The links is not working correctly
And you you make it a link by putting it in the following brackets(You need to remove the 1 in url and /url):
[u1rl=http://paizo.com]Paizo Inc.[/u1rl].
Works fine now
I just took a quick glance:
It feels forced into one single build option (High str polearm charge).
To me it feels more like a fighter archetype and it could easily be reworked to be one.
I must admit i a not a fan of making it a new class if it only works with a single build. A full class should be able to work with a big number of different builds.
Additionally i would go away from it being an alternate class. They are just not a good design.
A ninja, for example, should not be an alternate class either but just a large archetype.
As it currently stands, your dragon knight should be an archetype for the fighter. There is no reason of its not being one outside of it having a better reflex save.
Just swap out bonus feats and armor/weapon training at the appropriate levels for the dragon knight abilities and your fine. Perhaps remove some of the rather unneeded additions, like fleet or polearm focus. The player can just decide to take weapon focus for the weapon he chooses for his character concept.
I agree with Grangerer's basic criticism that the class seems a bit too niche to be a full class as things stand now. I do however feel like just reducing it to a fighter archetype seems a bit of a missed opportunity. Of course, this would certainly be more palatable than most fighter archetypes, but I think it would be a lot more fun to diversify its class features and make other builds (Dex-based, possibly some form of switch-hitting) possible. However, this would obviously require a lot more work, and might not be worth it depending upon how many hours you want to sink into this bad boy.
Otherwise, I think everything looks fine, and it certainly captures the core mechanic of an FF dragoon. If you decide to keep it as is, my only suggestion would perhaps be to turn it into a cavalier archetype (replacing the mount) rather than a fighter one, as I believe the cavalier is closer to an FF dragoon than the fighter. Just a thought, though.
All in all, for a 1st homebrew I think this looks very good. The only concrete criticism I have is that simply stating polearm flurry lets you treat any polearm as a double weapon that loses reach might be more parsimonious than the somewhat convoluted description of its function you have now.
Grant proficiency with all martial weapons for starters, and then remove the reliance on pole arms. If you like, make pole arms style just one of a few combat styles. I'll post more when I have time.
Thank you for the suggestions so far, I'm looking for a way to change some of the core concepts of the class to make it more flexible to multiple build ideas. It's not easy to be honest.
How does the overall power of the class seem to people? When compared to another melee class does it seem too strong? Obviously with being less flexible it wouldn't be the greatest choice at the moment, but I feel it does what it is meant to well. I just want it to be balanced to start with so I can work on it from there.
It's never easy, but kudos to you for putting something out there :-)
Thoughts:
Gonna go ahead and go through each ability individually
Polearm Focus: Seeing as this is based off fighter, I don't know why you wouldn't just leave in Weapon Training for Polearms anyways. I would get rid of Polearm Focus and just do Polearm training like the Polearm Fighter Archetype
Polearm Flurry: It feels too out of place, I mean, if you're facing down a dragon you're not gonna waste time hitting it with the short-hafted blunt end of your sharp stick that's meant to keep you as far away from the giant fire breathing menace as possible. I would do away with the butt end part but keep the flurry, only limited to polearms and at a minus -4 penalty rather than standard -2.
Dragon's Charge: I would simply merge this into Dragon's Leap
Dragon's Leap: I would maybe make it so this gives a bonus to Acrobatics checks to jump, or progressively lower the DCs for high jumps. Otherwise it's fine, just add Dragon's Charge to this
Dragon's Fang: Remove the immunity stipulation from critical and sneak attacks, add it onto Dragon's Leap
Dragon's Reach: Very unclear
Fleet: You're just getting the Fleet feat for free at two levels, much better class abilities can be replaced for this like Evasion and Improved Evasion. I assure you you'll see a lot of use out of them.
Ignore Terrain: Redudant, you're already gonna be jumping around everywhere without the penalty from not having a running start.
Ferocity: Completely redundant. You're already getting 1-1/2 times str bonus on your flurry from wielding the polearm two handed. You're also already getting Dragon's Fang on Leaps so you're fine for damage.
Improved Dragon's Leap: This is fine
Ignore Height: This should come in waaaaaaaaaay earlier
Superior Dragon's Leap: Fine, but lackluster, you already have a lot of damage stacking onto Leap, you can branch out to other ideas besides 'more killing power'
Polearm Mastery: Same as above
Classes are one of the hardest things to design in this game. It should be an archetype. The entire point of archetypes is to let you homebrew cool niche/thematic abilities without having to create an entire class. Just make it a fighter archetype that trades a few bonus feats for polearm flurry and leap. This way, you can focus all your effort in designing cool abilities unique to your concept rather than worry about all the overhead necessary for an entire class.
This would also be a good archetype for ranger due to favored enemy