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Hyperion
2011-04-07, 11:34 PM
FFT personally with the tactical game aspects always made think of Dnd heavily. So I was wondering if some of the more experienced members about homebrewing could help do a translation as close as possible (I know it won't be 100%) or even if it could be compared to existing spells or class abilities. I wouldn't mind. Some classes have virtually no need for conversation wizards, time mage (wizard basically), priest (cloistered cleric) etc...

So first, we are going to start with the thief draft:

The Thief (http://www.cavesofnarshe.com/fft/jobs.php?job=Thief)
I'm going to keep the thief simple, Hit die d6, and pretty much same bab progression as rogue and same for the saves as well.

Gil taking: this ability seems kind of possible to pull off in dnd, suppose some free actions pick pocket with an attack roll.
Steal Heart: Charm person or suggestion as a spell like ability.
Steal [Equipment]: Helmet, armor etc now those are the hard ones. Essentially from my understanding doing such feats require epic sleight of hand checks rolls, would there be an alternative?
Steal Experience: Negative level drain seems like the easiest way to do it.
Movement: fast movement just like the barbarian
Catch: Deflect Arrow Bonus feat even if the thief doesn't qualify for it. Infinite Deflection if the class is changed into an epic prestige class.
Caution: Half the damage is not unheard of, I would consider closer to the defensive roll rogue talent and evasion as well.
Gilgame Heart: I guess create money from the damage? I guess easiest way would be to give extra gold for fighting the monster if the thief took some damage.
Secret Hunt: I would consider copying the ability demonic essence feat from hordes of the abyss and allows the thief to use this xp to have magic items made for him.


Now do you think the class should be a base class, a prc or an epic prc? Share your opinions and ideas on how to tweak it.

T.G. Oskar
2011-04-08, 01:12 AM
Thief is mostly Rogue, except you strip it from some of the most useful things it has (Sneak Attack, UMD, Special Abilities) and you give it theft-related abilities. That, or a PrC that works like that, but Thief is generally considered a base class because it's one of the six main classes ever since Final Fantasy I (such as Fighter, White Mage, Black Mage, Red Mage and even Monk).

Thus, a Thief would have a scaling bonus to Sleight of Hand and Disarm checks. Pickpocket/Steal Gil is really a Sleight of Hand check against the enemy's purse. Steal Weapon and Steal Shield is basically a Disarm check with an empty hand. Steal Accessory is also the same, except the enemy gains a +10 for having that wondrous item fastened. Steal Helmet would be unnecessary (it's a wondrous item), and Steal Armor would be a higher-level ability that allows you to steal even tightly-fastened armor. Steal Experience would be brutal, because it would allow you to take more XP than usual. Catch IS Snatch Arrow, except it applies to any weapon thrown and you keep it instead of deflecting it back. Caution makes you take the total defense action even if you had your turn already. Poach/Secret Hunt is something you do already, if you want to craft stuff like Dragonscale armor.

Really, trying to translate the FFT Thief (or just about any thief of the FF series) will cause a lot of incompatibilities with D&D if only because they're two wildly different systems. In essence, the FF Thief and the D&D Rogue are essentially the same, except the Rogue has much more than what the FF Thief would have. Heck, if you consider FFXI as an example, you'll see Sneak Attack (and Trick Attack, basically a way to enable Sneak Attack much like Feint but as part of the attack) added in, to comply with the idea of Thieves as characters that deal increased damage in certain situations. Trying to equate the FF classes to D&D will be hard, and probably will make for really weak classes, but do consider that there ARE already analogues.

FF Fighter is even weaker than D&D Fighter, but because of one reason: FF Fighters ARE D&D Warriors, aka the NPC class that is basically a Fighter without Bonus Feats (and not a Paladin)
FF White Mage is basically a Cleric without attack spells, aside from one or two at very high levels (Sunburst is one of the closest spells that resemble Holy)
FF Black Mage is pretty much the Warmage or the Wizard, based on the game. Early FF Black Mages behaved like Wizards, but latter FF Black Mages behave like Warmages, or rather, Evokers.
FF Red Mage is basically the Bard, but without the songs and with more spells.
FF Monk is basically the D&D Monk with a YMMV tag. Early Monks really sucked because all they had was "I attack the enemy", poor proficiencies in weapons and armor and insane HP and Def scores (higher than the Knight, IIRC). Latter Monks are much better, with skills such as Chakra, Flying Kick, Boost, being the only classes with innate Counter ability, and eventually getting stuff all the way to Revive.
FF Thief, again, is the Rogue but without Sneak Attack. And probably different access to special abilities.

