Much to Love and Ask about the Dragoon (for Viladin to answer, and all to see)

[Volkspanzer]

Before I get into the details of the topic, I would like to state my joy of hearing about the great work that is taking place here. This is my first post on these forums, and I want to make sure that it's worth taking a look at, as it's addressed to you, Viladin. I would have made this an email, but I think whoever else comes across this stands to benefit from reading it, if he/she is at all interested in reading it.

I want to make clear, however, that any and all criticism/questioning is meant in a practical sense. There won't be any bashing of certain mechanics as being too weak/too powerful. However there is a good amount that seems to be misunderstood or may need re-wording.

With that established, on to the topic:

What's to love:

One of the biggest gripes I've had about martial classes in Pathfinder is their general inflexibilty in regards to dealing heavy damage while moving. Yes, there's the Cavalier with charging lance attacks, but you have to have a mount for that. Yes, there's the Mobile Fighter archetype/Pounce (Ex) abilty, but they don't have the same flavor as a single, devastating blow. The Vital Strike feat chain tries to address this, but this only works (somewhat) if you have a weapon that happens to have a large base of damage dice. Otherwise, it's an awful amount of feats to invest in.

However, the Dragoon mechanics appear to allow a character to deal more damage the more it moves, usually in the form of a single, dramatic attack from on high. It breaks one of the ugliest molds that 3.5/Pathfinder seem to adhere to originally for martial classes -- if you want to do something other than full attack, expect to suffer for it.

The Dragoon also gives a melee-focused character the ability to take on flying creatures without having to resort to ranged weaponry or magic items/buffs/abilities that grant flight. This gives the Dragoon a ton of versatility with only investing into acrobatics and a polearm.

What's to ask:

To make things a bit more organized, I'll tackle each part in the order it presents itself on the Dragoon class page:

Falling Meteor (Su): This Limit Break allows the dragoon to make a giant leap to crash like a meteor upon his enemies within 60 feet, affecting a 20-foot-radius area. Enemies in the area of effect take 2d6 points of non-elemental damage + an additional 2d6 points of damage per four dragoon levels, a Reflex save (DC 10 + half of dragoon’s level + Strength modifier) or fall prone.

With the bolded text within the Falling Meteor quote, is the non-elemental damage implying that this damage, while not of any particular element, is still magical in nature, or is it physical damage (therefore subject to damage reduction)?
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Lancet (Su): This Limit Break causes any attacks the dragoon makes that successfully hits to heal him. For the duration of 1 round + 1 round per four dragoon levels, the dragoon heals for 1d6 points of damage + an additional 1d6 points of damage per four dragoon levels whenever the dragoon makes a successful attack. Each successful attack deals additional damage equal to the amount healed.

With the bolded text within the Lancet quote, is this additional damage ever subject to multiplying from crits or Leaping Charge (Ex), or is it treated in the same vein of damage such as Sneak Attack, Deadly Lancer, etc.?
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Jump (Ex): At 1st level, a dragoon trains for years in the ability to leap astounding and nearly supernatural distances, emulating the dragon's ability to fly. The dragoon adds double his dragoon class levels to all Acrobatic skill checks for jumping. A dragoon's ability to jump with his Acrobatic checks is treated as though he got a running start and has the Run feat, regardless of whether or not he gets a running start. A dragoon’s maximum height is not affected by his size, allowing very strong, very powerful dragoons to eventually leap higher than their own height. In addition, when a dragoon uses the Jumping Down action, he may add an additional 5 to the DC in order treat the fall as 10 feet less than normal (thus jumping down 20 feet would have DC 20 and thirty feet would have DC 25, etc).

The bolded text in the quote for Jump seems to be misleading. According to the Pathfinder Reference Document on Acrobatics checks for jumping, the only constraint for maximum distance and/or height is your base land speed. The size of a creature holds no bearing on how far or high they can actually jump.

Perhaps you were wanting to remove base land speed as a determining factor on maximum jumping distance/height?

If this is a constraint that you have placed into your setting yourself, I apologize for not reading your rules more closely.
________________

Deadly Lancer (Ex): At 1st level, the dragoon has learned the technique of the falling from the sky upon their opponents to inflict more damage. Whenever the dragoon jumps at least ten feet from his opponent (vertical or horizontal) and strikes his foe, the dragoon deals an additional +1d6 points of damage. This extra damage is 1d6 when first gained, and it increases by 1d6 with each improvement. If the attack is also a critical hit, the extra damage is not also multiplied. In addition, for each ten feet the dragoon jumps beyond the first ten feet, he deals an additional +1d6 points of damage.

I pose a few questions for the Deadly Lancer ability:

First is the extra damage from this ability doubled on a Leaping Charge?

Second, is the distance travelled when falling from great heights added into the total distance jumped by the Dragoon for determining additional damage? For example, if a Dragoon were to jump 50 feet straight into the air, and then fall down upon his target from that altitude, would the total jumping distance be considered 100 feet? I don't imagine this would be the case, considering physics and velocity, but I thought it may be something to be clear about.

