The Cavalier

The Cavalier is a fun class, very versatile and extremely combat capable if built correctly. Here are five build outlines that will make the Cavalier shine as a strong combat character, party face and scout.

The Base Cavalier

The Cavalier represents the ideal of a knight and it’s mount charge into the fray, leading his companion against impossible odds, but also capable of long range reconnaissance and an exemplar social adept capable of integrating in higher society. This build intends to double down on that general idea and make the Cavalier shine as a whole.

Class

Cavalier

Race

Human, we are going for the stereotypical knight here, also, a bonus feat and an additional skill point each level is extremely hard to refuse. That floating +2 goes into Strength.

Ability Scores

Round up that Constitution, then everything separated equally between Str and Cha

15Point-Buy

Str 18/Dex 10/Con 13/Int 10/Wis 10/Cha 12

20Point-Buy

Str 18/Dex 12/Con 13/Int 10/Wis 10/Cha 14

25Point-Buy

Str 20/Dex 10/Con 13/Int 10/Wis 10/Cha 14

Traits

You need a ton of starting Equipment, so frankly, Rich Parents is not that bad of an idea. Armor Master is a great secondary to reduce the penalty to skill checks.

Favored Class Bonus

Hit Points, you are a melee character and melee characters demand more hp.

Skills

You need Handle Animal and Ride. Diplomacy is great as you have a fairly good Charisma too, allowing you to play the knightly side too. Knowledge(Nobility) fits our theme and Sense Motive helps us navigate Social scenes and provide a defense to our offensive Diplomacy skill. We will also need 5 points in Bluff by level 9, so four levels taking Knowledge(Nobility) and five in Bluff before resuming Know(Nob) is a good way to do so.

Order

We will be getting the Order of the Sword to double down on the aesthetic of a Knight. It will grant us a good bonus to Attack on our Challenge when mounted, gives us a bonus on Will Save which we desperately needed, and eventually make us a master rider.

Feats per Level

1-Mounted Combat Human-Power Attack Tactician-Outflank

3-Ride-By Attack

5-Toughness

Bonus Feat 6-Spirited Charge

7-Vital Strike

Mounted Mastery

8-Trample

9-Chain Challenge

Greater Tactician

9-Broken Wing Gambit

11-Improved Vital Strike

Bonus Feat 12-Weapon Focus(Lance)

13-Improved Initiative

15-Practiced Tactician

17-Greater Vital Strike

Master Tactician

17-Blood for the Empire Bonus Feat 1

8-Improved Critical(Lance)

19-Practiced Tactician

So. We will be charging people. A Lot.

The Mounted Combat-Ride By Attack-Spirited Charge-Trample chain lets us double(triple with a Lance) attacks on a charge while mounted, overrun enemies with easy and lets our horse do an extra hoof attack while overruning someone. That is a lot of damage. Now, when Charging, we can still only make one attack per turn. Enters the Vital Strike feat chain, which eventually quadruples our damage dice(which stacks with Spirited Charge), for a bajillion damage. Chain Challenge let’s us switch targets of our Challenge as an Immediate Action when they get downed. Our Tactical Feats being shared with our allies via our Tactician class feature, Broken Wing Gambit, Outflank and Blood for the Empire are just crazy good buffers that allows extra flanking bonuses(if you are not mounted, you can flank with your mount), give enemies bonus to damage but when enemies attack you, all your allies get an Attack of Opportunity on the attacker and a Bonus to attack and damage when you hit enemies who have been damaged by your allies. Toughness gives us a bit more survivability and Improved Initiative will help our piss poor Initiative bonus quite a lot.

Mount

We will be going for a Horse here because of course All its Ability Score Improvements except the first one should go in Strength for more Overrun, the first one goes into Intelligence, which allows us a wider range of feat access.

Mount Feats per Level

1-Well Trained

2-Power Attack

5-Improved Overrun

8-Valiant Steed

10-Armor Proficiency(Light)

13-Armor Proficiency(Medium)

16-Armor Proficiency(Heavy)

18-Dodge

Well-Trained gives our Mount a bunch of extra tricks, Improved Overrun is self-explanatory, Valiant Steed makes our Mount really hard to scare and Armor Proficiency because let’s be honest, a Horse in Full Armor is just cool.

