[Legendary Games] Legendary Cavalier open playtest

[N. Jolly]

Welcome to the Legendary Cavalier open playtest!

As you’ll see, unlike other legendary class rebuilds, the legendary cavalier is far different than its base form. The design goals here were to make a class that could work as a battlefield leader, one who could enhance allies while still focusing on mounted combat and out of combat situations. With new abilities to enhance diplomacy and its uses, the legendary cavalier is far more capable of engaging NPCs, and with the new abilities added to the legendary cavalier’s mount, it serves a far more consistent role in combat.

The playtest will be lasting for 2 weeks, and comments are open, so please let us know what you think. In addition, threads will be posted over at Paizo.com for any feedback, so let us know what you like, what you don’t like, and what you’d like to see in this project!

[Lindley Court]

So, a BIG concern I have here is that one of my least favorite elements of the cavalier design-wise is actually worse in this design... The original cavalier has next to no choices built into the class. It's order gives benefits as it levels, which is nice, but that's locked in at 1st. The only real options a normal cavalier has are a few bonus feats.

The legendary cavalier receives even FEWER choices baked into the class, its order stops giving anything new at 3rd, and courtly skill is incredibly narrow.. Compare that to uh... just about any class paizo has put out, ever, as well as just about any of the classes Legendary has put out.

The VAST majority of the class features feel like they'd fit as talents, especially given that not every cavalier should have all the same concepts. It doesn't look like a class that I'd be excited to level up in, as I would know that I'd have exponentially more agency in ant other class.

I suppose what i would suggest, other than "oh god, give it talents" would be for the orders to matter. They matter even less here than in the original cavalier, and that's painful.

[N. Jolly]

I don't believe it has less choices, although let me look over both groups of options

Cavalier:
Order, 1 choice
Mount, 1 choice
Tactician Bonus Feat, 1 choice
Bonus Feat, 3 choices
Master Tactician Bonus Feat, 1 choice

Legendary Cavalier
Order, 1 choice
Mount, 1 choice
Commander's Aura, 9 choices per combat (10 with unique auras)
Courtly Skill, 3 choices

I wouldn't say it's fair to call it worse here, but I understand the options aren't as varied as other classes.

Also comparing it to other classes from Paizo leads to the same "martials aren't given a lot of options" when we compare it to the gunslinger or monk (or wizard, sorcerer, and cleric if we're not taking spells into account).

Personally, I think 'talent' design is overused and dilutes the base value of classes if given to everything in that format. Orders mattering less is actually by design as well, as I'm not a fan of flavor based mechanics being necessary for a build to come together. It often leads to people picking orders or other such mechanics for its gameplay value, and shoehorning in the rationale for it. Thus, I wanted to de-incentivise that so that orders were more about the character's personally that you wanted to play, rather than the mechanics behind it.

I do understand that there could be more choices in the class, and I'll be talking to the others about this to see if we can't add more options into the class.

[Lindley Court]

I don't really count choices that can be changed on the fly. I primarily mean "build choices" or "leveling choices". The auras don't count to me because they won't differentiate builds.

If talent-based design is tired, why not make it in the middle ground, like an oracle?

[Oliver Veyrac]

I love the commanding aura. I think that would be a huge boon to be honest. It's a really really flexible replacement for the challenge
ability. I also love all the love for the mounts, it really highlights the mount. It is really cool.

I just wish it kept the order abilities :( That's the one part of the original cavalier that I loved most.

I have always been a huge fan of the legendary games materials as well as all of your legendary kineticists stuff. My player's literally cried when they dealt with their first legendary rogue, swashbuckler and fighter when they fought them in Skull & Shackles.

[Here4daFreeSwag]

Good to have some free limited-time legendary cavalier playtesting stuff out there for PF1e. ;)

[Oliver Veyrac]

We wont' switch over to PF2e for a while as there will be severely limited material which makes limited options.

[Volvogg]

I am liking the new version of the Cavalier! Certainly an interesting take on a mostly unused (at least in my campaigns) class. The only thing I would love to see is a nature themed archetype that roars, howls, screams bellows or shouts to activate his aura's and can grant rage powers to those within his auras radius of affect. Just a random hopeful thought.

Cheers
Volf