Review: The Zephyrus

This one has been making it's rounds on the Paizo forums. For a few days I couldn't see a reference to Final Fantasy's Dragoon job without mention of the Zephyrus. Being free it's not hard to take a look at it and at least judge for yourself but if this is completely off your radar I would suggest checking it out.

Its a full BAB class with good reflex and fortitude saves. It's main class feature is a leaping charge and a leaping  attack. Both have scaling d8s for extra damage but one is a full round action charge that deals a lot of extra d8s and one is a standard action that deals less d8s. Of course it gets a lot of jumping and charging class features to help it be more mobile and bouncy. It's High Jump Class feature adds it's level to Acrobatic checks to jump, Tactical Charge  lets it charge through allies and difficult terrain and even through enemy spaces. It gets armor training as per the fighter ability. His charge speed scales up to +50ft at lvl 20. It takes less damage from falls.

They also get a bloodline like package called Lancets that allow them a significant skill boost, some bonus feats and some extra abilities abilities based on the Lancet's theme.

Overall, on paper it's a more 'neat' than amazing. Being less than ten pages worth of crunch it feels more lackluster than it could be. With just five Lancets it has room for diversity but overall pretty bland. In play, however, it's pretty fun. it plays out like an ambush diversion tank with the right feats. Close quarters is not as fun due to many of the abilities making you want to move a lot but if you have a lot of enemies that are scattered about you wind up being a pinball of death. Because of it's shortness I don't expect anyone to really give it a second glance but its worth playing at least once and I hope to see more of it since it's a solid class that has a lot of potential. In a previous article I noted that a lot of ARMR free classes were buckets of potential that needed more support. In the Zephyrus' case, more lancets, archetypes and probably some feats would be nice. On it's own the pdf does stand on it's own more other novelty classes I've seen to the point where if I could see it as a class that I'd play more than once. If I had something bad to say, it would be that I think Leaping Charge would need to be more defined, specifically that it being a type of charge I wonder if it lowers AC for a round, whether or not I'd get the bonus to attack rolls or any other benefits from charge related feats. Some of that information I had to extrapolate based on the other abilities the Zephyrus has which was slightly annoying.

For anyone wondering if this adequately represents the Dragoon from the Final Fantasy series; Well it's the closest thing I've seen so far. It jumps and drops a lot of burst damage which is close enough I guess. More importantly it's a simple but solid class that doesn't die at the drop of a hat and is useful as an ambush caster sniper.

So my final verdict would be 4 out of 5 for it being a solid class that grants a new play experience but needs a bit of clarification and some more options to spice it up, but this being free business and that it actually does look like a Final Fantasy Dragoon rounds that up to 5 out of 5.

You can find it over on Paizo.com here.