Saturday, November 4, 2017

Martial Archetype: Dragoon [Fourth Draft]



Download a selectable-text, printsafe version here!

November looks like it'll be a month for mostly revisions, with a few new promising pieces of new content coming out. Xanathar's Guide to Everything will be out (very) soon, and I'm going to wait a little bit before releasing anything that might conflict with its new rules.

However! I've got a good backlog of projects like the dragoon that are just begging for revision. After releasing it last month, I felt so incredibly close to having the dragoon complete, fully formed and ready to use, so I just had to revise it again as soon as I could. With the witch out of the way (for the moment), that time is now!

I'm really happy where this one has ended up, aside from the fact that I'm barely able to fit its rules in two pages. Still, minor complaints compared to how this has shaped up.

Special thanks to Vileo Sufora and Marc Darville for giving me some very valuable balance insight on the last draft, couldn't have done this without you guys!

CHANGELOG:

  • "Uses of Dragonslaying" is now "dragonslaying points," because, while I took some convincing, that's just much more clear in the end.
  • Aspirant Step now requires a bonus action, and Avoidance requires a reaction, to make them eat in important ways at the action economy.
  • Avoidance now works on certain CON saving throws, allowing you to use it on all forms of dragon breath.
  • Syntax changes which, while not exciting, are very important all the same!
CONCERNS:
  • A lot of tiny fiddly bits where changed this draft. I'm hoping I didn't accidentally break something.
WHAT I LEARNED:
  • All in all, fighter options are easier to balance than I originally thought. It's easy to despair at something when you don't know its balance math, but when you know where to look and what to look for, it ends up becoming pretty simple. 

5 comments:

  1. This new version looks great! Though as a little bit of a nitpick, the second paragraph of Aspirant Step looks like it wants an indent. Overall, though, I'm glad I could be of help!

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  2. Bit late to the comments here but I've been busy! I love how this turned out - the last few changes have perfectly rounded this out; certainly seems a bit smoother/balanced/thematic than some of the fighter archetypes in Xanathar's.

    I'm glad I could be of service here, still waiting for an opportunity to play it but my next fighter is certainly going to be a Dragoon. Keep up the good work mate.

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    Replies
    1. That's the benefits of endless revision for you!

      With UA, Wizards only really gets one (or two) cracks at a public rough-draft release before they go to print. I can re-release things until they're balanced, the end of time itself, or both.

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  3. I really love dragons and the concept of dragon fighters, and I love dragon fighters. The concept of jumping across valleys and chucking giant spears is both hilarious and awesome, and I think this is the best dragon Homebrew I've seen.

    One question: the aspirant step works but adding on a number of feet to your jumps, which totals at +30 feet to the high jump at level 18. Assuming 20 strength, the regular high jump would be 8 feet, and one adds the 30 extra feet from the archetype it becomes 38 feet. To me, this feels a bit strange. Dragons usually fly higher than that when bombarding a party, which means usually the only option for a dragon is to chuck a javelin, leaving the pike and halberd action useless until the beast is on the ground. Is this meant to be?

    Thanks!

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