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I have been waiting. now I want to attempt it. Help me make a final fantasy dragoon please. I looked first at the dragoon fighter archetype and I see great potential you are a mounted class, that is not necessarily based on the amount (that said are there anyways to get a leveled AC as a dragoon?) Any other thoughts?
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The easiest way? frankly would be to go into mythic champion and play a fighter focusing on spears, just one rank into mythic champion grant you aerial assault, which does a significant amount of damage while falling on your enemy depending on how far you are falling while you don't take any damage from the fall.
Now of course, I'm guessing you want to do it without the mythic, I guess the way I would go about it:
you'll need 4 levels of ninja to get acrobatic master and high jumper, then put all your levels into a fighter focusing on spears. Now simply use a move action to jump very high and land on your opponent as a standard action to hit him.
Problem: you will not get any bonuses for jumping and hitting your opponent, which is pretty pointless and just look fancy. You will also take damage from falling.
The only real problem of the dragoon archetype is that the leaping ability comes so late, level 15 but at the same time, in every games, the dragoon has always been a prestige class kind of deal, you never get them early in any games.
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But, um...Final Fantasy Dragoons have exactly 0 to do with horses.
They use spears/polearms, yes, but their mains schtick is jumping about 12 miles in the air (from teh ground) and dropping down on the enemy from above.
You may want to look into Paths of War by Dreamscarred Press, there should be something in there that will help for such a character.
If you are talking PFRPG strictly, there isn't much in the way that "helps" make the concept work.
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This 1st-tier mythic (champion) ability emulates the dragoon's jump ability pretty well:
Aerial Assault (Su) You can charge at creatures in the air, or leap across obstacles as part of a charge. When making a charge attack, you can expend one use of mythic power to include a single Acrobatics check made to jump, adding 10 feet per tier to the height or distance you jump. You take no falling damage from the height gained as part of this leap. If your attack hits, you may deal an amount of additional damage equal to the falling damage appropriate for the height you reached. Alternatively, you may replace your melee attack from this charge with a grapple check. If you successfully grapple a creature, you bring it to the ground with you at the end of your jump, and it takes an appropriate amount of falling damage for the height it was at when you grappled it.
Edit: Eltacolibre beat me to it.
I think there is some potential here.
Technically Death From Above won't work with jumping, but I think with a bit of GM grace this should probably be okay. With that you need to just be able to jump really, really high.
4 levels of ninja for acrobatic master/ high jump would do it. You could also go caster to get access to the Jump spell. With 1 level of sorcerer, you can get an easy +10 to acrobatics checks to jump, saving you 3 levels of ninja, although the bonus isn't nearly as high.
After that, I think I'd recruit some help from my party members. See if you can convince a bud to pick up the Butterfly Sting feat with an 18-20 crit weapon.
Under ideal circumstances, you jump, your ally scores a crit and passes it on to you with Butterfly Sting, then your charge attack is at +5 to hit with a x3 critical damage thanks to your ally. Get a Thundering spear for added effect.
I stated one out. though.. it wasn't that effective. it was sorc, ninja, DD and then (in my case) paladin. High jump, the nifty scores from DD and abilities.
Could also do Paly, ninja, stalwart defender (since dragoons were also very durable. This way you could do a jump move and also hunger shield+spear like i used mine in FFT)I modeled mine after FFTactics
Edit Strix race has a air to surface attacker that might help substitute the jumping I guess. Has some nifty bits to it. You'd have to find out a way to get a fly ability (spell, class ability etc), but you could pick this up as a human w/ that one feat.
Unfortunately that is pretty much the issue, being effective. Any concept is possible, swapping classes, grabbing feats, etc. The problem is making it worthwhile given the hoops jumped through. Making a character who is supposed to be a great archer with numerous utility abilities, but who is unable to hit the broad side of a barn... Well isn't worth making in my opinion.
FF Dragoon is very cool, but I don't think you can make one with Pathfinder rules. Definitely something for homebrew though. I think it should be its own class. Starts off without the jump ability, gets it at perhaps level 3 or 4 (to avoid dips).
Or, make it a prestige class. The main dragoon I am thinking about is Kain, and he was already a BAMF when the game started.
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But, um...Final Fantasy Dragoons have exactly 0 to do with horses.
