I'm a fan of the final fantasy games. One class that sticks out is the dragoon class. Depicted wearing heavy armor and specializing in spears/reach weapons, they are fighter types. How they distinguish themselves from other fighters is what I need assistance with.
they can:
1. leap very high (climbing in an environment that's not mountainous is not necessary for them since they can easily leap most heights)
2. A special attack they can use utilizes the height of their jump to do additional damage with a lance strike
3. it's also been depicted that their jump height can make them untargetable for the duration of the leap
4. they can use ranged attacks from the air like a daily, staying airborne for longer, doing additional damage due to height, and the range allows them to do it until they run out of things to throw or they fall back down.
5. they can also perform minor magics than have taken the form of breath weapons, summons, taming, leeching, etc...
Any suggestions for achieving this concept with 5e mechanics, magic items, and character classes/races?
The best i can see is a warlock.
They can use spears.
They can get the jump spell at-will.
They can have ranged attacks, though magical ones.
They can perform magic.
I can't think of a good way to stay in the air though besides the fly spell, though that's doesn't fit well.
Warlocks don't have heavy armor, but you could start a level of paladin, which also allows you to add smites to your attack.
But overall, i think your going to need to homebrew stuff. Fun class though.
I'm a fan of Final Fantasy as well, and would build a dragoon in the following way, using the older-school dragoons (like Kain Highwind of FFIV) as my model... but acknowledging that some stuff just doesn't translate well.
A Fighter (champion martial archetype) that uses the great weapon fighting style to start and defense style later, that wields a pike and wears heavy armor - who would take the athlete, charger, and mobile feats.
So Warlock with a dip in paladin or a highly mobile fighter with feats. Both really sound suggestions.
There was some reading I was doing. There are magical shoes that would triple the normal jump height of the wearer. Can that stack with the jump spell?
If they can stack, resulting in a really high jump like the dragoon, how would the book mechanics treat the high jump?
Don't forget, Novama, that you're limited to your movement in a round. Your DM may allow you to "pause mid-air" if your jump exceeds your speed, but others may say "you jump as high as your speed and that's it."
Worth talking about with your DM, since this is purely theorycraft and ALSO involves the assumption of a magic item. A very dangerous thing to do, indeed 
Timborama wrote:
The boots of striding and springing specifically state that while they triple your jumping distance you can't jump any further than your remaining move, but the jump spell doesn't have that stipulation... interesting.
Using the champion fighter I described before, and getting to a 20 strength and using either the boots or the jump spell (I won't touch whether they do/should stack with a pole of any length - that's the DM of the table's decision) you can manage to walk 5' and then Dash to leap 75' forward (clearing obstacles as tall as 18.75' along the way with an easy athletics check) and still get the attack from the charger feat. Or you could jump 24 feet straight of the ground.
I'm almost thinking that, for my own table, I might rule that if someone has the boots and uses the jump spell that the pair of x3 modifiers combine to a x9 modifier, and let the character "hang" in the air - there is something about walking 5', jumping into the air (sailing 35' forward) while firing a bow, then next round continuing your jump 40' through the air while continuing to fire, and again on a 3rd round, and even a 4th round, before finally using a Dash action in the 5th round to finish the last 70' of your 225' leap (that clears up to 56.25' obstacles along the way) by landing pike first in your enemy (or even just landing, then moving the other 10' you can and stabbing someone all the same). - of course, that's just because I like the idea of a dragoon-type character being able to elect to leap from airship to airship, even when the rest of the crew aren't doing a boarding maneuver.
...of course, being sure that your target landing zone is going to be in the place you need it to be 5 rounds after you commit to your jump arc could be very tricky.
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Well, if it's for an NPC, you can technically do whatever you want. So there's that!
As for jumping, in general, there is no RAW answer to what happens when you reach your full movement. At least, not that I'm aware of. It's very possible they left this ambiguous so that DMs could rule according to personal style, the table's wishes, or on a case-by-case basis!
