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Select Order of the Sword, then charge with your lance
Recommended Trait: Lessons of Chaldira
Recommended Feats:
1 Power Attack
3 Mounted Combat
5 Ride by Attack
6 Risky Striker
7 Wheeling Charge
8 Spirited Charge
If you have problems hitting then get furious focus.
Give your mount 3 int, Toughness, Narrow Frame, Improved Unarmed Strike, Dragon Style.
One player in my Runelord AE game is playing a halfling cavalier. Started with Str 15. Level 6 so far, so strength is 16 now. Feats are Mounted Combar, Ride-By Attack, Spirited Charge and Power Attack. The group iis pretty new-ish to pathfinder and because of bad tactics, he hasn't managed many charges yet. Yesterday, he was posessed and went all-out against the party's dwarf barbarian. Hit him with challenge, power attack and spirited Charge with his +1 lance. I think that was nearly 60 damage. The dwarf has by far the most HP in the group but was reduced to like 5 HP with that one attack. The group was pretty impressed (partial because he hadn't charged much yet and without charge, his damage is decent at best).
Bottom line: halfling cavalier can work pretty good, IF you manage to get your charges. Work with the group and coordinate your tactics accordingly.
I'm running a group through Carrion Crown right now and Blave has it exactly right.
Our halfling cavalier is a great character who does nutty damage WHEN he charges. Unfortunately his other three party members are a wizard, a sorcerer, and a squishy oracle. Since he's an honorable defender of his friends and allies he hardly gets to charge at all since he feels like he HAS to plant himself between the baddies and the squishies.
Which is correct, since the very first combat was nearly a TPK when he charged off and let zombies tear the casters to shreds.
His teamwork feats also give him zero benefit since has nobody to flank with.
For a cavalier to be effective you must have:
A party that can support a skirmisher character that is always out of formation.
A tactical knowledge of when and where to charge, and the ability and will to do so.
If you do you'll rip everybody. You'll RIP them. It's absolutely nasty.
If not...eh. You're a second rate fighter with a higher than average move speed due to your mount.
Oh, and his mounts die ALL the time.
Charging doesn't work well if you are the only melee fighter in the party. If you are, chances are you can't charge ahead because your souishies are screwed or the enemy simply closes into melee range before you can charge (cavaliers don't exactly excel at initiative).
You need one (or better: two) additional melee characters that keep the enemies from the squishies and prevent them from closing in too much. Of course, all that doesn't help much if the other melee guys don't mind their positioning and stand in the way all the time. So talk to them.
Being a tactician isn't just a class feature of the calvalier, but pretty much required to play him effectivly.
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Here is my halfling cavalier:
Str 15 (17-2) 13pts
Dex 16 (14+2) 5pts
Con 12 (12) 2pts
Int 12 (12) 2pts
Wis 10 (10) 0pts
Cha 10 (8+2) -2pts
Total: 20pts
As you can see, no major weaknesses.
The Emissary archetype gives you a number of nice abilities and bonus feats but you lose heavy armor (a small loss), tactician (depends on the group), and banner (not that big a deal imo).
What you gain is: Mounted Combat, Mobility for you AND your mount, a buffed up version of Trick Riding, Mounted Skirmisher+faster mount, and Erratic Charge.
Order of the Sword gives you:
* Morale bonuses to attack the target of your challenge (while on your mount).
* +2 for one of your saves. This is equivalent to taking one of the improved save feats. I usually choose Will.
* +4 dodge bonus to your AC vs a set against your charge (minor ability)
* Add your mounts strength modifier to your damage roll when charging. Can I say, wow! By level 9 that means your boar is adding 5damage to your charge attacks, 15 on a lance charge with Spirited Charge.
A bonus feat.
* Finally, at level 15 add your charisma bonus to attack and damage rolls against your challenge target. Many campaigns do not go to level 15, even if they do, you can have a +6 headband giving you some charisma boost to make use of this. It is not worth boosting your charisma from the start.
(bonus feat key: C = Cavalier, O = order, E = Emissary)
1) Power Attack
1C) Mounted Combat
3) Weapon Focus <lance> (or some other feat)
5) Ride By attack
5E) Mobility (note: Mount gets this as well)
6C) Spirited Charge
7) Lunge (or some other feat)
8O) Skill Focus (Ride)
9E) Trick Riding (better than normal)
9) ??? (Undecided)
Mount stat increases: spend the +1 stat bonus at 4 HD (level 4) on intelligence to open up other feats.
