Swashbucklers overpowered?


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Indeed, you can't use your eldritch heritage and attack. It only lasts 1 round. You lose -9 on your attack and damage there.

You lose -2 to your damage per hit for the loss of strong jaw.

They are correct your attack drops by 1 more from power attack.

You lose another 1 to hit and damage from the loss of manual of gainful exercise.

Brawler trades out weapon training for close combatant. Per the FAQ you cannot use gloves of dueling unless the name of the class feature is the same. You lose 2 to attack and damage there.

Double slice does not change the fact that you only get half power attack to your offhand. Regardless of whether you take the feat you lose 6 damage on all offhand strikes.

Side note, Greater magic fang specifically says it does not count for the purpose of damage reduction so you will take damage reduction on all attacks.

Accounting for the gold that should not have been spent you spent a total of 575.4k gold to my 380k or so. I still have plenty left and could buff my dpr significantly by doing the same thing you did with elemental enchantments.

Unlike you, I do not damage myself every single time I attack.

Due to your amulet of might fists you cannot get the amulet of natural armor, lowering your AC.

You are prone to both elemental resistances and DR. You will take the full value on all of them. I bypass every DR that is not unbypassable, and I still bypass 5 of that per strike.

I took the liberty of changing your improved critical (falcata) to unarmed strike to increase your unarmed damage critical bonus to 20% in all of my DPR equations.

Edit: Oops, forgot to account for the fact that your strength went down in damage. Dpr calculations are off on this monstrosity lol give me some time to retotal everything. :P

2nd Edit: And wraithstrike is correct you cannot alter pre-existing magical items. That's another 2 to hit and damage off.

3rd Edit: These numbers should be correct. Unfortunately anything that negates your elemental stuffs will leave you screwed. It comes out nice on a full attack still with all the elements.

No Elemental: 388.615 DPR
Elemental: 521.965 DPR

You still have no way to account for DR and such as even DR 10 will reduce you effectively by over 60 DPR.

If you are forced to move your DPR drops to 93.385. Mine will still sit comfortable in the mid 300's.

All in all you still spent about 150k more gold than me to beat me by about 70 DPR.


Isn't celestial armor a specific armor with no rules on exactly how improving it would work?


Another thing, look at all your feats. How long does it take your build to come together? How effective are you pre 6? pre 12 pre 16. Now those are just random, but the idea is that yeah at lv20 full build it comes together, but how about getting there? How much of the time are you going to be feeling weaker and harder to work with? I don't know these answers but I do feel that Two handed has an easier time getting to lv 20.

I do want to say though that I like the idea of some two-weapon wielding builds. I think they can be very fun to play. Plus it's different then a two-handed which can be a nice change. The example you used is one I think would be quite fun to play.


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I'm still caught up on the 25 torches. They must be playing a minecraft themed campaign.


The two weapon fighter is academic anyway. You cannot mathematically put a number on how many full attacks the fighter will be getting. That very , very important factor in actual play tilts things heavily in favor of the big honking greatsword.


BigNorseWolf wrote:
The two weapon fighter is academic anyway. You cannot mathematically put a number on how many full attacks the fighter will be getting. That very , very important factor in actual play tilts things heavily in favor of the big honking greatsword.

I actually made mention of that in my post. Even while moving I remain in the mid 300's in damage.


Another factor is that TWF is another -2 to attacks, and once you get to enemies with higher AC's the two-hander pulls farther ahead. A fighter that goes TWF is not going to match up DPR-wise.


Using the same stats as your 2HF, a 2WF dual falcata fighter is doing DPR of 600 vs AC36.


Jon Otaguro 428 wrote:
Using the same stats as your 2HF, a 2WF dual falcata fighter is doing DPR of 600 vs AC36.

1. A falcata will have even more penalties if used in the off-hand since it is a one-handed weapon. A falcata wielded in 2 hands would do more damage.


I was gonna suggest a dervish of dawn using a whirlwind attack, but it seems it favors 2h weapon


wraithstrike wrote:
Jon Otaguro 428 wrote:
Using the same stats as your 2HF, a 2WF dual falcata fighter is doing DPR of 600 vs AC36.
1. A falcata will have even more penalties if used in the off-hand since it is a one-handed weapon. A falcata wielded in 2 hands would do more damage.

