The Dragoon

Here's my attempt at creating a Dragoon (ala Kain, from Final Fantasy 4) prestige class. I think it is about done, but any comments are welcome. You can see the class here. It is is PDF format. For those who cannot view that, the class is detailed below.

The Dragoon

Hit Die: d10

Requirements
To qualify to become a dragoon, a character must fulfill the following criteria:
Base Attack Bonus: +5
Jump: 8 ranks
Knowledge (dragon): 4 ranks
Feats: Skill Focus (jump), Weapon Focus (heavy or light lance), Power Attack, Dodge, Mobility


Class Skills
The Dragoon's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Climb (Str), Jump (Str), Knowledge (dragon) (Int), and Swim (Str). See Chapter 4: Skills in the Player's Handbook for skill descriptions.

Skill Points at Each Level: 2 + Int modifier.


Class Features
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: The Dragoon is proficient with heavy and light lances, all types of armor, and shields.
Jump Attack: Beginning at first level, the Dragoon acquires the ability to make powerful attacks against his enemies by utilizing the force of his mighty jumps.

The Dragoon begins by making a standing high jump, using the standard rules for determining height. He may not jump higher than physical boundaries (such as a ceiling) would allow. He then plunges from the sky onto his target, weapon first.

The target may be no further than one fourth of the height jumped in distance away from the Dragoon’s starting location. For example, if a Dragoon jumps 40 feet into the air, he may target any creature within 10 feet of the place from which he jumped. The Dragoon may choose where to land after the attack, though it may only be a maximum of 5 feet away from the target in any direction. The Dragoon’s fifth level ability, Nimble Recovery, increases this distance to 15 feet.

Treat the jump attack as a charge, for purposes of determining attack roll and damage. In addition, the jump attack deals the target 1d6 damage for every 10 feet of the jump’s height. This changes to 1d6 per 5 feet of the jump’s height at tenth level, when the Dragoon gets the Jump Mastery ability. The Dragoon suffers no damage from making jump attacks, though he suffers falling damage normally otherwise.

Only piercing weapons may be used to make a jump attack. If a lance is used, it deals double damage against the target.

The Jump Attack takes two rounds to complete, each being a full round action. The Dragoon jumps, reaching the peak of his jump on the first round, and both chooses and attacks his target on the second. The Dragoon’s eighth level ability Rapid Leap changes this, making the entire jump attack a full round attack.

The Dragoon’s Jump Attack is a supernatural ability.

Mighty Bound: At third level, the Dragoon gains the ability to make standing high jumps as though they were running high jumps for purposes of height calculation.
Hide of the Dragon: At second level, a Dragoon suffers no speed decrease or penalties on his jump checks for wearing medium armor.
Wings of the Dragon: At first level, the Dragoon gets a +15 competence bonus to all of his jump checks, and his usual maximum distances are eliminated. This bonus increases to +30 at seventh level.
Fangs of the Dragon: At fourth level, the Dragoon’s jump attack damage is doubled on a successful critical hit.
Improved Critical: At fifth level, the Dragoon gains the Improved Critical feat for free, for either the heavy or light lance. If he already possesses this feat, add an additional +2 to the lance’s threat range for critical hits.
Nimble Recovery: At fifth level, the Dragoon is better able to end his jump attacks. He may choose to land up to 15 feet away from the target after his jump attack, instead of 5 feet.
Scales of the Dragon: At sixth level, a Dragoon suffers no speed decrease or penalties on his jump checks for wearing heavy armor.
Rapid Leap: At eighth level, the Dragoon may make a jump attack as a full round attack.
Breath of the Dragon: At ninth level, the Dragoon’s jump attack damage is tripled on a successful critical hit.
Jump Mastery: At tenth level, the Dragoon’s jump attack damage is increased to 1d6 damage per 5 feet of the jump’s height, instead of 10 feet.

Very interesting class. I'm not familiar with FF4, so I'm just judging this by what you have written and not about it's convertion.

If I get this right the jump attack is a two round action. That's a little wierd. So, first round I end at my maxium height and second round I gain one attack against my target? Any reason the target can't just move out of the way before my second round causeing me to miss cause there is no target?

Second, the jumping and attacking with lances, especially a heavy lance seems a little wierd. Lances ar e big things and very difficult to weld when not on a horse. It's mostly about leverage and lack there of. But it is a fantasy game, so why not?

Why the Dragon knowedge as a requirement? I see all the dragon named abilites, but is there some link between this class and dragons that would require me studying dragons to learn how to jump?

Speaking of Prerequites, I think you might want to add Run or Endurance because of the armor movement penalties that you get rid of. Removing armor penalties is a big additaion and should be balanced by making the class a little hardier to get into. Plus Endurance or the run feat could explain the training the character has done to help remove these penalities.

Why only piercing weapons? Why not time the landing on the jump with a big slash from a sword or a downword drive of a hammer?

Am I correct that the Fangs and Breath of a dragon means your adding the 1d6's from the height of the jump in with the critcals to multiply? It's wierd that they are multiplied by a different number then the weapon. I'd think about not having them multiplied as that will get out of hand with damage.

Overall, good class.

http://members.shaw.ca/parkerw/dragoon.html

Here's the version of the Dragoon that I did once upon a time. I'm inclined to say I like your version, because you had a lot of the same ideas I did. There are a few differences, though.

I see some FFT influence there, FF dragoons traditionally use spears and not lances (the FFT 'Lancer' class was really just a mistranslation for Dragoon).

Also, I represented the extra damage of the leap as a multiplier (much like the game) rather than bonus dice. You're wasting two turns... it should be worth something. I consider mine balanced because the multiplier works out to be roughly the same as the number of attacks a character of equal level would normally have, plus a little bit to account for the fact that it's a full-round action.

Like Crothian said, why require knowledge (dragons)?

Feats: Why power attack? Doesn't seem to fit, and it's one that most characers of this type might have already. For mine, I require seven feats: Focus, Specialization, and Imp. Crit in the spear of your choice, Skill focus: Jump, and the Spring Attack chain. This helps balance the class out by ensuring that only a lvl 9 straight fighter can qualify in time to 'complete' the class, but most other classes still could qualify at a later level with a little multiclassing.

What are the class's good saves?

--Impeesa--