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I think the Psionics system from Dreamscarred Press is more balanced than the regular magic system.
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Dreamscarred, Alluria, and Abandoned Arts put out fantastic and well balanced material. The vast majority of Rite Publishing's material is great as well, though one or two of the monster classes from their "In the Company of...." series can be a little OP.
Super Genius Games probably has the largest number of OP or "broken" classes out of the well-known 3pp.
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Material I use most often is from Super Genius games (I strongly disagree with Ssalarn, and dont think anything they have produced is overpowered baring the comedic genius guide to horrifically overpowered feats), Kobold Press, Dreamscared Press and Frog God games. I havent really come across anything by those companies that didnt work at my table.
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Let me quote the talented and respected reviewer Endzeitgeist fom his take on the Armiger to help elaborate on some common themes I've seen throughout SGG works.
I like the idea of the Armiger, but I don’t like its execution: Reflect is simply too strong and gained too early and players being players, my DM-experience is screaming to me, in capital letters, that this class is prone to munchkinism, combined with enough magic items this will become problematic. The fact, that two of the advanced talents lack necessary information does not improve the pdf, either. The ability to become hard cover for allies is cool, but healing them as well feels like not really belonging to the class -healing others is usually the providence of divine characters. In the end, I will settle for a final verdict of 2.5 stars, rounded up to 3 as the class has potential, but could become problematic fast, scaling the AC so high that either the Armiger gets rarely hit and everyone else always, or having the Armiger practically as an unhittable brute. Both are not necessarily viable options in my book.
Don't get me wrong, they have amazing flavor and incredible artwork, but the vast majority of their work just isn't balanced to core material. The Dragonrider takes the Paladin and Cavalier outside and bends them over, the Armiger is a ridiculous tank with no inherent weaknesses to speak of, campaigns that include the Mighty Godling have no reason to include, well, nearly any martial class...
I could go on at length but won't. I love SGG's product line, their art, layouts, themes, they're all incredible, but if you're trying to convince someone 3pp material is balanced to core material Super Genius Games just isn't the flagship you want leading the charge.
They're the company whose material experienced players getting bored with the core system bust out when they want to do some seriously high fantasy, busting demons and angels in the face, maybe-we-all-become-gods-at-the-end-of-this kind of gaming. They're not the products you want to take to a GM who's already biased against 3pp and say "No, everything's balanced, really. I'm sure the Fighter, Rogue and Cleric are going to love what my Dragonrider and his mount bring to the party, just give them a chance."
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Don't get me wrong, they have amazing flavor and incredible artwork, but the vast majority of their work just isn't balanced to core material.Nothing is balanced to core material. Not even core.
There's a difference between "Wizards can cast Wish and all martials get is two extra attacks" and "The Cavalier, Paladin, Ranger, and Dragonrider all do basically the same thing, but one of them gets a flying mount with d12 hit die, a breath weapon, all good saves, and a slew of immunities at level one, not to mention 4 hit die more than the other guys' mounts over the course of play, while he himself is cherry-picking 1st-4th level spells from the Sorcerer/Wizard spell-list".
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Fourthing Dreamscarred.
Sidenote: I don't understand folks who say "well, wizards can break the game wide open, so melee should get 4 attacks at level 1 and a raft of immunities etc. to compensate." Yes, we know casters are powerful, but it's not as straightforward a trip for them from potential to actual.
Druids though... **** Druids. (Which PF did.)
Oddmage, I'd check the reviews for any 3pp products you're looking at. Even the same company can be very balanced on several products, but over or underpowered here or there. I would say that the majority of Super Genius Games' work IS balanced to core, but that there's so much of it, you can easily find exceptions.
I personally would readily accept anything from Rite Publishing, Super Genius Games, and of course Purple Duck Game/4WFG, at my gaming table. I'm not familiar enough with the work of other 3PPs to offer an opinion on them, but its widely agreed that if you want Psionics, Dreamscarred is the way to go.
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I like Rite Publishing a lot as a GM. I have been very happy with their monster templates, #30 series, 101 series, and the 1001 spells book especially.
