Arius over at http://www.bolermos.forumotion.com has let me know he has a new 4e class for you to take a look at, the Dragoon. Thanks mate, always love to hear from people especially people who contribute quality work. I know how much trouble a complete class is to make and applaud those that do it. Arius is also the owner of the hunter class I reported on earlier and NOT the artillerist. Sorry for the confusion
At first glance this is what I came away with after a quick perusal. The Dragoon is a defender and specializes in shield and weapon or dual wielding. They get a class ability to use spears as a one handed weapon so if you wanted to be a Spartan, now’s your chance.
The class is feature complete, all powers through to 29, paragon paths, feats, it even includes mounts as the dragoons are known as dragon riders. Aerial combat… Add in a bit of Eberron steampunkery and have air ships and you could create world war 1 or recreate it. (ww1 from the speeds). About the only thing missing is flavor items for the class but obviously with the basic items, the Adventure’s Vault and the Adventurer’s Vault 2, there are a metric crapton of items that could be flavor text’ed to fit any mlee class.
The paragon paths are what you’d expect from the base build, either focusing in weapon and shield or dual weapons. Nothing unusual there (or wrong with it).
Damage output seems a tiny bit high for some builds for a defender class but doesn’t strike me as excessive. Not gamebreakingly so.
Dual Attack for instance is the same as the ranger’s Twin Strike, ie. two attacks on one creature and only 1W per attack. It is melee only though so it’s not as versatile.
Brash Thrust, an at-will does 1W+Str and if you’re using a spear (class feature remember) you also get your dexterity bonus. On the downside you give up combat advantage to the target for using this. So that does take away from the extra damage output. Not sure if that would play out well unless you’re really high on dexterity and strength to make up for the getting hit 10% more often along with any specials a creature might have that play off combat advantage. But it is an balancing mechanism.
All in all well worth the look if you’re bored (already?!) of the existing defenders or you just want to try something else.
If you do try it out the by all means give Arius a email and let him know how it worked and any concerns you had or, especially perhaps, if you enjoy it. If we don’t encourage DnD creationists then we’re stuck waiting for Wizards to release books on their schedule, not ours.