Mount Skills

Balance, Acrobatics and Perception will be your go to.

Equipment

Saddle and Horse Equipment. A Lance, a Longsword, a Heavy Shield and the best Armor you can get. Eventually, both yourself and your horse will be adorned in Full Plate Armor.

Final Thoughts on the Build

This build is a mounted monster, capable of dealing damage that would make Blaster spellcasters blush. It is also fairly tanky, and extremely mobile. However, it does have its weaknesses, like indoor fighting. However, even in these situations, your Banner grants good bonuses to your allies, your Teamwork feats and Tactician makes you a fantastic support character and you are still more than capable in combat via your Challenge and your Longsword/High AC via Shield and Armor.

The Orc Warlord

So…mounted combat is pretty neat, but what if I wanted to ride a beast into battle?

Well, be glad, as the Cavalier has a great archetype called Beast Rider which does just that. With a few levels of Barbarian and with the PrC Mammoth Rider, we can mount a truly ridiculous beast of war.

Class

Leveling up should go as follow: Cavalier(Beast Rider) 6/Barbarian 3/Mammoth Rider 10/Cavalier (Beast Rider) +1

Race

We are going for Orc here. Not Half-Orc. Orc. We are going to take the Dayrunner and the Smeller Alternative Racial Features.

Ability Scores:

Round up that Constitution then everything in Strength.

15Point-Buy

Str 20/Dex 10/Con 13/Int 8/Wis 8/Cha 10

20Point-Buy

Str 20/Dex 10/Con 13/Int 8/Wis 10/Cha 12

25Point-Buy

Str 22/Dex 10/Con 13/Int 9/Wis 10/Cha 10

Traits

Reactionary is going to be our main go to here, our secondary can go into Indomitable Faith for extra Will Save defense.

Favored Class Bonus: We are only going to get this for seven levels, so skills could give us a neat plus early on as our Intelligence is…not great.

Skills

We need Handle Animal, Ride and Survival. Our final points should go into Intimidation really. Leave our Perception to our Animal Companion for this one.

Order

We will go with the Order of the Cockatrice, mostly for the Dazzling Display to be quite honest here, although the Challenge Bonus can be fun if we sick our Animal Companion on some other target than ours.

Feats by Levels

1-Mounted Combat Braggard-Dazzling Display Tactician-Outflank

3-Power Attack

5-Ride-By Attack

Bonus Feat 6-Spirited Charge

7-Boon Companion

9-Cornugon Smash

11-Heavy Armor Proficiency

Bonus Feat 11-Iron Will

13-Extra Rage

15-Toughness

Bonus Feat 15-Greater Iron Will

17-Extra Rage

19-Extra Rage

Dazzling Display and Cornugon Smash are two great feats to use Intimidation in combat. The standard Mounted Combat-Ride By Attack-Spirited Charge for downright stupid Mounted Charge damage, we are getting back Heavy Armor Proficiency as we are losing it with the Beast Rider Archetype, Toughness and Extra Rage for more staying power for both ourselves and our mount. Boon Companion lets us ignore the fact that we multiclassed into Barbarian for our Mount progression. Iron Will and its Greater version add some well needed protection to our poor, poor Will Save.

Rage Power

8-Ferocious Beast

We get to share our Rage with our Mount for bonuses on Str/Con.

Mammoth Rider

We first get into this PrC by level 10 and stay with it pretty much until the end. But Boy does it make our already cranked up to eleven Companion into a Beast of War. By the end our Companion gets an extra +10 in Strength, +6 in Constitution and +4 to its Natural Armor. Oh, it also becomes Huge Size. Because screw all your enemies that’s why.

Mount/Animal Companion

So, until lvl 4 we are using a Horse. But by lvl 4, we can switch to a friggin Tiger. Riding a Giant Smilodon into war as an Orc is just the most badass thing I can imagine, and I am all there for it.

The Tiger also gets Pounce, Rake and Grab, making it a Super Charger. We once again at lvl 4 give it a +1 in Int for feats variety, and every other Ability Increase goes into Str.