Going further, you can find most parallels of other classes. To deal with FFT exclusively:
Squire = Warrior
Chemist = Expert with a Bag of Holding for potions and Weapon Proficiency (firearms)
Knight = Warblade with some access to Shadow Hand and sunder-specced. Also, Heavy Armor Proficiency
Archer = Fighter with all archery feats
White Mage = Cloistered Cleric, but without early level attack spells.
Black Mage = Focused Evoker with Enchantment, Illusion and probably Conjuration spells prohibited.
Monk = Monk with a splash of Psionics (Tash?). Wave Fist is basically Ki Blast, period. Pummel is flurry, Secret Fist is Quivering Palm, Earth Slash/Earth Render is probably the Earthbolt spell cast with a Stone Dragon maneuver, Chakra is Wholeness of Body, Stigma Magic/whatever is called in WotL is basically Touch of Vitality, and Call Back is ALSO Wholeness of Body. That also means your Wholeness of Body is equal to your Monk level times your Wisdom modifier, all cubed.
Thief = see above
Time Mage = Conjurer with Illusion and Necromancy as prohibited schools.
Oracle/Mystic = inclining towards Beguiler, or Enchanter with Evocation and Conjuration as prohibited schools.
Geomancer = DRUUUUUUUUID, but nerfed to no avail. No Wild Shape, no spontaneous SNA, but able to use metal armor and martial weapons.
Lancer/Dragoon = Fighter with Power Attack, Battle Jump, Leap Attack, Shock Trooper, a Jump check on Epic ranges and probably some Flight ability and diving-related feats.
Mediator = Expert with Weapon Proficiency (firearms), Bluff and Diplomacy off the roof. For extra lulz, Truenamer :P
Summoner = Focused Conjurer with pretty much any school aside Conjuration forbidden. In exchange, they get to summon pets instead of monsters, which scale with level.
Bard = Bard, except no spells and more songs.
Dancer = Dragon Compendium's Battle Dancer mixed with Jester, no spells.
Samurai = Hard one, but I'd say Swordsage. Or, maybe, Incarnum Blade or something. They get abilities from breaking swords, so really, they get lots of magic swords.
Ninja = Rogue, again without SA, but with lots of Throw-related feats. Maybe the Rogue that replaces SA with Fighter Bonus Feats? Also, full TWF.
Calculator = Wizard/Incantatrix/Mage of the Arcane Order/Geometer. Really, Calculator/Arithmetician is top tier.
Mimic = Factotum/Chameleon, except it's a cohort, and breaks action economy in a hilarious way. Also, 9th level spells, casts like a Warmage/Beguiler/Dread Necro, knows all spells, plus knows all feats and whatnot. Still, can't act unless you do, AND it does exactly what you do (including the range of the spell and whatnot).

If I were to mention the rest...well, you get the idea. Final Fantasy is hard to translate point by point to a D&D campaign, though you can get REAL close.

Hyperion
2011-04-08, 01:44 AM
Interesting insights into the matter, that makes me want to revise the ideas slightly:

-The Calculator prc (mixing geometer/incantatrix/mage of the arcane order ideas), most likely would just make this prc epic due to the ridiculous power level, I'll even thrown in Galaxy stop (Olan ability time stop but still get to beat down on the enemies).

-The steal lines of abilities seems interesting but looking at it, I might be better off just making a bunch of "Steal" feats. They would improve the rogue ability sleight of hands skill checks.

Thomar_of_Uointer
2011-04-08, 02:18 AM
Final Fantasy should make you think of D&D. Final Fantasy 1 was based on D&D, they had dwarves, elves, and even mind flayers and beholders (which were removed and renamed in later games for copyright reasons.) They even made spellcasters be limited by spells per day.

What ruleset are you going to use? I'd recommend 4th edition, since it's generally easier to balance than 3.5. (And it will let you make most of the classes be base classes.) You may have to loosen the definition of paragon-tier classes, making them be general instead of class-specific.

A one-to-one conversion of FFT wouldn't be very fun, in my opinion. Not enough dice, and too little emphasis on individual abilities.

