I wanted to create a archetype to represent the classic Dragon riding warrior; this is what I came up with. what do you think?
Dragon Rider – Cavalier Architype
Rather than bonding with ordinary mounts some cavaliers choose to partner with a true dragon.
Draconic Mount - At the 1st level the Dragon Rider forms a bond with a Wyrmling Metallic or Chromatic Dragon the Dragon is a small creature, even if it would not ordinarily be. Rather than increasing in power as it ages, the bonded Dragon gains power as the Cavalier gains levels, see table Dragon Advancement. Because the Dragon is an intelligent creature that enters into the partnership of its own free will, the Dragon Riders Alignment must be within one step of his Dragons.
The cavalier does not take an armor check penalty on Ride checks while riding his mount. This Ability alters Mount and replaces Tactician, Greater Tactician, and Master Tactician.
Telepathic link – At 1st level, the riders bond with his Dragon grants him understanding of its language; he gains Draconic as a bonus language. At 4th level the Dragon rider gains a permanent telepathic link with his Dragon, allowing them to communicate mentally within 100 feet; this ability functions as the spell Telepathy, except it is a supernatural ability. At 8th level this distance increases to 1 mile. This ability replaces Expert Trainer
Dragon Advancement
Sorry, this is my first thread.
I think there's several 3rd party content that gives dragon mounts. Might be worth looking at.
There's a lot of mechanical, lore, and thematic issues with the concept. The big one is that gaining a genuine true dragon is not a 1st level ability. Mechanically, dragons are very powerful -- even wyrmling is CR 6. Lore-wise, true dragons are too proud and aloof to become a human's "pet." These are hurdles you can overcome with clever writing.
The biggest issue I see with your archetype is that the cavalier cannot use his mount as a mount until 5th level, 10th if the cavalier is Medium sized. The only thing really enabling you riding the creature at all is its shapechange ability, which is absolutely ridiculous because it basically lets you ride ANYTHING you want. Turn your dragon into a giant bird and you can fly at-will at 1st level. In addition, its stats get boosted because polymorph spells increase ability scores and natural attacks. Thematically, it also kind of defeats the point of having a dragon companion in the first place.
Another issue is that the math of the Dragon Advancement table is really off and weird. Some levels increase the dragon's BAB without increasing its HD (3.5e/PF has all creature statistics work as a function of its HD). Also, where are the base stats? If you're expecting the player to use the bestiary stats, that's really not a good idea, especially considering that each dragon has different statistics and different sizes at different age categories.
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I would recommend checking out this Dragon Knight archetype for ideas on a homebrew, though it is for the FF d20 Dragoon class and not Cavalier class.
Of note, Final Fantasy d20 is for the Pathfinder system, so a DM may be convince to allow it as is. The biggest difference being the magic system and limit breaks.
Make it a prestige class.
There's a lot of mechanical, lore, and thematic issues with the concept. The big one is that gaining a genuine true dragon is not a 1st level ability. Mechanically, dragons are very powerful -- even wyrmling is CR 6. Lore-wise, true dragons are too proud and aloof to become a human's "pet." These are hurdles you can overcome with clever writing.The biggest issue I see with your archetype is that the cavalier cannot use his mount as a mount until 5th level, 10th if the cavalier is Medium sized. The only thing really enabling you riding the creature at all is its shapechange ability, which is absolutely ridiculous because it basically lets you ride ANYTHING you want. Turn your dragon into a giant bird and you can fly at-will at 1st level. In addition, its stats get boosted because polymorph spells increase ability scores and natural attacks. Thematically, it also kind of defeats the point of having a dragon companion in the first place.
Another issue is that the math of the Dragon Advancement table is really off and weird. Some levels increase the dragon's BAB without increasing its HD (3.5e/PF has all creature statistics work as a function of its HD). Also, where are the base stats? If you're expecting the player to use the bestiary stats, that's really not a good idea, especially considering that each dragon has different statistics and different sizes at different age categories.
Thank you for your thoughts, You make a number of good points, the Cavalier not being able to ride until mid levels was intentional, I was trying to balance out the fact that as you pointed out, Dragons are really powerful; even wyrmlings.
Having looked over the wyrmling stats I have to agree with you about the bestiary stats not working, there is just to much variance with whites at CR2 and golds at CR7; my intention was to just use the wyrmling stats as a base and advance from there using the table. I will probably have to come up with a base stat block somewhere in the middle power wise.You are right about the Shapechange ability, I will fix it, while I'm at it I should probably simplify some other things.
the lore of it is that these dragons partner with lesser beings to increase their power at a much more rapid rate then they would otherwise be able to.
I propose to make Dragonrider a hybrid class of Summoner and Cavalier. Start out with a special dragon mount that is little different than a horse (no working wings yet), as well as an Order that corresponds with the dragon's color/kind. As you level, the dragon gain evolutions to become bigger and more dragony. It should be a purely martial class without spellcasting. Just a knightly BA on a BA dragon.
Build-A-Dragon.
You can get Build-A-Drake from Midgard's Book of Drakes. :)
Arcanemuses has a good suggestion. In fact, it sounds pretty fun to homebrew.
It's also worth mentioning that in mythology, not all dragons can fly or have wings. It's not unreasonable to start out with a wingless dragon.
Arcanemuses has a good suggestion. In fact, it sounds pretty fun to homebrew.
It's also worth mentioning that in mythology, not all dragons can fly or have wings. It's not unreasonable to start out with a wingless dragon.
Thank you, Cryad. Shall we have a brew-off then? I'm sure that if we both focus on it separately, before comparing drafts, we might be able to develop something awesome for Paizo, or at least our fellow gamers.