Animal Companion Feats by Level

1. Power Attack
2. Light Armor Proficiency

5-Medium Armor Proficiency

8-Heavy Armor Proficiency

10-Martial Weapon Proficiency(Armor Spikes)

13-Improved Grapple

16-Intercept Blow

18-Improved Intercept Blow

What is more terrifying than a charging Smilodon? A Charging Smilodon covered in Spiked Plate Armor that’s what. This allows mixing of Iterative Attacks and Natural Attacks, which makes this whole thing just completely ridiculous. Improved Grapple doubles down on your mount’s Grab ability and Intercept Blow line allows your mount to tank for you if needed.

Animal Companion Skills

Perception and Stealth will be your definitive go to.

Equipment: A Greataxe and Spiked Armor of some sort, plus a saddle. Eventually, Spiked Full Plate for both yourself and your Tiger.

Final Thoughts on the Build

Pouncer Builds have a reputation of being amongst the best damage dealers in the game and this build just proves it beyond the shadow of a doubt. Add to that that you do not actually need to be mounted yourself to kick asses, via Rage, and Cornugon Smash, and your mount by itself can deal downright stupid amounts of damage and this is just ridiculous.

The Battle Herald

The Cavalier, while a combat focused class, is also a surprisingly viable support character, and this build’s goal is to showcase this. We will be taking the Inspiring Commander Archetype and getting into the Battle Herald Prestige Class as soon as possible.

Our Leveling should look like this:

Class

Cavalier(Inspiring Commander) 5/Battle Herald 10/Cavalier (Inspiring Commander) +5

Race

We are going for Halfling on this build. Strange for what seems to be a melee focused class, but we will be exploring Aid Another buffs, plus all the other builds so far are mounted on large(r) mounts, making indoor fighting difficult. Being small and riding a war dog gets rid of that difficulty. We will also be taking the Festive Alternative Racial Feature, which allows us once per day as a Free Action to give a +2 Luck bonus to an ally’s Skill Check.

Ability Scores

Round up Charisma if odd, otherwise everything into Dexterity for this build.

15Point-Buy

Str 10/Dex 16/Con 12/Int 13/Wis 10/Cha 15

20Point-Buy

Str 10/Dex 18/Con 12/Int 13/Wis 10/Cha 15

25Point-Buy

Str 10/Dex 19/Con 12/Int 13/Wis 10/Cha 16

Traits

You are taking the Helpful trait, this is not debatable. Your base Aid Another now gives a +4 bonus to allies. Get yourself the Rich Parent one too as this is going to be useful to buy a trained War Dog for the first few levels as you do not have the Mount Class Feature.

Favored Class Bonus

You will need more HP. So HP it is.

Skills

Handle Animal to train Riding Dogs, Ride because of course, Perception becomes a Class skill for you via your Order so of course you are taking it. After that, your Charisma isn’t half bad so Diplomacy and Bluff are good options to look at. Do remember that you need 5 ranks in Diplomacy, Intimidation and Perform(Oratory), and 2 ranks in Profession(Soldier) by lvl 5 to get into Battle Herald, so your early skill points are all but eaten up.

Feats by Level

1-Weapon Finesse

Bonus Feat 1-Outflank

3-Combat Expertise

5-Cautious Fighter

7-Blundering Defense

9-Swift Aid

11-Combat Reflexes

Bonus Feat 11-Broken Wing Gambit

13-Archon Style

15-Archon Diversion

Bonus Feat 16-Archon Justice

17-Piranha Strike

19-Improved Initiative

Bonus Feat 19-Escape Route

Combat Expertise->Blundering Defense allows you to Fight Defensively and grant massive bonuses to your allies, and Swift Aid is just great for the Aid Another, allowing you to do so as a Swift Action, opening up your actions for other things such as shooting at enemies with your bow or some other actions. The Archon Style line of feats allows you to divert attacks against allies towards yourself. Finally, Weapon Finesse and Piranha Strike switch up your Attack to Dex and allow an increase of your (admittedly low) damage.

Order

We are going for the Order of the Dragon because it grants a bonus to Aid Another, making your Aid Another grant a downright massive bonus to whatever you are going for.

