D&D 5e FFT: Jobs 6

Job Creation 6

Welcome to Part 6 of Job Builds

Today we're going to take a look at the Dragoon

Dragoon

Premise — The Dragoon is a mundane, highly mobile, warrior, who wears heavy armor (Typically Full-Plate or Half-Plate), uses polearms (primarily spears), and has an uncanny, Wuxia-esque long-distance leap attack wherein he leaps in the air and then lands on the opponent, weapon down, for heavy damage output.

Core Gameplay Abilities — No Magic, Plate Armor, High Mobility, High ability to Jump, Exceptionally High ability to Vertically Jump, Spear Use, Hard-Hitting Leap Attack.

Premise — There are several choices already, from homebrew options to refluffing existing classes, so I'm going to pick through and review them and see where to go from there. With luck, One of them will be a good fit.

Class/Subclass Options

Dragoon Dragon Shaman — It gets good jump abilities in the subclass. Unfortunately the core class is a terrible fit. (But, concidentally, a great fit for the Dragonkin (last post))

Eagle Totem Barbarian — You're not remotely a Dragoon until 14 this way. That's no good at all.

Grayfigure's Dragoon Subclass — Fighter Base Class. This gives us the proficiencies.

• Glyph Jump: There's the core Jump ability. It's a little overcomplicated, it doesn't make a lot of sense if the hero is not Medium Sized because of the explicit size restrictions it includes (rather than relative size restrictions) - Not super relevant in an FFT Campaign where everyone is human, but something I'd consider in a regular D&D campaign, as I've always been inclined to want to come up with was to allow 12-foot-tall large monstrous races. Additionally I don't think a Polearm should be *NECESSARY* to use it for the knockdown effect, any two-handed weapon should work. It's fiddly and could very much use a thorough rephrasing, but it's serviceable. For Damage, you Jump STR+3 (20ft for a Human Fighter at Level 3, or 2d6 damage) You can add weapon damage to that at 4 in place of a second attack roll (or you could just roll the second attack after you land), At 7th it's STR+10ft (3d6 if you maxed out your STR), and at 15th level it's 4d6 damage with maxed out STR.
• Elusive Jump makes you very dodgy in a very mobile way, at level 7.
• Weird of the Wyrm gives you a weird "dragon-hunter" focus which I don't much care for.
• Ancestral Roar: A little underwhelming for level 18 given how many enemies at that level will be immune to fear, but it's flavorful, and passable.

All in all, this is a serviceable Dragoon.

DracoKnight's Dragoon Subclass (Direct) — Another Fighter Subclass. So we've got our armor proficiencies covered already.

• Aerial Incursion: Again, core Jump ability. This one punishes you for trying it if the target passes their save. It has a larger (non-increasing) range, and a much higher vertical jump portion (You're more likely to be able to jump over a wall.) They get a save against the damage, but the damage will be larger due to the higher fall-height. Lets assume 60ft once you max your strength, or 6d6 at maximum on level ground. When you get it at level 3, you can assume that's a 16 Str, or 48 foot jump = 4d6. Needless to say, 4d6 at level 3 is hefty. Unlike in Grayfigure's Dragoon, you can't use the ability for just movement without taking fall damage.
• Rebound Assault This lets you "Bounce" and get a second Aerial Incursion in place of replacing another normal attack.
• Spear of Heaven This gives you an Aerial Assault counterattack.
• Unfailing Lancer: This ups the DCs of your Incursions by +6.

It's heavier hitting, it's riskier, and it's much more one-note. True, the FFT Dragoon job is very one-note (but it has a second job skillset), and 5e characters are more flexible than that. So far I'm preferring Grayfigure's subclass.

DandWiki's Dragoon Subclass — I have low expectations about D And Wiki, they're known for terrible homebrew. that said, let's review it anyways!

• Lancer's Leap Reduces the running start needed to jump. Long Jump Str + Half Fighter Lv + STR Mod - Strange to use Strength twice High Jump range becomes 3+Str Mod * 2 - not very high for a Dragoon! Once per turn you can reduce the movement cost of jumping by half. Those are now your normal Jump Rules. You also get a "Leap" action, 5 ft per fighter level in height, and you can land anywhere within your walking distance. So, like DracoKnight's but you can't jump very high at low levels.
• Velocity If you're holding a weapon and you're conscious, you take 1/2 fall damage. A bit broad and also underwhelming. You can jump, but doing so is gonna hurt.
• Polearm Specialist +1 attack and damage with polearms. We don't need this, we're a fighter. This is bad design.
• Dragoon's Strike Now we can finally do the Dragoon thing, at level 7... Ugh.
• Elite leapAttacks Against you have Disadvantage at L10+, so long as you used Leap. Which you'll naturally do every round...
• Terminal VelocityNo Fall Damage if Conscious and Wielding a Melee Weapon.
• Elite Dragoon Critical on a 19-20, add an extra base weapon die on a crit. Chance to knock enemies prone when you Leap-Attack Them.

