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Vanguard legit seems to me like they wanted to add Mass Effect class of the same name into Starfinder (and who could blame them? it’s one of the coolest sci-fi rpg classes ever) but didn’t have a solid theming for it.

Guardian seems to be to defense, what fighter is to offense if you want to look at it that way. Considering commander is like the PF2 version of D&D4e's warlord, I wonder if guardian is supposed to be the PF2 take on the defender role of the 4e fighter. You could maybe look at it from that angle - a whole new fighter class!

Guardian is 100% PF2e’s take on the 4e Fighter. It evokes the exact same energy. Hopefully they add a Dex based class archetype later. One of the coolest 4e Fighter subclasses were the dual-weilding and arena subclasses and both leaning heavily on Dexterity.

On a meta level, the GM has to consider which would be more tactically engaging. If the trolls swings for the wizard first, then the guardian gets to pop off with their reaction and powerful attack, which is fun for the guardian and marks them as a dangerous obstacle. If the troll attacks the guardian, then the party gets a little extra time to get into position, while the guardian gets...

Exactly. This the taunt soft-control mechanic leads to a nice blend of mechanics and fiction. And places the GM in a position to express the personality of a monster even in a highly procedural combat as sport system like Pathfinder 2e.

WWHsmackdown wrote:

Then I win the Tank Game.....there's no lose scenario here Yurip. Taking it as a zero sum game is purely a you thing. "Wasting" feats to ensure the GM plays by my tank rules means, again, that I "win" the Tank Game. Nuclear deterrents aren't wasted just bc they're never fired ....they're actively doing the thing by just existing.

So instead, doesn't make more sense to invest into more useful feats?

No because they are already useful. Tank players love the game of influence and soft control. They play mental games with their foes by putting lose lose situations. They have fun bringing enemies towards them and have fun when enemies disregard them and punish them heavily for it.

Defense is my favorite role in these games. And I can already tell this is going to be as satisfying to play as the 4e Fighter.

YuriP wrote:

Bluemagetim wrote:

YuriP wrote:

shroudb wrote:

From the little I've seen, the main offensive capabilities of Guardians are against those who's ignore your Taunt.

So it seems counterproductive to try to build without it.

While I'm at it, if the GM (almost) never makes attacks that don't include the guardian, don't these punishing feats end up being a bit useless?

Because the punishment for attacking others without including the guardian is already quite high by default, and in roleplay terms, it probably means the enemy will hate the guardian a lot and will focus on it. Won't this mean that most of the punishing feats almost never have their requirements met?

Conceptually, it's a cool idea. But I can't really see it being used in practice except by GMs who attack randomly.

If the GM targets the guardian most of the time the party will do really well because more attacks will miss and weaker members will be able to get more aggressive. So win win.

That's not the point, the point is, if the GM is very likely to follow the Taunt, is it worth spending feats on something that will probably (almost) never be triggered?

It's like this: having a one-action “Power Attack” against provoked enemies that try to ignore you is cool, but if the GM always Taunts (which will probably be the most common), you'll, in practice, never use the feat.

I can only see these feats as “threats” to the GM, as if to say, “Look, I have feats on my sheet that will make me hit the enemy hard if you focus this enemy on me, so don't you dare!”

Since I don't think this is the case in healthy games, it ends up feeling like a waste of feats or just a weird to punish the GM NPC/Monster that doesn't want to focus on the guardian for some reason beyond the fact that it is already unfocused due to Taunt.

WWHsmackdown wrote:

I'm excited to make a two-handed guardian that can vicious swing whoever ignores me. For those that got the PDF, did any of

...

This is what I was going to get at. But you made the point way better than I could have.

I mean if I taunt three enemies and they all come after me, I feel awesome. If one doesn’t? Well I have this cool feat that lets me do more damage

Its fine if it’s not super amazing because now Final Release Guardian has a taunt that always and psychical damage resistance that always works on top of getting way better Control + Punishment feats. That being said it is still solid as it gives a Stride against a taunted foe, and thus it saves Guardian on an action on getting in.

ElementalofCuteness wrote:

YuriP wrote:

ElementalofCuteness wrote:

So their Interpose Strike! Got changed as I saw, it is not more open on damage types but you lose your 2 + Level DR for lower DR of only 11 at level 20 but you get 12 hit points, was thsi change worth it? Discuss this because I am curious!

Is this "Interpose Strike" that you are talking about the Intercept Attack, or it's another thing?