Inspiring Commander

So you lose your mount. That sucks. A lot. But you can buy a trained Riding Dog to move around so that’s fine as mounted combat isnt actually our goal here, but extra gravy to our theme. In exchange, you can roll Perform(Oratory) for your Aid Another checks, which means you are never failing that check ever, get Inspire Courage and other Bardic Music bonuses.

Battle Herald

You get even more bonus to help allies, regain the Banner ability but the main attraction here are the Inspiring Command abilities, which you gain at the following levels:

6-Inherited Song(Teamwork)

8-Inherited Song(Sound the Charge)

10-Inherited Song(Shake it Off)

12-Against All Odds

14-Immortal Dare

More Aid Another, bonus to attack and damage, grant feats to allies and even allow them an additional Saving Throw against bad effects.

Equipment

A Rapier, a Longbow, the best armo you can get and a trained Riding Dog.

Final Thoughts on the Build

You can give out so many bonuses to your allies so effectively that the Bard is getting jealous. And for a damned reason. With all those bonuses in place, your Aid Another action gives your allies a massive +9 to…whatever really. Plus your various other bonuses via Inspiring Command, Inspire Courage, Inspire Greatness, Festive and Blundering Defense is just ridiculous at this point.

The Samurai

The Samurai is one of three Alternative Classes that presents a variant to a base class, namely the Antipaladin for the Paladin, the Ninja for the Rogue, and the Samurai for the Cavalier. We are going to be using this variant class for this build.

Class

Samurai 20

Race

Elf, now, I can already hear you asking but why tho?. You will see why in a moment, for now, just take note that we are taking the Fey Thoughts and the Creepy Alternative Racial Features. For Fey Thoughts, we will be choosing Stealth and Perception for Skills.

Ability Scores

Put all your points in Dex and don’t look back.

15Point-Buy

Str 10/Dex 18/Con 12/Int 10/Wis 10/Cha 12

20Point-Buy

Str 10/Dex 18/Con 12/Int 12/Wis 10/Cha 14

25Point-Buy

Str 10/Dex 20/Con 12/Int 10/Wis 10/Cha 14

Traits

Get Elven Reflexes for a beautiful +2 to Initiative, and Armor Master for a reduction in Armor penalty.

Favored Class Bonus

Your HP will be low for a melee character. Therefore HP it is.

Skills

Perception and Stealth, followed by Ride and Intimidation are your four skills. If you can spare a few points, namely after the first few points in Ride as the highest DC will be like 20, put it in Handle Animal.

Order

We are taking the Order of the Warrior for a long term plan here, namely it’s lvl 15 ability which allows us to auto Crit Threat once per day and both max damage and automatically bypass any Damage Reduction, which is crazy good.

Feats by Level

1-Weapon Finesse

3-Two Weapons Fighting

5-Mounted Combat

Bonus Feat 6-Point-Blank Shot

7-Piranha Strike

9-Weapon Focus(Wakisashi)

11-Slashing Grace

Bonus Feat 12-Precise Shot

13-Improved Two Weapons Fighting

15-Rapid Shot

17-Deadly Aim

Bonus Feat 18-Improved Critical(Wakisashi)

19-Greater Two-Weapons Fighting

If those feats don’t sell what this build is all about, we are doing a Dex only switch-hitter build that uses the Two-Weapons Fighting feat chain with Weapon Finesse, Piranha Strike and Slashing Grace to focus on a pair of Wakisashis (which will eventually Crit threat on a 15-20 via Improved Critical) for surprisingly high damage, yet support ourselves at ranged with Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot and Deadly Aim. As we get a Mount, and the Samurai’s ability of Mounted Archery, we also take Mounted Combat to allow some us to fight incredibly well both mounted and unmounted.

Mount

We will get ourselves a horse, and will use the same horse build as the first build we made, the Base Cavalier.

Equipment

A pair of Wakisashi, a Longbow and a Chain Shirt, with a Saddle for your horse. Eventually we are aiming at a Celestial Chainmail

Final Thoughts on the Build

So. Even though we are a melee dex build mainly, we are still more than capable at range and mounted, we are stealthy, mobile, and a threat to everything with some surprisingly high damage while both in melee and in ranged. We also have a high Intimidation to demoralize opponents before the fight breaks out, and we have the Samurai’s special Resolve, making us say “No” to a bunch of nasty conditions, including eventually death itself. Because Samurai.

