Class Expansions - The Unhorsed Cavalier

Sometimes, all you need to have fun with a class for another few months is a few new ideas to tinker around with. Class Expansions is a series of lightweight supplements for The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game that takes a base class and offers alternative class features that, handily enough, each fit on one page or less.

Following in this vein, Class Expansions - The Unhorsed Cavalier fixes one of the major problems of the cavalier class, the mount. Let's consider this for a moment. Back in the days of 3.5, one of the paladin's big class features was this super intelligent horse with all sorts of bells and whistles hanging off of it like some sort of gnome had cooked it up as a genetic engineering experiment. Awesome stuff! Until it took one look at the dungeon stairs and shook its head no.

And there was much complaining.

Pathfinder comes out and the paladin gets the ability to swap out the horse for some sort of holy sword!

There was much rejoicing!

Fast forward a couple of years and an advanced guide comes out containing the cavalier, who has a horse.

See above.

This product features a quartet of cavalier archetypes, all of which throw away the mount for something different.

• Attended Knight - Grab a peasant, slap heraldry on him, and treat him like a golf caddie for your weapons!
• Longshanks - Glare at those with horses as though they are lesser individuals and show them you know how to hustle with your own two feet. Bonuses to movement while in heavy armor, the ability to hustle while in heavy armor with no penalties whatsoever, max Dex and armor check penalties, and Endurance as a bonus feat await those who take this archetype.
• Seeker of All Knowledge - An enhanced version of the Order of the Tome, give up your horse because you're too busy with the book your nose is stuck in.
• Wind-kissed Knight - Arcane magic is a semi-sentient thing. Like gods, it goes around and picks out champions to do its bidding, which is quite simple. Read the meters. That guy with the arcane deathray? He's using too much magic. Shut it down. That wizard pulling all the pointless pranks? Poke him on the shoulder. Make him stop. In short, the cavalier becomes a sort of arcane paladin, serving the whims of a great, but nearly mindless cosmic force that really just wants the wizards to get off its lawn so it can get to sleep. In return, the cavalier gains access to potent arcane magic as well as defenses against the very wizards he will likely upset time and time again.