New Fighter Archtype based off final fantasy Dragoon (please critique


Homebrew and House Rules


As stated above I've homebrewed an archtype for the fighter based off of the Dragoon from the final fantasy games. Credit to this guy for alot of advice given that helped inspire this class. and to the original Dragoon archetype. you can find the new archtype here


Very neat archetype. You might want to add the ability to use Strength mod in addition to/instead of Dex for Acrobatics checks to jump as well, or maybe replace the 1/2 level bonus with that.

Tail Sweep is really good, though giving a weapon the trip property isn't the biggest thing in the world since it just means you have to drop the weapon in order to not be counter-tripped). Well balanced in that way, I guess, and very useful for a fighter who carries back-up weapons (as they all should).

For a high level ability, Powerful Lunge is kinda weak. Maybe have it do something in addition to what's listed, like maximize the damage dice as well. You could also have this ability work similarly to pummeling charge. It would make sense thematically and be an appropriately powerful high-level ability. Remember, you're giving up versatility (a combat feat) for specific power, so don't be afraid to push a little more for extra 'oomph'.

Now, for the big one: Death from Above. Honestly, I'd drop the caveat about levitate and fly, doesn't seem like that big a concern. I'm not sure I fully understand the 30 ft. mention in this ability, either. Other than that, double damage on such a charge PLUS extra d6s is pretty darned cool. You'll might need to specify how that works with a critical hit, but I don't see it being too open to exploitation or abuse.

That's all I've got for now. Looking forward to seeing more.


Cerberus Seven wrote:

Very neat archetype. You might want to add the ability to use Strength mod in addition to/instead of Dex for Acrobatics checks to jump as well, or maybe replace the 1/2 level bonus with that.

Tail Sweep is really good, though giving a weapon the trip property isn't the biggest thing in the world since it just means you have to drop the weapon in order to not be counter-tripped). Well balanced in that way, I guess, and very useful for a fighter who carries back-up weapons (as they all should).

For a high level ability, Powerful Lunge is kinda weak. Maybe have it do something in addition to what's listed, like maximize the damage dice as well. You could also have this ability work similarly to pummeling charge. It would make sense thematically and be an appropriately powerful high-level ability. Remember, you're giving up versatility (a combat feat) for specific power, so don't be afraid to push a little more for extra 'oomph'.

Now, for the big one: Death from Above. Honestly, I'd drop the caveat about levitate and fly, doesn't seem like that big a concern. I'm not sure I fully understand the 30 ft. mention in this ability, either. Other than that, double damage on such a charge PLUS extra d6s is pretty darned cool. You'll might need to specify how that works with a critical hit, but I don't see it being too open to exploitation or abuse.

That's all I've got for now. Looking forward to seeing more.

I'm trying to steer clear from dip abuse as well a single ability dependency which is why i made the bonus stack with level, also flavor wise it represents training the body to jump higher and higher. With powerful lunge you're forgetting that it is intended to work with "Death From Above" which is already giving you additional damage. on another note alot of these class features were actually rewritten feats that often were used in dragoon builds for 3.5. Speaking of "Death From Above" the levitate and fly bit were more on limiting the power of this ability, I mean thematically you are dropping from an extreme height using gravity as your aid. Gravity doesn't effect you the same way using levitate or fly spells. The 30 ft. bit is more of a cap off so that there isn't any "I drop from a 100 ft. cliff" abuse and i see the extra damage as like something similar to precision damage like a sneak attack... again you are using gravity as an aid and the extra damage could be seen as a transference of kinetic energy.


I see your point about gradual progression and avoiding single-attribute dependency and agree. However, if the intent is to limit dipping, doesn't Death From Above giving double damage at level 2 kinda go against that goal? Just a thought.

Also, Powerful Lunge still seems fairly unimpressive for a level 16 ability. I imagine it would lead to tripling your Strength mod on a successful DFA attack, but that's something you'll probably see come up no more than 5-6 times in an average high-level adventuring day, if that. Your choice obviously, it just feels like it needs a little something extra.

It seems a bit odd to limit the falling range to 30 ft. and label it as a precision attack. By your own wording, it's not about precise aiming doing the extra damage, but rather a huge increase in kinetic energy going behind the point of the spear. This makes it far more like power attack than sneak attack. If you're looking to limit the initial power of this ability power of this ability but let it grow appropriately at later levels, you might want to add something like this to DFA: "This attack also deals +1d6 extra damage per 10 ft. fallen before the attack, up to a maximum number of extra d6s equal to half the fighter's level. This extra damage is not multiplied on a critical hit."


