AD&D 1E Revised and Rebalanced Cavalier for 1e AD&D

[Lanefan]

So I think there is a lot of what I'm doing here you aren't picking up on. First, "just carrying on as a non-specialized fighter of the same" level is a possibility I'd like to provide for in some sense, but there class really isn't "fighter" we are just saying that it is. And class levels aren't interchangeable because they involve different amounts of XP. So we also have to do some sort of adjustment to XP. Just by RAW, let's say we have a 7th level Paladin who loses Paladin abilities and becomes, as the rules would suggest, a 7th level fighter. But if the Paladin had 170,000 XP, how much XP does he have now? It's not 170,00 XP, or else he's an 8th level fighter now.

I'd adjust their xp such that they're at the same place within the Fighter level as they were in the Cavalier level.

I'm not suggesting that he does. I'm suggesting a moral and mental crisis has occurred.

They can in fact keep fighting with all the skills of whatever level character they achieved. What they do not and cannot do under these rules is keeping going on through life as if nothing really happened. I'm doing something I feel is suitable Arthurian here. Fallen knights turning into rogues just feels right.

Another option is to loosen or amend the alignment requirements such that Cavaliers have to be Good or LN or N; with a Black Knight variant for cavalier-like people outside those alignments, similar to how the Anti-Paladin relates to the Paladin. Fallen knights turning into black knights is also very Arthurian.

It's not about the real world. It's about fantasy.

Perhaps, but that's more a matter of taste: even in the fantasy I want things to make sense with themselves.

Doesn't fit the write up. Dummies don't qualify for the class because the class is supposed to be elegant and refined. Being self-aware is not a requirement.

History is rife with elegant and refined idiots.

That, and if a player is after an elegant and refined warrior type wouldn't they go Paladin instead?

The intended write up is to make the Cavalier better at staying conscious than other classes. For your homebrew this would probably translate into a bonus on saving throws and a lower floor on when you actually died. But it's hard to write a rule that covers everyone's homebrew.

Fair enough. A very simple solution ported from 5e might be to just give Cavaliers - as a bespoke mechanic just for them! - advantage on these consciousness checks.

You get 3/2 attacks with a sword by 3rd level, so I think you'll be fine dismounted.

It's when they get their special mount it becomes a problem, as IME - probably for roleplaying reasons - once that special mount is acquired, it and the Cavalier tend to become inseparable.

 

[TwoSix]

So I think there is a lot of what I'm doing here you aren't picking up on. First, "just carrying on as a non-specialized fighter of the same" level is a possibility I'd like to provide for in some sense, but there class really isn't "fighter" we are just saying that it is. And class levels aren't interchangeable because they involve different amounts of XP. So we also have to do some sort of adjustment to XP. Just by RAW, let's say we have a 7th level Paladin who loses Paladin abilities and becomes, as the rules would suggest, a 7th level fighter. But if the Paladin had 170,000 XP, how much XP does he have now? It's not 170,00 XP, or else he's an 8th level fighter now.

Dual-classing is a thing in 1e, right, like it is in 2e?

Even in 2e, I never really understood why you couldn't just change the class to "Ex-Paladin" or "Ex-Cavalier", lose all the special abilities that derive from their supernatural or elevated standing, and simply make the character dual-class into something else at level 1 (or retire, of course.) Seems way easier than the convoluted issues around becoming a different class with a different XP track and possibly somehow becoming better at certain skills.

 

[Celebrim]

Dual-classing is a thing in 1e, right, like it is in 2e?

Even in 2e, I never really understood why you couldn't just change the class to "Ex-Paladin" or "Ex-Cavalier", lose all the special abilities that derive from their supernatural or elevated standing, and simply make the character dual-class into something else at level 1 (or retire, of course.) Seems way easier than the convoluted issues around becoming a different class with a different XP track and possibly somehow becoming better at certain skills.

Yes, dual classing is a thing. And Lanefan is objecting to certain classes of fallen cavaliers being forced "unrealistically" to give up their martial careers. This is because as Lanefan conceptualizes his game world it's all based on materialism and education and training. And that's fine.