The Ghostly General

Okay. So, this build started as a joke take on Ghost Rider via the…well…Ghost Rider Archetype for the Cavalier. And then I discovered the Daring General Archetype and the fact that you can take both at the same time…And thus came this absolute bull build.

Class

Cavalier (Ghost Rider, Daring General) 20

Race:

Human, we are extremely feats starved and we will need as many as we can. Add that floating bonus to Strength.

Ability Scores:

Round up that Constitution, then everything in Charisma.

15Point-Buy

Str 17/Dex 10/Con 13/Int 10/Wis 10/Cha 14

20Point-Buy

Str 18/Dex 10/Con 13/Int 10/Wis 10/Cha 15

25Point-Buy

Str 18/Dex 10/Con 13/Int 10/Wis 12/Cha 16

Traits:

Unnatural Presence to allow us to intimidate animals and vermin, and Reactionary to help our non-existant Initiative bonus.

Favored Class Bonus:

Hit Points, duh.

Skills

We actually do not need Handle Animal with this build, as our mount is not an animal. Ride, Intimidation are our go to skills, followed by Sense Motive, Bluff and Diplomacy.

Order

So…We are going for the Order of the Asp, which would suck if we were a regular Cavalier in a regular team as we want to Demoralize our allies.

Except we are not a regular Cavalier, we are a Daring General. This makes the Order of the Asp absolutely ridiculously strong based on intimidating your allies.

Feats by Level

1-Power Attack

Human Bonus-Mounted Combat

3-Weapon Focus(Longsword)

5-Dazzling Display

7-Cornugon Smash

9-Furious Focus

11-Dreadful Carnage

13-Shatter Defenses

15-Disheartening Display

17-Frightening Ambush

19-Hurtful

We are an Intimidancer build through and through. Cornugon Smash gives us a free Intimidation roll whenever we hit a target with Power Attack, and Dreadful Carnage essentially allows us to Free Action Dazzling Display whenever we down someone. Shatter Defense makes every target we demoralize Flat-Footed, and Disheartening Display makes our fear effects increase with each intimidation from Shaken all the way to Cower.

Frightening Ambush allows us to keep demoralized opponents demoralized and Hurtful gives us a Swift Action attack whenever we demoralize someone. Considering we are demoralizing everyone with pretty much everything we do…

Daring General

At level six…we get Triple Leadership.

Do you have ANY IDEA JUST HOW BROKEN THIS IS???.

This means we are going around with a massive army and eventually up to three Cohorts. This is Pathfinder’s single most broken ability by a margin of several magnitudes.

Ghost Rider

So, we get Frightful Gaze a number of time per day equal to our Charisma modifier, which allow us to paralyze people as a standard action, gaze attack. Which in itself is already very strong, and we also eventually get Immunity to Fear. But what the true call of this Archetype is the fact that we summon a Phantom Horse.

It works a bit like the Spiritualist‘s Phantom ability, but we can only summon our horse in ectoplasmic form. We can ride it very well though and it is an outsider and intelligent, making it way more versatile than a regular mount. Eventually the mount can Walk on Water, Air Walk and Fly, so we can do that too allowing for crazy mobility. All Abolity Scores Increase of our Ghost Mount will be going into Strength. We will put it’s Skill Points into Perception and Intimidation.

Ghost Mount Feats

1-Power Attack

Bonus-Endurance

3-Intimidating Prowess

6-Weapon Focus(Bite)

9-Dazzling Display

11-Cornugon Smash

14-Shatter Defenses

17-Disheartening Display

19-Hurtful

Essentially the same idea as the Cavalier’s build.

Equipment

A Longsword, Heavy Shield and the best armor you can afford. Also a saddle.

Final Thoughts on this Build

We are dealing a fairly large amount of damage in melee and are quite tanky, but our main attraction is our Intimidation factor, the fact that by demoralizing our enemies we are debuffing them, buffing ourselves via intimidating our massive army of minions. Also, we are the friggin Ghost Rider so that’a cool too.

Oh yeah, we also have triple Leadership wtfomgbbqIlosethegame…