RndmNumGen
2012-02-25, 02:43 AM
EDIT: Sorry I haven't updated this recently. I ended up getting a new job, and that's been eating up most of my time. As such, this guide is incomplete, and will probably stay that way for some time. You are still welcome to use it as a reference, if you wish.
By My Honor: A Cavalier's Guide
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/_/rsrc/1298652229556/images/PZO1115-Alain.jpg?height=400&width=288
“Honor is not diminished by being shared” - Lois McMaster Bujold, Shards of Honor 1986
What is a cavalier? Cavaliers are knights, sworn in oath to serve a cause they must pledge themselves to. A cavalier is a strategist and tactician, organizing and inspiring the peasant soldiers. A cavalier is honorable, upholding his edicts of his order. Above all, a cavalier is mounted. No, really. The point of the class is to have a horse. You are cavalry. Look at the name – cavalier. See the resemblance? There is no arguing this point.
Throughout this guide, I will be using the following color coding system to rank the abilities and features available to the Cavalier:
Red – A poor choice. Either it is detrimental, or you're giving up something exceedingly good.
Orange – An OK choice. Useful in some situations, poor in most others.
Green – A good choice. You will almost always benefit from these.
Blue – An excellent choice, and likely the best possible option.
http://i42.tinypic.com/4h2ps2.jpg
Abilities:
Challenge: The to-hit and damage bonus is nice, but the -2 AC versus unchallenged foes can hurt, especially at lower levels when AC actually matters. This gets better at higher levels, when you have a bigger damage bonus and AC matters less.
Mount: One of the main reasons to play a Cavalier is the Mount. Your Mount is better than a normal horse, since it starts fully combat trained and gets two feats to start(One of which must be Light Armor Proficiency). Better yet, you don't have an Armor Check Penalty to your Ride checks while on your Mount, so you can load up on the heavy armor.
Order: Your order significantly modifies your Cavalier abilities in the same way a Sorcerer's bloodline would.
Blue Rose: You gain the ability to deal nonlethal damage that same way you would deal normal damage, which is useful for taking prisoners but not useful for much else. You also get some limited defensive abilities, but nothing that makes taking this order worthwhile. Oddly, this synergizes well with the Enforcer feat, despite fluff to the contrary.
Cockatrice : You gain some generally useful debuff and self-buffing abilities, but they're situational and don't synergize well since some require you to be alone while others only work in groups.
Dragon: An excellent order with a strong focus on teamwork, you gain a lot of abilities to buff your allies and enable them to do neat tricks. These synergize well with the other cavalier abilities, making this a good choice.
Lion: Similar to the Order of the Dragon, you gain a lot of nice teamwork focused abilities. Unlike the Dragon abilities, most of the Lion abilities are keyed to your CHA, which knocks this down a peg.
Seal: You gain a lot of abilities focused around defending places. This is useful if you're guarding as castle, but as an adventurer you're more likely to be the one bashing down the gates.
Shield: If you take Shield, you're here for Stem the Tide, which provides excellent battlefield control. Sadly it doesn't come in until level 8. Grab a reach weapon and Combat Reflexes to make the most of this.
Star: Some good bonuses to your abilities, but severely limited in uses/day.
Sword: Excellent bonuses for when you're astride your mount, which you should be almost all the time anyway. Unfortunately, this does almost nothing when unmounted.
Tome: You're a knight, not a mage. Do your job, and let the Wizard do his. If you really want to cast from scrolls, invest in UMD.
Tactician: Granting a free Teamwork feat to all your allies? Sublime.
Cavalier's Charge: Removes the penalties for charging and increases the bonuses while mounted.
Expert Trainer: This won't come in super useful unless you're also training mounts for the rest of your party, but hey... it's there if you need it.
Banner: Essentially a permanent bonus versus Fear effects and a bonus to charges. A poor man's Bless, but one that's always active.
Bonus Feat: These are always helpful to have.
Greater Tactician: Now a Swift action to grant teamwork feats, and you can grant a second one. Excellent.
Mighty Charge: Doubled critical threat range is decent, though you still won't be crit fishing with your lance any time soon. The free combat maneuver is better – charge your foes so hard you knock them on their tushie.
Demanding Challenge: It's okay, but could we have gotten this sooner? AC doesn't matter that much at this level anymore, and you're already getting what, +8 to hit your challenge taget when charging?
Greater Banner: Can be useful for removing nasty debuffs from your party.