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I personally use the Dragonrider as a litmus test for people I'd like to work with. There's a lot of subtleties there that are missed by people.
SGG is great at making things that seem overpowered, but due to the details, is actually pretty well balanced. They're the only company I give a blanket pass to.
Let me quote the talented and respected reviewer Endzeitgeist fom his take on the Armiger to help elaborate on some common themes I've seen throughout SGG works.
I like the idea of the Armiger, but I don’t like its execution: Reflect is simply too strong and gained too early and players being players, my DM-experience is screaming to me, in capital letters, that this class is prone to munchkinism, combined with enough magic items this will become problematic. The fact, that two of the advanced talents lack necessary information does not improve the pdf, either. The ability to become hard cover for allies is cool, but healing them as well feels like not really belonging to the class -healing others is usually the providence of divine characters. In the end, I will settle for a final verdict of 2.5 stars, rounded up to 3 as the class has potential, but could become problematic fast, scaling the AC so high that either the Armiger gets rarely hit and everyone else always, or having the Armiger practically as an unhittable brute. Both are not necessarily viable options in my book.Don't get me wrong, they have amazing flavor and incredible artwork, but the vast majority of their work just isn't balanced to core material. The Dragonrider takes the Paladin and Cavalier outside and bends them over, the Armiger is a ridiculous tank with no inherent weaknesses to speak of, campaigns that include the Mighty Godling have no reason to include, well, nearly any martial class...
The dragon rider does no such thing. It doesnt have anywhere near the class features of either the paladin or the cavalier. All it gets it it's dragon more or less, and a few minor abilities. And he has to take actions at low to mid levels to allow the dragon to take more then a full action, particularly for the better dragons. Yes it has a better mount then the cavalier, but it doesnt have challenge, banner, the order abilities, or anything else the cavalier gets. And the cavalier is one of the weaker classes in the game. Compare the dragonrider to the druid, or the summoner (classes in the main game that also have powerful pets) and it doesnt even come close. A 3rd party option cant be unbalanced if paizo material including a core class blow it out of the water. And it definately isnt more powerful then either of those 2 classes.
The armiger I am honestly not sure about, I havent used it or looked closely at it (not my style) so I wont argue with you there, but the Mighty godling is better then any martial class? Why? I have seen 2 in play, and in both cases they were vastly inferior to the party barbarian and fighter respectively. What is it about the mighty godling that makes the paladin, fighter, and cavalier inferior? (I am honestly curious)
As I said previously, I like Super Genius Games' stuff, I just don't think they're the publisher you should be showcasing if you're trying to convince a biased GM that 3pp material won't break his game. Warm him up with material from the guys at Rite Publishing, or a couple of the archetypes from Abandoned Arts first. Or introduce him to a setting that's completely outside the scope of normal gaming with a publisher like Alluria. Once you've run a Cerulean Seas campaign and he realizes that he's been doing 50% of his GMing referencing 3rd party material, introducing additional content will go a lot smoother. Dreamscarred is another really good company, but a lot of old school guys carry as much or more prejudice against Psionics as they do against 3pp, so try to bring that in a piece at a time. If your GM likes martial arts and Asian-y themed goodness, try out The Way of Ki from Legendary Games. Not only is it awesome, but most of the authors have names that your GM will recognize from official PF works.
I dont know, I recommend a lot of SSG stuff less with regards to balance and more with regards to concept. The thing I like most about their stuff, particularly their classes is they let me do things that are either not possible or really difficult to do with paizo material. The dragon rider is among the best exaples. If what I want is to ride a dragon, its the best way to go about it. I could do it with the summoner, but its alot more difficult, and you end up with a far more powerful character and a sort of unsatisfying flavor. With SGG stuff I dont have to put the round peg into the square whole, they made a peg and hole that are shaped just the way I want it.
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I personally use the Dragonrider as a litmus test for people I'd like to work with. There's a lot of subtleties there that are missed by people.
SGG is great at making things that seem overpowered, but due to the details, is actually pretty well balanced. They're the only company I give a blanket pass to.
I just disagree Cheapy.
