Editing Cavalier (section)

==Pathfinder==
===1st Edition===
[[File:Alain.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Alain, the iconic Cavalier]]
[[Pathfinder]] eventually took a shot at making a Cavalier class of its own, the first time it's been a full class since AD&D. Although probably more popular as serving as the foundation for the Pathfinder's [[Samurai]] class, it does manage to be more effective than Cavaliers have traditionally been - this is because it manages to be a two-trick pony, with a focus on teamwork through the use of challenges and features that bolster allies, which actually makes it pretty similar thematically to 4e's [[Warlord]] class. 

Cavalier's big customization option is their choice of from a variety of "Knightly Orders," that give him additional benefits and customizability, but also require him to keep up a code of conduct.  ''Unlike'' the [[paladin]]'s code, though, not all of these "codes of conduct" are pure Lawful Good stuff, and many vary heavily from order to order. While these do have a code of conduct, not all of these "codes of conduct" are pure Lawful Good stuff, and many are pretty manageable, and the only penalty for violating it is losing one of their less important abilities for 24 hours and many are total non-issues. For example, an Order of the Cockatrice Cavalier is one of the more restrictive ones yet is basically automatic for any adventurer: They must work to advance themselves, never accept less than an equal share of the loot, must accept payment when it's given, and keep their interests above others, none of which is actually evil.

Cavalier's other class features are Challenge, a weaker smite without target restrictions, Tactician, which grants allies various Teamwork feats, and Banner, a small passive buff to allies who can see your banner. Unfortunately, Cavalier has no customization past first level aside from feat selection (including the one from Tactician). Theoretically it picks what stats increase its animal companion gets, but there’s no reason to choose anything but one point of intelligence and the rest to strength. Note that the Beast Rider archetype is borderline-mandatory, so much so that many people legitimately have no idea it's ''not'' the baseline Cavalier, trading the mostly-useless ability to train other animals for a bigger, more powerful mount that can potentially scale up across all levels of play. 

Curiously for a non-core class Cavalier has two of the more worthwhile non-core [[Prestige Class]]es devoted to them. The first, Battle Herald, focuses on the commander aspect by progressing the [[Bard]]'s Inspire Courage alongside full BAB at the cost of mount progression, a cost which can be avoided a few ways or ignored entirely by trading it for something more useful. The second, Mammoth Rider, focuses on making the mount a giant, powerful engine of death. While this does exacerbate the problem of taking your mount anywhere that's not a wide open wilderness, it's a lot more powerful when it can bring their giant saber-tooth tiger along. One massive oversight of the class is its skill list contains no Knowledge skills, so they're not very good at recognizing nobility. 

While Pathfinder's cavalier is the best version they've been, they still aren't great. While they have ''something'' to do if they can't bring their mount, it isn't all that powerful. Cavaliers are generally as low as [[Tier System|Tier 5]], though small cavaliers (who can bring their pony into dungeons but not in public buildings) and better archetypes that trade away the mount may get up to tier 4.

{{Pathfinder-Classes}}

===2nd Edition===
Cavalier was cut from the class list of [[Pathfinder Second Edition]], being reduced to an archetype (archetypes here being essentially a chain of feats to take in place of class feats) during the 2018 playtest. And even then, it didn't appear in the CRB. It would only appear in the Advanced Player's Guide,  alongside a bunch of other non-class archetypes.

This version of the cavalier gives you a riding mount off the bat, which not many classes can do ([[Druid]] and [[Ranger]], while [[Paladin|Champion]] has to wait a few levels) but requires proficiency in either Society or Nature. This feat tree includes the mandatory pet-progression feats that come with owning a pet, but it also has several ways of taking the sting off of owning a mount, like using your AC to protect the steed, mounting on and moving in a single action and being able to move twice while also attacking. It even provides that token banner feature the class had, adding that token +1 to Will.

{{Pathfinder-2nd-Edition-Archetypes}}