Final Fantasy Tactics' Sword Techniques in D&D 3.5/Pathfinder?

[ThiagoMartell]

Hello, playground.
Do you guys know of anything similar to the various sword techniques used in FFT for D&D? I mean stuff used by the Holy Knight, Fell Knight, Dark Knight and Holy Swordsman class.
For those not familiar with FFT, sword techniques are:

• Dependent on physicial attack stat (BAB? Str?)
• Deal more damage depending on the weapon you're using
• Have relativity short range, but are not exactly melee
• Are unevadable in the game (so no attack roll, just saves)
• Deal elemental damage depending of the weapon you have equipped

I doubt there's anything official similar to this, but I'm willing to check out homebrew as well. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[lorddrake]

Hello, playground.
Do you guys know of anything similar to the various sword techniques used in FFT for D&D? I mean stuff used by the Holy Knight, Fell Knight, Dark Knight and Holy Swordsman class.
For those not familiar with FFT, sword techniques are:

• Dependent on physicial attack stat (BAB? Str?)
• Deal more damage depending on the weapon you're using
• Have relativity short range, but are not exactly melee
• Are unevadable in the game (so no attack roll, just saves)
• Deal elemental damage depending of the weapon you have equipped

I doubt there's anything official similar to this, but I'm willing to check out homebrew as well. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

What I think is the most similar to this is what you find in Tome of Battle...

[CTrees]

Tome of Battle was my first thought as well. Some of the maneuvers are basically exactly what you want, albeit element restricted.

Second thought was one of the Pathfinder Magus archetypes, channelling spells through a weapon.

Final idea is homebrew, but simply giving spell like abilities, fluffed appropriately.

[ThiagoMartell]

Desert Wind is very different from this. It is Wisdom based, not weapon dependant and fire-only.
Channeling spells like Magus or Duskblade still needs an attack roll.
I think the only answer is homebrew, if anyone can point me towards any good homebrew in this area, I'd appreciate it.

[Larkas]

I love that game, but alas, I can't think of a way to replicate it perfectly in D&D... You'd need something unevadable but which accounts for both your weapon damage and strength modifier. The attack would need to be an automatic hit (or, at worst, target touch AC or allow a Reflex save), but damage would be dealt like a regular attack, with 2H doing 1.5 Str damage and the total damage being modified by the attack being used (Hallowed Bolt, for example, could deal 4x damage).

Yeah, you would need to homebrew this stuff, and I've never seen this done before. Shouldn't be too hard, though. Just remember to make the attack's damage be inversely proportional to it's range, to add elemental properties to the techniques and you're set.

...Unless you simply want the Knight's techniques. Then look no further than Improved Sunder.

[Shpadoinkle]

I think a custom ToB discipline would work best for this, or simply create some new manuevers (I can easily see Dark Sword and Night Sword as Shadow Hand maneuvers, for instance.) Alternately, you might make a prestige classes and make the swordskills invocations, a la the warlock and dragonfire adept. They might need to be toned down a bit, though.

[ThiagoMartell]

I think a custom ToB discipline would work best for this, or simply create some new manuevers (I can easily see Dark Sword and Night Sword as Shadow Hand maneuvers, for instance.) Alternately, you might make a prestige classes and make the swordskills invocations, a la the warlock and dragonfire adept. They might need to be toned down a bit, though.

A ToB discipline would be a good idea. Prestige class could work as well, that's basically what Dark Knight is War of the Lions, with the draconic entry requirements.

[Larkas]

On Agrias' techniques*:

Stasis Sword/Judgment Blade: [Cold], damage x2, 10 ft. range, 10 ft. area, Reflex for half, Will or be dazed/paralyzed for 1d4 rounds.

Split Punch/Cleansing Strike: damage x3, 15 ft. range, Target, Reflex for half, Fortitude or suffer 1d4 Con damage.

Crush Punch/Northswain's Strike: damage x2, 15 ft. range, Target, Reflex for half, Fortitude or die (?).

Lightning Stab/Hallowed Bolt: [Electricity], damage x4, 15 ft. range, 10 ft. area, Reflex for half, Will or target will suffer the effects of a Silence spell.

Holy Explosion/Divine Ruination: [Force], damage x5, 25 ft. line, Reflex for half, Will or target suffer the effects of a Confusion spell.

*If you succeed on the Reflex save, you don't have to roll for the other save.

I have no idea how you would roll for critical, though. Maybe target touch AC instead of allowing a Reflex save?

