Final Fantasy Lancer-Types, or Kain, Cid, Freya, etc., help?

[thegreenteagamer]

If you played the classic Final Fantasy games, you know what I'm talking about. They had spears. They wore HEAVY armor. They jumped an ungodly height and came to rain death on their enemies.

I first thought dragoon fighter would do the job - I mean, in FF4, the American version translates Kain's "Dragon Knight" class as "Dragoon", and this archetype gets spear specialization with double the damage bonus...but...

...what the hell is this "mounted focus but no actual mount" crap?! No, no, no, no, that will not do at all. Unless you count the occasional Chocobo, these folks did not do mounted combat.

So I'm trying to figure if I wanted to build a lancer type, how would I do it?

I almost think a regular fighter would do it, using armor training to eliminate the AC penalty in heavy armor or get it as low as possible, and regular weapon training to boost spear damage, snag Death From Above, take Skill Focus (acrobatics) and Acrobatic or anything else that boosts jump, grab boots of striding and springing ASAP, and maybe power attack/furious focus?

Another route I've seen suggested is scout rogue, for the sneak attack on charges, but...no heavy armor that way. :-/

Suggestions?

[Scavion]

Lets see...I'd probably do it by going Armored Hulk Barbarian with the Raging Flier power for the vertical movement.

[dragonhunterq]

What level does it need to come online?
Scout Rogue 4/Fighter X? (1 level of fighter then scout to 4, then fighter rest of the way)
Nothing stopping you using scouts charge in heavy armour.
This once you reach armour training 2?

Actually, instead of scout Rogue try Scout Ninja with acrobatic trick and high jumper as your first two tricks. That will allow some impressive high jumps.

[Tacticslion]

To what extent do you want to replicate the games' various jumping mechanics?
Mechanically, the dragoon under Jump was removed from the battlefield for one or more turns before crashing down like a meteor. That could be an alternate way to handle it: focusing on magical (supernatural) effects that imitate that.

Or are you trying to follow the current rule system? Honestly not too sure beyond the current suggestions, in that case, though in a few days I might be able to look at some stuff...

[pulseoptional]

This might help.

I have a player running one as a Skinwalker. Probably a terrible mistake on my end, but it's humorous to watch him tear through mooks.

[Val'bryn2]

Personally, I would have them wear mithril versions of agile breastplate and agile halfplate.

Charge attacks would be good to simulate them. Scout Rogue would probably work.

Now, as for dragoon, remember, it's a real-world term for cavalry, and has little to nothing to do with dragon knights, except for being used because it sounded cool in both Final Fantasy and Legend of Dragoon.

[thegreenteagamer]

Scavion wrote:

Lets see...I'd probably do it by going Armored Hulk Barbarian with the Raging Flier power for the vertical movement.

I had considered barbarian as part of a build for a couple reasons - fast movement, and rage adding to acrobatics for jumping. I hadn't considered Armored Hulk, but yeah, if you take 5 levels of it, it's strictly better for moving in heavy armor than a single level of barbarian (since they don't get fast movement in heavy). I guess raging flier would work to simulate the leap attack, but 1/rage is...eh. I guess I could find a way to rage cycle...

dragonhunterq wrote:

What level does it need to come online?

I would like it to be effective and playable as it goes up, and actually able to do some decent jump attacks by 5th level. 5th level seems to be about when most classes hit their stride, you know?

dragonhunterq wrote:

Scout Rogue 4/Fighter X? (1 level of fighter then scout to 4, then fighter rest of the way)

Nothing stopping you using scouts charge in heavy armour.
This once you reach armour training 2?

Actually, instead of scout Rogue try Scout Ninja with acrobatic trick and high jumper as your first two tricks. That will allow some impressive high jumps.

Yeah, that's cool, but if I only ever take 4 levels of scout, that's only 2d6 bonus damage from charging...

Could...do...Armored Hulk Barbarian 1/Scout Ninja 4/Armored Hulk 2-4/Ninja5-X...I guess? Would have to take a look at that.

Tacticslion wrote:

To what extent do you want to replicate the games' various jumping mechanics?

