Tuesday, January 14, 2025

The Articles of Dragon: "The Chivalrous Cavalier"

From the moment Gary Gygax first announced that his upcoming revision to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons would include, among other additions, a collection of new character classes, my younger self was waiting with eager anticipation for any news about what these classes might be or what abilities they might possess. By the time issue #72 of Dragon (April 1983) had come out, Gygax had already presented previews of two of these new classes, the barbarian and the thief-acrobat, neither of which thrilled me. I didn't hate either of them, but I didn't see much scope for their use in my ongoing AD&D campaign at the time – and neither did my players, who largely ignored them a brief flurry of interest.

This issue offered readers a third proposed class: the cavalier. Described as a "sub-class of fighter ... in service to some deity, noble, order, or special cause," the cavalier was basically a knight, drawing on both historical orders of knighthood and those from legend and literature. Much like the paladin, with whom it shares many similarities (more on that soon), the cavalier has hefty ability score requirements for entrance (STR, DEX, and CON 15+, INT and WIS 10+), as well as belonging to the right social class. A cavalier must initially be good in alignment, whether lawful, chaotic, or neutral, though he may shift away from goodness before 4th level without penalty, which I always thought was an odd detail.

Unlike the paladin, which is a human-only class, the cavalier admits humans, elves, and half-elves, all of whom have the potential for unlimited advancement. The class is focused on mounted combat, which, while appropriate based on its inspirations, would seem to limit its utility in dungeon-focused adventures. No matter: cavalier get numerous other useful abilities, such as combat parries, improved saves against fear, impressive starting equipment (a consequence of their high station), weapon specialization, and, perhaps most remarkable of all, ability improvement. Every time a cavalier gains a level, he rolls 2d10 and adds the result as a note after his Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores. When the total from these rolls reaches 100 for any ability, it increases by 1 point. 

Needless to say, the cavalier was quite a popular class among my friends and I at the time issue #72 appeared. I'd long been seeking an "official" AD&D knight class, so the cavalier scratched a longstanding itch of mine. That the class Gygax presented was also incredibly potent, possessing multiple powerful abilities, was just icing on the cake. Compared to the fighter, of which it was a sub-class, the cavalier was just better in almost every way, especially, if as was usually the case, one were not too strict about the rolling of ability scores for new characters. Consequently, I saw a lot of cavalier characters for a while, both in my own games and in those of friends. I can't say I really blamed anyone for this, in light of the class's power. Plus, it had the imprimatur of Gary Gygax, so who could argue against its inclusion?

Over time, quite a lot of us fell out of love with the cavalier. The truth was that, as presented here – and, later, in Unearthed Arcanathe class was simply out of whack with those in the Players Handbook. Perhaps, I thought, once Gygax completed his full revision of AD&D, it might be more in line with the overall power level of the game, but, until then, it was simply too much. This was doubly true of cavalier-paladins, which combined the abilities of both classes – what was Gygax thinking? Yes, it's true that there were various social restrictions placed on cavaliers through their code of honor that might, in principle, keep them in line, but, as kids, that was rarely sufficient to rein them in. I soon forbade cavaliers from my games and hardly anyone complained about it.

Looking back on this article now, it's pretty clear that, by 1983, Gygax's conception of AD&D was in the process of shifting considerably from his original vision. On some level, I can't really blame him. By this time, he'd been playing some version of D&D for over a decade, so it was probably inevitable that he'd want to do something different than he'd done before. Everything he was writing around this time suggests that he was becoming increasingly interested in a more high-powered kind of fantasy, one whose characters were personally powerful and whose adventures involved high stakes and equally powerful foes. Again, I cannot blame him for this. Having refereed my House of Worms campaign for a similar length of time, I know only too well the temptations of going Big, sometimes to the detriment of the game itself.

That's more or less how I look at the cavalier and most of the Gygax-penned material that first appeared in Dragon and later in Unearthed Arcana: experiments gone wrong. Many of them seemed like better ideas than they turned out to be. "Even Homer nods," as the saying goes, and so it was with Gygax and the cavalier.

16 comments:

  1. These new character classes all parallel the D&D cartoon of the time.

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    1. It would be interesting to know whether Gygax was already considering these new classes in the late 70s or whether he invented them as part of his pitch to Hollywood. In either case, it suggests that Unearthed Arcana spent a long time in "development hell" before it was published...Which isn't surprising, given Gygax's marriage troubles, his disputes with the Blumes, and then having to deal with new ownership at TSR.

      Per James's point about Gygax's changing interests, I wonder how much of Mentzer's Companion and Immortals rules were designed out of whole-cloth and how much a high-powered play-style was already being discussed "behind the scenes" in the TSR offices.

      By the way, that Dragon cover by Clyde Caldwell shows a strong Boris Vallejo influence, in my opinion.

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  2. I never saw any of the Dragon articles at the time but very happily bought Unearthed Arcana. I felt the Thief-Acrobat was disappointing and none of my players showed any interest. I've rewritten it recently to make it more playable. I liked both Cavalier and Barbarian, and had players run each. I now consider the Cavalier a little overpowered. The Barbarian concept was great, but we all felt unplayable in a party with a wizard if you followed the restrictions given. This could have been the basis for a lot of in-game role-playing in some respects: "I'm not a wizard, really, I'm a... a... a priest of boccob!" "Take this sword, it shines because it was made with lost elven lore. The wi... priest checked that its not enchanted!"