If you want a class that actually gives a balanced version of a Dragonrider, Abandoned Arts did a great Dragonrider Cavalier Archetype that fits well within the existing framework of the game.While SSG's Dragonrider himself is a very well-built class, the potency his dragon brings to the table is going to make people upset.
For clarity, I don't think the Dragonrider class is terribly out of line with a class like the Summoner, but considering how much controversy that class still brings with it... It's just not a good class to try and sell someone who is already biased to convince them that 3pp isn't going to break their table. The baseline of the class is just set too high. It's one of those classes where, if you assume that the pregen iconics represent a 1 on a PC power-scale of 1-10, just starts out at like a 5 minimum. Does it cap before hitting that 10? Yes. Does that change the fact that it's going to give many GM's a bad impression of the comparative power disparity between 3pp and core? No.
I like the War Master class from Super Genius games, using it once for an enemy leader and liking what the class could do. Their 110 spell variants series is also really cool, I own 1, 2, and 3 of that series, and I thought their Rune Staves and Wyrd Wands was an interesting pdf too. I haven't used anything else of theirs, however I've seen lots good things said about the Time Thief class also.
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Kolokotroni-
My statements about the Dragonrider can do are based (not solely, but this is pertinent to the topic) on the fact that almost every time I've showed up at a table made of average players with one I wasn't even trying to min/max or power-game, I've been politely asked to play something else because the game is stopping being fun for everyone else. Rider and mount both have great saves, and the rider, while probably even less impressive than the old 3.5 Dragon Shaman, provides everything the dragon needs to own sauce, and can be a reasonable combatant himself. Slap the ol' Dangerously Curious trait on him, pick the gear you want and away you go. While the steed's Focus limiter prevents the class from going way over the top, it's generally just not that much of an issue. The actions required are usually move actions or less, except for the two most powerful dragons who don't reduce it below a standard until 8th, and that usually frees up the Dragonrider to activate wands or other magic items, make attacks, what have you. I suppose the upshot is that, at least during lower levels, the Dragonrider actualy has a chance of Vital Strike being a good investment. The Share Spells class feature can be extremely powerful as well, especially since the Dragonrider has such a wide range of options to choose from (even if his actual spells known / per day are small).
The Mighty Godling... is harder to explain without going into actual builds. suffice it that there are a number of extremely potent combinations that allow him a level of performance and versatility that put any martial class other than the most optimized Paladins and Barbarians to shame. D12 hit die (which SSG uses just a little too often) combined with full BAB, two good saves, bonus Combat feats, and the ability to cherry-pick to a certain extent the best Cleric, Oracle, Sorcerer, and/or Wizard abilities is a package that can be pretty overwhelming for other players to try and keep up with.
Weirdly, my favorite SSG class is actually the one most widely consdered to be "broken", the Armiger. Yes, he's an unstoppable tank whose only weak save is covered by a class ability that pretty much completely negates the weakness, but he's also very team oriented and encourages cooperative play since the bulk of his abilities revolve around him playing portable rampart for the other party members.
You know I haven't ever actually looked at the Dragonrider class ever. So ima take a look and judge for myself when I get home from work tonight.
I have to throw in my two cents with the dragonrider being balanced, even a bit weak.
Godling is more complex and I couldn't say for sure.
More importantly tho those classes got me really excited to play. I find SGG material to be super fun.
While I get that this is a bit of a thread jack, I am not sure this isnt a useful conversation for the OP to see. There are lots of things to consider when choosing to add material to your game or ask your gm to add it. Some of the points ssalarn are important regardless of my agreement or disagreement.