Anyways, just to throw this out there...

http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Jobs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_character_jobs

Using the wikipedia list, we get:


Warrior/Knight - Straightforward melee combat expert whose job is to be a meat shield. This may actually fit very closely with the 4e fighter.
Monk - Unarmed combat expert with more hp than any other class, also has ki abilities for support.
Samurai - A defense-oriented melee combat class. This may be more suited to be a paragon-tier class in 4e.
Dragoon - A spear-wielding melee damage class with some elemental abilities.
Thief/Rogue - A fast character who specializes in support by hindering his opponents. Also gets multiple attacks per round. Probably the same as the 4e rogue, but the 3.5 rogue isn't like this at all.
Ninja - A powerful melee class focused on two-weapon fighting. This may be more suited to be a paragon-tier class in 4e.
Dark Knight - An angsty melee fighter who has good defensive abilities, and also burns his own health to perform AOE effects.
Paladin - Pretty much the same as a standard D&D paladin.
Hunter/Ranger - A typical archer class, probably the same as any D&D ranger.
Berserker - Just like the D&D barbarian.
Mystic Knight/Sorcerer - A spellsword, swordmage, eldritch knight, etc etc etc. A melee class with arcane abilities that give his normal attacks powerful on-hit effects (in 4e, you would just give him normal melee powers.)
Onion Knight/Freelancer - I have no idea. It doesn't make sense in any D20 system I've used. Maybe it would make a decent epic-tier path.
Machinist/Gadgeteer - A utility-oriented class that uses technology for support effects, both defensive and offensive.
Gunner - A ranged class that uses firearms. Also inflicts debuffs.
Black Mage - Probably exactly the same as a 3.5 D&D wizard. No, seriously, why bother re-inventing the wheel? In 3.5 D&D, the wizard is overpowered anyways, focus on making the other classes better and leave the mages alone. In 4e, you do not want this to be the same as the wizard because the wizard is a controller, black mages are arcane strikers (like the warlock.)
White Mage - Probably the same as a D&D cleric.
Summoner - A magic-using controller class that has tons of AOE effects, both offensive and defensive. The good thing about focusing on Tactics is that summoners have been pretty consistent for the whole series.
Time Mage/Green Mage/Gray Mage - A support and utility mage. Probably best to make this a paragon-tier class.
Scholar - A support character who can can scan enemies to see all of their stats (as opposed to a Scan, which would only tell you their hit points and maybe their creature type and subtype.) Probably best to make it a paragon class.
Sage - The penultimate spellcaster. This should be an epic-tier class.
Alchemist - A support class that also makes an excellent healer. This should be a paragon-tier class.
Red Mage - A support class that focuses on debuffs, damage, and healing, in that order.
Blue Mage - A support class that can use monsters' abilities against them. It also would have a smattering of utility magic.
Geomancer - A controller class that can affect the entire battlefield. This should be a paragon-tier class for mages.
Bard - A support class. The D&D bard is probably adequate to fill this role.
Beastmaster - A striker that uses a pet to fight. (Very hard to pull off in 4e D&D, but in 3.5 D&D most of the rules are there, they just are coupled with the druid class.)
Dancer - A direct-damage class that focuses on agility and moving around the battlefield quickly. This might be better as a paragon-tier class.
Gambler - An odd class that can pull off extremely random effects. This might be best as a paragon-tier class.
Mime/Mimic - A support class that can mimic allies' abilities. This would be best as a paragon-tier class.


EDIT: If you want to break new ground and have some fun homebrewing, you could do this instead:
Have four generic base classes, squire (defender,) rogue (striker,) chemist (controller,) and healer (leader.) Then make all of the classes from the games be paragon-tier and/or combined with feats.

Hyperion
2011-04-08, 06:33 AM
Actually 4E might be a better idea for this conversion and I do like the 4 basic classes idea and it would keep it in the spirit of getting advanced job with paragon tier and feats.

Thomar_of_Uointer
2011-04-08, 05:24 PM
Actually 4E might be a better idea for this conversion and I do like the 4 basic classes idea and it would keep it in the spirit of getting advanced job with paragon tier and feats.

Keep in mind, the paragon and epic tier paths only grant a handful of abilities. Past level 10, these base classes are going to get access to extremely powerful techniques to stay balanced. If you do this, you may need to make many of the class abilities generic.

