Are fighters knights? Or is that paladins

Is the fighter better than the cavalier

Not without advanced weapon training and a bow.

Wizards are knights in my setting

That's retarded

I believe Crusaders are the best knights in 3.X

Why? Obviously the most important, powerful class should align with the most important social class, landed nobility and peerless defenders of the realm. No weakling martial could even compete.

They're super fun. I built mine around alternately Iron Guard Glaring losers and Thicket of Blades-ing and Stand Still-inch nerds with his glaive. It was pretty swank.

Historically paladin were simply the most trusted knights of Charlemagne, and knights were the martial class who had sworn fealty to a lord.

D&D has no fucking idea what the hell it wants to do. At one moment paladin are knights, the next champions of Lawful Good, the next simply chosen warriors of their deity regardless of alignment, the next they're bound by an oath, which can radically differ in nature from one oath to another. And fighters? Fighters are the residu class, anyone who fights without using magic or any other skill/trick that can be described by any other class. If it doesn't fall under the definition of any other class, it's pretty much guaranteed to be a fighter.

Then Magus would make more sense in Pathfinder terms.

Knight is a background that gives 3 retainers and a scroll of pedigree.

Either can be. Or if you want to be less traditional, a character of any class can be knighted, or even just act like they are.

Because Knights were a social class that arose due to their relationship with owning and riding horses, has nothing to do with martial prowess of is some kind of caste

But yeah, that's a really anime/video game type thing to say/do. sounds dreadfully cringey

>But yeah, that's a really anime/video game type thing to say/do. sounds dreadfully cringey
It makes perfect sense though. It happens in anime because a select group of people are so overpowered, the average warrior is little more than an annoyance to them. It's only natural they'd attain high positions of (military) leadership in society. Mutatis mutandis the same would apply to high fantasy like D&D.

Think about it, why would wizards who can change the very fabric of reality and warriors who can take down dozens of soldiers with one hand literally tied behind their backs bother with obeying the established order, when they have the power to easily replace it?

This is why I believe high fantasy settings should by default tend to magocracies, or monarchies centered around noble families that are objectively superior due to either extreme martial potential or magical bloodlines (kings that can trace their heritage to dragons, other mythical beings or even gods).

>objectively superior
In game mechanics sure, but (depending on setting of course)
>have to study for 30 years to spit the most basic sparks out of your hands
>need to be rich or lucky enough to have access to research material and or a master
>need to survive your apprenticeship
I can see magic being more common in the upper classes, a status symbol even, but powerful wizards should probably be exceedingly rare, and old. More likely generals than champions. Sorcerers, perhaps, but they're even rarer.

You got it backwards. Fighters aren't knights and paladins. Paladins and knights are fighters.

To look at it another way, why would powerful wizards - who to get where they are have had to dedicate their lives to solitary, esoteric studies with an obsessive single-mindedness - be interested in the nuisances of governing a state or the petty vanity of social position?

Is there anything in this world more attractive than power? I guess it Depends On The Setting(tm), but I believe that with some notable exceptions the study of magic is merely another means to attain power.

And even if we ignore the power aspect, a cleric would make for a very popular king because everything he does has the direct approval, or at least condoning, of a deity. Pretty sure a lot of droit divine fags would enjoy that.

But wizards have pursued their own route to power, and I think it's one that would tend to leave them with little taste of the responsibilities of authority. Sure, there might be some who still have a craving for domination or who see their power and wisdom as giving them a responsibility to lead, but I feel like they'd be exceptions. Also, wizards aren't likely to be charismatic leaders (some might be, but the focus on solitary study tends against it). So even wizards interested in politics might well prefer to use somebody else as their face and keep themselves off the front row as a puppetmaster. Crucially, this also means they don't need to waste their time with all the little annoyances of government.

Clerics, too, I think, would tend to see themselves as advisers and counsellors rather than rulers in their own right. Dealing with the petty responsibilities of rulership is a distraction from higher things for clerics just as it is for wizards.

Explaining why wizards don't get followers as part of their progression doesn't explain why martial types have to gain that as progression.

Unless it's a game that hasn't designed its endgame well.

For example of martial character with an interesting end game, take the first two Shining Forces.

Martial characters get access to spells through magical equipment, while casters get spells that aren't tied to inventory slots (not sure if magic scales with anything in the game)

Totally agree. I don't see any reason for martial characters to necessarily gravitate towards leadership positions either.

In my campaign the majority of politically powerful characters have no particularly notable personal prowess - I don't see why they should.

Certain feudal nations with an exceptionally martial ruling class might be an exception. There might also be the odd theocracy or mageocracy, but those are all exceptions, not rules.

Is this really traditional games? Perhaps you need a containment board like /qst/

One that misunderstands how the threads work?

/qst/ is like /r/ in that seeing the skeletons of failure kills my boner.

>implying that the most trusted knights of Charlemagne weren't basically walking miracle workers.

>not even mentioning that they're basically undead who can keep on trucking with massive minus HP.

Paladin and palace have the same roman original, coming from palatin, iirc.

The mods are insisting on pushing it though, and they know more than us. So it can't be a failure. The low post counts and piddly amount of unique IPs and /qst/ general that's against the rule but always up and is 50% bitching about how /qst/ is broken are just us not understanding.

Knights can be almost any class. You need horse and gear though.

monk knight when

In PF they are called Sohei.

>Are crows pets? Or is that pigeons?

I mean, it's not like every problem actual quest users said would happen ACTUALLY happened, is it?

Of course not. The mod that admitted to having only ever read one quest thread from 6 years ago understands better than anyone.

I think that might be implicit in the fact he kills an entire fucking army.

I like the 5e subdivision of classes. And fighter is just generic enough to cover lots of real world fighting types.

