Best Feats for Cavalier Fighter 5e

by Prince Phantom

The Cavalier is one of the strangest designs for a Fighter subclass printed so far. The class advertises itself as a mounted combat master, but gives exactly one feature that mentions a mount and it’s mostly a ribbon feature, meaning it doesn’t actually help us in any meaningful way.

In reality, the abilities lean us towards a tank playstyle, punishing enemies for attacking our allies and granting us extra ways to use our opportunity attack. We are forced into melee for any of these features to have much impact. There are actually a good number of feats that support this approach, but there’s a bit of a catch.

Best Feats for Cavalier Fighter 5e

Sentinel and Polearm Master*: We need to discuss these two feats, as they seem like obvious choices for us. The problem is that our subclass eventually grants a lot of what we care about from them. To be precise, we get the 0 speed opportunity attack from Sentinel and the reaction attack when an enemy approaches us from Polearm Master. I think this means we don’t want to take Sentinel, but let’s debate if Polearm Master is worth it. It should be noted that you do not get these benefits until level 10, so if you know your campaign will end before or soon after that level, Sentinel is probably worth it.
Polearm Master/Great Weapon Master (ASAP): I still think Polearm Master is worth getting at level 1 or 4, especially at level 1. The bonus action attack represents such a huge increase in damage every round that it alone is worth the feat. Yes, our subclass does eventually get the ability to do bonus action attacks, but only a few of them and we can’t control when they happen. For the turns that we do get that bonus action attack ability, I recommend carrying a d12 or 2d6 weapon to maximize our damage that round. Obviously we take Great Weapon Master as our second feat because the increase to damage is astonishing. It should be noted that our Unwavering Mark only works if the enemy is within 5ft of us, so using the reach of our polearm may not be as useful to us as other characters, but we can still use it to attack enemies other than our mark.
Heavy Armor Master (Lv 6): We are trying to be a frontline tank, so anything that helps us survive is very appreciated. This feat gets even better as enemies gain more attacks, and is especially good if your DM likes to use lots of weaker enemies in their encounters.
Resilient Wisdom (Lv 8): We’re probably useless if we fail a Wisdom save, so this feat is necessary as we get into higher levels. Big burly front liners are easy targets for enemy casters and we are in the direct line of fire for cone spells like fear. We’re super useless if we are frightened, so any defense against that is very appreciated, and this helps as almost all fear effects are Wisdom saves.
Fey Touched/Magic Initiate (Lv 12): Getting some magic in our toolkit is always nice. If we have a familiar already in the party, a second one isn’t as helpful so we should take Fey Touched instead. Misty Step and Silvery Barbs are great options to support our melee playstyle and help us not get overwhelmed when we inevitably jump into a fray we think we can handle but actually definitely cannot.
Tough (Lv 12): As a melee build, we need some extra hp as we will be attacked the most often of the whole party. Tough does exactly that for us and I’m very happy to take it at this relatively early level.
Lucky (Lv 14): Finishing our defensive feats package, Lucky defends us from crits and really helps our saving throws in conjunction with Indomitable. I would definitely use our luck points defensively, so don’t go spending them on something like a pointless ability check. I see that way too often.

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