Master Tactician: Giving two free teamwork feats to the entire party at once? I couldn't ask for more.
Supreme Charge: Doubles damage on a charge, which is useful, though as a capstone it would have been nice to have something cooler.
http://i41.tinypic.com/2a94aom.png
Archtypes:
Beast Rider: Excellent. Some of the more exotic mounts, such as the Dyoniechus or Mastodon, are truly a terror to behold, and you're only giving up Expert Trainer.
Emissary: The couple of mobility bonuses you get aren't worth giving up Tactitian for.
Gendarme: You lose Tactitian, which hurts, but get better at being a mounted terror... Tossup, really.
Honor Guard: If you focus on Aid Another actions and teamwork defense(such as by taking the Dragon Order), this can be good; you lose a lot of Cavalier's offensive bonuses though, which hurts this option.
Luring Cavalier: A very different kind of Cavalier, this archtype focuses on ranged attacks. The abilities are actually quite good, but they don't synergize well with the rest of the stuff Cavalier gets.
Musketeer: My cavalier uses a gun. This is best if taken in conjunction with Luring Cavalier.
Standard Bearer: The bonuses are kind of neat, but the delayed Mount and loss of the charge abilities isn't really worth it unless you're playing in a campaign where you couldn't use a mount often anyway.
Strategist: Enhanced Tactician at the cost of some abilities that weren't that useful anyway? I'll take it.
Ability Scores:
STR – This is where your damage comes from. With a Lance, you deal double damage on a charge, which means all damage modifiers, STR included, also count for double.
DEX – Useful for Initiative and Ride, and that's about it. You'll be in heavy armor, so the AC doesn't matter much, and your Reflex save already sucks so bad a few points of DEX won't make it good.
CON – While you have heavy armor, a lot of Cavalier abilities reduce your AC, so you need to be able to take a beating.
INT – You don't need a whole lot of skills to be a Cavalier, and you already get 4+Int. Dump this.
WIS – Only useful for a Will save.
CHA – Many Order abilities, as well as Challenge, are keyed off CHA. This should be third highest.
Races:
Half-Orc: You get a STR bonus, and Ferocity w/ Darkvision is always nice to have. Still not as good as Human, though.
Human: STR bonus, Bonus Feat(or Eye for Talent Racial Trait), increased Banner ability... yeah Cavalier was made for these guys.
Half-Elf: You get a STR Bonus, but lose out on all the other racial goodies of a Human.
Elf: Neither DEX nor INT are important for you, and having a CON penalty when monsters will already be beating on you isn't good.
Dwarf: Half of your racial abilities don't work while mounted, and while the con boost is nice, WIS does nothing for you while CHA is actually useful for a Cavalier, so the penalty hurts you.
Gnome: At first glance the STR penalty would invalidate this, but being Small means you can ride on a Medium mount, and hence, take it places other Cavaliers wouldn't be able to take theirs. CON and CHA are both secondary stats for Cavalier,
Halfling: Similar to the gnome, being Small means you can ride a Medium mount. Dex is less useful than Con, but the Halfling's Outrider racial trait makes up for this.
Weapons:
Lance: It's the pinnacle of mounted combat, and you are a mounted warrior. Double damage on a charge means all of your damage bonuses - Strength, Challenge, Enchantment, Competence, etc. - are all doubled as well.
Two-Handed: Since you'll be pumping STR anyway, this isn't a bad choice for when you're off your horse.
TWF: DEX isn't a high priority for Cavaliers, and the class focuses on neither extra attacks nor precision damage.
Sword & Board: Investing in a shield can help offset the penalties to your AC from Challenge, but you will be fighting a losing battle. Better to just smite your enemies with a single, well-placed charge.
Archery: Almost none of your class abilities work from range, there are very few good ranged Teamwork Feats(and the ones that exist tend to have stiff prerequisites). Can be decent as a Luring Cavalier.
Feats:
General:
Practiced Tactician: Tactician is a nice ability, but getting only a single extra use per day in exchange for a feat is rather costly.
Mounted Blade: This is similar to Cleave, but it works on any attack made while charging, not just when you take a standard action. This means you can kill multiple opponents with a single charge! Sadly, unlike Cleave, the two targets need to be adjacent, and not just within reach, which makes this feat too situational to be green.
Combat:
Horse Master Since a lot of Cavalier's best abilities come in at lower levels, you may find yourself wanting to multiclass. Horse Master makes this more viable by letting your mount scale with your character level instead of your Cavalier level. Note that this requires the Expert Trainer ability, so if you plan on multiclassing, don't take an archetype that gives this up(such as the otherwise excellent Beast Master).