But I think it's very thematic that fallen cavaliers generally speaking stop being knights or at least become knight-assassins or something.

The problem with a fallen cavalier just continuing on as fighter is that, well, it doesn't fit thematically or mechanically with what happens when you reject chivalry that has hitherto been your identity. For one thing, if you do it late enough in your career (certainly by say 13th) it could be a benefit in most respects. I can level up faster now after I've gotten all my class abilities? That's not a huge loss. Really, unlike Paladin, I don't have a lot of supernatural powers to take away from the class. They lose their resistance to mind control and that's about it. They don't have lay on hands, smite, detect evil, spells, etc.

I kind of like the idea of Lancelot going off to become a monk, or a disgraced knight taking up a life as a scoundrel knight, backstabbing and using poison as his second career. And really, with my thief revisions, this would eventually create a quite powerful character with an interesting array of skills.

 

[TwoSix]

The problem with a fallen cavalier just continuing on as fighter is that, well, it doesn't thematically or mechanically with what happens when you reject chivalry that has hitherto been your identity. For one thing, if you do it late enough in your career (certainly by say 13th) it could be a benefit in most respects. I can level up faster now after I've gotten all my class abilities? That's not a huge loss. Really, unlike Paladin, I don't have a lot of supernatural powers to take away from the class. They lose their resistance to mind control and that's about it. They don't have lay on hands, smite, detect evil, spells, etc.

I kind of like the idea of Lancelot going off to become a monk, or a disgraced knight taking up a life as a scoundrel knight, backstabbing and using poison as his second career. And really, with my thief revisions, this would eventually create a quite powerful character with an interesting array of skills.

Yea, I'm really not feeling the pull of having a high level cavalier just become a fighter. I really don't like the way it positions a fighter as a "baseline" and the cavalier and paladin are just "fighter+".

This is your project, of course, but if I was redoing AD&D, I'd just make a "fallen X class" no longer able to gain XP in the class, and thus has to dual-class into a class of the player's choice that fits their background, or simply play without XP gain.

 

[Celebrim]

Yea, I'm really not feeling the pull of having a high level cavalier just become a fighter. I really don't like the way it positions a fighter as a "baseline" and the cavalier and paladin are just "fighter+"

Yeah, I get it. It would get even worse if I rewrite the fighter to have special abilities. We don't want players gaining abilities by losing them.

This is your project, of course, but if I was redoing AD&D, I'd just make a "fallen X class" no longer able to gain XP in the class, and thus has to dual-class into a class of the player's choice that fits their background, or simply play without XP gain.

It's my intention to do that, per the way I've written things up, in most cases. The only case that I think it is thematic that you could continue as a fallen knight and still advance as a fighter is if you failed in your duty as a cavalier sufficiently to fall but did not change your alignment. But even then, I'd prefer they multi-classed into monk or something.

Still, I'll leave that option open once I work out the difficulties. It's clear that it involves loss of XP to line up with the fighter class, but then it's a bit weird how you are a fighter but you still have these abilities that fighter's don't have. So really, the class is "Fallen Cavelier" and not fighter. Like if you were programming this in a computer, you'd probably have a special class set aside to handle the problem that even if it said you were a fighter, you weren't actually a fighter because your abilities couldn't be predicted by something like "Fighter 6".

 

[fuindordm]

I like this writeup, and I like the comparison with the ranger as a generalist fighter.

Regarding stat requirements, I think having above average Cha is more relevant than above average dex. These are the heavy armor, melee tanks, who are training to be officers not just fighters.

It would be cool to link this up to the Knights of Renown concept in the Arthurian mythos of Deities & Demigods...at high levels they could undertake a quest, given by their liege or set by a supernatural patron. If they succeed they could gain a magical item or supernatural boon.

I never cared for the idea that paladins are a variant of cavalier, unless the campaign is very focused on knights and nobles. Cavaliers are a specific training regimen for nobility, while paladins can come from any background--like Joan of Arc.

 

[Lanefan]

I kind of like the idea of Lancelot going off to become a monk, or a disgraced knight taking up a life as a scoundrel knight, backstabbing and using poison as his second career. And really, with my thief revisions, this would eventually create a quite powerful character with an interesting array of skills.

