D&D General What ever happened to the Cavalier?

[FitzTheRuke]

Game of Thrones has a fairly epic example of dragon vs. castle with the flashback of how the Iron Throne was won. It doesn't go well for the defenders.

Yeah, but those dragons have stone-disintegration-ray-breath.

 

[Weiley31]

Takahashi veastnaster ranger

The what now?

 

[Weiley31]

When they only give him a shield Eric the Cavalier was bound to die, only a matter of time

Hey now, he eventually got the sword. He just had to wait a couple of editions.

 

[Zardnaar]

The what now?

Edited. New phone.

 

[James Gasik]

Just never listen to anyone who says 'verisimilitude' unironically.

Well they usually say "realism" or "immersion", but I was doing them a favor because they usually mean verisimilitude.

 

[James Gasik]

Yeah, but those dragons have stone-disintegration-ray-breath.

Arguably so would some D&D dragons, if you think about what effect their breath weapons would have on stone, but it's a fair point; D&D has decided to mostly shy away from "and naturally, acid of this intensity melts equipment/floors/player characters like that poor goon who got hit by toxic waste in Robocop".

 

[Kinematics]

OK, so for mounts...

• Mounts should primarily be treated as equipment. This means:
  • Mounts should be available as built-in starting equipment for some backgrounds. I'd pick Folk Hero, Noble, Outlander, and Soldier. I'd limit this to the draft horse or pony/mastiff (for small characters). A riding horse, warhorse, or other exotic mounts would be something to acquire later.
  • Like other equipment, mounts can be lost, but just like you don't break a character's magic sword after you steal it, you don't kill a mount after you steal it. There is always the expectation that equipment (and thus mounts) can be recovered.
• Mounts in combat would have certain expectations.
  • Mounts need to be specially targeted in combat for any effect, and such targeting should be unusual. Otherwise they are ignored as much as your sword or shield.
  • Most targeting of mounts should be for the purpose of unseating the rider (by knocking the mount over, for example). Attacking the mount directly for damage should only apply if the mount is a significant combat threat itself.
  • All mounts get the Evasion trait (take half damage from area effects on a failed save, or no damage on a successful save).
• Hit Points
  • A medium mount has a d8 hit die. A large mount has a d10 hit die. A huge mount has a d12 hit die.
  • A mount is considered to be equal to your level (though a minimum of level 2) for the purpose of calculating HP.
  • HP is calculated the same way it is for player classes: The maximum hit die value for level 1, and then the estimated average of the die for levels thereafter (5 for d8, 6 for d10, or 7 for d12), plus its Con bonus per level.
• All martial classes (barbarian, fighter, monk, paladin, ranger, rogue) get the first feature of the Mounted Combatant feat automatically: When mounted, the rider has advantage on melee attacks against unmounted combatants smaller than your mount.
• The current Mounted Combatant feat is discarded. Brainstorming ideas for the features of a new version of the feat:
  • You and your mount gain +2 AC against unmounted opponents smaller than your mount while you are mounted.
  • Charge: As an action, you may move in a straight line up to your mount's speed. All creatures in the path of that movement must make a Str saving throw or be knocked prone. A creature in the path of your charge may not make opportunity attacks against you during the charge. (Save DC is 8 + proficiency bonus + mount's Str bonus)
  • Wheel: You may use a bonus action to cause your mount to rear up, intimidating a creature within reach. The creature must make a Wis (or Cha?) save or be frightened of you and your mount until the start of your next turn.
• Create a common magic item, Mount-summoning Whistle (name subject to change), that can be attuned to a mount. When blown, if the mount is on the same plane as the user, it will make its way to your position within a few minutes. The exact time taken depends on GM-adjudicated complications and distance (anywhere from a few seconds to 10 minutes).

And for the Cavalier...

• The current Cavalier class can be renamed to be some sort of defender concept. Born to the Saddle gets transferred to the new Cavalier.
• The new Cavalier gets a mount that is implemented as a warrior-type sidekick from Tasha's.
• The Cavalier may swap out the actual creature used as a mount as han levels up.
• Beneficial magical conditions (eg: Bless, Fly, Invisible, etc) that affect the Cavalier also affects hans mount, as long as the mount was within range when the spell was cast.
• If the Cavalier is unmounted when initiative is rolled, and hans mount is not visible, the Cavalier may summon the "spirit" of hans mount for use during combat. The spirit lasts for one minute, and can be summoned X times per day.

 

[Tonguez]

If you aren't, then your entire line of argument goes away. Because what's not important is whether an enemy force can fly over the walls and land on in the large open bailey. What's important is whether or not the enemy force can fly over and land on the tops of towers. Because in any high middle ages motte and bailey style castle, the bailey itself is designed to become a killing zone if anyone breaches the gate. It doesn't really matter if you breached the gate by going through it or over it, if you end in the bailey you are behaving exactly how the architects that designed those fortifications expected you to behave. A small force commando style entering the bailey doesn't require changing the structure or design of the castle to any large degree. The bailey, whether inner or outer, is still designed to be a killing zone.

The problem with the open topped castles is that castles weren't designed to be defensible from the top down. So if you could land on the roof of the keep, you could put the king in check without dealing with the pawns, castles, and knights guarding him. Or if you could land on the roof of a tower, you could breach the defense in unexpected ways compared to a defense designed to resist attackers attacking from the bottom of the tower up or which assumed individual towers represented "hard points" in the defenses that could command the surrounding area.

Hoardings of any sort inadvertently also resist aerial commando raids of this sort, leaving the baileys as the only place to land and thus leaving the only place to land a prepared killing zone.



In general and across time, a couple score archers and crossbowmen in castles always had a better chance against dragon or manticore attack than the same force standing in a field. It's not such attackers that threaten the viability of traditional castles. The real problem with fantasy air forces is that they can bombard the castle with stones from an arbitrary height above which torsion missile weapons and most spells short of weather control can't reach. This is a bit of a problem, but you can handwave around it if you care too, by making fantasy air forces rare, by making them counter each other, and by noting that by the end of the middle ages the outcome of sieges were foregone conclusions because of trebuchet's and cannons anyway, so fantasy high altitude bombing doesn't really change anything. The point of a castle was to force delay on the attackers until defenders could be mustered and arrive, not to resist an attack indefinitely.

Anyway, rant off. Pet peeve of mine, I admit.

Its almost as if the logical response to regular dragon attacks is to inhabit dungeons.

And indeed the umderground cities of Cappadocia/Turkey prove that subterranean settlements of 20000 people, plus livestock can work in the real world too

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Mounts should primarily be treated as equipment. This means:

• Mounts should be available as built-in starting equipment for some backgrounds. I'd pick Folk Hero, Noble, Outlander, and Soldier. I'd limit this to the draft horse or pony/mastiff (for small characters). A riding horse, warhorse, or other exotic mounts would be something to acquire later.
• Like other equipment, mounts can be lost, but just like you don't break a character's magic sword after you steal it, you don't kill a mount after you steal it. There is always the expectation that equipment (and thus mounts) can be recovered.

When it comes to treating a mount like a weapon, stealing is one thing, a fireball is something else.

And there is the tendency for players to treat mounts as pets, and develop an emotional bond to them. Yeah, some do the same with weapons, but it's less common.

 

[R_J_K75]

Hey now, he eventually got the sword. He just had to wait a couple of editions.

View attachment 281699

My gods, I'm not even going to mention the cowlick, but he looks terrified, as if he just saw a Flumph