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    1. We'd love to see your writeup of the Thief-Acrobat! 😊

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  3. The cavalier seems like an obvious class, at least if one is already slicing the Fighter archetype into Rangers, Paladins, Barbarians, etc. But I haven't played in a D&D or D&D-like game where something like it has been used, just explicitly magical Paladins and similar.

    I've read Adventures Dark and Deep and The Heroic Legendarium, both of which made the cavalier more reasonable. But both still seemed much stronger than a regular fighter and still had very high ability score requirements.

    The knight class in Castles & Crusades looks like an interesting version, but might not really be "old school" as he can bestow to-hit bonuses just by being nearby and looking inspiring.

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  4. I'm one of those that thinks that, in retrospect, the UA was mostly an error, the additional classes being the biggest part, probably.
    So you could say I'm pretty "glad" that Gary did not get to work on his vision of 2e.
    So far I think that OSRIC has turned out to be the best possible AD&D2e we could ever get.

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  5. Speaking of Unearthed: I found two old totes in storage last year. This Dragon edition was there, in so-close-to-mint condition (the binding/staples were very very slightly loose) that I marveled at it.

    I remember arguing with my dopey friends nearly forty years ago about whether the two women were twins, since they were curiously both left-handed.

    The cover was killer. I found the rest somewhat lackluster. Like others here we couldn't really play a straight Cavalier and have it sing with the other adventurers.

    Ultimately only Druids and Illusionists ever really fit our teenage campaigns. We couldn't really harness a slash-class either, although we might have tried a Fighter/Magic-User with limited success and endless grumbling.

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  6. I rigorously enforce 3d6-in-order set-in-stone for ability score generation. Given that, here are the chances of rolling Gary's new classes:

    barbarian: 1 in 830
    thief-acrobat: 1 in 269
    cavalier: 1 in 3,381
    cavalier-paladin: 1 in 420,061
    hunter (from Realms of Adventure #2, Fall 1988): 1 in 5,119)

    If a player is lucky enough to roll one of those classes, he deserves all the crazy powers that come with it. This extreme rarity will keep such a character class from screwing-up a campaign and instead be a source of spice.

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    1. I do as well, and I haven't seen a character beyond the basic four classes in quite some time. Which suits me just fine!

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    2. You'd have similar odds with Paladins, Rangers, Druids, Illusionists, etc. Which is why the AD&D DMG offers other methods for rolling stats. :)

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    3. There were a few Paladins in my 3d6 down the line OD&D gaming 10 years ago...

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  7. We actually had quite a bit of fun with the Thief-Acrobat, and helped people get away from playing thieves who were always picking pockets and either getting the party in trouble or stealing from their friends, etc. It seemed like a fun variant. Of course we also used the Cavalier & Barbarian, which were quite over-powered, even when weapon specialization was given to fighters & rangers. (and even at a young age we couldn't reconcile why elves could have unlimited advancement as cavaliers, but not as rangers?)

    There was a good revision to the cavalier that nerfed it's power level in a good way that kept it an interesting and different class in a later Dragon that I liked quite a bit.

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  8. "so it was probably inevitable that he'd want to do something different than he'd done before"

    Well, Cyborg Commando was definitely "different".

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  9. There was so much to drool over here, things we'd never seen before: the ability improvements, the ability to operate at negative hit points, THREE attacks per round at high levels with specialized weapons, oodles of proficiency slots to spend on specialization, freedom from training to advance in level, each paragraph was just another revelation. Of course I was statting-out a 10th level cavalier before the end of the day the issue arrived in the mail, and in combat it outshone anything of remotely comparable level. But the counterbalances that my teenage self ignored were there: No missile weapons. Ouch. Preference for a better class of armor over magic armor, meaning you'd ultimately don plate armor, which couldn't be magicked for anything less than stronghold-construction-level costs - so you'd lose the bonus to saves from magic armor or, say, the chance to swim when suddenly plunged into a water-filled trap as modules of the time loved to do. 300 kxp per level at name level, versus 250 for a fighter. Following a code of honor incongruous with an adventuring life, even more so than a paladin or monk or druid. This is a character who would never sneak anywhere, never surrender, never consort with the rabble. Care and feeding of a large number of followers starting at a low level, as well as requirements for retainers - who MUST travel with the cavalier. I never actually played one, as they didn't fit the tone of our games back then, and my friends would have rightly accused me of power-gaming, although I don't think that phrase was in use back then.

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  10. I remember the first cavalier I played; it was possibly the longest-running campaign I'd been in to date-- most of the school year 1983-84.

    "I'd long been seeking an "official" AD&D knight class, so the cavalier scratched a longstanding itch of mine. That the class Gygax presented was also incredibly potent, possessing multiple powerful abilities, was just icing on the cake. " THIS, not the amazing abilities, was what hooked me. I'd been a wargamer and history fan longer than an RPG'er, and while paladins had an appeal, the secular & (semi)historical nature of the cavalier had its own.

    Given that the party included a half-ogre barbarian and an assassin, among others, the intricate rules and limitations didn't seem too far out of whack. Of course, we were teens, so what did we know or care for game balance?

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