[Legendary Games] Chaaarge into battle with Legendary Cavaliers!


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Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

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Mount up and dive into the fray with our latest killer class compendium, Legendary Cavaliers by N. Jolly, Hal Kennette, Dave Nelson, Jason Nelson, and Blake Morton! These knights in shining armor astride their faithful mounts command their fellow adventurers as battlefield leaders, but this book helps cavaliers become so much more! You'll find class features, options, feats, magic items, and other rules compatible with the standard cavalier, but you’ll also find a legendary cavalier class redesigned from the ground up to truly shine in more than just mounted combat. Check out new uses for your class abilities plus new ones like Commander’s Aura and Knight’s Renown, along with exotic mount archetypes like the Draconic Avenger and Pegasus Knight alongside unusual variants like the defensive Dreadnaught and the hard-hunting Hound Master, along with the lethal Lancer prestige class and a sample legendary cavalier ready to use in your campaign. You can grab this indispensable reference for the most chivalrous of classes at the Legendary Games webstore, Open Gaming Store, Paizo, DrivethruRPG, and Amazon!

We're also VERY excited to drop a quick preview for the next installment in this series, hopefully headed your way next week, with Legendary Barbarians by Jeff Gomez and Jason Nelson! We should have the layout proof ready in the middle of this week and hopefully all fixes in over the weekend and ready for release on Monday! What's in that book, you ask?

Legendary Barbarians is the latest volume in our series of class-focused player supplements, this time focusing on the fearsome barbarians! This core class has long been a staple of fantasy settings, representing both the power of anger and the rejection of civilization. Legendary Barbarians enhances these ideas with a streamlined redesign of the class that provides flexibility, power, and flavor. With Legendary Barbarians, the barbarian is able to choose the benefits of her rage, opening the class up to a limitless variety of concepts. Enlarging rage increases the barbarian’s size (Hulk Smash), while invincible rage lets her shrug off attacks with ease. Bestial rage transforms the barbarian to an animal and vicious rage sacrifices her hit points for greater damage. Dozens of alternate class features allow a piece-by-piece construction of your perfect barbarian, while 11 new archetypes (such as the mutagenic rager, slavering nightmare, and righteous berserker) tie your abilities together in a theme. The savage archetype trades rage for a more stoic approach, while the fury cannot stop raging! All this, plus tons of new feats like Wield Halfling, magic items like the totemic club, barbarian brands, sample character builds, and more, including a ready-to-use legendary barbarian, Gorund Wildwalker!

We're also working along on Legendary Rangers, Legendary Alchemists, and a Legendary Samurai and Ninja class compendiums coming your way later this summer! It's gonna be WILD!

Silver Crusade

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Ah, time for the dev post about this project:

The beginning
So I'm actually starting slightly before the book because an interesting note here was that this was a book that I had a poll on deciding. I'd asked the community what class they most thought required a rebuild, and cavalier was the clear winner. Let it never be said that Legendary Games and I don't listen to what you want and work to create content that's in demand :D

Legendary Cavaliers basics
So in a lot of ways, the legendary cavalier is a large departure from the base class. In legendary class rebuilds, I generally attempt to keep a class close to its base form, accentuating the positive while filling in gaps to help create a more fulfilling experience. With Legendary Cavalier though...

...that wasn't how things played out. Cavalier has an identity crisis in that it's like the fighter that the fluff just does not match the reality of playing the class. It didn't do what it said it did, and the majority of the class features didn't even play into the idea of nobility, instead possessing mostly combat focused class features and some paltry social ones. So I decided to rebuild far more than others.

This is also the first project on which I've taken an apprentice writer to help me out, which was David Nelson. Their help was very much needed to fill in class gaps and give a better sense of what we both wanted to accomplish here.

Legendary Cavaliers specifics
As stated, there was a lot under the hood that was changed, and quite a bit of it had to do with making the mount more viable. Now there's class features which buff its attack roles, make it able to travel across far more terrain than before, and even squeeze into smaller spaces so that tight dungeon corridors are no longer the wall that they once were. Making a mount that felt vital was a large goal here, and one the team and I worked on a lot.

On the social side of things, cavaliers didn't have a lot going for themselves. That's where things like skilled diplomat, knight's renown, and courtly skill come into play. These new class features work towards not only making a Legendary Cavalier a beast on the field of battle, but also a powerful player in the games of courtly intrigue. Charisma is an important stat for the class, and we wanted to make things play out more fluidly for those who wanted to play a refined knight.

Speaking of fulfilling a leadership role, the Legendary Cavalier introduces powerful commander's auras which allow them to take on a far more dedicated leadership role in combat. Allowing for them to grant bonuses like additional damage, skills, movement speed, and other benefits, a Legendary Cavalier is going to feel like someone who is meant to be followed, to be respected, and to be feared.

