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

[Celebrim]

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.

I can definitely see giving minimums for WIS and CHA instead of or as well as the ones I've listed. One good reason for doing that is the class has powers that make WIS and CHA good "dump stats", meaning you could play a Cavalier with 6 Wisdom and by mid-high levels you'd not be punished for that at all. Likewise, you could play a cavalier with 6 Charisma and by mid-high levels you'd still largely succeed on your Leadership NWP checks. I don't really know if that is a bug or a feature. What I do feel like is that it fits more to have rash and foolish knights and abrasive or unlikable knights than it does to have clumsy knights. A certain amount of athleticism is expected of the role before you can be trained in it. Riding is after all a DEX based proficiency check.

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.

Now that is cool. I don't usually like writing cultural specifics into the class, and the keen eyed might have noticed I slipped in some things to make this class suitable for making a "samurai" and if anything feel I should go further in that direction. But the suggestion of being given a quest at name level by their liege which if fulfilled at some later point gives a supernatural boon is very flavorful and is just good story design (for lack of a better word).

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'm very much leaning toward the idea that if you make a Paladin you can option into also being a cavalier for the boons of that class (and strictures) or you can just play Paladin without being a cavalier and level up faster. So essentially you will have two XP tables for the class depending on whether it just a Paladin holy warrior or the gestalt Paladin/Cavalier type.

 

[Mannahnin]

That 5/4 thing might have been Monks, they got all kinds of weird attack routines as they advanced in level.

That's it! Page 31 of the PH, the note on the Monk table indicates that extra attacks occur at the end of the count of rounds, and not the beginning. I had taken this for a general rule back in the day, and I'm surprised to discover that for fighters it didn't work that way.

Oof, yes, I see that Monk table entry now. We used Monks so little that I can't remember the last time I read that.

Whereas the broader question of when 3/2 attacks actually happen comes up immediately from 1st level for Fighters with Weapon Specialization, so it was always important to know. In both 1E and 2E the rules only tell you in examples:

1E DMG p63, under Initiative for Creatures with Multiple Attack Routines:, the second to last sentence "A 12th level fighter is allowed attack routines twice in every odd numbered melee round, for example, and this moves up to three per round if a haste spell is cast upon the fighter."

The equivalent section in the 2E PH, Multiple Attacks and Initiative on p95 unfortunately leaves out the example, and so we're left wondering until a couple of sections later, Attacking with Two Weapons on p96, which thankfully does give an example at the end: "The use of two weapons enables the character to make one additional attack each combat round, with the second weapon. The character gains only one additional attack each round, regardless of the number of attacks he may normally be allowed. Thus a warrior able to attack 3/2 (once in the first round and twice in the second) can attack 5/2 (twice in the first round and three times in the second).

Interestingly the 1E rules lay it out as a general rule for all "creatures with multiple attack routines", so I could certainly see an argument for the DMG rule superseding the PH rule for Monks. But I can also easily see folks going with the more conservative/lower-power ruling, or saying the note under the Monk table takes precedence over the DMG rule on the basis of specific exceptions trumping general rules.

 

[fuindordm]

I'm very much leaning toward the idea that if you make a Paladin you can option into also being a cavalier for the boons of that class (and strictures) or you can just play Paladin without being a cavalier and level up faster. So essentially you will have two XP tables for the class depending on whether it just a Paladin holy warrior or the gestalt Paladin/Cavalier type.

That's interesting.
Since there is very little overlap in their abilities, it might make sense to allow it as a special case where humans can multiclass C/P.
If I were going to rework the plaladin I would probably add their abilities one at a time over the first 4 or 5 levels, instead of granting them all at level 1.

 

[Celebrim]

That's interesting.
Since there is very little overlap in their abilities, it might make sense to allow it as a special case where humans can multiclass C/P.
If I were going to rework the plaladin I would probably add their abilities one at a time over the first 4 or 5 levels, instead of granting them all at level 1.

Technically, it's not multiclassing - it's actually two different classes or two paths within the same class. You wouldn't do multiclassing things like half the hit points determined when you leveled up in one class or divide the XP among the two classes.