Mount bonus feats
1C) Light Armor
5E) Mobility
Here are two feat builds I would consider up through level 9 (8HD):
Build 1: Power Attack, Improved Overrun, Charge Through, 1 available feat
Build 2: Improved Unarmed Strike, Dragon Style, 2 available feats (I would start with the overrun build at this point to combine the two builds).
Build 1 is good for charging through an enemy (or a friend) while Build 2 ignores difficult terrain while charging and can charge through friends.
However, some GMs may rule that animals are not able to perform unarmed strikes and thus not able to take Improved Unarmed Strike. Expect table variation there but I haven't seen anything in the rules to prevent this.
This build is not built for a stand up and slug it out fight. It is built to charge, ride past, and charge again. If you have no other tanks in your party then I would not suggest a cavalier (or at least not a charge based cavalier). One advantage of this build is you can negate 2 hits per round on your mount. Due to mobility you can also better ignore movement related AoOs.
By level 9 you should be doing about 88.5 points of damage on a one handed lance charge attack against a challenged enemy. (+2 magic weapon, +4 strength damage with +2belt of strength, +5boar strength, +6 power attack, +9challenge, +3.5avg lance). That jumps up to 103.5 if it is a two-handed lance charge.
Your challenge+charge attack bonus should be: 9(BAB) +1(size) +4(str) +1(weapon focus) +4(charge) +3(challenge, morale from order of the sword) +2(magic) = +24
Tactics are to charge whoever can be charged each round, AoOs be damned. :)
With either of the mount builds you should be able to get around the battlefield decently well.
- Gauss
I played a halfling cavalier for the first time this week in my first try at Pathfinder Society. Wolf mount, medium armor, and the helpful trait. My mount would bite and attempt trips and I would use aid another to give the barbarian a +4 to hit. I would much rather he successfully land a 2d6+12 attack than myself hitting for 1d6+2. I took Order of the Dragon and the Honor Guard archetype to help me eventually improve the bonuses from aid another. I'm considering taking a level of bard and going into Battle Herald so I can boost my allies even more.
Of course, I'll be playing this character with the same group for PFS every time so I can afford to focus on aid another. I actually have Charisma as his highest stat and he's got a rank in Bluff, Intimidate, and Diplomacy. I'm even toying with making him a feint specialist, using tactician to give all allies Feint Partner so he can cause an enemy to be denied their Dex to all the party's attacks.
He won't ever be very optimized for combat but he sure will make everyone else look good in a fight.
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Ride By Attack as written does not work if you define charge's 'closest square' as 'closest square to you' (which is how most people define it). But, according to SKR it seems to be defined as 'closest space from which you can attack the opponent relative to the opponent'. If it matters to you, here is a diagram from SKR: LINK
In none of his examples are you actually charging to the closest square to you.
Here is a link to his discussion on this
- Gauss
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If you don't want to be a charging cavalier, I would recommend you take Order of the Cockatrice, which gives you +2 to hit against shaken foes, and dazzling display as a free feat at level 2.
Take the feat Taunt and you get to use bluff to intimidate, saving you skill points, and you take no penalty for being smaller than the foes that you are intimidating.
Mathius, what is the source and page of the Collar of Reduce Animal? The OP is limited to the CRB, APG, Ultimate Combat, and Ultimate Magic.
As for your numbers, I agree, its why I was suggesting the cavalier build I suggested. At level 9, while charging a challenged target he can do 103.5 on an average hit (without breaking the bank as far as WBL is concerned).
- Gauss
Why bother with bard? Go Druid and you will get access to Feather Step and wont miss out on any of your mount progression. The main drawback of course will be the lack of metal armor but even if you wear metal armor and lose spellcasting (and nothing else at level 1 druid) that won't affect you using a wand of Feather Step.
Of course, you could just go for UMD and the wand of Feather Step and bypass dipping altogether. Or get a potion of it.
