I really enjoy the Cavalier class. My group tends to talk them down. Any of you have or play a Cavalier in your party? Are there any interesting tricks, either for damage or RP or whatever, that the class is capable of? Also, Medium character or Small character?
Medium Cavs tend to suck in a campaign that isn't in wide open ground all the time. In pfs they always leave their mount at the door and then are like fighters without the feats.
I have a small cav that is a lot of fun and is effective.
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I had no issues with a medium cavalier and dungeon crawls. Early on I was wary about taking my mount in, but later wasn't too worried about it. Squeezing penalties are not a major deal, especially if you buy barding for your mount. Usually, if you're a chargin cavalier using a lance, your mount won't be making attacks anyway, so the penalty to hit is no problem. The penalty to AC is dealt with by Mounted Combat.
One trick I ended up using was giving my mount the Bodyguard and In Harm's Way feats. If someone ever attacked me, my mount would intercept the attack. If it was hit, I would then use Mounted Combat to negate the attack to my mount. It made hits a lot harder to land on either of us.
I've been playing a human samurai (cavalier alternate class) in Rise of the Runelords and have been rocking (two-handed katana build).
The cavalier is a surprisingly flexible class and your choice of archetype/order will change how he/she works mechanically in a substantial fashion. I've been looking at putting together a Beast Rider/Honor Guard (Order of the Dragon) Cavalier that rides a bear. If you raise your mount's intelligence to 3 then you can choose most any feats you like and you can have some real fun.
Since the Cav's mount is already pretty tough and the Cav has built in bonuses to mounted combat you don't need to spend your feats improving your ability to fight mounted. Instead choose general purpose feats that will help you regardless of the situation (e.g., Power Attack, Furious Focus, Iron Will). A medium cavalier will have trouble getting his mount into dungeons at early levels (say before level 8 or so) but at later levels this won't be an issue. If you want to have your mount with you always go with a small race.
Having a small character is a great trick. My wife plays a halfling cavalier in our RotRL campaign and she has been our primary damage dealer, regardless of open terrain or dungeon-crawling.
These two aren't tricks, but don't forget your Challenge and the ability to share a teamwork feat. She has forgotten these a couple of times and kicked herself later for it.
donato: That's exactly the kind of gold I'm looking for. I never would've considered that. Pretty awesome.
The tactician ability gets pretty stupid at high levels. Paired Opportunists+Broken Wing Gambit = AOOs all over. Also works well with order abilities that gain AOOs.
Is it at all possible to have your mount jump over the target of a Ride-By Attack, Spirited Charge?
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My party has a kobold cavalier with a giant weasel mount (re-skinned dog), who took the Order of the Land. He primarily attacks from range with his bow, and occasionally charges into melee thwacking people with his bow as an improvised melee weapon. It's generally hilarious, and surprisingly effective in combat.
I've been looking at the Tactician ability. Only 1/day per 5 levels? Seems a bit low. What's the advantage of using them over the Emissary archetype (aside from the ability to take beast rider).
Tactician is one of those Abilities that gets better at higher levels.
Though it is really handy to take a powerful teamwork feat and then surround the Dungeon Boss and pop Tactician so your entire party can take advantage of the feat for the full number of rounds. The larger the Party the more powerful the ability is.
Cavalier is honestly like a Bard. They get better the more players you have and the more the party works together.
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Mounts can be traine din tricks and our partys Cavalier Horse had the best Preception roll of anyone on the group. He was trained to warn the party against ambushes. VERY useful. And there were a number of fights in cities that basically turned into "What Can The Cavalier Charge Down Now?" Small Cavs are nice, but Medium ones can get cool things like giant wolves and such.
Solo Cavs need to focus on teamwork with their mount. No seriously, turn your mount into a combat animal compaion and dismount and suddenly you have a heavy flanking buddy.
Cavaliers work great for wilderness exploration hexcrawls where the chance of extended dungeon or urban exploration are really limited.
In campaigns that are going to have a lot of dungeon work or urban encounters I think they really struggle especially if the dungeons tend to more three dimensional rather than big flat levels with broad corridors with easy transitions points from level. Even mounts for small riders like halflings can really struggle with a really three-dimensional dungeon setting with lots of elevation changes. Pulling a dog out of pit trap can be distinct challenge for instance as you typically will need to rig up a harness of some sort and pull them out, etc.
Really urban campaigns also tend to have a lot of elevation changes plus the complication of explaining to the authorities why you should be allowed to take your mount into all sorts of buildings when they would be typically be stabled.
Yeah magic items that put the animal companion or mount into storage can be really nice for giving the cavalier some operational flexibility but I just think there are going to be enough times that the mount just won't be available and the cavalier is typically a mounted combat specialist.
Cavaliers can focus on anything. Mine normally only use the mount for transport and such.
That said there is archetypes like Musketeer which replace the mount ability. Though I do say that type of Archetype needs to exist I bit more.
But if Firearm-based Archetypes are available and you know you are going to be in urban/dungeon/tight spaced areas then Musketeer is one of the best archetypes in the game for a combat leader.
Non-mount oriented templates are definitely a good way to expand the viability of the class for some campaign styles.