Which in my opinion is a very good thing. You could say that a skilled alchemist can be so good, you can't tell whether he's using magic or legerdemain. Is that explosion gunpowder, or is it fire magic? Doesn't really matter, because it still burns. Let the player decide, right?

4e is very specific about what each ability does, and that's one of the big complaints about 4e. Letting the classes be generic prevents the overlap where you're a "martial striker", or "feral striker", or "divine striker" with a bunch of abilities that do about the same thing but with different fluff.

4e already has mechanics for this. Each class has paths you choose at level 1 which restrict which powers you have access to. For example, a rogue could be forced to choose only two of the ranged, mobility, and multiple attack trees. An alchemist could be restricted to only white or black magic (with red magic being a feat to give you access to both, which leads into the red mage paragon path.)


UNLESS...

Another alternative could be to make the core list of utility, dailiy, encounter, and will powers very small after level 10, and then make the paragon and epic paths grant access to a lot of additional powers. This is very different from normal 4e D&D, where your base class determines most of your abilities, and your paragon and epic paths are just a few extra abilities to make you specialize in the options you've picked.

Hyperion
2011-04-08, 05:30 PM
Yeah the amounts of abilities might make me want to fuse a few classes/abilities together so it would stay relevant.

so far this is my planning:

FFT: 4e edition Homebrew

Squire (Defender)
-Paragon Path:
+Samurai
+Knight
+Monk

Rogue (Striker)
-Paragon Path:
+Ninja
+Dragoon
+Machinist


Black Mage (Striker)
-Paragon Path:
+Dark Knight
+Summoner
+Dancer

Chemist (Controller)
-Paragon Path:
+Time Mage
+Scholar

White Mage (Leader)
-Paragon Path
+Oracle
+Mediator
+Bard

Epic tier paths:
Sage
Onion Knight

Thomar_of_Uointer
2011-04-08, 05:34 PM
Yeah the amounts of abilities might make me want to fuse a few classes/abilities together so it would stay relevant.

so far this is my planning:

FFT: 4e edition Homebrew

Squire (Defender)
-Paragon Path:
+Samurai
+Knight
+Monk

Rogue (Striker)
-Paragon Path:
+Ninja
+Dragoon
+Machinist


Black Mage (Striker)
-Paragon Path:
+Dark Knight
+Summoner
+Dancer

Chemist (Controller)
-Paragon Path:
+Time Mage
+Scholar

White Mage (Leader)
-Paragon Path
+Oracle
+Mediator
+Bard

Epic tier paths:
Sage
Onion Knight

Rogue needs to lead into Ranger. I think you could have more paragon classes than this too... Maybe make some paragon classes be accessible by more than one class.

Also, much more important than the paragon classes, you need to define what talent trees the base classes get. The base classes are going to be giving characters most of their powers, and characters need to specialize.

Do you have the 4e books for reference? The warlock's infernal, fey, and eldritch abilities are a good example of how a class's powers can be divided up. I wouldn't totally restrict powers, I would just add simple bonuses to sets of powers, like most classes have.

EDIT: more stuff...

Hyperion
2011-04-08, 05:47 PM
Yeah I was thinking for rogue to have a ranged specialty (representing the ranger) and a close combat specialty (kinda like rogue in 4e). The thief abilities could easily be utility powers.

I have the 3 core books and Phb 2. I didn't get all the divine/martial etc different books or the phb 3 but this give me a basic idea on how to do it.

Thomar_of_Uointer
2011-04-08, 06:12 PM
I'd make sure there are a lot more paragon paths.

Here's how I would do it:

Squire - defender with some striker abilities (like a berserker or dragoon has) and some paragon-tier leader options (like a knight or paladin)
Rogue - striker with both melee and ranged options, higher-level leader options (bard, dancer) and some defensive utilities for the party (in the early final fantasy games, the rogue gave the whole party a better change to run away, you could easily extend this to daily utility party buffs, or just debuffs for tripping and other dirty tactics)
Alchemist - a controller (black magic, grey magic) or leader (white magic) depending on how you pick your skill trees. Keep in mind, sufficiently advanced alchemy is indistinguishable from magic.

You would have to make the talent trees very extensive, but I think this would work. It's actually very similar to the 3.5 generic classes of Warrior, Expert, and Spellcaster.