PS: The elemental properties SHOULD work in-game, but unfortunately do not. If you want, you could get rid of those and it would still model the game effectively. Furthermore, All the techniques but Hallowed Bolt should do Holy damage. As that isn't an elemental damage type in D&D (can you even do positive energy damage to anyone?), I changed Judgment Blade to Cold and Divine Ruination to Force, as they seem the most obvious alternatives.

[ThiagoMartell]

I think the damage is too high, Agrias usually deals the same damage as a normal weapon strike with a sword technique. Sometimes a bit more (especially with the two last ones). The good thing about them was range, area-effect, rider effects and specially being non-avoidable. Damage is not a lot higher than a simple sword sing.

[Larkas]

Indeed, you are correct. But consider that this is the damage of those sword techniques: Physical Attack x (Weapon strength + PWR)*. This damage formula is too foreign for D&D terms. It would translate as something like this: Strength Modifier x (Weapon damage + PWR). Although the modeling would be closer to the source, the difference in damage output from one technique to the other would be very small, since in D&D the numbers are much smaller than in FFT. Besides, you would be sacrificing a full attack for a sword technique, and it should better be worth it.

But let's crunch some numbers. Consider three Holy Knights, one with Str 12, the other with Str 18 and the last with Str 24, all three using a Greatsword and Divine Ruination.

Using my proposed method in the previous post:

HK1 would have an average damage of 40, HK2 would have 55 and HK3 would have 70.

Using the method laid out in this post:

HK1 would have an average damage of 11, HK2 would have 44 and HK3 would have 77.

Considering that using a sword technique would stop you from making a full attack, considering that the model closer to the original would privilege higher ability scores too much (or rather, penalize lower ability scores), considering that we haven't even set on which ability score should the DC be keyed off (it could just as well be Str or, say, Wis), considering that the calculations used for the model in this post is too foreign in D&D terms and considering that in FFT the weapon damage calculation is, IIRC, Physical Attack x Weapon strength, I'm afraid that the best option would be to go with the model I laid out in the last post.

Come to think of it, allowing Reflex for half would be too detrimental for an attack that should be substituting a full attack, thanks to Evasion and Improved Evasion shenanigans... I think it would be best to make a touch attack and be done with it, though it would have to be a melee touch attack made at a range, which is... Weird, to say the least.

*PWR is the techniques power, which I expressed as a multiplier in my previous post.

Anyways, just my 2cp

[Seerow]

I did something like this a while back. Lemme see if I can find it.


Edit: Even without having found it yet, I'm going to say that a straight up multiplier is a bad idea. It worked in FFT because ALL Damage was done as multipliers. A melee basic attack was Physical Power * Weapon Power, so the only thing that the sword skills did was increase effective weapon power.

The equivalent to this in D&D would be giving the weapon free enhancement bonuses based on the sword skill you used. However since swordskills auto hit and swordskill bonuses DID stack with magic swords, then it's probably better to just make it bonus damage. Either +xd6 or +x*2 (where X is the modifier that the swordskills got in game). So Holy Explosion would deal Weapon+5d6 damage or Weapon+10 damage, in a line.

[ThiagoMartell]

Hm, I agree completely. Specially considering it would probably be a bastard sword/longsword instead of a greatsword. It needs better damage otherwise Power Attack still seems better.

[Seerow]

I found the Holy Knight class I made before. Here's the link: Holy Knight


Looking at it, it seems I pegged the damage bonus as a bit higher at that point in time. Other than that, it seems like it should be okay. (If you read the rest of the thread, you'll see that the other class features were derived from FFTA Paladin abilities.

Only thing I think needs to be added there is a note that save DCs are 10+maneuver level+str mod (I think maneuvers in the book clarify in each maneuver text, and I didn't there), and it looks like I didn't put any prereqs on any of the maneuvers except the first.

[ThiagoMartell]

I found the Holy Knight class I made before. Here's the link: Holy Knight


Looking at it, it seems I pegged the damage bonus as a bit higher at that point in time. Other than that, it seems like it should be okay. (If you read the rest of the thread, you'll see that the other class features were derived from FFTA Paladin abilities.

Only thing I think needs to be added there is a note that save DCs are 10+maneuver level+str mod (I think maneuvers in the book clarify in each maneuver text, and I didn't there), and it looks like I didn't put any prereqs on any of the maneuvers except the first.

That looks fantastic. Thx a lot.

[Larkas]

My math was way off.

1: HK1: 40: HK2: 65; HK3: 85.
2: HK1: 12; HK2: 72; HK3: 120.