The difference is that at 20th level, the 2HF is getting 5 attacks with haste. The 2WP fighter is getting 8 attacks + the rend attack. And really what it is that ACs don't keep up with attack bonuses. Even with -4 to hit for using 2 falcatas, I end up with:

+41/41/36/31/26 main hand with 2-12+45 17-20/x4
+41/36/31 off hand with 2-12+39 17-20/x4
+ rend at +41 1-10+22

with the fighter cap ability, this comes to a DPR of 609. There is no way a 2 handed weapon fighter can get to that DPR because he simply has less attacks.


I ran the DPR for a falcata fighter with the 2H archtype and got a DPR of 543, so it isn't that much difference. I just get tired with the myth that people have that 2HF always outdamages 2W fighting.

I suspect that the pummeling style is going to spawn some interesting sacred fist builds - divine power as a swift action to flurry. With the gorum blessings of destruction and strength, by round 3, a 20th level warpriest can have +17 hit and damage from divine power and the 2 lesser blessings.


At 20th level? maybe it's true

Do you want to run the numbers at levels 8 or 12?


Feral wrote:

Yes. Swashbuckler is overpowered.

The problem with these comparisons is that they’re always made against the most optimized example possible. A swashbuckler built with a moderate amount of system mastery when paired side by side against any other martial class is going to blow them out of the water. No, he’s not without his weaknesses but it’s still far too powerful.

I suggest you ban swashbuckler until your group gets a bit more experience under their belt.

How on earth is taking power attack and having a high strength the most optimized example? Because thats what we are talking about. Maybe weapon focus and weapon specialization too. These are pretty common and simple choices for a fighter that wants to do damage. If the fighter doesnt choose these things, then obviously his focus isnt doing damage...so where is the issue?

Yes the swashbuckler gets to add his dexterity, and his level to damage. The fighter gets to add 1.5x his strength (which should be roughly 1.5x the swashbucklers dex), has a higher damage weapon. and power attack.

If the only thing the fighter takes is a greatsword, power attack and has the same strength the swashbuckler has dex, lets say of 18, thats 2 extra damage for 1.5x strength. At 6th level thats 6 damage for power attack and 3.5 damage for the 2d6 weapon over a 1d6 weapon.

That is 11.5 damage, where as the swashbuckler is adding 6 for precise strike. This isnt some kind of hyper optimized mega build, this is a fighter with a high strength, a great sword and power attack thats it. Add in other weapon focused feats and the fighter pulls WAY ahead in the amount of damage he can do. Precise strike just makes the swashbuckler workable, it doesnt make it better then even the lowly fighter, let alone a raging barbarian or a smiting paladin.


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This GM knows nothing. is not the Swashbuckler...geez stop the hate and read the book properly, is all there.

The Swashbuckler is not OP, the Fighter, Cavalier, Samurai, Ninja, etc can do the same damage and have survivability. Your other players are just bad and didn't know how to optimize their characters, is not that the swashbuckler is optimized perfectly, but he did a good attempt at it maximizing his AC with the gold he had, he didn't even got that much HP, he just took all his Fav Class bonus in HP and his Con.

A good Fighter should be able to do the same damage.

Scarab Sages

Anzyr wrote:
Fighter doesn't get any additional bonus damage, which is the only way that Two-Weapon Fighting can even pretend to compete with Two-Handed Fighting and thus the Fighter is never going to be the best Two-Weapon Fighter.

Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Specialization, Weapon Training.


Zilfrel: You could try phrasing that differently.

One thing with a lot of the new classes is that the ones that aren't overpowered are so narrowly focused that they come pre optimized for the player. If you're used to the god wizard, the alchemist is underpowered by comparison. If your groups baseline optimization is the wizard with magic missiles, then the alchemist is "OMG WHAT?" levels of improvement.


Artanthos wrote:
Anzyr wrote:
Fighter doesn't get any additional bonus damage, which is the only way that Two-Weapon Fighting can even pretend to compete with Two-Handed Fighting and thus the Fighter is never going to be the best Two-Weapon Fighter.
Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Specialization, Weapon Training.

Yes, those are probably, almost certainly, very definitely comparable to say an average of 30 damage from something like Sneak Attack. And really, you need lot and lots of bonus damage to even try and match Two-handed Fighting and Fighter is never going to provide that.


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I believe that when all the dust settles, and it's a year from now, people will see the swashbuckler is the same light that they see the summoner. At best, way too easy to make way too effective. At worst, broken out of the gate. Right now, the forums are still dealing with the shock of the swash not being what some people thought it would be, and since it's different, they are claiming it is bad.

But remember: it doesn't matter what people on the forum say. If a class is causing issues in the style of game you're playing, then it is causing issues.


