The Cavalier was one of the two Fighter subclasses from Xanathar's that I never gave a ton of thought to (I did have an NPC Samurai at one point in my original campaign). The Cavalier is the mounted combat specialist, which does make things a little tricky depending on the campaign you're in. The good news is that the subclass also has a lot of stuff that works when you're not mounted. The French word chevalier means "knight," but literally it means "horseman". This class allows you to take on some chivalric roles, being a protector to your allies.
Level 3:
Bonus Proficiency:
You gain your choice of Animal Handling, History, Insight, Performance, or Persuasion as a skill proficiency, or alternatively, a language of your choice.
Classic ribbon, though Animal Handling can be useful if you are going to be able to use a mount often.
Born to the Saddle:
You have advantage on saving throws to avoid falling off your mount. If you do fall and descend no more than 10 feet, you can land on your feet if you're not incapacitated. Additionally, mounting and dismounting only costs 5 feet of movement.
This is all very nice if you can fight with a mount. Naturally, the Mounted Combatant feat would be a natural fit for this subclass.
Unwavering Mark:
When you hit a creature with a melee weapon, you can mark them until the end of your next turn, or until you become incapacitated, die, or someone else marks the creature in the same way.
While within 5 feet of you, the creature has disadvantage on attack rolls agains creatures other than you. Additionally, if a creature marked by you hits another creature with an attack, you have advantage on attack rolls against them until the end of your next turn.
This is the thing that will be useful regardless of how cramped your arena is or how dead your horse is. It's actually not dissimilar from the Spiritual Guardian's tanking ability, but punishes them for ignoring you if they try to go after someone else. I think I'd be fine with the mark giving disadvantage even if the foe runs away from you. Alternatively or in addition to that, I wouldn't mind if the mark persisted longer (though it's in line with the SG as mentioned before). Fighters can make decent tanks, though given how much more damage scales up than AC, I don't think they do it quite as well as a Barbarian. Honestly, Defensive Duelist might be a good call here.
Level 7:
Warding Maneuver:
If you or a creature you can see with 5 feet (like your mount) is hit with an attack roll, you can roll 1d8 as a reaction if you have a melee weapon or shield in hand, and add the number rolled to the target's AC against the triggering attack. If it still hits even with this bonus, the target gets resistance to the attack's damage. You can use this Con times (minimum 1) per long rest.
I like that this will for sure help the friend regardless of whether your roll is high enough - even on a crit, you can halve that damage. But also, 4.5 on average added to one's AC is almost as good as a Shield spell, but less reliable.
Again, you might just use this to keep your mount alive (I'd honestly have loved if you could get a bespoke mount spell block with this that scaled with your level) but this is also going to be great even if you can't get a mount. Once again, this has real knight in shining armor energy.
Level 10:
Hold the Line:
Creatures provoke opportunity attacks from you when they move 5 or more feet while within you reach. When you hit with an opportunity attack, you reduce their movement to 0 until the end of the current turn.
So, kind of Sentinel, and also makes your opp attacks work like they did in 3.5, if I understand correctly. This makes it far more likely you'll be making opportunity attacks, which does mean you'll have competition for your Warding Maneuver, but again, it's going to make it much easier for you to keep foes from going after your friends.
Level 15:
Ferocious Charger:
During the first round of combat, you and your mount's speed increase by 10 feet, and your movement does't provoke opportunity attacks. When you move within 5 feet of a creature this round, they make a Strength save (DC based on your Strength) and you can either push them 5 feet away or knock them prone (a creature can only be affected by this once per turn).
I believe that a controlled mount can dash on their turn as their own action, rather than yours, so with a Warhorse, I believe this gives you 70 (and dash for 140) feet of movement, potentially trampling a bunch of foes. Minus a mount, this is going to be more limited, but you're also probably in closer quarters. I'd guess in most cases prone is the better choice, unless there are hazards like lava or ledges to knock foes into.
Level 18:
Vigilant Defender:
In combat, you gain a special reaction that you can take once per turn other than your own turn. You can only use this reaction for opportunity attacks, and can't take it the turn you use your normal reaction.
Combining this with Hold the Line, you could seriously bottleneck a lot of enemies. I actually think this subclass would work fantastically with Polearm Master, using a reach weapon to cover a big swath of the battlefield.
Overall Thoughts:
This is very similar to the Xanathar's version (just some changes to Unwavering Mark). I actually think it's pretty solid, with a real theme that they build on. And while you won't be getting the full benefit of the subclass if you can't have a mount to ride around, I think the other features are strong enough to make it at least a reasonable option.
As always with Fighters, I think the Battle Master and Eldritch Knight are so good that you have to compare any new subclass to them. The key to why I think this is decent, even if it might benefit from a little more polish, is that it really sticks to a true "defend your allies" role for the group in a way that other fighters don't quite accomplish. Do we need a revision if they're changing so little, though? Or do we just need to reevaluate the Xanathar's one?
No comments:
Post a Comment