FFXIV x D&D - Wizard Archetype: Summoner

This is part of a series of posts I'm making in prep for a FFXIV x D&D sourcebook I'm writing. Other related articles are:

• Astrologian
• Bard
• Black Mage
• Dark Knight
• Dragoon
• Gunbreaker
• Machinist
• Monk
• Red Mage
• Scholar
• Summoner
• White Mage

Here's a copy of the unfinished product if you want to see it in a coherent form: https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/Bkl_QkcnV

Summoner

The classic Final Fantasy Summoner job is one of my favorites in the series. The idea behind conjuring entities that are far beyond us, and making them do our bidding for a short time, has always been so enthralling. Their attacks are cinematic, often changing the environment, and the cost for their help steep, but worth it.

I have to admit that I've never been satisfied with the FFXIV representation of the Summoner job. Not only are Egis laughably lackluster, but the direction towards Summoners channeling Bahamut is something that clashes with the job's identity, in my opinion. I always saw Summoners as those who would call and command their summons, not channel or "become" them. As such, My take on the Summoner takes the best parts from it's counterpart, while hearkening to the classic iteration of the job.

In my research for this subclass, I looked to see how official resources handled summoners. The Conjuration Wizard focuses more on teleportation than it does summoning; a pity, since it looks like they've stripped Wizards of their summoning prowess from previous editions and gave it to Cleric and Druid. That's when I decided to make Wizard the base class for Summoner, because it would add something interesting to the class; the other option was Warlock, and maybe I'll do Warlock-Summoner in the future, which would focus on the Dreadwyrm Trance aspect of the job. Sorcerer would have made sense if Summoners were like in previous iterations, where you have to come from a family of Summoners to be one; in FFXIV's case, however, this is not the case.

Besides Conjurer Wizard, the other clear summoning subclass is Circle of the Shepherd Druid. I looked at their features and came up with Resilient Summons, Enkindle, and Focused Conjuration; Most of them are altered versions of other features.

Next, I focused on making sure that Summoners felt like they were always progressing on abilities that were summoning related, and I looked at their spell list for this. Their first level spells had Find Familiar, so I made a Carbuncle stat block that they can summon with this spell ( I didn't think it was necessary to make Topaz / Ruby / Emerald versions of the Carbuncle. Maybe another time. ). Because Find Familiar is a conjuration spell, it benefits from Resilient Summon's temporary hit points, helping your Carbuncle familiar become a fighting ally at lower levels. I made the Sustain spell for summoners that want to stand back and support their minions.

For the 2nd level spell slots, wizards don't get any good summoning spells. Clerics on the other hand, have a very cool spell called Spiritual Weapon; it summons a spectral weapon that they can use during their bonus actions. Very straightforward. Inspired by this spell, I made the Summon Egi spell, which works essentially just like Spiritual Weapon. I may not be a fan of Egis, but I do think they're a great stepping stone to summoning the actual primals.

For the 3rd level spell slots, I grabbed Spirit Guardians from the Cleric spell list. This spell can be easily flavored to conjure whatever Primal the Summoner wants to conjure that they don't normally have access to.

For the 4th level spell slots, I yoinked Conjure Minor Elementals from the Druid spell list. It already summons elementals, so all I had to do was make stat blocks for Demi-Primals, since it didn't seem quite like it was time to allow the summoning for actual Primals. I only made Demi versions of Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan, but I'd like to make Demi versions of other primals, but in lower CRs so that they can be used when conjuring multiple allies is preferred.

For the 5th level spell slots, I thought that Conjure Elemental was the perfect summoning spell to base the subclass around. Like Conjure Minor Elementals, it already summons elementals, so repurposing currently existing elementals into Ifrit, Titan and Garuda was easy. In the future, I'd like to make new summons for CRs 6, 7, 8, and 9; This way, Summoners will always have something new to add to their repertoire every time they gain a new spell level.

Conjure Elementals, however, has two big limitations. The first one is that they need an area of fire, air, earth, etc. for the spell to work. For this, I made a magic item that could be used to overcome this limitation easily: The Primal Element Crystal. The other "limitation" is that if the Summoner loses concentration, they also lose control of their summon. I like the idea behind this, because it makes Summoners be respectful and careful of their summoning procedures, but I understand how this could become a bit cumbersome. The Focused Conjuration feature certainly helps, but it doesn't stop the Summoner from losing concentration if they, for example, went unconscious. For this purpose, I made a limited version of Dominate Monster called Aetherpact, which only works for creatures you summoned, which gives Summoners another chance at seizing control from their summoned monsters.

For the 14th level feature, Swift Summons, I thought it would be cool if Summoners could use their more powerful summoning spells during battle. I took a page from the Evoker Wizard's Overchannel feature, and allowed Summoners to use this ability multiple times per day, at the cost of gaining exhaustion. I might change it to deal damage instead, if exhaustion isn't enough of a penalty.

Even though I think most of the subclass's features are solid, there is still a lot of work that can be done. More Primals and Demi-Primals can be made. Summoning the Warring Triad, Phoenix or even Bahamut is possible with the framework made in this subclass, the only thing that's necessary is stat blocks for each. I could also make variant rulings in case DMs want to use the Primal stat blocks for actual primal boss battles. It's all very exciting.