I can see where you're coming from. Any ideas on how to add that extra "oomph" to powerful lunge? what I meant by the precision bit was simply that you can crit on it and multiply damage because you cant control the force behand the blow... where as with a normal weapon or even power attack you can, but ill add that last phrase just to clear any confusion


Well, if you have magical flight powers, you can just let gravity take you anyway. You're not forced to fly.


Leonus Wyrd wrote:
I can see where you're coming from. Any ideas on how to add that extra "oomph" to powerful lunge? what I meant by the precision bit was simply that you can crit on it and multiply damage because you cant control the force behand the blow... where as with a normal weapon or even power attack you can, but ill add that last phrase just to clear any confusion

Well, one thought is to remove the double damage bit from Death From Above and change Powerful Lunge to just do x2 overall damage on all charges. That way, all the doubling occurs all at once and later in the game, rather than doing it once overall at level 2 and then a second time to Strength only much later on. Less unnecessary math that way, DFA becomes slightly less cluttered, and it won't be too attractive as just a dipping option.

If you think this would leave Death From Above a little too light on what it should do, you could also include a clause that DFA charges maximize the damage dice when using a spear or polearm (very few such weapons do more than a d10) or increase the size/number of the bonus damage dice per 10 ft. Being a full-BAB class with a focus in Strength, weapon training, and doing charges from above the target, they don't really need anything in the bonus to hit category.


DominusMegadeus wrote:
Well, if you have magical flight powers, you can just let gravity take you anyway. You're not forced to fly.

An excellent point.


Cerberus Seven wrote:

Well, one thought is to remove the double damage bit from Death From Above and change Powerful Lunge to just do x2 overall damage on all charges. That way, all the doubling occurs all at once and later in the game, rather than doing it once overall at level 2 and then a second time to Strength only much later on. Less unnecessary math that way, DFA becomes slightly less cluttered, and it won't be too attractive as just a dipping option.

If you think this would leave Death From Above a little too light on what it should do, you could also include a clause that DFA charges maximize the damage dice when using a spear or polearm (very few such weapons do more than a d10) or increase the size/number of the bonus damage dice per 10 ft. Being a full-BAB class with a focus in Strength, weapon training, and doing charges from above the target, they don't really need anything in the bonus to hit category.

that sounds like a liable option. i might just do that.
DominusMegadeus wrote:
Well, if you have magical flight powers, you can just let gravity take you anyway. You're not forced to fly.

but that's the thing, you cant be under the influence its not to say you cant use the spell to get to the appropriate height but the spell cant be activated when you use the ability...


so any other ideas


Yes, actually. How often should the dragoon be getting off the majority of its extra damage dice from Death From Above without worrying about having to start the encounter up high than the rest of the party or using something like air walk? Most of the time? Only on really good rolls? I ask because high jump DC are brutal and the archetype, as written, currently doesn't do much to address that.


honestly im not entirely sure how, without overpowering the abilities. Its suppose to scale with level allowing you to make the jump DC's more and more the higher you go in the class but i agree the high jump DC's are brutal... makes me consider either allowing class level as a bonus on jump checks instead of 1/2 level, or allow them to treat the DC's at half the normal range. that would put a 10 ft. jump at a DC of 20 instead of the near impossible 40... idk what do you think?


Leonus Wyrd wrote:
honestly im not entirely sure how, without overpowering the abilities. Its suppose to scale with level allowing you to make the jump DC's more and more the higher you go in the class but i agree the high jump DC's are brutal... makes me consider either allowing class level as a bonus on jump checks instead of 1/2 level, or allow them to treat the DC's at half the normal range. that would put a 10 ft. jump at a DC of 20 instead of the near impossible 40... idk what do you think?

Honestly, I wouldn't worry too much about it being 'overpowered'. You're talking about a single attack each round that relies on a skill check for maximum effectiveness. In comparison, a sword-saint samurai gets those extra d6s for free as he levels, even getting to put them onto a single attack action rather than a full-round action at level 10. Besides, it's just jumping; jumping isn't that big a deal in Pathfinder in 90% of cases. If a wizard can get +30 to jumping checks for 10 minutes with a single first level spell, a class that's entirely centered around jump attacks should at least be able to meet Mr. spindly-wrist Mc'Booksington's efforts on a consistent basis.