Bingo and as far as I saw it is weaker then the old Interpose Strike, I forgot it had a different name but yeah it has less DR now at a max of 11 or 16 if level 20, which is less then 22, from the Playtest and i am not sure if this is a good thing seeing how it feels like the Champion still has a better defensive reaction, especially Justice.

Guardian has a lot more active defending going for him compared to the champion. So, overall, he protects better, even if this 1 ability is weaker than the champion's 1 ability.

I don't think it's fair to compare a single ability of one class with a single ability of another class, without considering the whole kit of either class, and try to extrapolate from that about general effectiveness on a role.

Agreed. We have to consider Taunt also gives -1 circumstance penalty to attack anyone other than the Guardian AND if they disobey they become off-guard. This allows the party to save time on repositioning to flank and it rewards ranged combatants.

This is before any further investment into Taunt as a mechanic. You can also Taunt multiple times from what I can tell. I can see Stride + Striking Taunt + Taunt being something a lot of Guardians going for on a turn where they have to draw more hate.

So the main decision paths for Guardian are going to be deciding if they want to be more Sticky (the new Hampering Stance, 4th level Guardian Unique Reactive Strike, Juggernaut Charge) or more Punishing (One Action Vicious Swing v. Taunted Foe, Two-Handed Weapon, Striking Taunt). This is what the subclasses were going for in the playtest, but they removed it and put it directly into the feats and made those feats better.

A favorite of mine is the One Action Vicious Swing variant you get for when a taunted foe attacks someone without including you. Combine that with their equivalent of Stand Still at level 4 and you have a great two-handed Guardian!

This looks as awesome as the Daggerheart Guardian.

I remember in the playtest you would build up a group of abilities that you could use, but only have 5 active at a time, with a pile you could swap in for certain resources all this was represented by have, basically, a five card hand, and then a deck you would pull specific ability cards from. Am I misremembering or did that get changed?

No it didn’t get changed. But this isn’t any different than being a Wizard in d20 fantasy and changing one of your prepared spells with another by using a feat or class feature.

There is no drawing, reshuffling, or any complex mini games involving cards in the rules. Cards are much like buying a spell card deck for Pathfinder. They are used for readability and accessibility and teaching tool.

So if you have the cards you can just pick them instead or writing it down on your character sheet. If you don’t you just write your abilities down like normal.

The big meme is that D&D players can't read, so it kinda makes sense for them to not like PF that much since it requires you to read the book at least once. It doesn't sound like much, but if looking at both systems, and specially if you are used to how D&D is, PF2e is the system that has the highest entry barrier out of the two, even if it isn't as bad as people seem to think it is. If Daggerheart aims more towards rules light (which I assume it does, because when I saw it requires cards to play I immediately ignored it tbh) then if the people that made 5e popular in the first place tells them to play that system, they are likely going to at least try it out. I also think it helps that WoTC is going downhill in recent years, both as a company and in the quality of products they been releasing (at least with D&D, because I think MtG has been doing great recently, but I don't play it. I don't like TCGs if you were asking yourself that lol).

I will say this: Daggerheart does NOT require cards to play. Cards learning tool for new players and a way to avoid writing abilities on your character sheet. There are no drawing or discard mechanics or anything of the sort.

Much how like spell cards are a common prop on a real person D&D/PF2e game.

Squiggit wrote:

It would have made more sense if the class had, for instance, also gotten running reload for free as a minor example. Then there would be two things you could do to rehabilitate your action economy. Literally twice as much tactical depth to reloading!

Yep, much like the swashbuckler gets tumble through AND their special panache generation action so you have options.

And the Swashbuckler has a variety of Bravado feats to pick up to spice their gameplay even more. I recently played a Swashbuckler with the ability to use Extravagant Parry, Tumble Through, Demoralize, Enjoy the Show, and Leading Dance to get Panache. That was way more fun than the pre-master Swashbuckler days of old.

The Gunslinger got left behind in comparison.

The locked in pattern really gets me.

Ranger has this every time they want to target something else. And how little buffs you get from Huny Prey is really noticeable. It’s just not very interesting.

Gunslinger and Reloads. Especially with how Reloads are specific activities.

Magus in theory would be better but Spell Strike is so good you feel bad when you can’t keep looping into it.

The old Swashbuckler was basically reloading your melee weapon by spamming your 2 skills over and over again.

I’m glad Paizo is moving away from that kind of uninspired action tax design.

Hmm that’s incredibly interesting actually. And gives a really good action for Gunslinger, Ranger, Rogue and another Legendary Perception class that I’m not recalling right now. Also can prevent incredibly low damage turns ranged can suffer from.