There's a difference, I think, between

--- a character actively renouncing a class and completely starting over by choice (e.g. an Assassin has a change of heart, wants to drop all association with his previous class and henceforth devote himself to goodly clericism), almost certainly leading to retirement from play while you do years of basic class training (as per the age adjustment by class in the PHB), and
--- simply being forced out of a class due to game mechanics (e.g. a forced alignment change, or too many death-revival cycles putting you below the Con score minimum for your class) while otherwise continuing your adventuring career.

Lancelot going off to become a Monk would seem to be an example of the former.

There's no by-RAW mechanic for actively renouncing a class (when a PC in my game tried to do the Assassin-to-Cleric change in the example above, I had to invent one), but there is a by-RAW mechanic for at least some game-forced class changes: you revert to the basic class in the class group. An Assassin who for whatever game-mechanics reason can't be an Assassin any more reverts to Thief; a Ranger who can't be a Ranger any more reverts to Fighter, and so on.

 

[Lanefan]

I like this writeup, and I like the comparison with the ranger as a generalist fighter.

Regarding stat requirements, I think having above average Cha is more relevant than above average dex. These are the heavy armor, melee tanks, who are training to be officers not just fighters.

They need a certain degree of Dex - enough to not be clumsy - but that's about it. Maybe minimum 11?

It would be cool to link this up to the Knights of Renown concept in the Arthurian mythos of Deities & Demigods...at high levels they could undertake a quest, given by their liege or set by a supernatural patron. If they succeed they could gain a magical item or supernatural boon.

Or even ascend to immortality? Yeah, that's cool.

I never cared for the idea that paladins are a variant of cavalier, unless the campaign is very focused on knights and nobles. Cavaliers are a specific training regimen for nobility, while paladins can come from any background--like Joan of Arc.

I've always seen both Cavaliers and Paladins as just being sub-classes of Fighter, alongside Rangers. Sure they might be noble, but if someone wants to play a Cavalier with a peasant background I'm not going to stop it. I mean, hell, it worked for Heath Ledger in A Knight's Tale.....

 

[fuindordm]

Or even ascend to immortality? Yeah, that's cool.

Did that happen to any of the Arthurian knights?
Aside from the Green one.

 

[Celebrim]

There's no by-RAW mechanic for actively renouncing a class (when a PC in my game tried to do the Assassin-to-Cleric change in the example above, I had to invent one), but there is a by-RAW mechanic for at least some game-forced class changes: you revert to the basic class in the class group. An Assassin who for whatever game-mechanics reason can't be an Assassin any more reverts to Thief; a Ranger who can't be a Ranger any more reverts to Fighter, and so on.

I am very aware of that, but what I'm saying to you is that it doesn't make any sense. The complexities of that are handwaved away and left to the DM to work out.

a) How much XP qualifies you for a class varies from class to class. Subclasses normally require more XP than base classes. So if you revert to your base class, how much XP do you require to reach the next level? There will be cases where the amount of XP you have at the time you revert to your base class is enough to level up. Is the mechanics of this written out someplace and I don't remember?
b) Base classes often are very different mechanically than the subclass. In the case of an assassin reverting to thief, does the assassins hide in shadows check increase? If not, he doesn't actually revert to thief does he? And remember, in RAW the thieves skills are defined statically by level. So even if the assassin's skills don't immediately increase by two levels worth, they'll increase by three levels worth when he gains his first level of thief.

I decided to ignore the fact that in RAW assassins don't revert to thieves as far as I'm aware because it's such a great example of why your claims don't work.

Just because the RAW says something doesn't make it a coherent rule. I hadn't really thought about the problem hard until I was righting up the cavalier with more playable and balanced rules, but the whole "becomes a fighter" with caveats thing doesn't really work. I never had to deal with that because I never had to deal with fallen Paladins. At my table at least, the guys that wanted to play a Paladin tended to be the sort of guys that IRL believed in the code of honor and weal and law, and they didn't have to work hard to act like a Paladin. In the back of my head I knew if they violated their code willfully they'd "become a fighter" but I never had to think hard about what that meant or what rules complexities results from it.