Kolokotroni-
My statements about the Dragonrider can do are based (not solely, but this is pertinent to the topic) on the fact that almost every time I've showed up at a table made of average players with one I wasn't even trying to min/max or power-game, I've been politely asked to play something else because the game is stopping being fun for everyone else. Rider and mount both have great saves, and the rider, while probably even less impressive than the old 3.5 Dragon Shaman, provides everything the dragon needs to own sauce, and can be a reasonable combatant himself. Slap the ol' Dangerously Curious trait on him, pick the gear you want and away you go. While the steed's Focus limiter prevents the class from going way over the top, it's generally just not that much of an issue. The actions required are usually move actions or less, except for the two most powerful dragons who don't reduce it below a standard until 8th, and that usually frees up the Dragonrider to activate wands or other magic items, make attacks, what have you. I suppose the upshot is that, at least during lower levels, the Dragonrider actualy has a chance of Vital Strike being a good investment. The Share Spells class feature can be extremely powerful as well, especially since the Dragonrider has such a wide range of options to choose from (even if his actual spells known / per day are small).
I would expect that alot of people wouldnt want a dragon rider at their table, but at least in my experience its been more an issue of theme then of power. I had a player actually play a dragon rider through a whole campaign, and while he brought some things to the table that others didnt (flight at first level), he wasnt as good as the other martial characters in the party, even the straight fighter.
I think most people have a knee jerk reaction to things like the dragon rider that are out of the norm, and the compare it to something like the cavalier or the paladin and say 'look how much better the dragon is', but neither of those classes are based on their pets, the pets arent even a major focus, even the cavalier the mount is a tool to enable the cavaliers mounted talent, and much less of a force un to itself.
I also think you and I must play a very different game, because when gauging the power of a class, 3 good saves dont really jump out at me as an issue. I mean sure its nifty, but is it really powerful? I'd put things like smite or even challenge at a much bigger power boost then an extra good save. 2 is fairly normal, but when people see 3 on something thats not a monk they seem to hit their panic buttons. I dont understand that. Do people not sure up weak saves with magic items in most games? I also dont understand the dangerously curious trait being an issue. Is umd a huge boon in your game? I mean he can already use arcane wands and low level scrolls, what is it about dangerously curious that makes it even worth mentioning?
The Mighty Godling... is harder to explain without going into actual builds. suffice it that there are a number of extremely potent combinations that allow him a level of performance and versatility that put any martial class other than the most optimized Paladins and Barbarians to shame. D12 hit die (which SSG uses just a little too often) combined with full BAB, two good saves, bonus Combat feats, and the ability to cherry-pick to a certain extent the best Cleric, Oracle, Sorcerer, and/or Wizard abilities is a package that can be pretty overwhelming for other players to try and keep up with.
Again we must play different games and have very different standards of what makes a class powerful or not, because it seemed to me that the things you mention arent a huge deal at my table. It to me seems the cleric, oracle, sorceror and wizard abilities are better for eldritch godlings then mighty ones. Are there some that add dramatic martial ability that I just dont get? I mean I am actually playing an eldritch godling and that cherry picking is pretty awesome for a caster, but for the mighty? Is there something in there better then smite evil or divine grace, or lay on hands, or Rage for that matter that I havent seen?
You know I haven't ever actually looked at the Dragonrider class ever. So ima take a look and judge for myself when I get home from work tonight.
Make sure to read it carefully. And then read it again.
There's a reason why, after a year of playtest feedback, they had to give it a buff.
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Kolokotroni,
You've touched on something that is one of the biggest factors in determining "balance" and that's the assumptions of the setting. Our group doesn't have a lot of time to craft homebrews anymore, with work, kids, etc. so APs and modules are where our games largely take place. If you're running Rise of the Runelords and at level 1 a longbow wielding knight touches down in Sandpoints central square, the goblins are going to be wondering what the hell they got themselves into and the party bard is going to be staring at his rapier with a sense of disgust and disappointment. On the other hand, if the Dragonrider is setting down in the courtyard of a floating castle accompanied by a paladin who borrowed one of Her Majesty's pegasii from thestables, things will look different.
The discussion page for the product is here. I have another long post on this guy, but I won't be linking it unless there's a new post made.
Kolokotroni,
You've touched on something that is one of the biggest factors in determining "balance" and that's the assumptions of the setting. Our group doesn't have a lot of time to craft homebrews anymore, with work, kids, etc. so APs and modules are where our games largely take place. If you're running Rise of the Runelords and at level 1 a longbow wielding knight touches down in Sandpoints central square, the goblins are going to be wondering what the hell they got themselves into and the party bard is going to be staring at his rapier with a sense of disgust and disappointment. On the other hand, if the Dragonrider is setting down in the courtyard of a floating castle accompanied by a paladin who borrowed one of Her Majesty's pegasii from thestables, things will look different.
