FFT - Spells Assessment 1

Premise

So, I'm going to go through all the spells (at least the ones in the PHB, we'll see about other sources) and determining which ones are appropriate or inappropriate for a War of the Lions style campaign. Why? Having a blacklist of spells and types of effects will be useful in determining what can be allowed, as well as what to include in homebrew Jobs/Classes/what have you. The overall magic level of FFT is lower than D&D, so stuff is going to get cut. That said, there's also going to be effects and spell types that are widespread and appreciated in FFT that D&D lacks, but that's probably a subject for another post.

Player's Handbook

Lv 0

All Clear

Acid Splash, Blade Ward, Chill Touch, Dancing Lights, Fire Bolt, Friends, Guidance, Light, Mage Hand, Mending, Minor Illusion, Poison Spray, Produce Flame, Ray of Frost, Resistance, Sacred Flame, Shillelagh, Shocking Grasp, Spare the Dying (Maybe shouldnt be a cantrip anymore), Thaumaturgy, Thorn Whip, True Strike, Vicious Mockery

Rejected

Eldritch Blast (Way better than the other damage cantrips, unless you have a LOT of DR), Message (Communications)

Maybe

Druidcraft

Lv 1

All Clear

Animal Friendship, Armor of Agathys, Arms of Hadar (Burst!), Bless, Burning Hands, Charm Person, Chromatic Orb, Color Spray, Command, Compelled Duel, Cure Wounds, Disguise Self, Dissonant Whispers, Divine Favor, Ensnaring Strike, Entangle, Expeditious Retreat, Faerie Fire, False Life, Feather Fall, Find Familiar, Fog Cloud, Grease, Guiding Bolt, Hail of Thorns, Healing Word, Hellish Rebuke, Heroism, Hex, Inflict Wounds, Jump, Longstrider, Mage Armor, Magic Missile, Protection from Evil and Good, Ray of Sickness, Sanctuary, Searing Smite, Shield, Shield of Faith, Silent Image, Sleep, Speak with Animals, Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Tenser's Floating Disk, Thunderous Smite, Witch Bolt, Wrathful Smite

Rejected

Comprehend Languages (Ancient Mysteries), Create or Destroy Water, Detect Evil and Good, Detect Magic, Detect Poison and Disease, Goodberry, Identify, Illusory Script, Purify Food and Drink, Unseen Servant,

Maybe

Alarm (Mental Alarm is inappropriate)

Lv 2

All Clear

Aid, Alter Self, Arcane Lock, Augury, Barkskin, Beast Sense, Blindness, Deafness, Blur, Branding Smite, Calm Emotions, Cloud of Daggers, Cordon of Arrows, Crown of Madness, Darkness, Darkvision, Enhance Ability, Enlarge/Reduce, Enthrall, Find Steed, Flame Blade, Flaming Sphere, Gentle Repose, Heat Metal, Hold Person, Invisibility, Lesser Restoration, Levitate, Locate Animals or Plants, Magic Mouth, Magic Weapon, Melf's Acid Arrow, Mirror Image, Misty Step, Pass Without Trace, Phantasmal Force, Protection from Poison, Ray of Enfeeblement, Scorching Ray, See Invisibility, Shatter, Silence, Spiritual Weapon, Suggestion, Warding Bond, Web

Rejected

Animal Messenger, Continual Flame, Detect Thoughts, Find Traps, Knock, Locate Object, Moonbeam, Nystul's Magic Aura, Rope Trick, Zone of Truth

Maybe

Prayer of Healing (No chance of wrong targets?), Spider Climb

Conclusion

So, I somewhat underestimated how long going through all of these spells would take. It's going to take a couple of posts to get through all of these, but that's okay.

A lot of the spells that are a bad fit, are to do with divination and communications. A few also have to do with necessities like food and water.

I suspect the PHB will take another 1-2 posts, and then the other sources will be much quicker. I may do some back and forth in the meantime. It'll make things more interesting if it's not all Jobs all the time until they're finished.