I'm going to give a cautionary warning here. Don't make black mages strikers by default, make them controllers. They're high-DPS characters in the games because of the way MP is a limited resource, but 4e D&D doesn't do that. The point of black magic is that it lets you hit more than one enemy at a time, and it shouldn't let you do more damage than a rogue.

You could carefully design the powers so that mages can outclass rogues when taking advantage of elemental weaknesses. However, the games really favored elemental weapons, and an appropriately equipped rogue could probably do even better than that.

Hyperion
2011-04-08, 06:25 PM
More condensed and this make the ideas of skill trees work better. Yeah I was almost going to do black mage like a sorcerer but like you pointed out, with the way 4e works, there is really no need to do that and just having a long list of damage spell would actually make the Black mage boring to play.

Hyperion
2011-04-08, 07:10 PM
First starting with the squire, the powers are going to be different of course but squire is essentially a fighter, so not many changes for it class feature wise:

Squire

CLASS TRAITS
Role: Defender. You are very tough and have abilities that help you fight and contain your enemies in melee.
Power Source: Martial. You have become a master of combat through endless hours of practice, determination and battlefield experience.
Key Abilities: Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, Constitution

Armor proficiencies: Cloth, leather, hide, chainmail, scale, light shield, heavy shield
Weapon proficiencies: Simple Melee, military melee, simple ranged, military ranged
Bonus to defense:+2 Fortitude

Hit points at 1st level: 15+constitution score
Hit points per level gained: 6
Healing surges per day: 9+con mod

Trained Skills: From the class skills list below choose three trained skills at 1st level.
Class skills: Athletics (Str), Endurance (Con), Heal (Wis), Intimidate (Cha), Streetwise (Cha).

Build options: Fighter, Guardian

The fighter: Essentially interested in dealing as much as possible to your opponents.
The Guardian: You decide to trade some offense for defense, preferring to safeguard your allies from the enemies assault.

Class features: Combat Challenge(Same as fighter), Combat Superiority(Same as fighter), Counter Tackle(New).

Counter Tackle: When a squire is bloodied after receiving a melee attack, he can counter attack the enemy in melee range with a simple melee attack as an immediate action.

Thomar_of_Uointer
2011-04-08, 07:22 PM
Were you going to do races?

MammonAzrael
2011-04-08, 07:26 PM
While I don't believe that this is exactly what you're looking for, I do think you'd be interested in it. My conversion of the Sword Saint class to a 3.5 PrC (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=184571).

Hyperion
2011-04-08, 07:29 PM
The races don't seem too hard to do especially in Ivalice.

Races: Moogle, Viera, Bangaa, Nu Mou, Gria, Aegyl, Human

Humans will be like the 4e edition one, the rest will require some tweaking but not by much. Viera have dex and cha going for them with a scent ability (will check the monster manual). Not sure if I will make Moogle playable, they are mostly a npc race. Bangaa are basically brutes str and con. Nu Mou are very good white mage so wisdom and charisma.

I'll rather work on the classes first, the races fluff is already present and assigning the mechanical stuffs doesn't seem too hard.

edit: Looking over the sword saint class.

Thomar_of_Uointer
2011-04-11, 04:34 PM
The races don't seem too hard to do especially in Ivalice.

Races: Moogle, Viera, Bangaa, Nu Mou, Gria, Aegyl, Human

Humans will be like the 4e edition one, the rest will require some tweaking but not by much. Viera have dex and cha going for them with a scent ability (will check the monster manual). Not sure if I will make Moogle playable, they are mostly a npc race. Bangaa are basically brutes str and con. Nu Mou are very good white mage so wisdom and charisma.

I'll rather work on the classes first, the races fluff is already present and assigning the mechanical stuffs doesn't seem too hard.

edit: Looking over the sword saint class.

Moogle shouldn't be hard, just give them a move action at-will racial power that lets them fly 4 squares, and require them to end their flight on solid ground or they immediately fall. (It should probably scale to 5 squares at level 10, and 6 squares at 20) Combine that with a racial ability to slow falls, and they're fine.

Mulletmanalive
2011-04-11, 05:03 PM
I haven't read the rest of the thread, but I may be able to assist on the Thief bit: The Sticky Fingers style (in the feats bit)

I should be able to convert it to D&D without too much effort if you'd like [honestly, most of it just boils down to DC 20 Sleight of Hand checks instead of otherwise].