Oh thats totally the case, when my player played a dragon rider I sat down and had a discussion with him about how to include it into the campaign setting. We worked out how many there might be in a large city, how wide spread they are, even created an organization, and a function in the military. Its definately the kind of character that cant just be dropped into any game, though druids with particularly exotic companions face similar if not as sever difficulties.
I really want to play one, but havent had a reasonable chance at it yet, given the campaigns I've played in. I may end up choosing it for a one shot my girlfriend is going to run for my birthday. As I feel 'its my birthday' is totally a justified reason to include 3rd party material of my choice.
But fits thematically and fits mechanically are not the same thing. After all a small druid could take a ride on his roc buddy and gain many of the same advantages (and a whole bunch more from being a druid). If a class in the core rules (bestiary is core after all) can do the thing that it gets above all else (flying mount at level 1) then it doesnt say unbalanced to me. It says cool idea that other people tend to shy away from (which is alot of the stuff in SGG that I really like now that I think about it).
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I wanted to thank everyone for their support of Rite Publishing, and if the OP, oddmage would send me a PM we will see about getting a PDF in his hand.
Alrighty here we go. Looking at it as I type this for the first time and spoiler tagging the results so it can be ignored if chosen and not clog up the thread with a large wall of text.
So at first glance I can automatically see why a knee jerky gm would laugh at me. Full bab, all good saves, d10 hd and the first ability listed on the table is "bonded dragon steed."
Well, damn.
Okay so right away the skeleton is great.
2 skill points per level is painful. This puts him in the same boat with a paladin. Only perhaps worse since a paladin doesn't absolutely need ride and if they do they're generally not wanting other skills anyway. Hmmmm. So dumping int in this case might not be a great idea if you want to do things other than Ride.
Weapon and Armor proficiency....Sooooooo I'm pretty much a bard with a worse weapon selection. Given our skeleton and sad lack of skills I suppose that's fair. Buutttt it does rather limit my options in terms of mounted combat. I can either choose a bow or a lance. Given the other martial classes can get either this seems rather lacking.
Moving past I'm waiting to see what the fuss is all about. Alrighty so the dragonbond goes a lot into flavor. Which is neat and I can see it working in some settings. But what about the actual dragons.
Well, let's just say it's a good thing they mentioned they can carry the riders weight while flying because without that line I'd laugh at the idea of them carrying anyone midair. So the lowest strength dragon being a quadraped has a lightload of 57lbs. The lightest possible human under the rules is 130lbs. Meaning our friend the dragon here is already under a heavy load while zipping about the skies. So by dint of riding the dragon their AC would be reduced from a rather decent 18 for a copper dragon to an okay 16. Bear in mind you won't be riding this thing on the ground. Overall pretty good defenses at thsi low stage though offense isn't as great as a comparable eidolon (who can start with both pounce and mount at level 1).
So let's see. Breath weapon is interesting though not particularly powerful. Less powerful than comparable first level spells.
Focus.
Ah. Well I think I found the point where I see this class falling apart versus cavaliers and "underpowered" machinesmiths. So in order to take a charge action with my dragon I pretty much have to wait until 8th level. Well that's a b@%~$. Now I could go ranged combat and have it not even matter. But then I literally can't do nothing else with this stupid reptile without asking his freaking permission.
You know what my master summoner did when he found a trap? He ordered his eidolon into it. You know what my mechanus says when I tell him to run over their and stomp on the other guy until he's paste? Not a damn thing cause Killbot2000 and 12 doesn't have feels.
I guess that's meant as a balancing measure but I wonder if it's a bit much for this. All the other pet classes are operational from level one but this doesn't even start working until level 8 in most cases. Well damn.
Okay so let's move on with the actual class for a bit.
Low Light Vision. Boring. Okay if I'm human I guess.