- Gauss
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Unless you dump CHA and INT into the toilet, most cavaliers won't have a problem controlling their mount due to lack of a good Handle Animal score. A mount with an INT of 6 is nice, but the cavalier can just raise the mount's INT normally (and then take character feats).
Cavaliers forfeit Share Spells, so having an extraordinarily intelligent mount isn't as killer as it could otherwise be.
Also, GMs tend to like intelligent critters more than the players do -- nothing makes you appreciate a brainless animal more than having your GM start roleplaying your smart animal giving you lip when you want it to do something that might be dangerous.
= = = =
can a melee be viable with only STR of 14?
Absolutely -- all that matters is that you achieve hits and do damage. Cavaliers and paladins (etc) have ways of do thing which don't require 26 strength. ...but more is better than less.
For build advice, the feat Boon Companion is just begging you to multiclass with your cavalier -- and up to four levels out are pretty nice. Waiting until 5th for all of Mounted, Ride by and Power Attack as a halfling is so lame you might as well be an oracle.
* Power Attack at 1st-level?
-- No. Why? Answer: because you will kill every opponent you hit with a lance-charge at that level in one hit anyway. So, *hit* by not sacking your attack bonus.
Hmm....
Halfling 20pt
STR-13
DEX+14
CON:14
INT:12
WIS:12
CHA+14
Traits: Berserker of the Society, (any second trait)
00 saves 03 03 02 (including halfling and rage bonuses)
01 barb1 07 03 04 [Mounted Fury:(Fast Rider/mount move+10)], Combat Reflexes
02 fight1 09 03 04 [dragoon:(Mounted Combat)(SF:Ride)
03 cava1 11 03 04 [Gendarme:(Power Attack)][Order of the Warrior], Boon Companion
04 cava2 12 03 04 STR>14, [Honor in All Things]
05 fight2 13 03 04 Ride by Attack, Spirited Charge
06 barb2 14 03 04 [Reckless Abandon]
07 cava3 14 04 05 Indomitable Mount
08 cava4 ...etc.
The real trick then is to raid Ultimate Equipment for juicy new items which pump your limited class abilities.
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They should give gnome and halfling cavaliers the favored class bonus of +1 damage per level on a challenge to even out the damage differential and make them more equivalent.
Why?
The halfling is +1 or +2 to AC, +1 to all saves, and can ride his normal-sized mount anywhere...and that's a doable trade for at most 6pts less damage on a Spirited Charge (factoring d6 vs d8 lance and relative STR-2).
Well, we should consider it -4 strength not -2 since any other cav build will have +2 strength after point buy.
That is a difference of 3 damage points (2handed) and 1 damage point for the weapon size difference. A total on a spirited charge of 12points. BUT, the halfling will get that charge in places that a human cannot.
- Gauss
You can give up your bonuses to Acrobatics and Climb (+2 to each) for a base movement of 30 to keep you at the normal 20 in medium and upwards by taking the alternate racial trait Fleet of Foot.
Should be available with the books listed
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It depends entirely on the style of cavalier you want to play. I have a level 15 halfling Order of the Sword cavalier (Venture Captain Grayson and his faithful WARPIG! Ozzy), and have had an incredible time with him throughout his career. Probably the most fun PC I have had in nearly 30 years of gaming.
His starting stats were
Str: 16
Dex: 12
Con: 10
Int: 10
Wis: 8
Cha: 16
At level 12, he had reached
Str: 18
Dex: 12
Con: 10
Int: 10
Wis: 9 (hey, he got EVER so slightly more observant)
Cha: 16
He does ridiculous amounts of damage while mounted, has a decent armor class in +5 full plate, and acts as party face most of the time.
On the minus side of things, he is quite obviously a glass cannon. The low Constitution has taken him out of the fight on more than one occasion, and his low Wisdom means that most of the time he is not aware of what is going on until Ozzy starts jumping around. He is also somewhat prone to being gullible.
Even with those flaws, he has been immensely fun to play as a sort of ou.t-of-touch halfling playboy who always thinks he is in charge.
I will note that I use Wheeling Charge, and I see that a few others have mentioned it as well. It is a fantastic feat (charge through allies and you can make one turn during your charge up to 90 degrees). However, it is from the Cities of Golarion splatbook, and it doesn't look like the OP's GM is granting that access.
Edited for dumb typos.