Need some cavalier advice


Advice


Hi, I am going to be starting a new game soon, and I was looking at creating a cavalier. Two focuses I was thinking of doing for the character were mounted combat (comes with the territory) and sword and board tactics. Any advice I should have? I was thinking of going shield bashing with sword and board, is that a good choice? And of mounted combat, I haven't really done it before, anything I should know? (Such as weird or odd rules that don't seem apparent, or general things that are often overlooked.)

Thanks!


Sword-and-board may not work perfectly with lance (you want the two-handed bonuses to damage with it -- don't blame me, that's how the rules work). Though the double damage from charging makes up for that.

Read the mounted combat rules THROUGHLY and understand what you can and can't do. Look at Rideby Attack and figure out how it works, and make sure your GM knows how it works as well.

Keep your mount alive, particularly at higher levels. (Mounted Combat, Trick Riding)

And remember that your mount can take feats. Like, oh, teamwork feats. Look for ones that help both of you continuously (Lookout, Coordinated Manuevers, Paired Opportunist -- the last two particularly if you have any combat maneuver feats. There are some brutal things you can do with mounted combat maneuvers.)

You don't really have the feats to do multiple combat styles (mounted combat needs at least three, some of which you get at bonuses, but others are going to help; sword and board needs a couple; you might need other stuff as well, such as defensive feats like Iron Will), so you may have to make some rather brutal priority choices. Don't expect to be as good at sword-and-board as a fighter with all-out feats. Plan carefully what you're going to take when.

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Shields don't pose a problem for lancing if you are mounted. You can wield a lance one-handed while mounted, so that should be fine.

Particularly when charging, make sure to get as many static modifiers to damage as you can, because when you are using Spirited Charge, you deal triple damage with a lance while charging. However, bonus dice (e.g. a flaming weapon) don't get multiplied.

Your mount can only take teamwork feats if it has an intelligence of at least 3. So if you want to go that route, make sure to boost its intelligence somehow.

A good feat combination you may want to consider is Power Attack and Furious Focus. The former lets you trade accuracy for damage, and the latter lets you ignore the Power Attack penalty for the first attack you make each round. If you are charging (which you should be), you will only get to make one attack anyway, so with both of them you are basically getting free damage.


Sword and board is really not synergistic with mounted cavaliers.

When charging you want to pump out as many static modifiers as possible to ensure the biggest hit. That means two handing a lance.

Off the mount it's the same deal. Plus its a lot of feats to burn on TWF sword/board and mounted combat.

As to your mount the cavalier's default mount gets really really crappy after a while. So think about the beast master archetype unless you want to multiclass later. Also consider leadership so you can get a flying mount or discuss with your party's druid, summoner, or similar to negotiate making use of a flying companion.

Lastly your choice of race makes a big difference. IF you expect to be indoors alot then definitely go halfling or gnome. I prefer halfling but gnomes aren't much worse. If you expect to be outdoors a lot then human is the way to go. Eye for Talent over the feat is a rpeference of mine in these cases since I can start off with a mount that has Int 4 and immediately start looking into the imp unarmed strike/dragon style chain so he can charge without hindrance.

Hope all this helps.


Thanks guys! I shall take this in into making the character. Gonna cut the sword and board. I will also read and re-read the mounted combat rules until I can recite them in prep for the character. I just had one last question. TarkXT, you said the default mount becomes really sub-par after awhile. Why is that? I'm curious, because I am trying to build the character with a lot of leaning towards a stereotypical knight, and I would prefer a heavy warhorse as much as possible.


Dragul wrote:
Thanks guys! I shall take this in into making the character. Gonna cut the sword and board. I will also read and re-read the mounted combat rules until I can recite them in prep for the character. I just had one last question. TarkXT, you said the default mount becomes really sub-par after awhile. Why is that? I'm curious, because I am trying to build the character with a lot of leaning towards a stereotypical knight, and I would prefer a heavy warhorse as much as possible.

A few reasons.

Mainly because in terms of attack modes, mobility, defenses, etc. etc. a horse is rather sub par in later levels. This problem is compounded once you reach level 8 with order of the sword and you get to add your mounts strength to damage. You can get much stronger creatures with bigger armor classes, you can also get them with abilities like pounce, trip, powerful charge (extremely handy), grab, trample,or sometimes more unique abilities like camel spit. Horses start out great, don't get me wrong they're one of the better creatures to start with besides wollf. But, later one when given a chance to trade you go ahead and trade.

Once leadership becomes a factor you can toss all that to the wind. At that point you go from stereotypical knight to pegasus rider, sleipnir rider, or any other mount more suitable to your uber charging status.


Thanks TarkXT. I'll talk to my dm and see if he would allow me to upgrade to a classical fantasy mount as we progress, maybe a pegasus or gryphon.


My griffon rocks! Pounce+Flight FTW.

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