Share spells...erm, okay don't know why this is even on here since i can't cast spells yet. OR more importantly why it's not on the dragon itself.
Resist Energy 5. Kind of boring for a this level. Made extra boring seeing as immunities to fear and disease are available to paadins at this level. Aaannnddd divine spellcasting classes can get resist energy by now. Oh and of course there's races that automatically get like two or three different resistances. Soooo, not that great compared to others honestly.
Alrighty so SUMMON STEEED.
Well that kind of sucks.
Dragonrider: "HA! VILE FIENDS! COME AND FACE MY MIGHT COMPANION! RAGATHAR!
*boop*
Dragon: "RAR! LOOK UPON MY GRIM VISAGE!"
Rider: "I will now squint very hard in concetration to mentally coerc-I mean channel my will through my dragondou-I mean brother to slaughter you."
DRAGON: "AND IF HE DOESN"T I'LL WANDER AIMLESSLY CAUSE SCREW COMMON SENSE IMA RAWDRAGONNNN!!!"
YEah, a touch underwhelming.
Alrighty so what about level 5? I think of it as a minor capstone for the early levels. Where you are getting 1/3 through your spellprogression get a nice ability that will start leading you into mid levels. So what do I get?
Level 1 spells and a bonus feat.
Huh. On the bright side that's the best stuff we've gotten since level 1. On the bad side that's the best stuff we've gotten since level 1.
The progression on the spells for this class is kind of weird for me. Pretty much every good bab class that has a spellcasting progression that begins at 4th. Maybe it's because they're drawing from the spellcasting list? And cantrips? Weird. Given the level you get this at I kind of find it difficult to call it unbalancing.
Alright so moving on we have darkvision as a 6th level ability. Boring.
Let's go back to our dragon since at 7th level we just got our second helping of summon steed.
Alright by now he's up to...well on par with an eidolon. Which is about it. Of course my eidolon by this level cna have any skill he damn well pleases can probably fly faster....okay that's not a fair comparison afterall. Maybe an animal companion? Well he does have advantages their but, oh wait never mind a druid doesn't have to squint real hard at his bear to convince him to maul someone. Never mind.
ooo ooo maybe he's better than a mechanus! Well his saves are superior butttt now the mechanus has DR 5/adamantine, is Large, can self repair and push itself up to about a 27 strength. So the dragon is better than the mechanus by now probably MAybe.
8th level comes the moment of truth.
Resist energy 10 and second level spells. Boring. Back to dragondouche.
Most of the dragondouche's can be focused with a swift action. Much better. It took 8 levels for us to do with a silly dragon that we could do with literally any other class for about 4 levels at least. By now even AM BARBARIAN has destroyed your party wizard. Annnddd most of you have a clusy flight speed. Well that's bad. Only three attacks, no pounce (and no way to get it either) a pretty easy to bypass DR. But hey now we get supernatural abilities. Doesn't wave mastery sound great? Eh? Eh?
Hoh boy. When was this class supposed to be OP again?
Anyway, moving on we get scent.
Huh, so at a level where ranger's can track what a piegon ate for lunch a month ago from the shavings of its dusty poop we can only jsut now smell it. Okay whatever.
More feats, more spells, still behind on everyone else on important stuff.
Oh hey it's blindsense at level 14. Cool hey didn't we get you on our eidolon at 9th level? Honestly this is a rather good ability to get for our friend the dragonrider.
16th level. Alright we're at the point where we can stop squinting at our dragon what brilliant ability finally breaks the dragonhahahahahahah.
Spell resistance? Seriously?
OH AND ITS SHARED BY THE MOUNT! EVEN BETTER! HA!
So now if we want to cast spells on him he has to spend a standard action to squint really hard and. Yeah, there's a reason optimizers avoid the hell out of spell resistance. And now you don't even get a choice.
Oh and our dragon's gargantuan too. (but till only three attacks and clumsy flight) So in a game where people tell you that your mount is too large to fit into tunnels you finally get an actual dragonbro and you can't even get dragonbro into the pub for some drinks. Wow.