>Knight is the guy with money that spends more on armor
>Paladin is the holy crusader type with some priestly magic
>Gladiators are the trained pit fighters that can weaponize anything including furniture parts
>then add in flavors for Samurai, Mamaluke, Pikeman, Rajput, Viking, Han General

They were based on the at the time mythology of the knights of Charlemagne, who were told to have heavenly powers and fought off the Saracen heathens etc. A few were mostly told to be God's soldiers spreading the faith in Europe, they defeated giants (who happened to be Muslim) and one placed his magic sword on a cliff side which apparently keeps all Turks from being able to invade the town. The sword is apparently still there today.

What if they could summon peasant man at arms as a class ability?

It could be like a civilized version of summon nature's ally. By the time it gets to Summon Peasant IV you get an eight foot tall retard with a pitchfork. He could have +4 retard strength.

Why is it early D&D did not have knights?

When they were adapting various European historic and fantasy things to the early game they added wizard, priest, thief, and later bard and druid but no knight. They just went with generic guy with sword.

cavalier, we've been over this

Hello. Can I have some noodles please?

Those came much later, I'm talking about when they first made the game

So Paladins are specialized kebab removers.

Best class.

Knights are a job/social occupation. Not a class.
Similar to how an assassin doesn't have to be a Rogue, even if Rogue has the Assassin Archetype. Anyone hired to kill a specific target is an assassin, regardless of if they're an Assassin.
A dude in heavy armour and the title of a lord with land in his name is a knight, regardless of him being a Fighter, a Paladin, or even a Bard.

In OD&D "fighters" were, where combat mechanics were explicitly stated to be an abstraction (e.g. Hit Points were not actually physical damage, but rather a combined representation of the moral and physical exhaustion of your opponent -- it's only the felling blow that indicates actual damage.)

So a level-9 Man-at-Arms essentially "graduated" to a knight, which included the benefits of nobility: followers and a fiefdom. The granting of followers in fact was what kept the Man-at-Arms somewhat balanced against the Mage.

In many ways 3rd Ed was popular precisely because people weren't playing OD&D and AD&D according to both the RaW and RaI. And in fairness those manuals were written like shit, which is why games like Sword&Sorcery and other OSR are such blessings.

Paladins in AD&D were like just total 1337 knights, which is part of why the stat barrier to entry was so high. That said, they are in some ways weaker than the Man-at-Arms, since they don't get the strength bonus and they can't save money to buy better magic weapons. Also a DM might rule weird on what kind of followers a Paladin is allowed to have, as they might not be allowed soldiers as the Man-of-Arms is.

5e lacks followers which makes the wizard quadratic and fighter linear as always.

>Cavaliers in D&D
That's 3.PF. One edition series is not shorthand for "D&D"

How do you reference so many editions and get it wrong that Cavaliers were only introduced in PF?

Do you intend to pay in proverbs?

As a base class yes, but Cavalier was a prestige class in 3e.

Yea pretty much. They were real people who were retold in stories by peasants as magical god warriors that could remove muslims from Europe and bless the lands so no muslim could set foot there again.

>Knights are a job/social occupation. Not a class.

When is a class not a job?

I thought the two were completely interchangeable terms

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paladin

>Roland the guy with the magic sword that slew a thousand muslims single handedly
>Oliver, defeated muslim giants in the mountains of Spain
>Maugris the child of a fairy and is a sorcerer
>Fierbras, a 15 foot tall giant from spain that converted to christianity
>Astolfo, used to be a tree but now is a knight with a lance that can magically knock anyone off a horse with a touch, has a horn that caused fear in all armies and a horse made of fire
>Ogier, Danish guy owned a magic sword and sleeps underneath Denmark and will wake up some day to defend it if it is ever invaded
>Ganleon who betrayed Charlemagne and was killed, later was sent to the lowest circle of hell nest to Satan
>Renauld who had a magic size changing horse
>Florismart, killed a sorceress
>Guy of Burgundy, single handedly kept Saracens from taking a castle
>Naimon blessed with wisdom from the angel Michael
>Outel, a converted Saracen

they apparently murder any Muslim they find, kill a lot of muslim giants, and kill a few evil wizards

Cavalier the base class dates back at least as far as 1e's Unearthed Arcana.

I always figured that a Paladin is what a Knight should be, not a neo-Paladin but a Lawful Good old fashion Paladin. Knights were tied to the religion, anyway. Lots of times to be a Knight you had to be blessed, and pray, and fast, etc. And if you follow the old feudal structure then all authority is delegated from God to the Noble Classes anyway.

Somewhat right, but the knights of Charlemagne were preoccupied with the Moors, not the Saracens (whose name was only generalized to refer to all Muslims in the 12th century, while Charlemagne fought in the 8th century).

Also, the Moors were much more than kebabs in the Carolingian Romances. Moorish knights were treated with all the honor and respect given to any knight, at least in Bulfinch's compilation and translation. The villains in the romances were more often than not plotters from within the Carolingian Court -- the Moorish knights often became allies instead.

Every Medieval-Europe-setting RPG fan should read Bulfinch's Age of Chivalry, btw.

...

Knights can be fighters or paladins or rogues or sorcerers or barbarians or any other class.

Editions aside, "cavalier" and "knight" are interchangeable, and "paladin" is a specific reference to some muslim-murdering Frenchmen as mentioned elsewhere in this thread. They happened to all be knights/cavaliers also.

If you're thinking of "knight" as a social rank, a character of any class could be one. Elton John (notable 20th century bard) is a knight.

oops, forgot picture. Here's a knight with his buddy Roland. The paladin.

Depends on how you play it.

The point is that both can be but that neither are by dint of WHAT they are.

A wizard can be a knight. A cleric can be a knight. A fighter can be a knight. It's unrelated.