Jon Otaguro 428 wrote:

The difference is that at 20th level, the 2HF is getting 5 attacks with haste. The 2WP fighter is getting 8 attacks + the rend attack. And really what it is that ACs don't keep up with attack bonuses. Even with -4 to hit for using 2 falcatas, I end up with:

+41/41/36/31/26 main hand with 2-12+45 17-20/x4
+41/36/31 off hand with 2-12+39 17-20/x4
+ rend at +41 1-10+22

with the fighter cap ability, this comes to a DPR of 609. There is no way a 2 handed weapon fighter can get to that DPR because he simply has less attacks.

True, but

1) Your offhand attack will only ever get a 1/1 ratio on power attack. That means at max you will get -6/+6 on power attack on those extra attacks. His build I specifically gave him a 3:1 on the first attack because dragon style made it a 1.5 attack.

2) You can't get my stats and TWF. Not unless you plan to play most of the early game without actually taking the feat TWF. Because I started with a 14 in dex, meaning you wouldn't get to take TWF feats without decreasing strength or something else.

3) The difference between his build and mine comes down to Vicious and 3 elemental abilities. Adding those onto my falcata still keeps me well under his spent wealth and at the same time pushes my DPR up to 537.74, still beating out him by 16 DPR and increasing my move and strike damage as well.

Shadow Lodge

Swashbuckler < Adamantine Golem

Totally destroys him

Silver Crusade

As far as TWF goes, no class beats the ranger. Rangers can almost completely ignore Dex and still pick up all of the TWF feats. This means they at most need a 15 Dex to pick up Double Slice unless they want to wait until 10 for Imp TWF and 14 for Greater TWF. And when you consider that Favored Enemy (and instant enemy) and lead blades will apply to main hand and off hand attacks, it's easy to see why a TWF ranger will destroy a TWF fighter.


I Am disappointed, in the very first reply to this thread I made a very quick fighter build that was AT WORSE exactly the same as the swashbuckler posted. The swashbuckler posted has about 0 space for optimization (he could drop exotic weapon and use a scimitar for 1 more feat). There is no discussion to be had, no arguments, there is nothing to doubt or wiggle or say for the main poster, other then: No, It is not overpowered. Not even close to, not even a little. Its a pure martial, it hit things with a sword, that's all he does, and he doesn't do it better then a fighter. There could be an argument about having a little more skills, but that's it, that's all there is.


Jon Otaguro 428 wrote:
wraithstrike wrote:
Jon Otaguro 428 wrote:
Using the same stats as your 2HF, a 2WF dual falcata fighter is doing DPR of 600 vs AC36.
1. A falcata will have even more penalties if used in the off-hand since it is a one-handed weapon. A falcata wielded in 2 hands would do more damage.

The difference is that at 20th level, the 2HF is getting 5 attacks with haste. The 2WP fighter is getting 8 attacks + the rend attack. And really what it is that ACs don't keep up with attack bonuses. Even with -4 to hit for using 2 falcatas, I end up with:

+41/41/36/31/26 main hand with 2-12+45 17-20/x4
+41/36/31 off hand with 2-12+39 17-20/x4
+ rend at +41 1-10+22

with the fighter cap ability, this comes to a DPR of 609. There is no way a 2 handed weapon fighter can get to that DPR because he simply has less attacks.

Not every monster is going to have an AC of 36, so like I said before as the AC's go up the TWF'er falls farther behind, and you just put numbers up with no way to check them. In addition the two hander still has gold to spend. So you are still behind.


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Meh, the whole fiasco about dex-to-damage wasn't so much about how hard it was to get but more about how weirdly convoluted it got for no flipping reason.

To put restriction on such an ability? ok I dig that. But the one we have now are just silly. No light weapon? Must have a swashbuckler level unless you use a dueling sword? It just force players to stick to very specific weapons in order to do anything and its weird because they are actually better weapon than the disallowed option. (you want to fight with 2 dagger? that's way too broken, you can only do that with butterfly swords...)

But yea, I think that belong to another thread. Swashbuckler are not broken at all right now etc etc.


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I'll say this... I don't think Swashbucklers are overpowered, but I do think their numbers are over-inflated.... Damage and AC, mostly.

I see many GMs banning the class in the future because they think its damage is too high and its AC is too good. If they couldn't adapt to CW, they surely can't adapt to Swashbucklers.


I feel the urge to put forth my two cents.

a player working hard enough to build a powerful character will in general succeed, as I have proven and my players have proven in a myriad of games, and over many editions.

To: Lemmy I will not say that there is some worry over handing out too much to dexterity based characters (this has existed long before paizo). The same would go for I feel allowing characters to build off of con for combat instead of STR or Dex.