I think the swashbuckler is in a way better spot now than it used to be, to the point I would love to play one in the future again, but a rogue is (and I have confirmed this) more preferable in both damage and utility unless you specifically want to play a swash for its mechanics.

Gymnast in particular is by far still the worst style. Since you can't use actions with the attack trait after using a finisher its very likely you won't be able to immediately regain panache after spending it on that same turn, not to mention the very action you use to gain that panache in the first place imposes MAP, so your finishers are also going to often have MAP too, which makes Combination Finisher a must. This means most gymnast would likely need to invest into Acrobatics since Tumble Through feels less punishing to use, unless grappling would be preferable in a particular situation.

Rascal has the same problems as gymnast but the penalty it imposes luckily stacks with off-guard, which makes it a nice support option, and braggart has the problem of having to wait 9 levels to use demoralize more than once per target. Luckily a ton of swash feats give panache now so a ton of this downsides can be "lessened", but I would really hope for the subclasses to work out of the gate and not require further investment besides skill increases into their skill.

Actually the real worst one is Battledancer since Perform does nothing. As you mentioned many feats give Bravado to any style. So Enjoy the Show/Leading Dance can be used by any Swashbuckler style thanks to the Bravado trait. Also Acrobatic Performer + Enjoy the Show is a decent combo. The wording changed to make it legal.

Also gymnast isn’t supposed to be going for damage unless you go the combination fisher/precise finisher route. If you build one you’re going to be wanting to leverage your circumstance bonus to keep grabbing and tripping. Making sure to get Reactive Strike for when they get up. On turns where you don’t need to control and need to kill you can Tumble Through and start doing Finishers.

And yes the Rogue is still better but it is also the best martial class across the entire game.

Swashbuckler is more fun though. Especially since now you aren’t forced to spam. Grab varied Bravado feats and go to town!

My 'worst' classes are the Gunslinger & Swashbuckler.

As mentioned above, the Gunslinger is crit-fishing. Which isn't a style of play I enjoy. Mind you, I quite enjoyed my PF1 Gunslinger, but he had a few things going for him that aren't available in PF2. Also, the Gunslinger has to pick a "Way of..." option, that locks him into a particular mode. Like the Druid above.

As to the Swashbuckler, he suffers from gated damage. He has to get Panache, or his damage is pitiful. Then he has to hit while expending Panache... which means he has to succeed in two different rolls in the same round to get anywhere. I played an Operative in Starfinder and learned to loath this frustrating mechanic. Nothing has changed since then.

Swashbuckled got fixed to get Panache on a failure. They also always get their regular damage boost feature. And they don’t have to spam the same actions anymore as a lot of their feats grant Panache. They also get a circumstance bonus to any check that would give them panache.

They can get Panache when an enemy missed them with various feats.
All Swashbucklers can get Panache for aiding (even while failing it) if they grab the feat.
All Swashbucklers can grab Enjoy the Show or Leading Dance to get Panache.
and more

The class now works as martial buffer/debuffer/controller very well. Now a very solid class. Its no Barbarian/Fighter/Rogue but no other martial class is.

They don’t have lower bonus its a choice between consistency vs reliability. Which is the main choice between firearms and crossbows.

I can’t believe me —a certified gunslinger hater— is defending it right now.

Claxon wrote:

Respectfully, the math shows that even with the action compression available to the gunslinger for firearms, firearms tend to fall short compared to simply using a bow.

Yes the gunslinger can use guns better than anyone else.

But everyone else looks at guns and goes "why would I bother?"

I would prefer that if we're going to have guns, that they be viable in some capacity for any class, and then the gunslinger get to do something special with them (not just fix the problems they have).

That's kind of the point though. Firearms are inferior except by those that know how to use them. And this has real life historical precedence as well. Early firearms where inferior to bows and crossbows and then when they improved they where still incredibly slow to load so you had pike and shot formations that kept the firearms wielders from being overran by others.

Honestly Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 does a wonderful depiction of how early firearms 'handcannone' where more psychological then practical weapons.

Complaining about their lack of damage when they have fatal trait compared to deadly traits merely reinforces why Deadly is a horribly designed trait which should never have been implemented and is why weapons like the rapier always get used. And why no one that can use a bow over a crossbow ever uses a crossbow.

In a combat as sport, balanced, tactical game like PF2e having a whole weapon class be bad and awful on every class except 1 (besides Deft Exemplars I guess) is not good design. It’s triple blocked by uncommon class, uncommon weapon, and reloading. It also means gunslinger spends to much budget on making a bad option work which means it is wasting time getting to the baseline (bows).