Mechanically, the dragoon under Jump was removed from the battlefield for one or more turns before crashing down like a meteor. That could be an alternate way to handle it: focusing on magical (supernatural) effects that imitate that.

Or are you trying to follow the current rule system? Honestly not too sure beyond the current suggestions, in that case, though in a few days I might be able to look at some stuff...

I don't want to necessarily be removed from the battlefield, but insane leap attacks that go like 20, 30 feet up would be best. Imagine having "Ignore Height" in Tactics, and a damage multiplier when attacking from that rate would be best. I know in 3.5 they managed to pull it off, but I don't wanna dip into 3.5. That's cheese to me, now that there's so much PF stuff to pull from. (Also, I can probably get a GM to okay 1 thing that's not official Paizo, but asking for the 5-6 that the 3.5 one had would be right off no. I'd feel skeezy even asking.)

pulseoptional wrote:

This might help.

I have a player running one as a Skinwalker. Probably a terrible mistake on my end, but it's humorous to watch him tear through mooks.

I love this. I will ask if it is allowed, but I should plan for the event that it's not - at first glance it appears a little OP.

[Johnnycat93]

You can make an Acrobatics check to jump as past of a Charge. If your GM is an enabler then you can justify Death From Above as a jumping charge.

[pulseoptional]

If nothing else, roll as a Tengu rogue with the Swordmaster and Scout archetypes. Hang out in the Tiger Trance. Flavor all of your charges as jumps. You'll just have to get whatever polearm proficiency you want with the feat, or a dip elsewhere.

[wynterknight]

If you use Path of War, there are a couple of disciplines aimed at jumping and poking people with spears (or other big weapons.)

[Zwordsman]

Is this a home game or paizo only?
This is the best I can recommend if its opened
ffd20 dragoon

Feel like this represents the best mix i could find.
and really the ability to add extra damage from actually jumping is really fun and the ability to make crazy jumps..

[Deighton Thrane]

My suggestion is, talk to the GM about allowing Branch Pounce to work without having to jump off of anything, merely needing to dive through the air. Then, take Death From Above and any of the ways to fly available to martials. Because short of mythic, jumping isn't going to cut it. Multi-classing 3 full BAB classes can (usually) get you flight mastery at level 3, though it's only 1/day at that point. Raging flier is more thematic, but it's still once per rage, and won't work until level 6.

[thegreenteagamer]

What about the ninja trick where I get a climb speed? I can run off walls and leap on people... I mean since scout charge would take four levels anyway I'll have two tricks, could do climb speed and acrobatic mastery.

It's not perfect by any means but it will be useful in dungeons.

I wonder what race I should do? I will not play a Strix because we're always in Golarion and I as GM have banned them for thematic reasons (they hate humans and never leave their mountain, so what are the odds you're the miracle snowflake in Brevoy or wherever the current AP is? Shut up and pick something more realistic) so I don't expect a GM to allow me to, obviously.

Typically we do 15rp or less premade races that could be found in most of the inner sea region, so basically core, goblins and hobs, orcs, kobolds, planetouched, merfolk and gillmen, and occasionally but not frequently Tian races.

I'm working on a build. I currently have a ninja/barbarian theme going with the feats mentioned.

[thegreenteagamer]

Seems like with all the feats required human may be the best idea. Certainly fits thematically.

Dang with the high charisma ninja benefits from I kinda wanna do EH somewhere in the mix (getting skill focus once as a human can mean getting it three times for free, thank you alternate racial feats, meaning skill focus acrobatics free and perception for icing).

[Gulthor]

On the odd chance you should end up mythic, Champion has some incredible abilities befitting a Lancer.

Sadly, 3.5 had this handled pretty well with Leap Attack, which wasn't carried over to PF.

If you can get your GM to allow it, that's probably the keystone to a Lancer build.

[Sundakan]

Yeah, Mythic would be the best. Aerial Assault is hilarious and great.

You only really need 1 rank for it as I recall.

[pulseoptional]

You're also missing the joy that was Shock Trooper from 3.5. It seems like any support that charging got from 3.5 was just tossed in PF. Tragic.