A mix of underpowered and overpowered (Mostly underpowered) abilities. Not good. Not Impressed. I was expecting it would be broken overpowered, but it's just broken poorly functional.

ajaxx07's Dragoon Subclass(Direct) — Fighter Again. Proficiencies are good.

• Soaring Strike When you leap before an attack using normal jump rules, add damage = Proficiency for every 10 feet jumped before the attack. Maximum # of attacks in a round capped at 2 if you Jump. All Jump follows Long Jump Formula as though you had a running start. Doesn't work if wearing more than 20lbs of armor.
• Air Hike At L7, You can now "Double-Jump" in any direction you choose. You can triple jump at 15. These extra Jumps are free move actions that can exceed your speed. If conscious and unrestrained you don't take fall damage if falling less than your maximum jump height.
• Draconic LoreKnowledge Skills, and Advantage when you use Soaring Strike and attack a large or bigger target in midair.
• Thunderous Leap When you leap, creatures within 5ft take Strx2 damage, and your leaps don't provoke OAs
• Pierce the ScalesSoaring Strike damage becomes Force Damage and Stuns opponents.

Well, it's not our worst one, but I don't think its the best one either.

Hack & Slash's Dragoon Subclass (Image) — Fighter Again!

• Jump Attack "Jump Attack" special action. Limited use Str mod/long rest. Leave the battlefield. can't be targetted or affected in any way. Next turn you use your bonus action to end the jump, and land anywhere within Movement x2 of your starting point. Attack with advantage if desired. At 11, it does double damage. At 20 it does triple. I don't like it. It's too dissociative. It does crap damage. It's mostly a defensive trick so you cant be targetted.
• Lancet Lifedrain Melee Attack con mod/short rest.
• Elemental Leap Advantage on checks related to dragon type creatures in any way (except attack rolls). Also, when you land, enemies take 2d8 energy damage unless they pass a dex save. Why only enemies? How does the elemental burst avoid your friends if it radiates out in all directions? Again dissociative. Jumps up to 3d10 at L20
• Freedom of the Sky additional save vs negative effects to throw them off, and if successful you lose the effect and jump. (What Level do you get this?)
• Reflexive Jump Jump as a reaction to being targeted and make yourself no longer a valid target.

The whole thing reminds me of the mtg effect "phasing". It also has gamey mechanics that seem completely disconnected with the game world. I strongly dislike it on a visceral level. It's designed like the things I find least enjoyable about D&D (which made up the majority of 4e) where the mechanics are completely divorced from anything that makes sense in the game world.

Tiger Totem Barbarian — You can jump, I guess. Medium Armor. This is probably the best "no homebrew" option. Not very satisfying though, IMO. All that barbarian stuff doesn't fit what I think of when I think Dragoon.

Eldritch Knight Fighter (Jump Spell at 3) — You'd have to get your GM to add Jump to the Spell List, but you could do so. A bit too magic for FFT's Dragoon though.

Battlemaster Fighter — So, the "Charger" feat is pretty close to what we want from Jump. Basically we just want it, and to be able to ignore difficult terrain when doing so, because you're jumping. A flexible GM might allow that (I would consider it). Perhaps as a custom Maneuver of some sort.

So, we have a few options here to consider:
Eliminated:

• Dragon Shaman: Way too magick-y. Good fit for the Dragon-Kin though, which is how I got sidetracked from my Dragoon article last weekend.
• Eldritch Knight: Same issue as Dragon Shaman. Small amount of homebrew, adding Jump. Also, the Jump comes a bit late.
• Hack n' Slash: I really dislike this one. I don't like the mechanics, I'm not a fan of how cheesy it is defensively (even if you could cheese it defensively like that in FFT), just... no.
• ajax007: It's Passable I suppose, It's pretty clearly based on non-Tactics Final Fantasy games, with the flying attacks.
• D and Wiki: This one was absolutely garbage.
• DracoKnight: Overly Punitive, and the Damage is high at Low Levels. Also, very one-trick-pony.

Considerations:

• No Homebrew: Tiger Totem Barbarian is the only one that works. Not the best fit, not very satisfying, but it's the only option without homebrew. If I wanted to play a Dragoon in someone's official materials only campaign and was neither a GM, nor in a game with an accomodating GM, this is the only dragoon I could do that would remotely cover it. I'd have to refluff Rage as some other sort of Zen Battle-trance or something.
• Battlemaster Fighter with a custom Maneuver and the Charger Feat: This one is a small amount of homebrew. I like this one, potentially. If a player expressed interest in doing this I would write it up for them and allow it.
• Grayfigure: The best option short of writing something new. For our purposes, we're going to use it.

Grayfigure's Dragoon Subclass

This was an interesting one, because there were so many possible options out there, I wanted to see if I *needed* to customize anything before I made an attempt at doing so. I did have rough notes for how I would have proceeded if I was going to customize, but I didn't end up needing them. Grayfigure's Dragoon is good enough; at least for our quick and dirty first draft, and we didn't need to do a custom Battlemaster this time around. It was also interesting to be able to bang out this many words in this amount of time. Not nearly as much time spent editing when you're reviewing rather than homebrewing!

Hope you guys liked it, I'll catch you again on Saturday night.

Hawkwinter