Final Fantasy-esque characters in Pathfinder?

[ArendK]

Alright, I know this will probably irritate the pearls of power off of every longtime player whose dealt with this, but bear in mind, I'm looking at this from a decidedly different standpoint.

I'm current deployed with the military, which means I generally spend my off time sleeping, playing a video game when I want a time waster, in the gym with physical energy, or working on campaign/character ideas in both crunch and fluff.

So I recently started Final Fantasy 9 for the first time; just never had the time or ability to get into that particular one; turns out I rather enjoy the cast. I especially like Steiner, as he reminds me strongly of Sturm.

Then I started thinking; especially with Pathfinder, what conversions or inspirations have people done WELL with Final Fantasy?

For instance, I really would love to run a Magus-knight esque character that I think would be a blast to run based off a lot of quirks of Steiners.
Freya is another one that lends itself (to me) to a cool little concept.
Race and such wasn't so much my concern, but the general concept (an honorbound knight using a magic and blades effectively when possible or a dragoon with a broken heart) appealed to me.

I've seen all the final fantasy inspired characters players have brought to the table before; inevitably they are all Cloud/Squall clones being played off as such and it drives people crazy. Hence my opening statement.

My shortened actual inquiry; has anyone played/played with a good FF or video game inspired character where other players didn't roll their eyes, but rather enjoyed it without drawing the connection to the source material?

[Manly Man]

As a matter of fact, I have played with game-inspired characters. Hell, I went and made sheets for Siegfried, Hilde, and Tira, of Soul Calibur fame, by using 3.5's Tome of Battle in Pathfinder rules. I haven't made many Final Fantasy characters, but I've come pretty close to doing it.

For Steiner, I would probably make him a Magus, as you suggested, but have him use two-handed swords with a buckler, so as to let you focus solely on Spellstrike (Swd Mag). Freya could, if you're allowed to use 3.5 stuff as well, be almost solely a Warblade who mains as a crackdown character with a smattering of Tiger Claw maneuvers, and possibly a Crusader dip (the healing available from the class would represent a couple of her Dragon abilities). Zidane is almost definitely a Rogue (or possibly a Ninja, if you want to be a bit more optimal) with a one- or two-level dip into Fighter to get Exotic Weapon Proficiency (two-bladed sword), probably one if you want to keep the Sneak Attack level up. Alternately, just have one of his regular feats be EWP.

Garnet and Eiko will be really hard to make properly without having one of their two aspects be notably weak. I'm not sure how to make them, but one of the more experienced fellows here might; maybe a Summoner/Cleric (or Oracle) with Mystic Theurge, Garnet focusing on the Summoner half while Eiko does the other? As for Vivi, he's either a blaster Sorcerer, or if third-party is available, a Kineticist Psion (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/psionics-unleashed/classes/psion/psionic-disciplines/psychokinesis) would be an even better fit, just fluff it as magic instead.

I'm not entirely certain how to do Quina. I think there's a psionic build that works around stealing power, but I can't say with any real confidence. Amarant is another character that could be emulated properly with Tome of Battle, something like a mix of Warblade and Swordsage. Beatrix, as much as I love and hate her at the same time, is most likely to be straight Crusader. Many of her abilities, both magical and otherwise, can be mimicked with Crusader maneuvers, especially a lot of her healing abilities. A build focusing on the buckler + two-handed weapon (greatsword is best), like Steiner, would fit well, methinks.

As I said, though, this is following the idea that you're willing to make use of some 3.5 content. If not, then I'll have to look into this a bit harder.

[ArendK]

Personally, I'm not big on ToB in Pathfinder, or really at all. I know it brings melee focused martial classes into an ability where they can keep up with the casters, but to me, that really isn't an issue.

In my groups (and the groups I was initially trained with, so this may influence my opinion), the brutes and martial characters were the easy to play-dominant at early levels characters. Casters were where skill and ability shined in a player, where it was harder to stay alive at low levels and got progressively easier as the characters skill at Diplomacy/Intimidation regarding the laws of physics rose. Our groups (for the most part) were never into the "lets be insanely powerful for no good reason; martial characters are/were expected to be able to contribute and the casters don't hog all the spotlight, but it's just a role-reversal.

Your Table is going to be different than My Table.

Anyways, back to the gaming world;

I figured Steiner would be a fun Magus; again, it'd be a character inspired by him, not just a clone.

Freya could go a lot of ways; the cavalier/dragoon path, the THF fighter with a gigantic pole-arm, etc. etc.

Vivi as a sorcerer works well I think.

I don't expect every character to be converted, but those were my favorite three; Beatrix I've enjoyed seeing, but hated fighting (but loved robbing). She'd probably be either another Magus or another THF style character.

Either way, I just like hearing the responses for other integrations, inspirations, and maybe even a few light build ideas. Personally, I'd keep it all Pathfinder (or all 3.5, but that is just me).

[Nihilarian]

I'd use psionics for the magic system.

[Manly Man]

If you're okay with homebrew, someone went and transitioned the Spell Point system from Unearthed Arcana in 3.5 to Pathfinder as well.

Link! (http://esotera.wildspace.com/ogc/variants/magic/spellpoints)

[Snowbluff]

I like Aasimar Wizard (Foresight)2/EldritchKnight10 as a go-to gish build in PF. It should perform better than magus, which has rather strange limitations to how it works.

Freya is a straight generic dragoon. She's more interesting to build in 3.5, thanks to ToB being a vastly superior melee material, and Battle Jump. Her theme music is cool. She has a cool hat.

[The Oni]

I dunno about literal FF, but I'm suddenly struck with the notion that the Aasimar Wizard-to-Eldritch-Knight trick would be a good way to model Shulk from Xenoblade Chronicles. Foresight can be the Monado's ability to see the future; 1 level into unbreakable archetype fighter for added lulz (he's damn hard to kill in the game, anyway) and qualify @ level 2.

Aasimar as a race even makes sense (for spoilery reasons).

[ArendK]

Thought;

I thought the Spellstrike/Spell Combat had to be a One-handed weapon, not a two handed weapon for the case of Steiner as a Magus with a two-handed blade...

[Nihilarian]

Thought;

I thought the Spellstrike/Spell Combat had to be a One-handed weapon, not a two handed weapon for the case of Steiner as a Magus with a two-handed blade...Spell Combat is two-weapon fighting with a spell instead of a second weapon.

Spellstrike is just delivering a spell through a melee attack.

They can be used together, but they don't have to be.

[lytokk]

I asked this question a while back, about video game characters in general. Couple of FF character builds in there.

here it is (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=309629)

Rydia and Kain from FFIV were the only ones I ever attempted. Rydia was just a sorceror focused on summoning creatures and never used fire spells. Kain was straight up fighter until I got into the weapon master class with a spear. Granted, this was in 3.0, and I haven't attempted it since, but would be fun with tome of battle.

[Scarce]

While we haven't started playing yet, one of my players will be playing the brilliant Blue Mage (http:// http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=160606) homebrew class.

[Nihilarian]

Speaking of the Dragoon, here (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7200).