Draconic Destinies Project - Feedback Thread

[Loxsis]

I recently started working on this. My goals for this project is:

• Make one dragon-themed archetype for each spell-less class as well as Dark Knight/Holy Knight, and Bard, each with their own spin
  
• Make a Dragonslayer archetype for Red Mage
  
• Make Dragon Materia, which would only work for characters with the archetypes from the first bullet point
  

Here's where I'm at currently:

Dragoon - Dragon Child - metamorphoses into a synthesis of dragon and their own race - Done

Fighter - Dragonheart - awakens their draconic powers in the heat of battle through the use of Additions - in progress

Engineer - Draconic Anima(female)/Animus(male) - harnesses the power of their stubbornly dormant Draconic blood through an Anima/Animus Harness and a special selection of gadgets designed to emulate a dragon's abilities - not started

Monk - Student of Bahamut - centers themselves to gain draconic aspects as well as equal resistance to all 8 elements - not started

Dark Knight/Holy Knight - Scaled Scourge/Scaled Champion - gains draconic powers as well as the ability to drain Light and Dark spells, respectively, into MP - not started

Bard - instead of using their draconic powers, they grant their allies these benefits through song - not started

Archer - fires Dragon Arrows which summons a dragon of their element to bowl along the arrow's path - not started

Ninja - Dragon's Fang - trades in Sneak Attack for Dragon Strike, which deals increasing elemental damage and can even instakill at higher levels  - not started

Thief - gets elemental defences/attacks, but mostly bonuses for maintaining a base and stockpile of goods - not started

Red Mage - Dragonslayer - always able to cast spells their draconic opponents are vulnerable to (i.e. can cast thunder against a water dragon even if they don't know thunder) and other bonuses against dragons - not started

No real concepts for the other archetypes yet

Dragon Materia - allows characters to transform into a full-fledged dragon temporarily at the cost of falling unconscious afterwards; only works for characters with the above archetypes (Dragonslayer excluded) - not started

[Loxsis]

Having trouble coming up with concepts for the Beastmaster, Black Belt, Chemist, Chobo Knight, Dancer, Fencer, Gambler, Gunner, Knight, Medic, Samurai, and Sword Saint. Any ideas?

[Biyama]

Dragon chocobo

[Loxsis]

Chocobo Knight - Draconic Cavalier - their draconic heritage causes mutations in their Chocobo mounts - not started

'Dragon' Materia - legendary - 1st level Materia allows the possessor to assume the form of a dragon of as Form of the Dragon (CL equal to character level), save that the possessor may use the breath weapon at will, but must wait 1d4 rounds between uses, and may end the effect prematurely, at the cost of falling unconscious upon reverting back for one minute per round spent in a dragon form. Only creatures with Draconic blood or possessing a dragon's soul can use this Materia, and the type of dragon assumed is the same as their elemental affinity. Any suggestions?

[Loxsis]

How's the Dragon Materia so far? How should it advance as it levels up?

[Biyama]

Dragon Materia seems like an interesting class feature. Have it cast its own variation of form of dragon that scales up with level. When equipped in equipment, it can be like the elemental ones.

[Biyama]

I had a thought for a Draconic monk/blackbelt
Concept: They harness the innate magic of their Draconic blood to enhance their bodies while using their training to make their bodies into more suitable vessels for Draconic power
Mechanically: instead on gaining traditional flurry, they get natural attacks as they level (bite, 2 claw, 2 wing, and tail). These natural attacks use the increased unarmed damage and can be used for anything an unarmed strike can. They would also get their own special attacks that would work like style strikes.

[Loxsis]

Ok, so Dragon Materia uses Form of the Dragon 1 at 1st level (at-will breath weapon with 1d4 round cool down), Form of the Dragon 2 at 2nd level (at-will breath weapon with 1d4 round cool down), and Form of the Dragon 3 at 3rd level. What should I do with the unconscious period as the Materia levels up?

Seeing as this Materia only works for a very small demographic of people, it would be hard for this Materia to move around. Still, I think there should be a price entry and maybe even a way to craft them. Any suggestions on this?