D&D 5e FFT: Jobs 9

Job Creation 9

Welcome to Part 9 of Job Builds

Today we're going to take a look at how to do the FFT White Mage job for 5e. Because of the Overlap, this is also going to be the "Cleric" job.

Now, I just wanted to say that, after going through Dark Knight, I think that's the right way to handle Job Spell-Lists. The ones where I made minor adjustments to the list are not the way to go, they should be focused on what the Job should do. Particularly if we're going to allow a FFT-esque dual-Job setup (I intend to go into this later). I will want to update them later. But for now, I'm moving forward. I will go back and update the others later.

White Mage/"Cleric"

Premise — The White Mage is a mage has a variety of support magic which is used at range.

Core Gameplay Abilities — Cure, Raise, Reraise, Regen, Protect, Shell, Wall, Esuna, Holy

Premise — So we're gonna build White Mage, out of whatever we can find that's the closest fit for 5e.

Class/Subclass Options

Life Cleric — Proficiencies: Too heavy on the armor. Shields don't fit. The rest is good.

• Life Domain Spells: Pretty good fit. They cover most of the spells we actually want.
• Life Domain Proficiency: This is worse. Likely has to do with needing to get close to heal in D&D whereas you can do it at range in FFT> We may need to look at that.
• Disciple of Life: This one is a good fit.
• Turn Undead Not a great fit, but not terrible.
• Preserve Life This is a good fit.
• Destroy Undead Not a great fit, but not terrible.
• Blessed Healer Decent fit.
• Divine Strike Sure, I guess.
• Divine Intervention Absolutely not, in a setting where the existence of God is in question.
• Supreme Healing Maximized Healing is good.

All of the healing options can never hit undesired targets. This runs counter to what we want, but would require redesigned healing magics, so we're gonna leave it alone for now.

Protection Cleric — Proficiencies: Too heavy on the armor. Shields don't fit. The rest is good.

• Protection Domain Spells: A couple decent picks.
• Protection Domain Proficiency: This is worse.
• Shield of the Faithful: Nope.
• Turn Undead Not a good fit.
• Radiant Defense A bit much.
• Destroy Undead Not a good fit.
• Blessed Healer Decent fit.
• Divine Strike Sure, I guess.
• Divine Intervention Absolutely not, in a setting where the existence of God is in question.
• Indomitable Defense A bit much for White Mage, maybe.

Abjuration Wizard — Not a great fit.

• Arcane Recovery: Eh, sure.
• Abjuration Savant: Sure, why not, I guess.
• Arcane Ward: Decent.
• Projected Ward: Decent.
• Improved Abjuration: Decent.
• Spell Mastery: Sure why not
• Signature Spells: Sure why not

FFIV Project Spirit Master White Mage — This one looks promising. Proficiencies: Great.

• Soothe Sayer: Cheesy name, but good ability.
• Discipline: We want Spirit Master
• Conservation of Life: This one is very interesting. Neat White Mage capstone.
• Worldly Beyond Sure.
• Spirit Master Expanded Spell List All good spells.
• Shroud of Saints Very Short term Self-Protection. fluff fits.
• Surging Succor Decent fit.
• Clerical Smite Sure, I guess.
• Touch of the Padjal Crappier Supreme Healing

The spell list is promising, but it seems to mostly just be a crappy Cleric- otherwise.

Right then. Life Cleric is our closest starting point, so that's where we're going to start.

White Mage/"Cleric" (Life/Protection Cleric)

"A mage who taps into the powers of the divine, using White Magicks to cast spells of recovery and protection."

Proficiencies

Armor: Light Armor only, no Shields

Weapons: No Change

Tools: No Change

Saving Throws: No Change

Skills: No Change

Class & Subclass Features

Healer's Knowledge: You also become proficient in your choice of two of the following skills: Arcana, History, Nature, or Religion. This replaces Life Domain Proficiency.

