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So I have been thinking about this for a while now and got bored enough to toss up a post to see what some of the community at large thinks.
Ages ago in the realm of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons in Unearthed Arcana, Paladin was moved from a Fighter sub-type to a Cavalier sub-type. They shared a lot of abilities and it made sense. A lawful Good religious themed knight should go under the knight class.
That said I believe that Paladin really should become a Lawful Good archetype/replacement class for Cavalier. To me and several of the people I've spoken to in my gaming circle this seems to make a lot of sense. Even now they share a lot of the mental imagery of one another. Most images you’d find for one easily work for the other. It would fill in that niche people seem to want for a paladin type character without the alignment restriction by just being in the base class itself.
Obvious that boat has long since sailed and I'm not insanely suggesting Paizo actually rewrite 2-5 hardcover books or anything of the sort. I'm years and years late to suggesting it for the current edition. Future editions however aren't out of the question I'd hope though. I just thought I’d put that out there.
It would seem that at least one of guys at Paizo agrees with you, as we now have both the order of the blue rose and the order of the tome, both of which can work pretty well for a Paladin-lite.
I seem to remember that there was a kit for paladins in 2e/AD&D that had a Lawful Neutral requirement. And, as Cheapy notes, there is some clear nods with the orders (Tome and Blue Roses, but also Star).
Lastly, if it floats your boat, there is a retro-clone of sorts here called Myth & Magic. It, too, has a "archetypes" for the other two Lawful alignments.
I think the problem lies in how much has changed since those early days. There is alot MORE to a character mechanically then was those days. The paladin ofcourse has alot more around religion, and being a bastion of good, and the cavalier alot around just being a knight. And while there is some thematic overlap, there is also alot that wont work as an archetype or even an alternate class. I dont think the paladin should have to face restrictions on what it gets based on what can fit into a cavalier or vice versa. When the classes were much simpler, something being a subclass of another required less shoehorning. With the game as it stands now (and likely how the future of the game would be) it would be a far more complicated issue. I dont see the benefit personally in restricting both classes to put them together.
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It's partially do to my opinion that I think Cavalier fits better as a core class then Paladin does in some game communities and justifies itself as it is different enough from what I'd expect of a Fighter as well.
I totally agree that things have grown more complex of course, and I really like that about the game. With the exception of the channeling energy and the spell casting the two classes are very similar though. I don't see much shoe-horning though. At least I can see a lot of the Paladin class in the Cavalier class. Is it only me?
It's partially do to my opinion that I think Cavalier fits better as a core class then Paladin does in some game communities and justifies itself as it is different enough from what I'd expect of a Fighter as well.
I totally agree that things have grown more complex of course, and I really like that about the game. With the exception of the channeling energy and the spell casting the two classes are very similar though. I don't see much shoe-horning though. At least I can see a lot of the Paladin class in the Cavalier class. Is it only me?
The reason I dont think the cavalier will ever be core is because its focused on the mount, where the paladin is not. A big chunk of what a cavalier gets is based on their mount and mounted combat, and for alot of campaigns you cant use that for most of the campaign. Thats why the paladin has the option to take something other then the mount, but that option makes little sense for a cavalier.
As for differences:
Aura of good, detect evil,divine grace, lay on hands, aura of courage, divine health, mercy, channel engergy, divine bon, aura of resolve, aura of justice, aura of faith, aura of righteousness, holy champion, and divine spells.
Mount, tactician, order and order abilities, cavaliers charge, expert trainer, banner, greater tactician, mighty charge, bonus feats, demanding challenge, greater banner, master tactician, supreme charge.
The only they they have in common is that they both have a signle target offense enhancing ability (that work differently), they MIGHT both have a mount, and they wear heavy armor and have full bab.
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Yeah I totally agree that they are pretty similar.
They both have some type of aura mechanic (banners/auras), some kind of focus damage ability (challenge/smite), a better then usual mount ability, a useful kind of useful group AOE ability (tactician/channel energy) and so forth. They both have a good focus on martial skill with charisma dependent abilities and so forth.
I'm glad you brought that up.
Yeah I totally agree that they are pretty similar.
They both have some type of aura mechanic (banners/auras), some kind of focus damage ability (challenge/smite), a better then usual mount ability, a useful kind of useful group AOE ability (tactician/channel energy) and so forth. They both have a good focus on martial skill with charisma dependent abilities and so forth.
I'm glad you brought that up.
In a general sense they are similar. But in the specifics they are very different. And that is where I think the issue would lie. You would end up with the fighter to gunslinger alternate class feature. After you have changed almost every single class feature to one extent or another, how is the paladin still associated with the cavalier?
Mind you I wouldnt mind if the cavalier became more like the paladin to make this fit. I would really like the cavalier to be as all around useful as the paladin is (if something like the weapon option for divine bond was available, and there were more charisma based abilites that mattered for the cavalier i'd probably like to use it much more often). So who knows maybe it could work. But I think it would require alot of changes to one class or both to make it make sense as an alternate class, let alone as an archetype.