A number of thoughts come to mind on how to do this. The first is that you give dragoons a bonus to Acrobatics checks made to jump equal to their level, which doubles if they take a swift action beforehand (they vault with their weapon). Also, halving high-jump DCs initially and then doing it a second time at level 10 or so would simplify jump checks across the board by making the DCs for horizontal and vertical distance identical. This would make dragoons the best high-jumpers in the game while merely making them competitive with ninjas and monks long-jump-wise.

Another idea is that dragoons could also use horizontal distance on their jump for extra damage. After all, the farther they jump in a single motion, the more kinetic energy they're investing in the final blow. Make it so every 10 ft. on the long-jump distance and/or 5 ft. on the high-jump distance adds the extra 1d6 damage. If you go this route, you'd probably want to include something to raise their maximum horizontal jump distance as part of said jumping charge, since that's usually capped at normal movement speed.

I might think of more later, but that's all that I can put into words for now.


i appreciate the input... these aren't bad ideas and you make a valid point with the spell thing. in the forgotten realms setting for 3.0 there was an item called the spear of vaulting that gave a +30 bonus on jump checks. Perhaps i could do something like that.


Another thought: a bonus to Acrobatics checks to avoid Attacks of Opportunity as a result of jumping would be good. It shouldn't be a guarantee of avoiding an AoO, but not having to rely on rolling well twice in the same action to have their jump attack go off seems appropriate. Rolling that into Hardy Landing (which, with its new expanded purpose, might then merit renaming) would work pretty well.


2 things to note:

-If you go the skill-check route, you could base it off of Iaijutsu from the 3rd edition oriental adventures. It was reasonably balanced. In this case, could be replaced by a feat.

-Thread has a discussion for a jump based samurai/cavalier archetype. Long story short: treat a jumping charge as a mounted charge. A simple solution and a very nice boost.


LoneKnave wrote:

2 things to note:

-If you go the skill-check route, you could base it off of Iaijutsu from the 3rd edition oriental adventures. It was reasonably balanced. In this case, could be replaced by a feat.

-Thread has a discussion for a jump based samurai/cavalier archetype. Long story short: treat a jumping charge as a mounted charge. A simple solution and a very nice boost.

Although this wouldn't be a bad idea in theory, implementation is still a problem because DFA's extra damage comes from the force of the fall, and LttH still has the problem of overcome high jump DC's. The jumping charge=mounted charge isn't a bad idea but could be liable for mounted charge feat abuse if not worded properly... im going with just making the DC's lower for high jumps...


Like the idea of this Dragoon class, I will post my ideas on here in a day or two about how to deal with some of these issues.


A note :
Death from Above : "A Dragon Lancer use this ability while under the influence of a Fly or Levitate spell or effect." Shouldn't it be "A Dragon lancer can't use ..." ?

Also, it is unclear if you can use Death from Above with Leap of the Heavens.
In fact, since you normally can't jump during a charge, and you must jump to use Leap of the Heaven, you would have to use a move action to jump and then a full-round action to charge.
I may fail totally to understand, but this is the way I read it.

That said, I like this archetype. Well done.


Aralicia wrote:

A note :

Death from Above : "A Dragon Lancer use this ability while under the influence of a Fly or Levitate spell or effect." Shouldn't it be "A Dragon lancer can't use ..." ?

Also, it is unclear if you can use Death from Above with Leap of the Heavens.
In fact, since you normally can't jump during a charge, and you must jump to use Leap of the Heaven, you would have to use a move action to jump and then a full-round action to charge.
I may fail totally to understand, but this is the way I read it.

That said, I like this archetype. Well done.

It is assumed to work in unison, snd I have changed it to make it clearer, also thank you for the grammar check, that could have been interpreted badly.


What about if you add a point based system for the character class? Like in the hardy landing ability instead of ignoring a set amount of feet that grows with each level give them a pool of points that they can use to enhance a charge whether it's across land or from death from above. Like this:

Dragoon's Resolve:

A Dragon Lancer gets a pool of Resolve points that is equal to 1/2 their Dragon Lancer level + their strength modifier, (minimum 1). A Dragon Lancer can use these points to ignore up to 10 ft of falling damage per point of resolve. A Dragon Lancer may also use a point to increase the distance of their charge by 5 feet when making a Charge combat maneuver. Use of these points must be declared before taking either the Death From Above action or Charge actions. A Dragon Lancer can spend more than one point per charge or death from above maneuver to increase their distance further. A Dragon Lancer's Resolve points are refreshed after a full night's rest.

