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Let me start by saying, I have never played the Pathfinder RPG. This is based on a Dragonborn Fighter I played for some time in D&D4E. He is a very up close and personal fighter, specializing in dual wielding weapons. I tried to find ways to set him apart from other characters, without overdoing it.
I want to add that, I know this character is kind of overpowered. At least, it looks that way to me on paper. I'd like to get your input on how to make it more fair, but still keep it in the spirit of the character. A dual-wielding, breath-slinging Dragonborn who loves nothing more than to break anyone and anything in his path to power. I wrote up the character somewhat quickly, and I'd love to get the community's thoughts on how to fine-tune him (and really, un-break him if I'm not the only one who feels this way).
His Strength skill is upgraded in a very different way. Since he is a dual-wielding character, that adds one more weapon to focus on in battle. Therefore, his training doesn't quite have as much of an effect as someone who simply needs to focus on hitting harder with a single object. Instead of a D8+1, he gets a D10-1. Same maximum, but the possibility of not doing any damage if he isn't careful.
However, as he trains more, he learns to be more effective than someone who wields only a single blade (with 2 skill feats giving him D12-1 -instead of D8+2- and 4 feats giving him D12+1 -instead of D8+4). Due to the required focus of using multiple weapons, it isn't as easy to pull off a successful attack. However, when successful -- he will hit harder than a single heavy blade or blunt object.
For those that may ask why a dual-wielder is using Strength over Dexterity - that's just the personality of the character. He isn't as concerned with hitting his target, as he is with inflicting maximum pain when he does. Hence the possibility at two points in his Strength feats of missing entirely.
Also, he has two skill feats specifically for Melee and Fortitude, instead of just the 6 skills that are trained by everyone.
His base powers focus on two things -- dual-wield combat, and his elemental dragon breath. He can wield two weapons in combat, but obviously the weight of 2-handed weapons is too much for that. By default, he breaths fire, but can eventually breath an icy breath if he so chooses.
Roles -- The Elemental Fighter. This role allows the Dragon to inflict different types of pain on the enemy through his breath, as well as to inflict more pain. After spending time training in the elements, the fighter can now instill his fire-breathing into his weapons, and even becomes resistant to burning and corrosive attacks.
Roles -- The Adrenaline Fighter. This role focuses on Kaldorn's physical combat. Battle after battle, he has trained and fought to the point that he can now lift weapons in one hand, that would require two for the average being. He hasn't mastered this art to use them as efficiently as someone could in two hands, but he is still as deadly a foe as ever. He brings his physical, non-combat training to his battles as well, allowing him to use the usually non-combat bonus of Torag in combat.
Kaldorn - Dragonborn Fighter
Strength - d8 [ ]d10-1 [ ]d12-1 [ ]d10+1 [ ]d12+1
Melee - Strength +2 [ ]+3
Dexterity - d6 [ ]+1
Constitution - d10 [ ]+1 [ ]+2
Fortitude - Constitution +1 [ ]+2
Intelligence - d6 [ ]+1 [ ]+2
Wisdom - d6 [ ]+1
Charisma - d8 [ ]+1
Powers
Hand Size :: 5 [ ]6
Proficiency :: [X] Light Armor [ ] Heavy Armor [X] Weapons
Dual-Weapon Fighter :: You are not considered proficient with weapons when using a weapon with the 2-Handed trait.
Dual-Wielding Combat :: You may use two weapons without the 2-Handed trait for your combat check. Reduce the size of each die rolled for the check by one, subtracting 1 from each d4 rolled instead of reducing die size. Your melee bonus and skill feat bonuses are only applied once.
Dragon Breath :: For your combat check, you may reveal a card to roll your Charisma die + 1d6 ([ ]+1) with the Attack, Magic, and Fire ([ ] or Cold) traits. After the combat check, display the card next to this location deck. The next combat check at this location before the end of your next turn gains the above traits, then discard the displayed card after the check.
Short-sighted :: You may not use weapons with the Ranged trait.