By My Honor: A Cavalier's Guide
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/_/rsrc/1298652229556/images/PZO1115-Alain.jpg?height=400&width=288
“Honor is not diminished by being shared” - Lois McMaster Bujold, Shards of Honor 1986
What is a cavalier? Cavaliers are knights, sworn in oath to serve a cause they must pledge themselves to. A cavalier is a strategist and tactician, organizing and inspiring the peasant soldiers. A cavalier is honorable, upholding his edicts of his order. Above all, a cavalier is mounted. No, really. The point of the class is to have a horse. You are cavalry. Look at the name – cavalier. See the resemblance? There is no arguing this point.
Throughout this guide, I will be using the following color coding system to rank the abilities and features available to the Cavalier:
Red – A poor choice. Either it is detrimental, or you're giving up something exceedingly good.
Orange – An OK choice. Useful in some situations, poor in most others.
Green – A good choice. You will almost always benefit from these.
Blue – An excellent choice, and likely the best possible option.
http://i42.tinypic.com/4h2ps2.jpg
Abilities:
Challenge: The to-hit and damage bonus is nice, but the -2 AC versus unchallenged foes can hurt, especially at lower levels when AC actually matters. This gets better at higher levels, when you have a bigger damage bonus and AC matters less.
Mount: One of the main reasons to play a Cavalier is the Mount. Your Mount is better than a normal horse, since it starts fully combat trained and gets two feats to start(One of which must be Light Armor Proficiency). Better yet, you don't have an Armor Check Penalty to your Ride checks while on your Mount, so you can load up on the heavy armor.
Order: Your order significantly modifies your Cavalier abilities in the same way a Sorcerer's bloodline would.
Blue Rose: You gain the ability to deal nonlethal damage that same way you would deal normal damage, which is useful for taking prisoners but not useful for much else. You also get some limited defensive abilities, but nothing that makes taking this order worthwhile. Oddly, this synergizes well with the Enforcer feat, despite fluff to the contrary.
Cockatrice : You gain some generally useful debuff and self-buffing abilities, but they're situational and don't synergize well since some require you to be alone while others only work in groups.
Dragon: An excellent order with a strong focus on teamwork, you gain a lot of abilities to buff your allies and enable them to do neat tricks. These synergize well with the other cavalier abilities, making this a good choice.
Lion: Similar to the Order of the Dragon, you gain a lot of nice teamwork focused abilities. Unlike the Dragon abilities, most of the Lion abilities are keyed to your CHA, which knocks this down a peg.
Seal: You gain a lot of abilities focused around defending places. This is useful if you're guarding as castle, but as an adventurer you're more likely to be the one bashing down the gates.
Shield: If you take Shield, you're here for Stem the Tide, which provides excellent battlefield control. Sadly it doesn't come in until level 8. Grab a reach weapon and Combat Reflexes to make the most of this.
Star: Some good bonuses to your abilities, but severely limited in uses/day.
Sword: Excellent bonuses for when you're astride your mount, which you should be almost all the time anyway. Unfortunately, this does almost nothing when unmounted.
Tome: You're a knight, not a mage. Do your job, and let the Wizard do his. If you really want to cast from scrolls, invest in UMD.
Tactician: Granting a free Teamwork feat to all your allies? Sublime.
Cavalier's Charge: Removes the penalties for charging and increases the bonuses while mounted.
Expert Trainer: This won't come in super useful unless you're also training mounts for the rest of your party, but hey... it's there if you need it.
Banner: Essentially a permanent bonus versus Fear effects and a bonus to charges. A poor man's Bless, but one that's always active.
Bonus Feat: These are always helpful to have.
Greater Tactician: Now a Swift action to grant teamwork feats, and you can grant a second one. Excellent.
Mighty Charge: Doubled critical threat range is decent, though you still won't be crit fishing with your lance any time soon. The free combat maneuver is better – charge your foes so hard you knock them on their tushie.
Demanding Challenge: It's okay, but could we have gotten this sooner? AC doesn't matter that much at this level anymore, and you're already getting what, +8 to hit your challenge taget when charging?
Greater Banner: Can be useful for removing nasty debuffs from your party.
Master Tactician: Giving two free teamwork feats to the entire party at once? I couldn't ask for more.