Radiant Confidence: When you reach 10th level, you can't be charmed or frightened by celestials, fiends, or undead, and you are immune to poison and disease. This replaces Divine Intervention.

Spell List

White Mage "Life" Spells:

1st: Sanctuary, Healing Word

2nd: Prayer of Healing, Lesser Restoration

3rd: Beacon of Hope, Revivify

4th: Death Ward, Regen*

5th: Flame Strike, Mass Cure Wounds

Cantrips

Gust, Light, Mending, Resistance, Sacred Flame, Spare the Dying, Thaumaturgy

1st Level Spells

Cure Wounds, Detect Magic (Ritual), Detect Poison and Disease (Ritual), Guiding Bolt, Heroism, Protection from Evil and Good, Purify Food and Drink (Ritual), Shield of Faith

2nd Level Spells

Aid, Calm Emotions, Continual Flame, Gentle Repose (Ritual), Gust of Wind, Protection from Poison, Warding Bond

3rd Level Spells

Dispel Magic, Glyph of Warding, Magic Circle, Mass Healing Word,, Protection from Energy, Remove Curse, Spirit Guardians, Tongues

4th Level Spells

Freedom of Movement, Guardian of Faith, Tetragrammaton*

5th Level Spells

Antilife Shell, Commune (Ritual), Dispel Evil and Good, Greater Restoration

6th Level Spells

Find the Path, Forbiddance, Heal

7th Level Spells

Fire Storm, Regenerate

8th Level Spells

Antimagic Field, Holy Aura

9th Level Spells

Astral Projection, Mass Heal

Roleplay: A White Mage might be part of the clergy, or they could just as well be a mage who simply studied the healing arts. Either way, you're interested in helping people.

So As you can see, I'm shifting gears just a little bit, having decided on the more focused spell-lists. The more focused lists should also allow us to dual-class more meaningfully as well, which is very FFT-esque. Arcane Ward, Projected Ward, and Improved Abjuration could all make good additions to this class, if we were to want to change anything out (such as possibly removing the turn and destroy undead features).

Next article is going to be a bit of a change of pace. I'm going to comb through the spell-list, and sort it into stuff that belongs in an FFT campaign, and stuff that just doesn't. It'll be of benefit to us building the rest of the Jobs, and it'll be of benefit when I go back to update the ones I didn't do this way.

— Hawkwinter

D&D 5e FFT: Jobs 8

Job Creation 8

Welcome to Part 8 of Job Builds

Today we're going to take a look at how to do the Dark Knight job for 5e, using Paladin to do so.

Dark Knight

Unlike the other art I've used, which all comes from the actual game and its concept art, this one is an excellent piece of fanart made by Kajusx. His deviantart appears to have been deactivated, but you can find much of his other work on Pinterest, here

Premise — As Established last post, The Dark Knight is a Mageknight (Gish with heavy armor and access to Knightly Weapons) who fights dirty and has a selfish, mercenary, or evil theme.

Core Gameplay Abilities — Magic, Good Melee Combat, Plate Armor, Knight Weapons, Lifedrain, Mana Drain

Premise — We reviewed stuff last week, and this week we're going to see how we can make it out of Paladin. I'll reiterate last week's evaluation of Paladin, below.

Class/Subclass Options

Paladin — Good Proficiencies.

• Divine Sense: Detect strongly aligned beings and consecrated/desecrated objects/places. Eh. Not terribly useful in an human focused campaign, but its alright. He could detect the few undead and zombies that are in the setting.
• Lay on Hands: Healing and curing disease/poison. Bad fit, unfortunately.
• Divine Smite: Change the damage type (Probably Necrotic) and who you get extra damage against and it works out better.
• Spells The spell-list isn't perfect. It's got a lot of healing, white-mage-type-stuff. Could use an overhaul.
• Fighting Style Some of them work. Maybe changing up the list would be worthwhile.
• Divine Health Sure.
• Extra Attack Absolutely.
• Aura of Protection Sure.
• Aura of Courage Sure.
• Improved Divine Smite Sure, but change the damage type as per Divine Smite.
• Cleansing Touch The flavor doesn't fit super well. Would work better if you could end beneficial spells on enemies.