That is a good way to go about it too, Seerow, specially the +xd6 idea. Ideally, though, the extra damage should be multiplied in a critical...

[ThiagoMartell]

My math was way off.

1: HK1: 40: HK2: 65; HK3: 85.
2: HK1: 12; HK2: 72; HK3: 120.

That is a good way to go about it too, Seerow, specially the +xd6 idea. Ideally, though, the extra damage should be multiplied in a critical...

I don't there should be criticals, because I don't think there should be attack rolls.

[Larkas]

I don't there should be criticals, because I don't think there should be attack rolls.

I understand your concerns, but while those sword techniques have a 0% miss chance, they do have a crit chance. How you would go about this without making attack rolls is beyond me. But if having no crit chance is fine for you, who am I to disagree?

[ThiagoMartell]

I understand your concerns, but while those sword techniques have a 0% miss chance, they do have a crit chance. How you would go about this without making attack rolls is beyond me. But if having no crit chance is fine for you, who am I to disagree?

Well, I'm considering this some kind of homebrew community project, so your opinion matters as much as mine.
I see two options here:
1) Keep the attack roll, but target touch AC
2) Don't use the attack roll and instead use an 'exploding dice' mechanic
I think 1 is easier but 2 is cooler.

[Seerow]

Well, I'm considering this some kind of homebrew community project, so your opinion matters as much as mine.
I see two options here:
1) Keep the attack roll, but target touch AC
2) Don't use the attack roll and instead use an 'exploding dice' mechanic
I think 1 is easier but 2 is cooler.

3) Make rolling a 1 on the saving throw treat the attack as a crit.




Regardless of which way, I'd keep it as bonus dice, and handle it like bonus dice of Burst weapons. xd6 becomes Yd10, where y = (crit multiplier-1)*X. So with a longsword, 4d6 becomes 4d10, with a Scythe, 4d6 becomes 12d10.

[Larkas]

Well, I'm considering this some kind of homebrew community project, so your opinion matters as much as mine.
I see two options here:
1) Keep the attack roll, but target touch AC
2) Don't use the attack roll and instead use an 'exploding dice' mechanic
I think 1 is easier but 2 is cooler.

3) Make rolling a 1 on the saving throw treat the attack as a crit.

Regardless of which way, I'd keep it as bonus dice, and handle it like bonus dice of Burst weapons. xd6 becomes Yd10, where y = (crit multiplier-1)*X. So with a longsword, 4d6 becomes 4d10, with a Scythe, 4d6 becomes 12d10.

All great options indeed! I see a fourth option:

4) If the save is failed by 4 or more, a crit is scored.

All things considered, I think that the third is the best. The first is the most natural in the game, but, while VERY rare, you could have a creature with a high touch AC, which would ruin the "0% miss chance" feel. The exploding dice is very nice, but a little too complex (not too much, but it is something extra you have to remember). The fourth is simply too easy to come online, specially if the DC is keyed off from the main attribute (i.e.: Str). "Critting" on a natural 1 feels very natural, even if it isn't how things normally work like in D&D.

I also like the idea of the Burst weapon mechanic very much! Fits perfectly, and actually rewards choosing weapons that has a worse crit range. However, if we're ever going to be purists here, sword techniques should only be usable with... Swords. Maybe an adapted mechanic could be used? When you crit, xd6 could simply become xd12. ...Or keep it intact. Mercurial swords ARE available, after all!

PS: By the way, that's a very nice PrC you have there, Seerow

[Answerer]

There was once an awesome suggestion on these forums to use a refluffed Warlock for this. It works out pretty well. Less homebrewing to do that way, plus perhaps closer to FFT's mechanics than an initiator would be.

The main issue are your desires for physical stat dependance and weapon-based damage, but those are relatively easy to handle. Eldritch Blast doesn't do super-amazing damage, so tacking on base weapon damage + Str wouldn't kill anything, and you could trivially have the attack roll use Str instead of Dex.

As for being unavoidable, what is the difference between a touch attack roll and a Reflex save exactly? At any rate, the Eldritch Shapes work well here, plus give a good way to emulate the variety of options that the Holy Knights got.

The Battle Caster feat allows you to use your Invocations in medium or heavy armor. A reasonable DM shouldn't mind you worming your way into a full BAB gish PrC, either, despite the Warlock's weak prerequisite-meeting mechanics. Hell, hop into Jade Phoenix Mage and get the best of both worlds. Or convince your DM that your refluffing should allow you to treat it as Divine, get Turn Undead somewhere, and go for Ruby Knight Vindicator.