Card List
FAVORED CARD TYPE - WEAPON
Weapon :: 5 [ ]6 [ ]7 [ ]8
Spell :: ---
Armor :: 3 [ ]4 [ ]5
Item :: 2 [ ]3 [ ]4 [ ]5
Ally :: 3 [ ]4
Blessing :: 2 [ ]3
ROLE - Elemental Fighter
Hand Size :: 5 [ ]6 [ ]7
Proficiency :: [X] Light Armor [ ] Heavy Armor [X] Weapons
Dual-Weapon Fighter :: You are not considered proficient with weapons when using a weapon with the 2-Handed trait.
Dual-Wielding Combat :: You may use two weapons without the 2-Handed trait for your combat check. Reduce the size of each die rolled for the check by one (subtract 1 from each d4 rolled instead of reducing die size). Your melee bonus and skill feat bonuses are only applied once.
Dragon Breath :: For your combat check, you may reveal a card to roll your Charisma die + 1d6 ([ ]+1) ([ ]+2) ([ ]+3) ([ ]+4) with the Attack, Magic, and Fire ([ ] or Cold) ([ ] or Acid) traits. After the combat check, display the card next to this location deck. The next combat check at this location before the end of your next turn gains the above traits, then discard ([ ] or recharge) the displayed card after the check.
Short-sighted :: You may not use weapons with the Ranged trait.
[ ] All of your combat checks using a weapon gain the Fire trait.
[ ] When you are dealt Fire or Acid damage, you may recharge one card instead of discarding it.
ROLE - Adrenaline Fighter
Hand Size :: 5 [ ]6
Proficiency :: [X] Light Armor [ ] Heavy Armor [X] Weapons
Dual-Weapon Fighter :: You are not considered proficient with weapons when using a weapon with the 2-Handed trait.
Dual-Wielding Combat :: You may use two weapons ([ ] with or) without the 2-Handed trait for your combat check ([ ]+1) ([ ] and you may recharge one weapon instead of discarding it). Reduce the size of each die rolled for the check by one, subtracting 1 from each d4 rolled instead of reducing die size ([ ] do not take any penalty to any d4 you roll). Your melee bonus and skill feat bonuses are only applied once.
Dragon Breath :: For your combat check, you may reveal a card to roll your Charisma die + 1d6 ([ ]+1) ([ ]+2) with the Attack, Magic, and Fire ([ ] or Cold) traits. After the combat check, display the card next to this location deck. The next combat check at this location before the end of your next turn gains the above traits, then discard the displayed card after the check.
Short-sighted :: You may not use weapons with the Ranged trait.
[ ] Whenever you roll at least one d10 or d12 on a check, add 1 ([ ]2) to the result.
[ ] You may play Blessing of Torag to add 2 dice to a Strength-based combat check.
From a straight skill/stat standpoint, you need to have a d4 skill in there somewhere unless you are a monk, who has worked his life for balance. Everybody should have a kryptonite, everybody should have 1 weakness. I would suggest either Dex or Int. for this type of fighter.
The skill progression on Strength is interesting but complicated, and this would result in more powerful BLESSINGS later in the game. I think picking a die and sticking with it would be better. Go with d10 and take CON back to a d8.
I like the attempt to make a dual-wielder, and the fact that you would have to draw 2 weapons and then keep them both to be effective is cool. This will lock up the hand a bit on weapons, but I don't think that's too much of a concern.
Dragon Breath: Definitely seems too powerful. You've basically bred Valeros and Seoni together into one character. Perhaps you could limit it to once per turn, and change the extra die to d4. It makes more sense that you would have to wait for your breath weapon to recharge.
One final note: the blessing of Torag for "A" strength combat check... that should probably only be "YOUR" combat check. Using that on your allies is too much.
I definitely think your idea has potential, it just needs some polishing. Here are my suggestions, broken down by type:
Skills: As things stand, your dice are a bit high. Having a character whose would have a d12 strength in addition to a d10 con and a d8 charisma overshadows every character in the game; that said, however, I do like your idea of scaling dice. I would probably look at doing something like this:
STR 1d8 []+1 []+2 ([]Change STR die to 1d10, but reset bonus to 0) Melee +3
DEX 1D6 []+1 []+2 []+3
CON 1D8 []+1 []+2 []+3 Fortitude +2
INT 1D4 []+1
WIS 1D4 []+1
CHA 1D8 []+1 []+2 []+3 []+4
Cards: your card selection is just fine. I'd recommend maybe dropping an armor for an item, so that you can have more healing.