Oath of Conquest Paladin — One of the Better fits

• Oath: Not Terrible
• Oath Spells: All of these are a good fit thematically, though no Lifedrain or Manadrain.
• Conquering Strike: Awesome
• Guided Strike: Awesome
• Aura of Conquest: More Awesome
• Implacable Spirit: I like it.
• Invincible Conquerer: Sure why not

Oath of Treachery Paladin — A mediocre fit with a couple iconic abilities.

• Oath: N/A
• Oath Spells: Not great.
• Conjure Duplicate: Eh
• Poison Strike: Sure
• Aura of Treachery: Sure
• Blackguard's Escape: 100%. This happens in the cutscenes all the time.
• Icon of Deceit: Sure

Oath of Vengeance Paladin — A decent but imperfect fit.

• Oath: Eh. Too Vigilante.
• Oath Spells: These are a damn good fit, thematically. Still no Lifedrain or Manadrain though.
• Abjure Enemy: Fear + Slow
• Vow of Enmity: Sure, this fits.
• Relentless Avenger: This is neat
• Soul of Vengeance: Eh.
• Avenging Angel: Nope

Oath of the Crown Paladin — A terrible fit.

• Oath: No, Not for Dark Knight.
• Oath Spells: No, not really.
• Champion Challenge: Not really.
• Turn the Tide: No.
• Divine Allegiance: No
• Unyielding Spirit: Sure.
• Exalted Champion: Nope

Oathbreaker Paladin — A Decent Fit

• Oath: N/A.
• Oath Spells: Sure, good fit.
• Control Undead: Yeah, thats cool.
• Dreadful Aspect: Not so much.
• Aura of Hate: This is good.
• Supernatural Resistance: Sure.
• Dread Lord: This is cool.

ZenBear's Oath of Blood Paladin — Nothing we want in here.

So, here we go. [Its been brought to my attention that the spell list was on the strong side, so here it is, revised a bunch]

Dark Knight Conquerer/Treachery/Oathbreaker "Paladin"

"A fallen knight who has turned his back on the light of the gods. He leeches the souls of enemies with his Fell Sword."

Proficiencies

Armor: No Change

Weapons: No Change

Tools: No Change

Saving Throws: Constitution, Charisma

Skills: Choose two from Athletics, Deception, Insight, Intimidation, Persuasion, and Stealth

Class Features

Control Undead: As per Oathbreaker. This replaces Divine Sense.

Absorbing Strike: You may prevent half the total damage you deal (rounded down) with an attack. If you do, you regain as much health as you prevented. This replaces Lay on Hands.

Tainted Smite: Starting at 2nd level, when you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can expend one spell slot to deal necrotic damage to the target, in addition to the weapon's damage. The extra damage is 2d8 for a 1st-level spell slot, plus 1d8 for each spell level higher than 1st, to a maximum of 5d8. The damage increases by 1d8 if the target is an fey or a celestial. This replaces Divine Smite.

Fighting Style: Remove Mariner, Protection; Add Two-Weapon Fighting

Tainted Vigor: By 3rd level, the fell magics flowing through you make you immune to the poisoned condition, and you have resistance to poison damage. This replaces Divine Health.

Extra Attack: No Change.

Aura of Hate: As per Oathbreaker, except starting at level 6. This replaces Aura of Protection.

Aura of Confidence: Starting at 10th level, you and friendly creatures within 10 feet of you can't be charmed while you are conscious. At 18th level, the range of this aura increases to 30 feet.

Improved Tainted Smite: By 11th level, you are so suffused with corrupted energies that all your melee weapon strikes carry necrotic power with them. Whenever you hit a creature with a melee weapon, the creature takes an extra 1d8 necrotic damage. If you also use your Tainted Smite with an attack, you add this damage to the extra damage of your Divine Smite. This replaces Improved Divine Smite.