Supreme Charge: Doubles damage on a charge, which is useful, though as a capstone it would have been nice to have something cooler.
http://i41.tinypic.com/2a94aom.png
Archtypes:
Beast Rider: Excellent. Some of the more exotic mounts, such as the Dyoniechus or Mastodon, are truly a terror to behold, and you're only giving up Expert Trainer.
Emissary: The couple of mobility bonuses you get aren't worth giving up Tactitian for.
Gendarme: You lose Tactitian, which hurts, but get better at being a mounted terror... Tossup, really.
Honor Guard: If you focus on Aid Another actions and teamwork defense(such as by taking the Dragon Order), this can be good; you lose a lot of Cavalier's offensive bonuses though, which hurts this option.
Luring Cavalier: A very different kind of Cavalier, this archtype focuses on ranged attacks. The abilities are actually quite good, but they don't synergize well with the rest of the stuff Cavalier gets.
Musketeer: My cavalier uses a gun. This is best if taken in conjunction with Luring Cavalier.
Standard Bearer: The bonuses are kind of neat, but the delayed Mount and loss of the charge abilities isn't really worth it unless you're playing in a campaign where you couldn't use a mount often anyway.
Strategist: Enhanced Tactician at the cost of some abilities that weren't that useful anyway? I'll take it.
Ability Scores:
STR – This is where your damage comes from. With a Lance, you deal double damage on a charge, which means all damage modifiers, STR included, also count for double.
DEX – Useful for Initiative and Ride, and that's about it. You'll be in heavy armor, so the AC doesn't matter much, and your Reflex save already sucks so bad a few points of DEX won't make it good.
CON – While you have heavy armor, a lot of Cavalier abilities reduce your AC, so you need to be able to take a beating.
INT – You don't need a whole lot of skills to be a Cavalier, and you already get 4+Int. Dump this.
WIS – Only useful for a Will save.
CHA – Many Order abilities, as well as Challenge, are keyed off CHA. This should be third highest.
Races:
Half-Orc: You get a STR bonus, and Ferocity w/ Darkvision is always nice to have. Still not as good as Human, though.
Human: STR bonus, Bonus Feat(or Eye for Talent Racial Trait), increased Banner ability... yeah Cavalier was made for these guys.
Half-Elf: You get a STR Bonus, but lose out on all the other racial goodies of a Human.
Elf: Neither DEX nor INT are important for you, and having a CON penalty when monsters will already be beating on you isn't good.
Dwarf: Half of your racial abilities don't work while mounted, and while the con boost is nice, WIS does nothing for you while CHA is actually useful for a Cavalier, so the penalty hurts you.
Gnome: At first glance the STR penalty would invalidate this, but being Small means you can ride on a Medium mount, and hence, take it places other Cavaliers wouldn't be able to take theirs. CON and CHA are both secondary stats for Cavalier,
Halfling: Similar to the gnome, being Small means you can ride a Medium mount. Dex is less useful than Con, but the Halfling's Outrider racial trait makes up for this.
Weapons:
Lance: It's the pinnacle of mounted combat, and you are a mounted warrior. Double damage on a charge means all of your damage bonuses - Strength, Challenge, Enchantment, Competence, etc. - are all doubled as well.
Two-Handed: Since you'll be pumping STR anyway, this isn't a bad choice for when you're off your horse.
TWF: DEX isn't a high priority for Cavaliers, and the class focuses on neither extra attacks nor precision damage.
Sword & Board: Investing in a shield can help offset the penalties to your AC from Challenge, but you will be fighting a losing battle. Better to just smite your enemies with a single, well-placed charge.
Archery: Almost none of your class abilities work from range, there are very few good ranged Teamwork Feats(and the ones that exist tend to have stiff prerequisites). Can be decent as a Luring Cavalier.
Feats:
General:
Practiced Tactician: Tactician is a nice ability, but getting only a single extra use per day in exchange for a feat is rather costly.
Mounted Blade: This is similar to Cleave, but it works on any attack made while charging, not just when you take a standard action. This means you can kill multiple opponents with a single charge! Sadly, unlike Cleave, the two targets need to be adjacent, and not just within reach, which makes this feat too situational to be green.
Combat:
Horse Master Since a lot of Cavalier's best abilities come in at lower levels, you may find yourself wanting to multiclass. Horse Master makes this more viable by letting your mount scale with your character level instead of your Cavalier level. Note that this requires the Expert Trainer ability, so if you plan on multiclassing, don't take an archetype that gives this up(such as the otherwise excellent Beast Master).