[ThiagoMartell]

There was once an awesome suggestion on these forums to use a refluffed Warlock for this. It works out pretty well. Less homebrewing to do that way, plus perhaps closer to FFT's mechanics than an initiator would be.

The main issue are your desires for physical stat dependance and weapon-based damage, but those are relatively easy to handle. Eldritch Blast doesn't do super-amazing damage, so tacking on base weapon damage + Str wouldn't kill anything, and you could trivially have the attack roll use Str instead of Dex.

As for being unavoidable, what is the difference between a touch attack roll and a Reflex save exactly? At any rate, the Eldritch Shapes work well here, plus give a good way to emulate the variety of options that the Holy Knights got.

The Battle Caster feat allows you to use your Invocations in medium or heavy armor. A reasonable DM shouldn't mind you worming your way into a full BAB gish PrC, either, despite the Warlock's weak prerequisite-meeting mechanics. Hell, hop into Jade Phoenix Mage and get the best of both worlds. Or convince your DM that your refluffing should allow you to treat it as Divine, get Turn Undead somewhere, and go for Ruby Knight Vindicator.

That's pretty similar to what we came up with up to now, actually.
I like Seerow's idea about 'critting' on a 1.
Now, should the sword skills really be all under Devoted Spirit, or could we expand upon the concept to include all sword skills (those that break equipment and Dark Knight skills)? It could be called Sky Sword discipline or something (since it comes from the orders of Northern and Southern Sky). Or they could be different sub-disciplines - breaking techniques under Stone Dragon and Dark Knight under Shadow Hand (Shadow Hand is kind of a poor fit, but I couldn't think of anything else).

[Larkas]

That's pretty similar to what we came up with up to now, actually.
I like Seerow's idea about 'critting' on a 1.
Now, should the sword skills really be all under Devoted Spirit, or could we expand upon the concept to include all sword skills (those that break equipment and Dark Knight skills)? It could be called Sky Sword discipline or something (since it comes from the orders of Northern and Southern Sky). Or they could be different sub-disciplines - breaking techniques under Stone Dragon and Dark Knight under Shadow Hand (Shadow Hand is kind of a poor fit, but I couldn't think of anything else).

Hmmmm... I think that either way is good. If we go the route of distributing the techniques among existing disciplines, though, we have to take the care of making them unavailable to other jobs classes, like in FFT.

Now, let's brainstorm a little bit.

We have three "base" sword technique jobs in the game. Agrias' Holy Knight has access to Judgment Blade, Cleansing Strike, Northswain's Strike, Hallowed Bolt and Divine Ruination. Meliadoul's Divine Knight has access to Crush Armor, Crush Helm, Crush Weapon and Crush Accessory. Gaffgarion's Fell Knight has access to Duskblade and Shadowblade. And then we have the "master" job, Orlandeau's Sword Saint, which has access to all of the above.

I propose going about it this way: we make three PrCs. They each should have entry prerequisites appropriate to the three base initiator classes: Holy Knight should have prereqs easy for a Crusader to conform to, Divine Knight be easy for a Swordsage to qualify for and Fell Knight should fit a Warblade just fine. These PrCs shouldn't learn new maneuvers the regular way: they would learn them as class features. Alternatively, they should learn regular maneuvers the regular way (maybe with just a few per level) while learning only the FFT maneuvers as class features.

Then we make a fourth PrC. This would be the Sword Saint, and should be VERY hard to qualify for. You should have to dip each of the previous PrCs, which in turn would mean having to dip each of the base initiator classes. You should also have to max some skills, like Martial Lore and Concentration, plus other things (maybe basic spellcasting?). This class would then go on to learn the other PrCs' maneuvers, along with regular maneuvers, if deemed appropriate. Ideally, this class should require a very specific build to qualify for. but should, at level 20, make a fully powered Sword Saint possible to be built.

PS: While we're at it, we should "reinforce" Gaffgarion's Fell Knight with The War of the Lion's Dark Knight. Dark Knight is pretty much a "continued" Fell Knight, and, alone, the latter has too little to offer to make into a single PrC itself.

[ThiagoMartell]

I propose going about it this way: we make three PrCs. They each should have entry prerequisites appropriate to the three base initiator classes: Holy Knight should have prereqs easy for a Crusader to conform to, Divine Knight be easy for a Swordsage to qualify for and Fell Knight should fit a Warblade just fine. These PrCs shouldn't learn new maneuvers the regular way: they would learn them as class features. Alternatively, they should learn regular maneuvers the regular way (maybe with just a few per level) while learning only the FFT maneuvers as class features.