But hey you honestly do have the strongest pet in the game by now. 32+ strength is nothing to sneeze at at 16th level. I mean....oh nevermind the eidolon just passed me a note saying his weakest form can accomplish that by being Huge. Never mind then.
So moving on we're eventually able to cast 4th level spells. That's neat. You should tell your friend the magus he's been wiping out populations of dragons by now.
And our capstone is that we can turn into a dragon for 20 minutes. Good for you. By now most martial classes are doing unspeakable things to the Tarrasques skull without the necessary compensation.
Alrighty so having looked at the class is there anything that makes it op?
Well the good saves are an idea. But with nothing to back them up (no divine grace, no still mind, no immunities) all they are is good. Add that none of the abilities required to make your saves good are required by the class than your good saves are more of a bandaid for stuff most classes just straight up get in the form of spells and abilities that boost them.
The dragon might be the next bit but you basically have to trade your actions to make it do anything. And while in some ways its better than a stanadard animal companion an eidolon would eat it alive. Heck I've got a houndmaster cavalier whose dog could probably beat up your dragon.
The only thing the dragon can do is, well, fly and carry the rider. But since he can't charge until 8th level that means he's stuck with archery. Okay. That's hardly bad. But, even as a fighter the dragonrider, well, sucks. He has no boosts to his offensive ability outside what he can get with feats. No weapon mastery, no inspire courage, no arcane pool, nothin. He has d10 hd but his defensive abilities are limited to a weak resistance to one element. His armor is light so no good stuff there.
So what are the real issues? Apparently the issue is that you have a dragon. Big whoop. I can have a dragon wiht a summoner too. It's about description in that case. Oh he can fly? Sweet. My halfling druid did that on his roc it was great. So did my halfling barbarian. By level 5 everyone can manage to get some form of flight from somewhere. It can trivilize certain encountrs but I've found that trivializing one or two encounters usually means that same trick can't be used for others.
So yeah, he can fly at low levels. Beyond that he's, well, bad. OP? Hardly.
So now to discern my mad late night ramblings into summary's regarding the accusations that it's OP.
Ooptimizer Hat: AAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH*SNORT*AAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Player HAt: As above but more drunk.
GM hat Ok but do understand you still have to squint really hard if you want your pet dragondouche to do anything other than make prudent insults and maybe fly a bit. If you survive to 8th level you don't have to squint as hard. Also your dragon is arrogant, greedy (he's demanding 10% of the party treasure for a hoard fund) and refuses to debase himself more than he has to.
Designer cap: It's a class that functions but needs a lot of help to make it fun. A lot of the measures taken here feel like bandaids to fix problems that aren't really there and some of these bandaids could be used to make the class that much cooler in later levels instead level out and just become forgotten as the scars are revealed underneath to not be so bad. More over the class needs things that make the rider feel special. The dragon is frankly boring and beyond getting bigger doesn't add anything so I think the focus for anything new should be on the rider. More stuff needs to be added to make the "bond" part more interesting think Dragonrider's of Pern style dragons where the bond is strong enough to kill one if the other is lost. But, I didn't work on this class and unless someone approaches me to do it (and I would) or I get it in my head to shoot a pitch to SGG I don't see myself doing it any time soon.
Now I want to actually try a Dragonrider though I fear my DM won't let me try one.
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In totally different news, I like the Warlord, which I suppose is similar to the cavalier or some such but I still like it, I'd give it the "counts as fighter for feats" deal and add it.
The Voyageur however is totally broken in half, as the unquestioned lords of the canoe and kings of hirelings I can't imagine a party wanting anything else to travel the great lakes. If I were an NPC warrior or scout I'd hate those guys.
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I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who mentioned Raging Swan Press in this thread! I appreciate the kind words very much.
Ditto for everyone who mentioned Dreamscarred Press. Our goal is a fun, balanced product and I'm glad we're pulling that off. :-)
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Jon Brazer Enterprises has been making Pathfinder Compatible products now for four years. In that time we have had quite a few reviews. Not a single one made even one complaint about unbalanced material. Not a single complaint.