The Swashbuckling Brute

[Neal Litherland]

A new installment from Kobold Quarterly, The Swashbuckling Brute talks about ways you can think outside the box when building your swashbuckler. If you'd rather be a strongarm thug with a spiked gauntlet, or a canny dwarf with his ax, that doesn't mean the class won't work for you. It will just take some creative storytelling, and unusual rule choices.

[lemeres]

Well, I have been arguing since the beginning that the class has very little tying it to dex past the finesse stuff (although- yes, it is very dex friendly).

Hell, I think it actually removes quite a bit of why people want to go with dex. It has built in sword and board mechanics (can't use much of anything other than a buckler in off hand) and it gets AC boosts, so even with 'meh' dex, it gets good AC. It has reflex as its only good save. It gives bonuses to initiative.

About the only thing that had real weight as an argument for dex was AoOs....and even then, that still might not necessitate more than a 14. And early on...hell, some players wreck taht argument in their pursuit of the dex to damage feats (delaying combat reflexes).

People place too much value on a name. The mechanics are not what they are imagining, even though they can support a lot of that (except for the ever present screams for pounce that you always hear). It mostly serves as a vessel that salavages some underused styles that are highly represented in media, but are rarely seen in game because they are 'suboptimal'- 1weapon/1handed, non TWF sword and board, and throwing weapons.

[Neal Litherland]

Hear, hear, lemeres.

I've been on a bit of a crusade of late to try and get more players to think outside the box when it comes to language. The idea that a swashbuckler has to use a rapier or scimitar and act as a fencer or a dervish is one interpretation, but not the only one. In much the same way that a samurai doesn't HAVE to be from Tian Xia (and calling the class a Knight makes most fluff complaints vanish), and a ninja can be Western just as easily as it can be Eastern. Monks can be barroom brawlers just as easily as they can be special forces soldiers who specialize in silent infiltration.

Often we limit ourselves based on the language of a class, instead of that class's mechanics. Which is frustrating.

[Imbicatus]

It's a great option for a Zulu/Aiel themed character with shortspears and buckler.

[Neal Litherland]

I did something similar to that for my Oberyn Martell character conversion, Imbicatus.