Also, are the spell and boots ADDITIVE (x3+x3=x6) or MULTIPLICATIVE (x3*x3=x9) is another question to consider. But! That's a DM/table issue, again. Personally, I add them together, though the wording may suggest otherwise? Same goes for what happens when you land on someone after that sort of an attack, it's a DM thing. For an NPC, that's easy, you make it up. For a PC, by RAW, nothing extra happens, but DMs can give extra damage or a free Push or whatevs
Oki... nice concept, and i will also use the fighter as template, BUT i will go with eldritch knight.
Dragoon are warrior, mostly melee and good at it = fighter!
They also have magic, so is the EK.
I would ask the DM to change the soulbound weapon to a special suit of armor that let you jump like crazy. not OP, and actually fun to see.
Now, pick a spear or any other polearm, greatweapon fighting style, and the feat accordindly (GWF, charge, mobile all come to mind)
Then pick whatever spells you feel fit your design and voila!
So let's pretend we get that high jump, long jump. You are coming down or moving forward with great force. While you, the initiater of the jump, will survive it because to magical effects on your person allow you to withstand the forces, you are still potentially falling 10's of feet. Each 10 is d6 fall damage.
Would it make sense to say a jump of that height turned into a spearing attack from above would have with it the fall damage you would have accumulated had you been normal and just fell?
Let's turn this horizontally. Could you, a character jumping 50+ feet forward to spear attack or some other melee attack , say the forces generated by your attack should apply additional force/fall damage on the target in combination with your regular attack's damage?
Novama wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
Otherwise, thanks for the help guys.
You are suggesting apply physics, even though you don't mean to be.
The game rules only say that if a creature falls that the creature takes 1d6 damage per 10' fallen to a maximum of 20d6 damage.
It doesn't say that objects take damage, so you can have a fragile glass ball fall and take 0 damage (unless of course the DM decides to intercede, or the glass ball in question has specific rules that make it subject to falling damage).
It doesn't say that a creature takes damage because something fell onto it... so either it is the dragoon taking the falling damage, or there is no damage that the rules say to apply.
The "similar fashion" you describe is only similiar because physics is involved in the discussion.
Timborama wrote:
Compare him to an EK of the same level and see what is the best damaging area spell that the ek would be able to cast. He jumps in the air, spends how many turns you want (i think one out of the scene would be enough) and comes down with advantage or +5 damage or whatever, and the blast from his fall causes the same ammount of damage as that best aoe spell the ek could get in a 10-20 ft or something like. Creating npcs is really easier than creating characters; you just need to give them appropriate HP for their challenge rating, fill in proficiencies and give them 2, 3 or 4 special abilities and that's it. Gone are the days of building npcs like pcs and accounting every single skill point and sinergy.
Seems to me you could simulate the Dragoon with the Athlete and Charger feats along with Boots of Striding and Springing. Dash to get speed boost for longer jump, jump with movement, bonus action attack from charger with bonus damage. Athlete lets you jump with a shorter start and also stand up from prone easier. Mobile might be nice too for more movement and let you charge past a target.
Basically I see the elemental monk as the best fit, except for the heavy armor. Maybe your "monastic" order teach you to use heavy armor with your monk abilities instead of the unarmored defense ability, and replace the Martial Art with
Spear jumping:
When you jump using a spear, you can use the Martial Arts damage dice instead of the spear damage.
When you land on a target, as an action, you can take 0 damage, ignore your Slow fall ability and add your falling damage to your spear damage (if you miss the target you take all the damage and cannot benefit from Slow Fall). This damage applied ONLY on the single attack used during this action. If you somehow found a way to add an extra attack in this action this additional attack do not benefit from the falling damage. The falling damage can also crit if you crit with your spear attack.
You can maneuver horizontally 5 ft per round in the air. (so you need to calculate where your target will be when you'll land, but you still have a little bit of maneuverablity if needed)
If you throw your spear, you can ignore the downward vertical distance when determining the range (20/60) of your attack
Between Step of the wind, Slow Fall, and unarmored movement (still available because of your particular monastic order), you should be good for jumping what ever you want.
Then with disciple of the element you'll be able to cast spell like burning hand (easy to reflavor into a 15ft cone breath weapon)