Interesting, adding new abilities one at a time from level 1 to level 6 is how my homebrew 3e Champion class that replaces the Paladin works. But in 1e AD&D, there is very little though in the Paladin that is front loaded except the complete disease immunity.

Because I hate immunities with a passion I would like to redact to a large bonus to disease resistance. This wouldn't be something I'd would consider front loaded.

I suspect however that the immunity to disease is the way it is in part because there isn't a unified rule regarding how disease is handled in 1e AD&D, and unsurprisingly disease is its own separate subsystem that doesn't allow a saving throw (except when it does, as in the case of the giant rat) and has its own separate rules that vary if we are talking natural disease, lycanthropy, mummy rot, etc. It's really hard to write up a general rule here. And to be quite frank, I hate that. But again, if we try to fix it into a unified system as is done in 3e to a great extent and even more so in my own 3e homebrew fork, then we are not only rewriting large passages of 1e but making it feel much more 3e overall. This brings us back to any well written comprehensive overhaul of AD&D will look a lot like 3e AD&D.

But all that aside, I'll probably try to write up a variation of disease resistance for the paladin because immunities are such a blunt tool. I suspect that in a write up of the Paladin and the Ranger I'm going to slightly reduce the XP requirements to level because they just aren't as powerful of classes relative to Fighter once specialization became a thing and because I'm likely to tone down their advantages in certain areas to be more mid because AD&D (and to a large extent 3e that inherited the 1e mindset) tends to have an all or nothing thing going where one thing trumps the other and you either rock-paper-scissors win or you struggle.

 

[Lanefan]

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?

I don't think those mechanics are written out anywhere, or if they are I've yet to find them.

Which means it's straight-up left in the hands of the DM. How I ruled is that if, say, you're 56% through your level in your previous class your xp number will be tweaked such that you're 56% through the same level in your new class. (side note: this turned out to be a useful precedent later when we started porting PCs from one campaign to another, where those campaigns used different advancement rates for the same class the PC's xp number would be adjusted to maintain its position within its level)

b) Base classes often are very different mechanically than the subclass. In the case of an assassin reverting to thief, does the assassin's 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.

Here, the fact that 1e requires training to level up is Your Friend.

I'd rule that the skills either stay as they were or degrade (whichever is worse for the character) until the next time the character bumps, at which point its training will be a bit more lengthy and involved - and perhaps more costly! - as it in effect re-trains from Assassin to Thief. After that, it's using the Thief skills for its level and has lost any remaining Assassin skills (though if the character is still Evil I might let it keep poison use, as I've always thought Evil Thieves should be able to do this as well).

Just because the RAW says something doesn't make it a coherent rule.

A conclusion I had reached in about 1983, before I even started DMing.

I hadn't really thought about the problem hard until I was writing 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.

I never had to worry about fallen Paladins (hell, I've rarely had to worry about Paladins at all!) but I have had to deal with characters in various classes who, having died and come back a few times and thus lost Con points, had fallen below the Con requirement for their class and were forced to revert to something else. The most common example has been Ranger reverting to Fighter because they don't have Con 14 any more; that one's happened a few times now, meaning I've long since had to think the process through and rule on what happens.

 

[Lanefan]

Because I hate immunities with a passion I would like to redact to a large bonus to disease resistance. This wouldn't be something I'd would consider front loaded.

I don't mind immunities to things that don't come up very often, of which disease is one.

I gave Cavaliers outright immunity to fear, for example, while removing their other various resistances.

But all that aside, I'll probably try to write up a variation of disease resistance for the paladin because immunities are such a blunt tool. I suspect that in a write up of the Paladin and the Ranger I'm going to slightly reduce the XP requirements to level because they just aren't as powerful of classes relative to Fighter once specialization became a thing and because I'm likely to tone down their advantages in certain areas to be more mid because AD&D (and to a large extent 3e that inherited the 1e mindset) tends to have an all or nothing thing going where one thing trumps the other and you either rock-paper-scissors win or you struggle.

Wouldn't it be easier to just tone down weapon specialization to bring Fighters back in line with everyone else?

