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Over the last week I have had great opportunities to playtest the Cavalier from both the stand point of a NPC and a PC. Here is my observations:
PC (played by friend, me as GM)
Human Cavalier Lv 5
Situation: Attack a fort post containing several guards and towers with archers; he was accompanied by generic NPC's.
Result: Cav never got off his horse, his charge ability combined with a lance meant he killed guards in one hit often. Archers were a problem as he could not reach them, and his allies had a difficult time taking the down. He did not get a chance to use his challenge or oaths. Oaths seemed arbitrary to the player and only one oath fit the characters concept. I housed ruled that he could simply take oath of Protection multiple times to allow multiple uses (take it 2x = 2/day).
Observations:
-Challenge seemed pointless as long as he was on his horse
-Charging damage was high
-Highly enjoy the orders
-Skill selection was perfect for players taste
-He quoted "a few of the oaths don't fit concept or are not worth taking, oath of greed seems like a perfect feature for (player name here) to abuse a chaotic play-style";
NPC (me as GM)
Human Cavalier Lv 9 - CR 8
Accompanied by several smaller units (CR 1's to CR 4's)
PC's - lv 6 dwarf barbarian; lv 6 elf monk 5/assassin 1
Situation: Home town invaded by imperial army lead by Cavalier. PC's are a part of an uprising including town folks and town militia. Ogre barbarian introduce into battle by round 3.
Result: Cavalier (unmounted) ignored players (at first) to pursue town lord, players avoided cavalier at first. Blocked from lord, he used Banner, Lord's Call, and For the King early on to rally troops and then gave command to release ogre (round 2).
Player B (monk/assassin) pursued ogre via rooftops and archery. Success!
Player A (barbarian) pursed minions around cavalier. Success!
Cavalier got mounted, challenged player A, charged player A, dealt a ton of damage (but not unreasonable) to player A. Player's felt a mage would have died, but a barbarian in rage is fine. Player A (not mounted) kills Cavalier (mounted).
Observations:
-Order is important for arch type
-challenge is a good supplement for damage (on par with sneak attack), more damage than barbarian was doing, but only against 1 target and only once. Could see a problem with prolong challenge use.
-Oath of vengeance, protection, and ally was chosen; none used
-Mounted is nice, but not overpowering
-Ride penalty is harsh, but not unreasonable at high levels.
-Horse was strong, but not unreasonably. LIKE!
Overall Observations
-Challenge may be too much damage, maybe compare to ranger?
-Oaths need drastic changes/rewording/fixes or removal.
-Feels if oaths were removed, nothing would be loss.
-Mount abilities to Non-Mount abilities ratio is perfect (don't change)
-High level play is just as effective and fun as low-level
-Low level feels like a one trick, but realizes in a different situation would have used different tactics.
-No Options exist for a Archer/Range Cavalier at all. (please fix/add)
I do suggest taking a heavy look at oaths and adding something for range options (i.e. not every cavalier without a lance is dumb).
I posted this in response to the lack of playtest results being posted on the boards, or the tremendous amounts of speculations, or arguing. I am, however, curious as to if anyone else has notice a similar problem with the oaths?
Anyone?
I didn't think they were as poor as you seem to, though I think having to uphold the oath for at least a day or two before getting the bonus for some of them and having the benefit last for a while longer would make them more useable, and easily remembered.
There aren't a lot of playtest reports around, but they've been pretty universal in agreement that the oaths are lacking something right now. That's also the general consensus of those of us who havn't had a chance to playtest yet.
I posted this in response to the lack of playtest results being posted on the boards, or the tremendous amounts of speculations, or arguing. I am, however, curious as to if anyone else has notice a similar problem with the oaths?
Anyone?
I just ignored the oaths when statting-up my NPC, they really didn't make sense (NPC gets the bonus from oath of vengeance, after he kills the PC?). Won't play-out till next session...
I honestly wonder if they just threw the oath mechanic on there to see what people would say...
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I concur on oaths feeling lacking in implementation. They are awesome in concept, on par with the order selection in defining your particular cavalier's ideals and goals. I think if the mechanics are smoothed out and made more pleasing, they can help define the class.
As it is, they feel disjointed -- as others have noticed, benefits accruing ex post facto don't seem fitting. I would much rather see something like Oath of Vengeace, Oath of Protection, and Oath of Justice become benefits acquired while carrying them out, for instance. Seems like oaths work better as a continued set of actions/constraints on a character, accompanied by a mechanical benefit for sticking to them.
I'm surprised to hear that the challenge ability saw little usage in your lvl 5 playtest. At lvl 1 (only played 2 sessions so far) I used it every single combat, on almost every single swing. Other than some small worries about being flanked, there's little to no downside to it. You don't even get penalized for attacking someone other than the challenge target (which seems OK; if they made that another stricture, I'd look for something else to change accordingly in the benefits or other constraints).
I'm very pro-cavalier at this point. It feels mostly "done" in mechanics, and very complete in flavor. Establishing specific Orders in your own campaign seems easy enough to do with the examples given, and if the Oaths get revamped mechanically, the flavor seems easy enough to also expand for personal campaign suitability.
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I concur on oaths feeling lacking in implementation. They are awesome in concept, on par with the order selection in defining your particular cavalier's ideals and goals. I think if the mechanics are smoothed out and made more pleasing, they can help define the class.
As it is, they feel disjointed -- as others have noticed, benefits accruing ex post facto don't seem fitting. I would much rather see something like Oath of Vengeace, Oath of Protection, and Oath of Justice become benefits acquired while carrying them out, for instance. Seems like oaths work better as a continued set of actions/constraints on a character, accompanied by a mechanical benefit for sticking to them.
I'm surprised to hear that the challenge ability saw little usage in your lvl 5 playtest. At lvl 1 (only played 2 sessions so far) I used it every single combat, on almost every single swing. Other than some small worries about being flanked, there's little to no downside to it. You don't even get penalized for attacking someone other than the challenge target (which seems OK; if they made that another stricture, I'd look for something else to change accordingly in the benefits or other constraints).
I'm very pro-cavalier at this point. It feels mostly "done" in mechanics, and very complete in flavor. Establishing specific Orders in your own campaign seems easy enough to do with the examples given, and if the Oaths get revamped mechanically, the flavor seems easy enough to also expand for personal campaign suitability.
+1
the 5th level playtest wasn't me (i was the gm), but i was too equally astonished that he never used it. I do have another session coming up, maybe will get to see some more use then. His thoughts on the matter were "i just never saw a good point to use it as long as i was mounted"
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His thoughts on the matter were "i just never saw a good point to use it as long as i was mounted"
I'm not sure if I understand this. Maybe he didn't get the mechanic of it properly? You can (and should, from what I see) use this a lot, and if you're doing massive lance damage and downing people left and right, that's even better - you can switch challenge targets up a lot more that way.
Interested to hear the results of next session.
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His thoughts on the matter were "i just never saw a good point to use it as long as i was mounted"I'm not sure if I understand this. Maybe he didn't get the mechanic of it properly? You can (and should, from what I see) use this a lot, and if you're doing massive lance damage and downing people left and right, that's even better - you can switch challenge targets up a lot more that way.
Interested to hear the results of next session.
Oops, I was wrong. I somehow missed the once per combat verbiage under "Challenge". Once you issue a challenge, you can't do another one until the next combat (which is ill-defined in PFRPG, but I think by now the 4e folks have good working real-world definitions for what is essentially a "per-encounter" power).