Third, if the jump a Dragoon covers more distance vertically than horizontally, would the dragoon use the greater of the 2 distances to determine the bonus damage, or are we gonna have to break out the Pythagorean Theorem up in this house (please don't make me do it!)???

This third question is probably over-thinking it, but I was curious, nonetheless.
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Tail Sweep (Ex): At 7th level or higher, a dragoon is able to use his weapon in the same way a dragon uses its tail. A dragoon may make a tail sweep action as a full round action. To do so, he chooses 3 consecutive squares he threatens and rolls damage normally for the weapon in use. Each character, friend or foe, in the affected area, rolls a Reflex save (DC 10 + half of dragoon’s level + Strength modifier) or fall prone. This attack is effective against enemies the same size or smaller than the dragoon. If the attack strikes any enemy larger than the dragoon, the attack does damage as normal, but becomes immune to the knockdown effect.

I don't have anything bolded here, because there seems to be something missing, if I'm not mistaken. Does a successful reflex save half the damage taken by targets of this ability?
____________________

If you could answer these questions, and hopefully get an update on the resources reflecting these clarifications, that'd be awesome.

I want to reiterate how much I love this site and the content it's putting out, and thanks for putting your time and creativity into it!

[Viladin]

Before I get into the details of the topic, I would like to state my joy of hearing about the great work that is taking place here. This is my first post on these forums, and I want to make sure that it's worth taking a look at, as it's addressed to you, Viladin. I would have made this an email, but I think whoever else comes across this stands to benefit from reading it, if he/she is at all interested in reading it.

I want to make clear, however, that any and all criticism/questioning is meant in a practical sense. There won't be any bashing of certain mechanics as being too weak/too powerful. However there is a good amount that seems to be misunderstood or may need re-wording.

First off, thank you Secondly, I appreciate any and all criticisms/questionings. It makes it easier for me to revalidate things and make it better. Lastly, I'll try to answer any and questions you have.

With that established, on to the topic:

What's to love:

One of the biggest gripes I've had about martial classes in Pathfinder is their general inflexibilty in regards to dealing heavy damage while moving. Yes, there's the Cavalier with charging lance attacks, but you have to have a mount for that. Yes, there's the Mobile Fighter archetype/Pounce (Ex) abilty, but they don't have the same flavor as a single, devastating blow. The Vital Strike feat chain tries to address this, but this only works (somewhat) if you have a weapon that happens to have a large base of damage dice. Otherwise, it's an awful amount of feats to invest in.

However, the Dragoon mechanics appear to allow a character to deal more damage the more it moves, usually in the form of a single, dramatic attack from on high. It breaks one of the ugliest molds that 3.5/Pathfinder seem to adhere to originally for martial classes -- if you want to do something other than full attack, expect to suffer for it.

The Dragoon also gives a melee-focused character the ability to take on flying creatures without having to resort to ranged weaponry or magic items/buffs/abilities that grant flight. This gives the Dragoon a ton of versatility with only investing into acrobatics and a polearm.

What's to ask:

To make things a bit more organized, I'll tackle each part in the order it presents itself on the Dragoon class page:

Falling Meteor (Su): This Limit Break allows the dragoon to make a giant leap to crash like a meteor upon his enemies within 60 feet, affecting a 20-foot-radius area. Enemies in the area of effect take 2d6 points of non-elemental damage + an additional 2d6 points of damage per four dragoon levels, a Reflex save (DC 10 + half of dragoon’s level + Strength modifier) or fall prone.

With the bolded text within the Falling Meteor quote, is the non-elemental damage implying that this damage, while not of any particular element, is still magical in nature, or is it physical damage (therefore subject to damage reduction)?

Its still magical in nature because its a limit break, but not of any particular element.

__________________

Lancet (Su): This Limit Break causes any attacks the dragoon makes that successfully hits to heal him. For the duration of 1 round + 1 round per four dragoon levels, the dragoon heals for 1d6 points of damage + an additional 1d6 points of damage per four dragoon levels whenever the dragoon makes a successful attack. Each successful attack deals additional damage equal to the amount healed.

With the bolded text within the Lancet quote, is this additional damage ever subject to multiplying from crits or Leaping Charge (Ex), or is it treated in the same vein of damage such as Sneak Attack, Deadly Lancer, etc.?

No for any additional damage, and I should add that line in though.

___________________

Jump (Ex): At 1st level, a dragoon trains for years in the ability to leap astounding and nearly supernatural distances, emulating the dragon's ability to fly. The dragoon adds double his dragoon class levels to all Acrobatic skill checks for jumping. A dragoon's ability to jump with his Acrobatic checks is treated as though he got a running start and has the Run feat, regardless of whether or not he gets a running start. A dragoon’s maximum height is not affected by his size, allowing very strong, very powerful dragoons to eventually leap higher than their own height. In addition, when a dragoon uses the Jumping Down action, he may add an additional 5 to the DC in order treat the fall as 10 feet less than normal (thus jumping down 20 feet would have DC 20 and thirty feet would have DC 25, etc).