Steely Resolve: Once you reach 14th level, you can no longer be frightened. This Replaces Cleansing Touch.

Subclass Features

Oath of Treachery: As per Treachery. This replaces Oath of Conquest.

Conquering Strike: No Change

Poison Strike: As Oath of Treachery. This replaces Guided Strike

Aura of Conquest: No Change

Blackguard's Escape:As per Oath of Treachery. This replaces Implacable Spirit

Dread Lord: As per Oathbreaker. This replaces Invincible Conquerer.

Spell List

Dark Knight "Oath" Spells:

Dark Knight lv 3: Cause Fear, Inflict Wounds

Dark Knight lv 5: Darkness, Heat Metal

Dark Knight lv 9: Animate Dead, Vampiric Touch

Dark Knight lv 13: Confusion, Dimension Door

Dark Knight lv 17: Contagion, Dominate Person

1st Level Spells

Removed: Bless, Cure Wounds, Divine Favor (Radiant), Shield of Faith, Ceremony

Kept: Command, Compelled Duel, Detect Evil and Good, Detect Poison and Disease, Heroism, Protection from Evil and Good, Searing Smite, Thunderous Smite, Wrathful Smite, Detect Magic, Purify Food and Drink

Added: Armor of Agathys, Arms of Hadar, Bane, Hex, Puppet, Expeditious Retreat

2nd Level Spells

Removed: Aid, Branding Smite (Radiant), Lesser Restoration, Zone of Truth (4)

Kept: Find Steed, Locate Object, Magic Weapon, Protection from Poison,

Added: Alter Self, Darkvision, Hold Person, Invisibility, Ray of Enfeeblement, Shatter, Suggestion

3rd Level Spells

Removed: Aura of Vitality, Bestow Curse, Blinding Smite (Radiant), Create Food and Water, Crusader's Mantle (Radiant), Daylight, Revivify (Resurrection) (7)

Kept: Dispel Magic, Elemental Weapon, Magic Circle, Remove Curse

Added: Fear, Gaseous Form, Haste, Tongues

4th Level Spells

Removed: Aura of Life, Aura of Purity

Kept: Banishment, Death Ward, Locate Creature, Staggering Smite

Added: Elemental Bane, Evard's Black Tentacles

5th Level Spells

Removed: Circle of Power, Raise Dead (Resurrection)

Kept: Banishing Smite, Destructive Wave, Dispel Evil and Good, Geas,

Added: Contact Other Plane

Roleplay: You're in it for yourself. Your superiors (assuming you have any) likely know it, but you get the job done, and you'll do things (with discretion) that many others wouldn't even consider.

I hope you guys enjoyed reading this one, I know I enjoyed making it. It's flavorful and feels foul, tainted. A Paladin with an "evil" oath just doesn't fit the bill. Too much stuff that just doesn't fit the fluff.

So, life has gotten pretty nuts recently. As much as I'd love to continue to do 2 posts a week, it looks like I'm going to have to go down to one post a week for the next while. Expect a post next up for next Monday morning, when I'll be taking a look at how to build another Job in 5e.

— Hawkwinter

D&D 5e FFT: Jobs 7

Job Creation 7

Welcome to Part 7 of Job Builds

Today we're going to take a look at how to do the Dark Knight

Dark Knight

Premise — The Dark Knight is a Mageknight (Gish with heavy armor and access to Knightly Weapons) who fights dirty and has a selfish, mercenary, or evil theme.

Core Gameplay Abilities — Magic, Good Melee Combat, Plate Armor, Knight Weapons, Lifedrain, Mana Drain

Premise — Much like with Dragoon, this is going to involve a lot of reviewing before I consider homebrewing something custom, as several potential options already exist.

Class/Subclass Options

Paladin — Good Proficiencies.