Kind of like Bloodstorm Blade, as in, you spend a maneuver to use the class abilities' right? I like it.

Then we make a fourth PrC. This would be the Sword Saint, and should be VERY hard to qualify for. You should have to dip each of the previous PrCs, which in turn would mean having to dip each of the base initiator classes. You should also have to max some skills, like Martial Lore and Concentration, plus other things (maybe basic spellcasting?). This class would then go on to learn the other PrCs' maneuvers, along with regular maneuvers, if deemed appropriate. Ideally, this class should require a very specific build to qualify for. but should, at level 20, make a fully powered Sword Saint possible to be built.

Like that a lot.

PS: While we're at it, we should "reinforce" Gaffgarion's Fell Knight with The War of the Lion's Dark Knight. Dark Knight is pretty much a "continued" Fell Knight, and, alone, the latter has too little to offer to make into a single PrC itself.

Agree completely. How do we deal with the 'damage to MP' stuff? Direct damage applied to spell slots (as in, 9 damage destroys 9 levels of spell slots)?
Dark Knight has Vehemence, which is good as a class feature (it is a support ability, after all) - take more damage to deal more damage. This is in a game that has no AC, so it should probably be -X to AC, +X to damage (and specifically apply this only to physical attacks and sword techniques).

Maybe we should move this to the homebrew forum?

[Seerow]

The big problem with the other classes beyond Holy Knight is that the others aren't anywhere near as flexible. While Holy Knight has range, different AoE shapes, and various status effects, Dark Knight is more limited, giving only HP/MP drain (the MP drain in particular is useless to the Dark Knight unless used with a magic using sub-class).

Then the last class (whose name I honestly can't even remember anymore), is even more limited, gaining nothing but ranged Sunder, spread across 4 different abilities. While this is somewhat useful in FFT, in D&D where you get to loot your enemies, this runs into the same problem as normal sunder, or disjunction, that is to say you're destroying your own loot for a minimal impact on your enemy mid fight.


Both of these would require a lot of adaptation to move into usable D&D classes, as they have even less unique abilities going for them than Holy Knight does. Like the entirety of Dark Knight could be a 2 level class. The other Knight is a class that you could make 1 level and still nobody would really be interested in taking it. This means either a need to heavily modify those abilities, not just adapting the mechanics, but changing what they do while trying to accomplish the same feel, or needing to accept that you'd be implementing them more or less just to say you did it, because nobody would have interest in playing it.

[ThiagoMartell]

The big problem with the other classes beyond Holy Knight is that the others aren't anywhere near as flexible. While Holy Knight has range, different AoE shapes, and various status effects, Dark Knight is more limited, giving only HP/MP drain (the MP drain in particular is useless to the Dark Knight unless used with a magic using sub-class).

War of the Lion adds Crushing Blow (spend hp for a more powerful strike), Abyssal Blade (spend hp for a cone-shaped powerful strike - targets closer to you suffer more damage) and another one that I have yet to unlock.

Then the last class (whose name I honestly can't even remember anymore), is even more limited, gaining nothing but ranged Sunder, spread across 4 different abilities. While this is somewhat useful in FFT, in D&D where you get to loot your enemies, this runs into the same problem as normal sunder, or disjunction, that is to say you're destroying your own loot for a minimal impact on your enemy mid fight.

Could change this to a debuffs, similar to the Knight class.

[Larkas]

@Seerow: I assume you must've skimmed through my last post to have missed the other class's name? Anyways, never mind that Fact is, short of the Holy Knight, the other classes will, indeed, need to be adapted. For the Divine Knight, one way to go about it is by "rending" physical and mental stats, not unlike the regular Knight's Rend abilities. It would still make sense to have sunder-like abilities, even though they won't be used much. On the Fell Knight, read the Dark Knight idea.

@ThiagoMartell: Great ideas for the Fell Knight! Vehemence could even be a stance! On the thread, let's see if we can get a moderator to move this to the Homebrew sub-forum

[The Glyphstone]

Great Modthulhu: Relocated to Homebrew Design.

[Yorae]

I'm highly surprised we haven't seen any input from T.G. Oskar - as I recall, his username is a direct reference to T.G. "Thundergod" Cid Orlandu.

[Seerow]

I'm highly surprised we haven't seen any input from T.G. Oskar - as I recall, his username is a direct reference to T.G. "Thundergod" Cid Orlandu.

I'm sure the second he see's the thread we'll see something from him.