FFXIV x D&D - Fighter Archetype: Dragoon

This is part of a series of posts I'm making in prep for a FFXIV x D&D sourcebook I'm writing. Other related articles are:

• Astrologian
• Bard
• Black Mage
• Dark Knight
• Dragoon
• Gunbreaker
• Machinist
• Monk
• Red Mage
• Scholar
• Summoner
• White Mage

Here's a copy of the unfinished product if you want to see it in a coherent form: https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/SkZnah0nKV

Dragoon

The Dragoon; Besides having cool-looking armor, they specialize in having mobility- specifically semi-aerial mobility. This informs their style of combat, which involves striking at their opponents with the momentum of their jumps.

The decision to make the Dragoon based off of the Fighter class was pretty straightforward. The other options were Ranger, Monk, and Rogue, but (respectively), the Dragoon has nothing to do with nature spells, doesn't really connect with unarmed attacks or flurry of blows, and is way too flashy for stealthy sneak attacks.

Looking at the Fighter's tools, they provided most of what a Dragoon needed, except for one vital thing: the jumping. So I designed the class into being the best at it in the game. In the process, it turned out to be a very mobile class to play, for those that like to move around in combat.

Most of this can be seen under the Jump Tactics feature. It doubles down on a Dragoon's Athletics skill, allows the use of the Jump spell (which is needed to use Dragoon Dive in lower-to-mid levels), and slowly removes restrictions from jumping.

Dragoon Dive, the feature that enables you to use your jumps for combat, manifests as extra damage if you're able to successfully make an impressive jump before your attacks. This was inspired by the Arcane Archer and was originally going to have cool stuff to do with your Dragoon Dive attacks, but I felt like it over complicated the subclass. I might bring it back in the future.

Slow Fall is ripped from Monk, removing the fear of heights from Dragoons, encouraging them to pull off crazy stunts from high above. Elusive Jump is like the Dodge and Disengage actions combined into a bonus action that must involve jumping. 

Because I felt like a plain damage boost to Dragoon Dive felt too dry, I added Higher Jump as a helpful ribbon feature, which should encourage Dragoons to truly feel like they are unparalleled jumpers. 

It would have been easier to give them limited flight, but I felt like that would have taken away from the job's identity. I tried, best as I could, to present the jumping features as simply as possible, so as not to make them appear too intimidating, since not many players might feel like studying and keeping the jumping rules to memory.

In the end, I feel like the job is well balanced; It should be attractive enough for those looking for a subclass that can hit very hard in bursty situations, and even more appealing to those that want to really feel like a dragoon when they're playing. That being said, I'd like to keep an eye out, in case the Dragoon Dive mechanic is too cumbersome or boring.

FFXIV x D&D - Red Mage as a Bard Archetype: College of Flair

This is part of a series of posts I'm making in prep for a FFXIV x D&D sourcebook I'm writing. Other related articles are:

• Astrologian
• Bard
• Black Mage
• Dark Knight
• Dragoon
• Gunbreaker
• Machinist
• Monk
• Red Mage
• Scholar
• Summoner
• White Mage

Here's a copy of the unfinished product if you want to see it in a coherent form: https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/S1VZ0k2FN

Red Mage

The FFXIV Red Mage is a jack of all trades. It swaps between going in close with melee attacks and casting spells at a distance. It can cast healing spells as well as explosive spells, and it can buff party members as well. And it does all of this in bursts and with flair.

This description makes it pretty obvious that the Bard class should be used as the base for this concept. If we look at the basic Bard's toolkit, it does almost all of what a Red Mage does already. In fact, one could argue that you could make a College of Lore or College of Swords and call it a Red Mage, but one lacks the blade flourish aspect, and the other lacks the ability to cast flashy explosive spells, respectively.

The mission behind the Red Mage subclass (called College of Flair) is to merge the best of the College of Lore and College of Swords in a cohesive way to come up with a result that truly feels like a Red Mage.

At level 3, they gain three features. The first one is an evocation cantrip from the Wizard spell list and the ability to select evocation spells from the Wizard spell list when they learn new spells. This way, they get all the flashy spells they want, without stepping on the Wizard or Sorcerer's toes too much.

The second one is their Fighting Style; I made a new Fighting Style called "Spellslinger", which allows them to reroll their damage dice from their cantrips. This should more or less average out in a damage increase from their cantrips, similar to the +2 damage bonus from the Dueling Fighting Style.

The third and last ability they gain at level 3 is Battle Flourish, which is inspired by the College of Swords' Blade Flourish. This grants them a +2 bonus to AC when using the Attack action, effectively granting them the same bonus that a shield would, which Bards are not proficient in. The Battle Flourish options are mostly there to give the Red Mage options to swiftly get in and out of combat.

By the time the Red Mage reaches 6th level, they would have access to Font of Inspiration, which allows them to recharge their Inspiration points every short rest. This would encourage them to use their Battle Flourish abilities more often, and so it seemed fitting to give them an extra attack at this level. By now, the Red Mage should be very good at using flashy spells and entering melee combat for a short time.

An ability that seems to be a staple for Red Mages, is the ability of Dualcast, which allows them to cast two spells at once. That's why, at 14th level, I gave them the ability to cast a cantrip as a bonus action after they cast a lower level spell (4th level of lower). I felt like this was balanced because, at these levels, 4th levels spells or lower were still used and were still useful, but were nowhere near as devastating as the current 7th level spells that they could cast. Plus, the number of spells they could cast under this dualcast feature was limited. I would like to test this ability out, since it could be the case that it needs to be changed to only include 3rd levels spells or lower, or even 2nd level spells or lower. 

I'm very satisfied with how this subclass turned out, and I'm eager to see more of how it works in actual play. Perhaps in the future, I might have to make adjustments to the Dualcast feature.