The remaining class features are ones you would expect, including returning ways to make charging more powerful and everything else that you would expect from the class. Orders and banners make a return, but in a more background role considering everything else that's given.

Favored Class Bonuses
With a new class comes new favored class bonuses, and Legendary Cavalier has tons. Not only that, but none of them are race locked, presenting even more ways for players to customize their experience. The idea of racially gating off content was always something the team felt iffy on, so we just threw it out!

Alternative Class Features
Since some people wanted more customization in the class, the Legendary Cavalier also comes with an idea borrowed from Legendary Barbarians (spoiler alert), alternative class features. These are like smaller archetypes which allow single or related class features to be traded out for other listed class features, further allowing players to design the Legendary Cavalier in their own way. From swapping commander's aura for weapon training and even regaining the old cavalier's challenge mechanic, the Legendary Cavalier ends up being versatile in a way unique to the Legendary Classes line.

Draconic Avenger
Keeping with the spirit of alteration, the draconic avenger archetype allows a player to gain a drake companion, while also fixing many of the issues of the original drake. By 5th level it can be ridden by a medium sized character, possessing even more natural attacks, and other small tweaks, it's designed to play in a way that will make the thrill of riding a dragon easily reached even at early levels.

Firearm Soldier
If you know me, you know I love guns, and a firearm based cavalier was always going to happen. Replacing charge features for firearm proficiency and skill, the firearm soldier plays differently enough to make it a unique experience (and even more so if you use the firearm modifications from Legendary Gunslingers).

Houndmaster
An old favorite of mine, the houndmaster trades in a horse for a pair of loyal hunting hounds which share an attack and magic item slots. Increasing in level allows for cool team up attacks from them, eventually allowing the pair to literally rip a creature limb from limb (with associated rules for dismemberment).

Iron General
In the topic of things I like, punching is on them. If you're looking to play a General Armstrong style character, Iron General is the one. An archetype that focuses on hard punches, charges, dashes, and blowing things away with a single blow, this is definitely what you'd want.

Masked Traveler
A smaller archetype for those with a more dramatic flair, the masked traveler further embraces the vigilante feel of the class at the cost of charging based offense, allowing them to act in a daring fashion while still maintaining a courtly facade.

Mounted Champion
And this is a first for Legendary Games, as it is the first time that a Spheres of Might compatible archetype has been included. The Mounted Champion gives an adept's progression of sphere talents, integrating it into the normal progression at the cost of commander's aura. It's definitely an archetype which will help new players dip into this unique system, and give experienced players an entirely new resource to explore.

Pegasus Knight
So horses are boring, dragons are aggressive, but pegasi? Those are some regal creatures! An archetype intended to take to the sky, the Pegasus Knight gives unique rules for a non-magical pegasus which can be obtained at 1st level as well as giving all the tools needed for aerial combat to be a key point in their offensive routine.

New Feats
A few new feats are provided to help with archetypes which lost commander's aura and others which simply want a few new tricks.

New Magic Items
And of course, there's easier ways to ride your mount, bringing it back to life, and even sharing its damage. Obviously, there's lots of new magic stuff to bolt to your horse.

Sample Character
Asra Verain is our newest member to the cannon, a young hot shot with few friends but his horse and his unrequited love. Search the Free City of Goldhaven, he's easily a friend or foe, but probably insufferable regardless.

Final Thoughts
Legendary Cavaliers was not a project on which I thought I'd be working, and there were some rough spots in the middle (like moving during the playtest), but as a whole, I think it's a bold step in how class rebuilds could take shape in the future. With the recently announced new classes, I can tell you that at least one of them will also break the mold in this fashion. Thanks to everyone who assisted on this project, and hope everyone reading this enjoys it as much as I do.

Shadow Lodge

Kk I'm interested now. Did you guys do anything to increase the number of mount options for the medium cavalier going forward? As it stands, medium cavaliers are kind of screwed into just rolling horse or camel and though 4 Winds Fantasy book adds a lot of horse options to the table it still doesn't help people looking for more exotic options for their characters or GMs looking to make a statement on what their new specialized group of mounted lords rides. Combine that with the long delay that happens to get access to the more interesting and exotic stuff and you can see how the pre 7th options fall really short.

So, does this book add rules to say, get a hindu cavalier on elephant back before 7th, a caveman on a T-Rex, or the infamous bear cavalry from Eberron at least started before we are well into the mid game of our build and potentially months if not years into playing our character?

Scarab Sages Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games

Thanks for the great response to this book so far! For those looking to walk on the wild side, I should be getting the layout proof of Legendary Barbarians in today so hopefully still on track for release on Monday!

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