 

[cbwjm]

When a paladin or ranger loses their status in 2e, they remain the same level and simply lose any excess xp which would, presumably put them 1 xp off from levelling.

I'm not sure where I saw it or which edition it was from but I also recall systems setting their xp at the halfway point, this might have been from level drain and, if so, would also be a decent way of doing it.

 

[Celebrim]

I don't mind immunities to things that don't come up very often, of which disease is one.

That's a campaign specific thing. My dungeons frequently had "traps" in the form of "check for disease exposure" (there are fleas on the dead animal, for example) and I did do monthly checks for disease exposure. And I did enjoy Wererats as foes quite a lot, and that's not just lycanthropy but lots of diseased rats. And so forth.

I didn't really hate immunities until 3e when the game began to become all about immunities, but in general 3e's attempts to move things away from immunity and more to relevant immunity where they had considered it - like DR replacing "a magic weapon is needed to hit" - were things I found really welcome. Complete immunity to disease from 1st level is a massive advantage, as would be complete immunity to fear (did I say I use the Ravenloft fear rules in normal campaigns?).

Wouldn't it be easier to just tone down weapon specialization to bring Fighters back in line with everyone else?

Not really. Because before weapon specialization, fighter wasn't all that great. Paladin was just fighter but better, and Ranger was fighter with a lot of extra powers and better starting hit points and more panache. Specialization made the fighter on par with the Cleric and M-U and dragged it to competitive or better with UA classes like Barbarian and Cavalier. If you take out specialization, then the game actually gets less balanced unless you just stick with the core four classes.

UPDATE: Going a bit further though, the problem with specialization isn't so much that it effects party balance. Thieves get even worse, but they were bad to begin with. The problem with specialization is that it heavily effects balance between the party and monsters. The solution I found was that when the party got powerful enough, to make the monsters more powerful to compensate. Monster leaders started showing up specialized themselves, for example. Monsters had explicit DEX and so did better in surprise and initiative contests. And so forth.

 

[TwoSix]

I suspect however that the immunity to disease is the way it is in part because there isn't a unified rule regarding how disease is handled in 1e AD&D, and unsurprisingly disease is its own separate subsystem that doesn't allow a saving throw (except when it does, as in the case of the giant rat) and has its own separate rules that vary if we are talking natural disease, lycanthropy, mummy rot, etc. It's really hard to write up a general rule here. And to be quite frank, I hate that. But again, if we try to fix it into a unified system as is done in 3e to a great extent and even more so in my own 3e homebrew fork, then we are not only rewriting large passages of 1e but making it feel much more 3e overall. This brings us back to any well written comprehensive overhaul of AD&D will look a lot like 3e AD&D.

But all that aside, I'll probably try to write up a variation of disease resistance for the paladin because immunities are such a blunt tool. I suspect that in a write up of the Paladin and the Ranger I'm going to slightly reduce the XP requirements to level because they just aren't as powerful of classes relative to Fighter once specialization became a thing and because I'm likely to tone down their advantages in certain areas to be more mid because AD&D (and to a large extent 3e that inherited the 1e mindset) tends to have an all or nothing thing going where one thing trumps the other and you either rock-paper-scissors win or you struggle.

This is just my personal aesthetic sense, but I think you can fork AD&D pretty far and still maintain the “feel” as long as you maintain:

-The stat progression and their baked-in oddities.
-Gestalt multiclassing, with racial class and level limits.
-Uneven XP tables with geometric progression.
-Roll under save categories progressing by class.
-Roll under proficiencies.
-A mostly traditional list of available races and classes.

Specific class features and how they’re implemented, minimum stat requirements, exact XP values, even unclear combat systems; I think all of those factors have a lot of elasticity without risking losing essential “edition” feel.

 

[Celebrim]

When a paladin or ranger loses their status in 2e, they remain the same level and simply lose any excess xp which would, presumably put them 1 xp off from levelling.

I really should have thought to check the 2e rules. They did a lot to clarify known pain problems. I do think I'm going to have to further than that though to clean up all the issues.