Powers: You have too many powers listed here. I would probably slim it down to something like the following:
Hand Size: 5 []6 []7
Light Armor [.] Weapons [.]
*you may use a 2nd weapon during a combat check. You gain the benefits of any "additionally, you may recharge this weapon to add" abilities on the weapon, but you must discard the weapon instead of recharging it ([]or you may recharge it as normal).
*you may bury a card to roll your charisma dice +1d6 with the magic, Attack, and Fire traits for your combat check. Using this ability counts as playing a spell. ([]Your combat checks gain these traits until the end of your turn).
*You are not considered proficient with weapons with the two-handed or ranged traits.
my thunkin/reasoning is as follows: I cleaned up your dual wielding abilities a bit, and made it still beneficial, but at the same time balanced it with the idea that you would only want certain weapons in your deck (like longswords as opposed to say spears).
Your dragon breath ability is interesting, but as it was written was fairly overpowered. my version is still pretty solid, but has a cost that will probably limit it's use (which is in line with the encounter based limit of the dragonbreath racial power).
Instead of preventing him from using ranged weapons period, I think just having non proficiency is penalty enough.
I like the idea of starting with hand size of 5. You're gonna want to cycle through your deck quickly to get weapons, and you'll be cycling those a lot as well. I have to go write some documentation for work, so I'll come back and post on thoughts for your roles.
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I definitely meant to have the Dragonbreath as a once per turn, but forgot to add it. Thanks for bringing it up.
Vrog -- My thought on the D12 was that you couldn't get it without 4 feats, but I think you are right. However, I think the die upgrade should still have the bonus to it. The character is built to hit as hard as he can, and a D10+3 in combat after 3 feats just doesn't really do that in my eyes.
As for the powers -- Haha I probably should have put the negative two in the same feat, but the ranged idea came at the very end and I didn't think about that. Good call. As for not using ranged, my thought process was that I didn't think being able to pull something like dual wield light crossbows. Of course, maybe changing the dual-wield power to not allow Ranged either.
Do many weapons even have a recharge ability? Other than things like daggers, which isn't what this character would use. It seems like recharging is mostly for ranged weapons, and wouldn't be much of a benefit here. Maybe instead of the recharge ability being added, it would add whatever the reveal bonus die is (like a D8 for a long sword, if I remember right). Instead of discarding the second, and a feat to recharge it, how about you reveal both, and discard a random one with a feat to recharge it? I do still like the idea of having to reduce the size of your dice in the check. You can't put your full force into the attack if you are wielding two weapons.
I think Motrax had the right idea on a once per turn Breath. With that ruling, I think discard would be better than a bury. I do think the power to last your turn is good though.
weapons with the "recharge to add a die" power that I can think of off the top of my head include:
longsword, shortsword, dagger, heavy pick +1, Scythe +1, dogslicer, (maybe mace, but I'm not sure), greataxe, greatsword, and sickle. most of those that I listed (like the longsword, for example) have a smaller "recharge for more dice" dice; longsword reveals for a d8, but recharges for a d6. It puts it in line with your initial idea, and helps limit the amount of new mechanics that you'd have to create, which is always good.
as far as the attribute thing goes, you should just consider having a 1d10 as your strength then and just putting in checkboxes. statistically speaking, there's very little difference between 1d10+1 and 1d12.
as far as the "dual wielding crossbows" issue goes, it should be fine. you'd be rolling a d6 for your attribute, instead of the 1d10 that you would get for melee. Could make for an interesting build though!
Vrog i have to disagree with you again.
All the weapons you listed have a "discard to add a die" power, not a "recharge to add a die" power.
For the character. You shouldn´t forget weapons that can already be dual wielded like a dagger. With your power and a dagger, you could fight with three weapons. My suggestion would be to add to your dual wield power that it counts as having played a 2handed weapon for interactions with other cards, like daggers or shields.
you're right, of course. I blame valeros. I'd probably add a caveat that you can't play a 3rd weapon (since you can still play a dagger with a two handed weapon).