The bolded text in the quote for Jump seems to be misleading. According to the Pathfinder Reference Document on Acrobatics checks for jumping, the only constraint for maximum distance and/or height is your base land speed. The size of a creature holds no bearing on how far or high they can actually jump.

Perhaps you were wanting to remove base land speed as a determining factor on maximum jumping distance/height?

If this is a constraint that you have placed into your setting yourself, I apologize for not reading your rules more closely.

That was my fault. I assumed incorrectly that there wasn't much changed from Jump in 3.5 to Acrobatics in PF.

________________

Deadly Lancer (Ex): At 1st level, the dragoon has learned the technique of the falling from the sky upon their opponents to inflict more damage. Whenever the dragoon jumps at least ten feet from his opponent (vertical or horizontal) and strikes his foe, the dragoon deals an additional +1d6 points of damage. This extra damage is 1d6 when first gained, and it increases by 1d6 with each improvement. If the attack is also a critical hit, the extra damage is not also multiplied. In addition, for each ten feet the dragoon jumps beyond the first ten feet, he deals an additional +1d6 points of damage.

I pose a few questions for the Deadly Lancer ability:

First is the extra damage from this ability doubled on a Leaping Charge?

No, same vein as Sneak Attack.

Second, is the distance travelled when falling from great heights added into the total distance jumped by the Dragoon for determining additional damage? For example, if a Dragoon were to jump 50 feet straight into the air, and then fall down upon his target from that altitude, would the total jumping distance be considered 100 feet? I don't imagine this would be the case, considering physics and velocity, but I thought it may be something to be clear about.

Third, if the jump a Dragoon covers more distance vertically than horizontally, would the dragoon use the greater of the 2 distances to determine the bonus damage, or are we gonna have to break out the Pythagorean Theorem up in this house (please don't make me do it!)???

This third question is probably over-thinking it, but I was curious, nonetheless.

I'll leave it up to the DM to decide, on both cases. I'd probably deny the second question. The third question makes my head hurt.

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Tail Sweep (Ex): At 7th level or higher, a dragoon is able to use his weapon in the same way a dragon uses its tail. A dragoon may make a tail sweep action as a full round action. To do so, he chooses 3 consecutive squares he threatens and rolls damage normally for the weapon in use. Each character, friend or foe, in the affected area, rolls a Reflex save (DC 10 + half of dragoon’s level + Strength modifier) or fall prone. This attack is effective against enemies the same size or smaller than the dragoon. If the attack strikes any enemy larger than the dragoon, the attack does damage as normal, but becomes immune to the knockdown effect.

I don't have anything bolded here, because there seems to be something missing, if I'm not mistaken. Does a successful reflex save half the damage taken by targets of this ability?

Ooh. Something missing, I forgot to add a To-Hit roll for each creature much like Whirlwind Attack. And a successful save only negates the trip.

____________________

If you could answer these questions, and hopefully get an update on the resources reflecting these clarifications, that'd be awesome.

I want to reiterate how much I love this site and the content it's putting out, and thanks for putting your time and creativity into it!

Thank you once again. Feel free to ask anymore questions.

[Volkspanzer]

I'll be sure to, and thanks for the quick response!

[What's in the box?]

I have a Dragoon related question (which may actually be more of an Acrobatics related question)

If the Dragoon goes for the leaping/charge (or any leaping strike) do they have to pick their starting point before the roll or is that something that is just assumed they are aware of how well the might do? I think this might be clearer with an example:

The enemy is 30 ft away from the Dragoon. The dragoon makes a leaping horizontal charge in order to get them. Now if the Dragoon rolls Acrobatics and gets a pitiful 20' jump off they don't make it to their target. No big deal besides laughter and mockery from the Kefkanite and the Summoner (the SUMMONER is making fun of them! Tragedy). But what if the Acro check is 40'? Does the Dragoon still miss the target? Do they strike the target as they pass by (a la Flyby Attack- but without the flying)? Do they retroactively add some vertical jump (which is likely to be present anyway) to compensate for the extra 10' of movement and thus increase their damage? Or do you say that "Hey- you made the 30' jump and that is all you needed the extra roll is just gravy that aesthetically made the jump look cooler but mechanically does nothing because YOU DIDN'T PREPARE WELL!"?

Like mechanically the rules seem to say that a stunning success is a failure, but I can't believe the game would want to punish you for optimizing well? Also images of Dragoons constantly bumping their heads in underground/indoor environments keep popping into my head and I now have a greater understanding of why Kain was evil... Poor guy just wanted a pretty white mage to heal his head bumps

[Dhoulmaug]

Pathfinder RAW, you pick how far you want to jump and that's your target point even if you go over; and if you fail by 4 or less you get a DC 20 Ref save to grab a ledge or something if terrain allows it, fail by 5 or more and you fall in whatever square would be equal to your roll.

[What's in the box?]

So that last one? You get credit for the 30' jump and that is all.
COOL!