I kinda wish there was a good template that replaced the mount with a more traditional animal companion or even a set of animals (like several warhounds). Yeah that kinda gets into the Druid/Ranger realm but I think there can definitely be some packmaster cavalier concepts.
I now know what my next campaign setting Archetype is going to be...
Say it puts off the Animal Companion til Level 4 like a Ranger's?
Goblin beastrider cavalier with a giant gecko mount. Ran arrows down from the cavern ceiling.
How can that not be fun AND effective?
Goblin Alchemist(Fire Bomber)/Fighter(Archer or Crossbowman) is fun as well.
Though I have a player wanting to build a Goblin/Halfling Mounted Archery focused Cavalier-based Mammoth Rider. We done the math and it frightened us.
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Tactician is one of those Abilities that gets better at higher levels.
Though it is really handy to take a powerful teamwork feat and then surround the Dungeon Boss and pop Tactician so your entire party can take advantage of the feat for the full number of rounds. The larger the Party the more powerful the ability is.
Cavalier is honestly like a Bard. They get better the more players you have and the more the party works together.
Tactician is actually a terrible ability for a straight cavalier. It's much better for a fighter or other class that multiclasses into cavalier at higher levels.
Tacticion only works with the bonus feat you took with the ability, meaning it only works with a Teamwork feat that you qualified for at level 1 if you're playing a straight cavalier. It's much more effective if you've taken 10 levels of fighter and then dip cavalier to take Coordinated Charge or a similarly powerful feat.
Goblin Alchemist(Fire Bomber)/Fighter(Archer or Crossbowman) is fun as well.
Though I have a player wanting to build a Goblin/Halfling Mounted Archery focused Cavalier-based Mammoth Rider. We done the math and it frightened us.
How so?
@Ssalarn: You are forgetting Level 9's Greater Tactician Feat & Level 17's Master Tactician which grant you extra teamwork feats and Master Tactician even allows you to use all of your Teamwork Feats with Tactician.
@donato: How so what?
@donato: How so what?
What about the Archery Mammoth Rider frightened you?
It was more of a yikes how am I going to challenge this.
If an Archery Ranger with a Horse is an Abrams this thing is the Landkreuzer P.1000 Ratte or the Landkreuzer P.1500 Monster
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Here's my trick: the Tactician ability grants the teamwork feat to ALL your allies, including your mount. Since most teamwork feats specify an "adjacent ally" and "riding on" counts as "adjacent to", this pretty much means that your teamwork feats will always work for you regardless of what your allies do.
If you can get your mount's Int high enough, you may want to actually have the mount take these feats itself just so they're "always on". For example, Lookout is a pretty good feat but useless for Tacticianing because the surprise round has always passed once you get to use it, but if you and your mount both actually have it, you pretty much get two Perception checks each combat and a full round of action if you make both. Escape Route is another one you'll want your mount to have-- it pretty much means you'll never provoke AoO's while mounted again.
Also remember-- if you wield a lance, you have reach and your mount threatens adjacent. That's quite a threatened area you've got there between the two of you.
I've looked at all of the teamwork feats in detail. I must say I rather like the idea of pairing with my mount in a teamwork feat kind of way.
I'm not sure lookout works while mounted as I believe you share the same initiative. If you are merely adjacent then I think it works.
Interesting teamwork feat combos:
Duck and Cover: You and your mount each roll twice for your reflex saves. If you take your mounts, you fall off and ride check to not take fall damage. If your mount takes yours both of you fall down. Still, your mount should have evasion by this point. Also, if you carry a shield, your mount gets a +2 AC bonus, and it's a cover bonus so it stacks with Mounted Shield.
Broken Wing Gambit: You and your mount can each take this feat at level five. If you take Paired Opportunists as your tactician feat, you can hand that out to your buddies and then each provoke with your broken wing tactics. Combat Reflexes is pretty well required for this to be effective. This requires your mount to spend its skill ranks on bluff, which aren't all that useful outside of qualifying.
Shake it Off: This is a dandy feat to have always on. It's a feat that gives +1 to all saves, for both you and your mount.
Escape Route: It seems cheesy, but it might mean that you never provoke from movement. I would ask your GM about it before spending two feats to get it. (One for you and one for your mount.)
Pack Attack: This allows you to charge into a flanking position. A small bonus but not to be underestimated. If you're using a flank buddy mount, you can pretty easily dismount and full attack into a flanking position against medium or small opponents.
Tandem Trip: Very handy if your mount is a wolf.
As for Coordinated Charge, you can take your first level as the Dragoon Fighter archetype and get two relevant feats and you'll pick up your Greater Tactician feat at 10th. Of course you'll need one more teamwork feat to qualify, so take one of the above.
The first time your mount is intelligent enough to learn other feats is level 5 if you aren't human. (Ability Score Increase at 4th level, next feat at 5th level.) If you are human, you can swap out your starting feat to let your mount get a +2 bonus to intelligence right from the get go. At that point, you could get nothing but teamwork feats as far as I'm concerned.
This is also handy info for an Inquisitor with the Animal domain that gets an animal companion suitable as a mount.