[Tacticslion]

Welp. I'm tapped for ideas, based on these suggestions and limits. I got a new PDF, though! :D

[Orthos]

My go-to for Dragoon builds was the Warblade from 3.5's Tome of Battle. The Tiger Claw discipline had a lot of jumping-based maneuvers and Spear was one of its associated weapons. Combine that with the above-mentioned Leap Attack and Shock Trooper and you pretty much had the perfect Dragoon.

I haven't looked through Path of War's jumping-related maneuvers yet but that might also be a good place to start if you're not wanting to bring in 3.5 content.

[KainPen]

thegreenteagamer wrote:

If you played the classic Final Fantasy games, you know what I'm talking about. They had spears. They wore HEAVY armor. They jumped an ungodly height and came to rain death on their enemies.

I first thought dragoon fighter would do the job - I mean, in FF4, the American version translates Kain's "Dragon Knight" class as "Dragoon", and this archetype gets spear specialization with double the damage bonus...but...

...what the hell is this "mounted focus but no actual mount" crap?! No, no, no, no, that will not do at all. Unless you count the occasional Chocobo, these folks did not do mounted combat.

So I'm trying to figure if I wanted to build a lancer type, how would I do it?

I almost think a regular fighter would do it, using armor training to eliminate the AC penalty in heavy armor or get it as low as possible, and regular weapon training to boost spear damage, snag Death From Above, take Skill Focus (acrobatics) and Acrobatic or anything else that boosts jump, grab boots of striding and springing ASAP, and maybe power attack/furious focus?

yeah this is what happen when they try to mix the real world Dragg
Another route I've seen suggested is scout rogue, for the sneak attack on charges, but...no heavy armor that way. :-/

Suggestions?

yeah this is what happens when you try to combine real world Dragoon Noun (where all the mounted stuff came from)

plural noun: dragoons
1.a member of any of several cavalry regiments in the British army.
synonyms:cavalryman, mounted soldier; historical knight, chevalier, hussar; archaic cavalier "the dragoons charged"

and the Final Fantasy one, Spear\Lance wielding jumping Dragon Knight.

to blend the extreme fantasy with real world expectation they for some reason they hold the fighter class too. you end up with a Spear/Lance mounted Fighter (which does work well) that jumps off his mount (this is where it gets bad) to get a small bonus to hit. Most of the then the benefits of the archetype can be used outside of mounted combat,but the entire archetype is assuming you are going to be using a lance. Which give the most benefit while mounted. Then the 2nd highest level ability requires you to jump off you mount??? for only an additional +2 to hit (that still makes you take further AC penalty of another -2). That ability need to be reworked to maybe you are always considered to be mounted when wielding and lance and charging after and acrobatic check.

[Imbicatus]

I still think Dragoon Fighter is the best option. It only takes three feats to get a mount, and Spear Training still counts as Weapon Training, so you can take AWT feats.

[thegreenteagamer]

Imbicatus wrote:

I still think Dragoon Fighter is the best option. It only takes three feats to get a mount, and Spear Training still counts as Weapon Training, so you can take AWT feats.

But Final Fantasy lancers aren't mounted. Cid, Kain', and Freya never fought on chocobo or any other mount.

This isn't how do you optimize a dragoon, it's how do you make a Final Fantasy lancer.

[KainPen]

See if GM will allow for gestalt Characters, Do Slayer, if you can take high jump from monks as gestalt, Or if you can find away to get fly with out wings. you maybe able to emulate something with combined efforts of sneak attack damage, study, and some feats. I know there are feats that gives bonus to hit or extra damage from higher position or something like that. I just can't recall the names.

But even then the game does not allow you to get crazy stupidly high jumps. unfortunately the only way to get the kind of damage Kain and them where doing with jump is via a lance, while mounted with sprited charge. It is just nature of the way martials get treated by pathfinder.

your best bet is to build a whole new class from the ground up. did the advance class guide have rules on this? I don't remember and don't have the books on this. If not a book maybe coming out soon on how to do this. Maybe someone can verify.

edit the feats are already posted in the thread
Branch Pounce for damage and death from above for the hit.
you need to combine it with boots of the cat, so you are not killing your self to bad and negates landing prone from branch pounce if you miss.