that they are all about protecting others. Because, again, these are knights. Even if they are not, even if a particular Cavalier isn't a paragon of good, the Cavalier is going to be about protecting property, people, something. And so, the Cavalier has class features that are about protecting those around him or her.
And then we also have a few features related to the mount, but we made sure that the mount is always, sort of like, a little extra. For most of the features the mount is not required. But the Cavalier will always be happy when the mount gets to shine. But, in a way, the mount is kind of frosting. And also, it is important to us that the Cavalier has an identity of its own. That's not reliant on this other creature being present. Because even in history where we had Cavaliers there was so much more than horse-back riders. I mean, they were knights with many other responsibilities and martial abilities. Although, we do point out in the book and this was something we pointed in "Unearthed Arcana" as well that the Cavalier is not meant to be an accurate portrayal of Cavaliers in history.
And that's true for anything in D&D. D&D is often filled with things that were inspired by things from real world history, myths from different human cultures, and D&D always sort of takes them and transform them, and often turns them into an archetypal form that feels natural in high fantasy. And that's really what we've done with the Cavalier who is now this mighty protector, awesome at holding the line and locking people down who try to run away. Really great at charging into battle whether on foot or on horseback and doing mighty initial strikes.
I think people are going to enjoy what emerged from the kind of revision process that we went through over those multiple versions that appeared in "Unearthed Arcana" and then culminating in the version that appears in the book."
[video=youtube;KoFRbxfTN98]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoFRbxfTN98[/video]
"So, the Cavalier is in many ways the classic knight in shining armor with the added twist of being outstanding at horseback riding. Now, many people might think "Well, the game already has the classic knight in shining armor, and that's the paladin." The big difference between the Cavalier and the paladin is that the paladin is a holy warrior usually dedicated, if not to a particular god, to a cause of some kind, to a great concept like justice. Whereas, the Cavalier is a non-magical warrior. One who can be just as honorable as a paladin but who might be driven by allegiance to a particular monarch, a particular kingdom, to the Cavalier's family, a particular town. So, it has, in a way, more a grounded earthy feel than the paladin, who again is often this figure associated with these high ideals and divine magic."
So, we actually showed off more than one version of the Cavalier in our "Unearthed Arcana" series. Both version actually got kind of a mixed reception, to be honest, from fans - good enough to make it into the book, but, each time the score, the satisfaction score was just on the line enough that we kept saying, "Okay, we've got to do more work." And really, the dissatisfaction came down to the fact that the Cavalier relying on the use of superiority dice which is a mechanic that we borrowed from the "Battle Master" one of the fighter subclasses in the Player's Handbook. Now, we thought people might be interested in seeing this mechanic propagated elsewhere. But, instead, often the feedback we got was "No, that's the Battle Master's. We don't want to see it in other fighter subclasses. We want to see them do their own thing."
Feedback on the Cavalier also at times was very anxious about the role of the Cavalier's mount because, as cool as it is to be on horseback, or dragonback or griffinback, or whatever it is that you are riding in D&D, people know that often, if you go into a tight cave or a dungeon that mount is not a whole lot of good to you. And, so it then becomes problematic if too much of your class features rely on your mount being present because you could potentially wander into a particular environment and feel like "poof", half your character's abilities just got turned off. We wanted to make sure that in the final version of the Cavalier, the version that appears in the "Xanathar's Guide" we address those concerns.
So, in the version that's in the book is actually quite different from any version that people saw in the "Unearthed Arcana" series. What we ended up doing is, we took the parts that people liked best about the Cavalier. Then, we looked at some of the other subclasses we really released on the "Unearthed Arcana" series for the fighter, and that was the knight. And the knight and the Cavalier were super close to each other in terms of story. And again, story is our starting point with design for our subclasses. And we know as we were thinking about what was going to make it into this book, it was very unlikely that both the Cavalier and the knight were going to make it in. And, in fact, their scores were really close and the Cavalier just edged out the knight. And that's why the Cavalier ended up being the one that went in.
I have a feeling the Cavalier edged out the knight partly because of the nostalgia some people have for the name. You know, it goes all the way back to the first edition. It's also a name that appears in the "Dungeon's and Dragons" cartoon. Granted, for probably the most unlikable character
in the show... the strange Cavalier who does not have any kind of weapon and also does not have a mount. Poor Eric.
What we ended up doing for the final version is we went to the knight and looked at the features that people like the best there, took those, took the best features of the Cavalier and wove them together into essentially a brand new subclass. And really, the theme of this subclass and this is something that came up in both the Cavalier and the knight in their previous designs is that they are all about protecting others. Because, again, these are knights. Even if they are not, even if a particular Cavalier isn't a paragon of good, the Cavalier is going to be about protecting property, people, something. And so, the Cavalier has class features that are about protecting those around him or her.
And then we also have a few features related to the mount, but we made sure that the mount is always, sort of like, a little extra. For most of the features the mount is not required. But the Cavalier will always be happy when the mount gets to shine. But, in a way, the mount is kind of frosting. And also, it is important to us that the Cavalier has an identity of its own. That's not reliant on this other creature being present. Because even in history where we had Cavaliers there was so much more than horse-back riders. I mean, they were knights with many other responsibilities and martial abilities. Although, we do point out in the book and this was something we pointed in "Unearthed Arcana" as well that the Cavalier is not meant to be an accurate portrayal of Cavaliers in history.
And that's true for anything in D&D. D&D is often filled with things that were inspired by things from real world history, myths from different human cultures, and D&D always sort of takes them and transform them, and often turns them into an archetypal form that feels natural in high fantasy. And that's really what we've done with the Cavalier who is now this mighty protector, awesome at holding the line and locking people down who try to run away. Really great at charging into battle whether on foot or on horseback and doing mighty initial strikes.
I think people are going to enjoy what emerged from the kind of revision process that we went through over those multiple versions that appeared in "Unearthed Arcana" and then culminating in the version that appears in the book."