Each stat has a role to play, and when we allow it to cover additional stats rolls we change the balance of the game, Dex is attached to a large list of skills, to AC, to reflex, and to ranged combat quite heavily.

Weapon finesse allows it to be attached to the attack rolls similarly to the ranged weapons. Shifting the characters needs a little away from str, costing a feat and generally keeping the balance for the most part.

To replace str as the damage stat though shifts a character completely away from needing str (outside of encumbrance and some skills that are not generally viewed as a big problem) especially with feats existing to allow one to do the equivalency of power attack with such weapons. I think it is called piranha strike it works with light weapons.

So in short it is a big change and thus has to be considered and weighed before one can say okay to such an option. In this case they have made it so it benefits weapons that don't necessarily work with weapon finesse already (except for certain exotic one handed slashing weapons looking at you duelist sword) it also has some feat taxing IE weapon finesse and a feat that most would consider an okay feat anyways weapon focus. To help balance out the benefit.

In the end it will help make the dex based character a more viable option and fencing grace will help other classes as well.


I know dex-to-damage was a concern long before PF. I've playing since 2ed D&D.

It already has a feat tax! Two feat feat actually... Weapon Finesse and the second feat to get Dex to damage. There is not need to require Weapon Focus as well (which is not only a weak feat, it's also really freaking dull. "Now I get a +1 to attack rolls with a single type of weapon. That's 1 extra attack roll out of 20 that will hit! Oh, joy!").

Str is still useful because:

1- It'll save you 2 feats. 3 if you want to use maneuvers other than trip, disarm and sunder.
2- It adds extra damage on 2-handed weapons and Power Attack.
3- Encumbrance is a thing (I've actually seen Gunslingers who couldn't even carry all of their stuff without being encumbered).
4- While there are more Dex-based skills than Str-based ones, Str-based attribute checks are more common than Dex-based ones (breaking a door, bending a cell bar, pushing/pulling stuff around, etc).

Additionally, I'd add that the feat that allows Dex to damage should not be usable while donning a shield of any kind. An exception would be made for characters with the Panache class feature, allowing them to use bucklers.

This would be my take on it:

Improved Weapon Finesse:

Benefit: You can add your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength modifier to all attack and damage rolls made with weapons affected by Weapon Finesse. This damage is not increased by any condition or effect that would allow you to add 1.5 times your Strength bonus to damage (such as wielding your weapon 2-handed) but it is still reduced for off-hand attacks. You cannot use this ability while donning a shield of any kind.

Special: Characters with the Panache class feature can use this ability while donning a buckler.

Prerequisite: BAB +1, Dex 13, Weapon Finesse

Besides, adding Dex-to-damage instead of Precise Strike and Nimble would mean Swasbucklers damage and AC doesn't rocket into the stratosphere by 6th or so.

A 15pt-buy SB with no dumped attributes gets at very least a +14 damage and AC 27 by 10th level. And that's assuming no feats, just a +2 weapon and initial Dex of 16.

Paizo Glitterati Robot

Removed some posts and replies. Don't turn advice threads into a platform for a caster vs martial debates. If it's not advice, then don't post it.


zapbib wrote:
Quote:
I'll say this... I don't think Swashbucklers are overpowered, but I do think their numbers are over-inflated.... Damage and AC, mostly.

Go, read, the flipping second post.

Or anything else on this forum, for that matter.

Even with massive feat investment a swashbuckler will only maybe beat a fighter on damage Or Ac (unlikely both) in the very late level (like past 16) and were talking investing all of his feat in combat.

If you compare it to brawlers, barbarians, slayers etc. The swashbuckler is at BEST equal to the best of them.

I've been reading and analyzing the Swashbuckler for quite a while now. I was very active on the playtest thread and even GM'd for the class.

I'd say Barbarians are more effective than SBs. So are Paladins and Rangers... But their superiority doesn't come from high AC or damage output.


"LordKadarian wrote:
I think it is called piranha strike it works with light weapons.

Just a quick 'for the record' post. Piranha Strike works with light weapons and Slashing Grace only works with one-handed weapons so they are mutually exclusive.


Cheapy, how on earth is the swashbuckler overpowered? Yes , the class itself is slightly more powerful than the fighter, but it has to work through an underpowered fighting style which tones it down a notch, possibly too much.


They get improved critical at level 5!


Level to all damage rolls with their weapons of choice(one-handed/light piercing). That's pretty big.


But do those bonus they get put them over the top of what other martials are doing at the same levels?

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