I’ve got a casual player who comes to our regular gaming group only intermittently. With the demise of his Monk, he’s asked me to create him a new Cavalier PC.
As the party is already well rounded, I want to make him a Striker type character. Something that he can pick up and jump into combat without too much trouble. The Cavalier is very much a class focused on mounted combat but I know a lot of the game will be spent on foot inside dungeons and houses so I want him to be versatile, able to stand toe-to-toe in melee while shining out when the opportunity to mount his steed arises.
So far I’m thinking the following build…
Human Level 10 Cavalier, Good Aligned Party, decent ability scores.
Heavy Warhorse Mount (Animal Companion). Bag of Holding and Bottle of Air for off-camera storage
Magic Bastard Sword (wielded two-handed), Magic Heavy Flail, Shield, Lance, hold-out weapons
Magic Mithral Full Plate, Banner, Magic Hunting Horn, Belt of Strength, Horseshoes of Zephyr
Order?
Order of the Dragon or Order of the Shield? (there is a Paladin and a Cleric of Iomadae in the party)
Leaning towards Order of the Dragon but would love any guidance here
Alignment, Any Good (prefer LG or NG)
Teamwork Feats Precise Strike and Outflank – not amazing but simple and easy to remember
Feats
1 – Power Attack
1 – Mounted Combat
3 – Toughness
5 – Combat Reflexes
7 – Ride By Attack
9 – Spirited Charge
I like the idea of giving him Improved Disarm or Improved Trip as the Heavy Flail gives bonuses here. This would mean that I’d have to drop Spirited Charge which I’m not sure how much he would use.
Let me know what you would add/remove on this character. Like I said, I want him to be able to stand well in melee while standing out when he is mounted.
Keep in mind that Cavaliers get a bonus combat feat at 6th level. I would probably add Iron Will.
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The stock cavalier class features allow a cavalier to be pretty darn good at Charging with Lance even without Spirited Charge and Ride-By. If you're worried about there being no space for a charging cavalier most of the time, you don't NEED to go down that route. I mean, working up from ONLY double damage to triple only makes sense if you can do it a lot. Otherwise its a feat you may not really need to use.
(That said, if you can continuously ride-by attack and charge, all those banner bonuses and damage multipliers... yipe!)
Keep in mind, the Mount gets feats too. If you give the mount enough Smarts to learn some handy feats, even some of the teamwork feats you may already have, you will always have an "adjacent ally" handy. Pack attack is one of my faves; allows free movement to possibly get into flanking position and doesn't have a dex requirement that Precise Strikes does.
If he will in fact spend time mounted, you can give your mount the Bodyguard and In Harms Way feats (intelligence pending) and then negate an attack ON YOURSELF with a ride check. (Creature attacks you, Mount uses immediate action to use In Harms Way, you ride check to make that attack miss using Mounted Combat as an immediate action.)
The feats you have are fine and dandy. They are simple and easy to remember. He may end up feeling a little lackluster if he doesn't get to charge.
Out of Ultimate Equipment, you can get Pokeball armor (Hosteling Property) which allows you to store your horse in your heavy armor.
Order of the Dragon is a fan-diddly-an-TASTIC order. Just by being there, you make people better. The challenge ability makes EVERYONE better while facing the big bad; not a case of charge in, but a case of sit next to him to keep him threatened and all your pals get to-hit bonuses.
As a possible alternative, consider the Honor Guard archetype in UC. You swap out some of the strictly mounted combat abilities for abilities that are more generally useful in close quarters melee. It also works REALLLLLY WELL with the order of the dragon (aid another abilities get better and better by level, and the Honor Guard archetype gives you free Bodyguard feat, which you can use to aid another for AC as an AOO, give at LEAST a +4 bonus and it gets better every 6 levels.)
Its a fair bit more complicated a build than what you have. It seems to me as though you're working to make a simple, easy to use character right-out-of-the-box. The ones I'm suggesting encourage a player to stay close to the centre of melee rather than charging all about, aid the buddies on the front lines, all the while being a full bab character that can be Large sized with huge speed if there's the space for it.
If you are worried whether they can remain useful without using mounted charges, how about making him a beast rider? This would vastly expand his options for his animal companion. Eventually, you would just need to grab something large and threatening that just needs to stand in the room in order to dominate small areas.
With 'pokeball' armor, you could just build the cavalier around a typical melee build instead of this mounted business.
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Also, I find that if I am going to play a mounded character, be it Caviler/Dragoon/Sohei, I want to play a small race. A medium mount War Dog/Giant Lizard/Wolf can go almost anywhere in a dungeon that a Medium Sized character can. The slightly smaller damage die on a lance is more than made up for by being able to get your charge bonus anywhere.
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I'd definitely go Order of the Dragon.
Beast Rider is a good suggestion, too, so his mount can serve as a better flanking buddy...which it should definitely do just about all the time he's not riding, even if you stick with the horse. Leaving it in a bag of holding during a fight is the colossal waste of a valuable resource. Make sure to give it some decent equipment and appropriate Feats, too.