[Loxsis]

I had a thought for a Draconic monk/blackbelt
Concept: They harness the innate magic of their Draconic blood to enhance their bodies while using their training to make their bodies into more suitable vessels for Draconic power
Mechanically: instead on gaining traditional flurry, they get natural attacks as they level (bite, 2 claw, 2 wing, and tail). These natural attacks use the increased unarmed damage and can be used for anything an unarmed strike can. They would also get their own special attacks that would work like style strikes.

I'll go with that, with monk balancing all 8 elements while black belt gets a choice of 1 of 8 elements.

[Manly Man]

Personally, for the Monk/Black Belt thing, I'd say to just stick with the claws for the natural attacks. Going as it's written there, there are six different natural weapons there, and you can all of a sudden get Multiattack to use all of them at once. Especially if they use the classes' unarmed damage progression, that can lead to some pretty crazy damage; take Improved Natural Attack four times, one for each natural attack, and you're doing 3d8 with six attacks by 20th level, not counting whatever other bonuses you get to damage.

BUT! If you only do the claws, then you don't qualify for Multiattack unless you can get some other 24-hour source of another natural attack. Going that way, you still get some good draconic flavor, and you still get very effective damage. If you still think it could use some damage boosts, things like adding a bit of extra elemental damage would, again, be effective and flavorful. As well, especially with the Black Belt's ability to get feats on the fly, Feral Combat Training would be an excellent feat to have that would let them switch out whatever suits the situation best (such as applying certain style feats, like Dragon Style or Crane Style) for their natural attacks. What I think you should do, however, is add a disclaimer that the claws count as unarmed strikes for the purposes of all class features that call for unarmed strikes, such as ki strikes, blitz techniques, and so forth. Be sure to clarify what's what with each class, though. Otherwise, without gutting the class and making a bunch of new features to make up for that, you've really crippled it.

[Biyama]

Here are my thoughts on the natural attacks and the logic I had behind it:
Level 20 comparison
Monk flurry: 20/20/20/15/10/5
Black Belt flurry: 18/18/13/13/8/8/3
Dragon flurry: 20/20/20/15/15/15 or 20/20/20/18/18/18 if your gm allows multiattack
Black belt gets the most attack but with pitiful accuracy. In all likelihood, the latter half of their attacks are probably missing any real threat. Dragon flurry may SEEM to be a superior version of the monk flurry but that is only in accuracy. They make the same number of attacks but the dragon flurry only gets 1/2 str on the last 3 attacks while monk gets full strength on everything. Not only that, but because monks Have the option of using a single weapon and applying feats like weapon focus and specialization. Lastly, monks get a massive threat range for their unarmed strikes that natural attacks don’t get. In short: dragon flurry actually comes short on damage output but makes up for it with consistency which is why I think they should get their own set of style strikes.

[Loxsis]

I think that I'll only start them off with claws, but they gain the rest as they gain power, with all of them having Manly Man's disclaimer. I think the draconic styles should be elemental themed with similar abilities to each other.

How about having Beastmaster swap out their animal companion for draconic companion and get a limited draconic heritage?

[Manly Man]

Well, the thing is, the flurry with natural weapons nets you ~72 damage if you take the Improved Natural Weapon feats, assuming all of them hit, which is far more likely than the ~66 you get from all of the Monk's normal flurry hitting. As well, if you're going to be adding elemental damage to that, it's not going to matter much about the secondaries only getting half the Strength bonus to damage unless you pump the Monk's Strength score stupidly high. Even if you don't take the INA feats, you're still more likely to do greater damage on average with the natural attacks simply by virtue of them hitting more often. For example, if the last two attacks from the Monk miss (seeing as those are the two attacks in their flurry that are lower than the natural attacks, and notably so), that's ~22 damage being dropped off, not counting what you would get from Strength. The natural attacks' accuracy is also an incentive for getting Power Attack, and if you take Multiattack, you're still going to have a higher hit chance on your three secondaries than the Monk does on their last two attacks (+15/+15/+15/+13/+13/+13 for the natural attacks), and Power Attack would more than make up for the disparity in terms of Strength damage. A normal Monk couldn't really afford to put Power Attack on their normal flurry because they don't have the reliability. And again, there seem to be plans to put elemental damage on top of all that, so you're going to outpace a standard Monk pretty easily.

[Loxsis]

How about they start with Claws, gains Tail Slap at 7th, Bite at 14th, and Wing Buffet at 20th, with secondary attacks being counted at a lower monk level when determining improved damage?