I saw that the archetype is inspired by the Dragoons from Final Fantasy but worrying about players being overpowered seems kind of like a shortcoming when thinking about mimicking a class of character in a game series that was able to essentially ignore any jump or fall height. If a player wanted to have their Dragon Lancer jump off of a 100 foot cliff on someone I say let him because the pathfinder rules also state that there is a certain amount of distance you can fall in one round. I am almost 100% that a 100 foot drop is going to take 2 rounds before the Lancer actually hits the ground, meaning that it becomes even more of a skillshot and challenge for him to do so. Also, another thing that left me a little worried about the archetype is that although they may be able to do a bunch while outside they are almost useless once they get into buildings with normal height ceilings because building's stories are about 8-10 feet tall. Now, that might be me exaggerating, but with that height the Lancer wouldn't get any kind of benefit from their fall style attacks. So I thought it might help to also give them the benefit of enhancing or speeding up their charge so they could essentially hit a target for a charge that may be a bit further away. Another thing the point pool system could be used for is for a point bonus to their acrobatics jump check so like they may use a point to add a +5 insight bonus to their acrobatics check.


Nevermind, I checked the falling distance per round and you fall 500 feet per round but still, at that height the ability to see your target clearly would cause them to take penalties to hit anyways.


Arise soul from forgotten times, return to the land of the living once more!
All joking aside I've revived this thread as a way to get some fresh eyes to look at the above homebrewed archtype. I've made a few changes to it and made wording a little clearer (at least I hope >.<;)
unfortunately google drive deleted the original document so you can find the updated one here let me know what you guys think.

RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8

Something like this would be great feature to complement the dropping attack.

Why can't you use death from above with fly to make a diving charge? I assume it is for balance reasons, but if that is the case, it would be a better idea to cap/scale the bonus damage (also, think of feather fall).


Amanuensis wrote:

Something like this would be great feature to complement the dropping attack.

Why can't you use death from above with fly to make a diving charge? I assume it is for balance reasons, but if that is the case, it would be a better idea to cap/scale the bonus damage (also, think of feather fall).

As was stated above, the effect says you can't be under the influence of a fly effect, it never states that you can't use them. an item such as celestial armor has a fly effect that you can use to get to the height but you cant be under the effect when you use the ability. As for feather fall, its ideal to use those effects to help minimize the fall damage at early levels since they make you fly or stop you from falling, just make the landing softer so to speak.

That ability would be very useful to use with this class, however this archetype specializes in being able to jump very high, and deal lots of damage by falling on your enemies, so i want to utilize the acrobatics skill not make it useless.


Amanuensis wrote:

Something like this would be great feature to complement the dropping attack.

Why can't you use death from above with fly to make a diving charge? I assume it is for balance reasons, but if that is the case, it would be a better idea to cap/scale the bonus damage (also, think of feather fall).

As was stated above, the effect says you can't be under the influence of a fly effect, it never states that you can't use them. an item such as celestial armor has a fly effect that you can use to get to the height but you cant be under the effect when you use the ability. As for feather fall, its ideal to use those effects to help minimize the fall damage at early levels since they don't make you fly or stop you from falling, just make the landing softer so to speak.

That ability would be very useful to use with this class, however this archetype specializes in being able to jump very high, and deal lots of damage by falling on your enemies, so i want to utilize the acrobatics skill not make it useless.

Dark Archive

Why is your homebrew in the trash?


Leonus Wyrd wrote:
unfortunately google drive deleted the original document so you can find the updated one here

I cannot edit the first post so you will have to follow this link. here

Dark Archive

Thanks, and I'm sorry I missed that line above.

Also, something that may be helpful in making this archetype is the Final Fantasy d20 class Dragoon.


JonathonWilder wrote:

Thanks, and I'm sorry I missed that line above.

Also, something that may be helpful in making this archetype is the Final Fantasy d20 class Dragoon.

I actually used bits and pieces for inspiration from that exact class. Specifically the extra damage from Death from Above and Hardy Landing. I didn't want to take the class whole hog though for setting reasons, and mostly used ideas from the D&D 3.5 Dragoon build since those feat don't have a pathfinder equivalent, and this seems specialized enough to call for fighter archetype since they get very little love


*bump*

Dark Archive

Personally, I feel the fighter may not be the best choice for this archetype yet I admit such a bias may be because of having a fondness of the Final Fantasy d20 and feeling the idea works better with the Cavalier.

Hmm, still I would like to help you so I will give another look over your archetype and see if I can offer any thoughts or advice,

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