They use spears/polearms, yes, but their mains schtick is jumping about 12 miles in the air (from teh ground) and dropping down on the enemy from above.
but they do like to ride chocobos, or axe beaks as they are known in pathfinder.
I always thought that someone could reskin the Scout from Complete Adventurer 3.5 into a Dragoon. The Skirmish could be renamed into the jump ability. Take out the nature-ness of the class and go from there.
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so here is a rough draft of the Dragoon Knight (homebrew) Need some help looking for slightly more experienced hands to help mold this guy up.
1st Level- At first Level the Dragoon knight gains the jumping strike ability. As a full round action at level 1 the Dragoon Knight may make an attack action up to his movement range away at full attack bonus. This functions similar to charge with the Dragoon Knight incurring all bonuses and penalties as normal. At level 6 this becomes a standard action. at 11 it becomes a move action and reduces the AC penalty by 2. At level 15 this becomes a swift action and doubles the normal charge bonus. Note that should a full action be made, this attack counts towards the iterative attack actions (basically would count as your first attack) Also, the Dragoon Knight never takes any armor penalty checks on acrobatic checks.
(what, if any, should these abilities replace?) (This replaces the level 1 ability 11 ability, and 15th level ability
5th- spear training as per normal Dragoon.
7- Spinning Lance as per Normal Dragoon Knight (except applicable to entire "spear" category.
9th- The dragoon knight either forms a bond with a Mount that functions as a druids animal companion at half his character level and may select from the same list as a beast Rider Cavalier. Or Forms a martial Bond with his spear. He gains the ability to, as a standard action, perform a sweeping strike with his lance. He can strike all enemies within his reach. Any enemy hit by this attack is subject to a free trip attempt made at a -2. This attempt does not provoke attacks of opportunity.
11- replaced via first level ability ATM
15- replaced via level on ability.
weapon master- A dragoon Knight must select a weapon from the spear category.
What do you guys think?
First, I think you should post it in the Homebrew section.
Second, a mount for a Dragoon does not seem FF to me (the only Dragoons I know are Kain & the dragoon class from FF Tactics). That shouldn't be an option.
Third, I don't think the Dragoon should ever be able to full attack on a jump. The visual of attacking multiple time while flying through the air is just weird. I think the jump should be able to use the vital strike ability (1 powerful jump versus numerous attacks on a jump).
Fourth, I think the jump ability should continue to increase the Dragoon's movement (for jumping only), and through spring attack or a spring attack like feat, I think the dragoon should be able to jump, attack, and return to the spot he jumped from. I imagine the Dragoon as blurring the line between a ranged and melee character.
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1st Level- At first Level the Dragoon knight gains the jumping strike ability. As a full round action at level 1 the Dragoon Knight may make an attack action up to his movement range away at full attack bonus. This functions similar to charge with the Dragoon Knight incurring all bonuses and penalties as normal but can be made against any target the dragoon knight can see (does not need straight line to target). At level 6 this becomes a standard action. at 11 it becomes a move action and reduces the AC penalty by 2. At level 15 this becomes a swift action and doubles the normal charge bonus. Note that should a full action be made, this attack counts towards the iterative attack actions (basically would count as your first attack) At each level increase the jump range increases by 10ft.
Also, the Dragoon Knight never takes any armor penalty checks on acrobatic checks. (This replaces the level 1 ability 11 ability, and 15th level ability
changed it just a bit.
theres also a mythic champion ability to jump hilariously high/far in a single bound "seven league leap". combine with aerial assault and the death from above feat and laugh maniacally.
you could just go 2H fighter with mythic champion, grabbing those two (so mythic tier 6) and you'd be fairly set.
Here is the closest I could find using the 3.5 material. It isn't the exact page I was looking for (probably because the page was on the WotC website) but gives you a good enough idea of exactly what types of hoops were required to get the concept working even back then.
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Ninja/Scout with Mythic Champion abilities mentioned above using a longspear with death from above, lunge and spring attack feats.
As for magic items, boots of striding or any other better pair of boots to improve your acrobatics, movement speed or capability to ignore difficult terrain, cloak of arachnida or wings of flying, rhino-hide variant armor light armor preference and other magic item that improves your charging bonuses and sneak attack.