• Divine Sense: Detect strongly aligned beings and consecrated/desecrated objects/places. Eh. Not terribly useful in an human focused campaign, but its alright. He could detect the few undead and zombies that are in the setting.
• Lay on Hands: Healing and curing disease/poison. Bad fit, unfortunately.
• Divine Smite: Change the damage type (Probably Necrotic) and who you get extra damage against and it works out better.
• Spells The spell-list isn't perfect. It's got a lot of healing, white-mage-type-stuff. Could use an overhaul.
• Fighting Style Some of them work. Maybe changing up the list would be worthwhile.
• Divine Health Sure.
• Extra Attack Absolutely.
• Aura of Protection Sure.
• Aura of Courage Sure.
• Improved Divine Smite Sure, but change the damage type as per Divine Smite.
• Cleansing Touch The flavor doesn't fit super well. Would work better if you could end beneficial spells on enemies.

Oath of Conquest Paladin — One of the Better fits

• Oath: Not Terrible
• Oath Spells: All of these are a good fit thematically, though no Lifedrain or Manadrain.
• Conquering Strike: Awesome
• Guided Strike: Awesome
• Aura of Conquest: More Awesome
• Implacable Spirit: I like it.
• Invincible Conquerer: Sure why not

Oath of Treachery Paladin — A mediocre fit with a couple iconic abilities.

• Oath: N/A
• Oath Spells: Not great.
• Conjure Duplicate: Eh
• Poison Strike: Sure
• Aura of Treachery: Sure
• Blackguard's Escape: 100%. This happens in the cutscenes all the time.
• Icon of Deceit: Sure

Oath of Vengeance Paladin — A decent but imperfect fit.

• Oath: Eh. Too Vigilante.
• Oath Spells: These are a damn good fit, thematically. Still no Lifedrain or Manadrain though.
• Abjure Enemy: Fear + Slow
• Vow of Enmity: Sure, this fits.
• Relentless Avenger: This is neat
• Soul of Vengeance: Eh.
• Avenging Angel: Nope

Oath of the Crown Paladin — A terrible fit.

• Oath: No, Not for Dark Knight.
• Oath Spells: No, not really.
• Champion Challenge: Not really.
• Turn the Tide: No.
• Divine Allegiance: No
• Unyielding Spirit: Sure.
• Exalted Champion: Nope

Oathbreaker Paladin — A Decent Fit

• Oath: N/A.
• Oath Spells: Sure, good fit.
• Control Undead: Yeah, thats cool.
• Dreadful Aspect: Not so much.
• Aura of Hate: This is good.
• Supernatural Resistance: Sure.
• Dread Lord: This is cool.

ZenBear's Oath of Blood Paladin — Nothing we want in here.

Fighter — Good Proficiencies. Nothing that detracts from Dark Knight.

• Drackolus' Dark Knight Fighter Subclass — Looks Pretty Good.
• Stuart Logan's Dark Knight Fighter Subclass — Also Looks Pretty Good

SilentSoren's Dark Knight,2 (Images) (Direct) — Eh. It's a different flavor than we're going for.

Nordic&Nerdy's Dark Knight Class (Direct) — This is a weird blood fighter lacking a lot of the abilities we would want. Not so much.

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

• SilentSoren's Dark Knight: Doesn't match the FFT Dark Knight Flavor
• Nordic&Nerdy's Dark Knight Class: This is its own weird blood magic thing
• Oath of Blood Paladin: No match

Considerations:

• Paladin: There's no single Paladin Oath that's a good fit for Dark Knight. But there are several of them with parts that are good.
• Stuart Logan's Fighter Subclass: This looks good.
• Drackolus' Fighter Subclass: This looks better.

For the super quick & easy route: Drackolus' Subclass is the one to choose. It's just better than the others.

This is going to be the end for today's post, I ran way over-time on this one.

Next Post won't be until next weekend. Join me then to see me build Dark Knight from Paladin! Later!

— Hawkwinter