One of my players has asked me to post this and see what is the general consensus of this idea.
Right now:
On horse the cavalier gets +4 to hit (instead of +2) and no AC penalty.
But on foot he gets no bonuses, and he feels the cavalier is pretty useless on foot.
He proposes that he gets these bonus while on foot also, so he will be the master of the charge.
The advantage on horse will be the damage the lance does.
As I have not spent that much time looking at the cavalier, and try to keep the players somewhat happy, would this modification be a good idea?
I need opinions from other martial players if this modification is needed for the cavalier.
Design Manager
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So, the Cavalier still usually gets his Challenge and Order bonuses even while not mounted, and later his Banner, which also provides bonuses on a charge. Rather than changing the class, I'd recommend pointing him towards feats like Narrow Frame for his mount, which will allow a large-sized mount to function anywhere a medium character could go. That'll let him squeeze more out of his mount without changing the chassis of the class much. The Cavalier is intended to kind of work on a wave pattern in combat, with his mounted charges being capable of the highest single-target dpr in the game, often with some maneuvers or other nasty tricks thrown on top. That's balanced to a certain extent by the fact that he's typically not going to be able to put that kind of dpr out every single round, though even without a charge a full attack by him and his mount should still prove pretty devastating.
I don't see making any changes to the class as necessary.
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Design Manager
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I forgot to ask, but is he finding that he's not getting a lot of opportunities to actually participate in combat while mounted? What race is he and what kind of animal is his mount? Is he going traditional Cavalier or an archetype, and if he's using an archetype, which one? There's a lot you can do with the Cavalier without having to house-rule anything, so knowing where the crux of his discontent lies could help narrow down the best RAW ways to resolve any problems and see if that helps address any issues before actually changing the class to the point where he'll be getting a +9 to his charge attacks even while unmounted with no AC penalty. While it probably wouldn't be game-breaking, it's still a lot and throws off some base assumptions of the class (i.e. that he needs to be mounted for his uber-charges). Was the bonus to charge attacks and negating the AC penalty the only change you were planning on making, or were you looking at giving him the other charge abilities unmounted as well?