We also have weird situations were the gunslinger is a master of more weapons than the fighter from levels 5-18. (One group vs combination/crossbow/fire arm)

It also leads to lame situations like playing in Alkenstar and only having one viable gun user unless people double on class. And most people don’t like doubling up on classes in their long term campaign party.

And finally, realism is not a concern of this game.

We need more ranged feats like the ones from Sniping Duo. A good archetype that spices up even the most boring of turrets.

Good ranged meta feats is certainly a start.

My main pain point is not even related to gunslingers: For our Outlaws of Alkenstar campaign, everybody wanted to use firearms, but only the Gunslinger can overcome the horrid action cost of reload.

A Thaumaturge with an air repeater is mechanically sound, but who wants to walk around with a toy weapon in a city of gun smiths?

I would prefer if there were other benefits of being a Gunslinger instead of being the class that can actually use firearms outside of some niche combos like investigator+risky reload.
Using the archetype lets you wait forever to get something but risky reload, and even that is a lvl 4 feat.

Yeah an Outaws party who wants to use guns are basically stuck with being Whoops All Gunslingers!

The need for the triple whammy of bad weapon type, class restriction, and uncommon is way too much. People who don’t like firearms will just not use them or the GM will point to uncommon and ban them. It also didn’t help that new class design was way too conservative back then.

I agree with the other comments that the Gunslinger suffers from having to bend over backwards to make reload weapons better to use. It's not great being "the crappy weapon class", and despite how many features revolve around action compression and damage boosters I don't think the Gunslinger really solved that problem either.

I do think the issues go a bit deeper, however:

The Gunslinger exists in a game that already has the Fighter, so they weren't allowed to be a damage machine in the same way. Instead, they were given a bit of utility on the side, sometimes, and that bit wasn't fleshed out all that consistently.

Ranged weapon combat in 2e isn't fully fleshed-out IMO, because it lacks the action costs and positioning-based gameplay of melee, and thus forces ranged weapons to be balanced around being much weaker than melee weapons to compensate. This still makes it all too easy for ranged martials to go into turret mode and spam the same attacks, and the Gunslinger's solution was to seemingly have half of their subclasses force them into melee range, which doesn't feel terribly appropriate.

The class's crit-fishing isn't super well-implemented, because not all firearms cater to this (so the Gunslinger doesn't make great use of many guns), and fishing for crits at range is far more difficult than in melee.

So in this respect, I agree with Fabios: the Gunslinger doesn't have a super-solid mechanical identity, because most of their mechanics are about remediating systemic problems they have to deal with rather than giving them something to do that stands out. They deal damage but not really enough to write home about, they have a smidgen of utility but nothing others can't do better, and their core gameplay mostly revolves around dealing with the clunk of their designated weapons.

I think there are at least two ways to address some of the class's issues: one drastic approach could be to roll the Gunslinger into the Fighter, and have the latter inherit their gun-based feats, and another...

I’m in favor of rolling Gunslinger into Fighter and spreading a ton of reload feats into Fighter, Inventor, Investigator, Monk, Magus, Ranger, Rogue, and Swashbuckler (one handed only). Then we could turn Gunslinger into a Wild West/Ronin class. That way its based more on the tropes of spaghetti westerns and lone ronin samurai flicks rather than just be the only class that should bother with guns. Call it the Drifter and now you have design and narrative space.

Also a weird quirk of Fighters having to specialize from 5th-18th level is that they become worse weapon masters than Gunslingers for most of the game. One weapon vs improved proficiency at Crossbows, Firearms, and Combination.

YuriP wrote:

There's no game mechanics balance reason to not make the change. But there's a thematic reason to do it.

I'm just going to remind you again that restrictions are thematic, you even admit that it's thematic for, like, every other martial, just that the fact the Fighter doesn't linearly get it's restriction apparently breaks something for you.

Given how Mauler and Archer remaster went, it's far more likely to just bake in the stepped proficiency at level 1 and replacing Versatile Legend at 19 than removing it.

(Presumably, that also solves your and OP's problem, because your problem seems to be that it's inconsistent and you agree classes can have thematic exclusions, right?)

That would be almost just as fine, except that the intent of their versatile swappable feats makes less sense than they already do. At least it can be used for its intended purpose at 19th-20th level instead of it just being extra feats.

Yeah this whole add extra crit spec stuff doesn’t make sense. The fighter is already adding extra effects with their feats and these extra effects tend to improve with criticals.

For example my Fighter uses Combat Assessment to strike and recall knowledge and gets a +2 bonus on a critical hit to the recall knowledge check. We have Intimidating Strike that makes the target frightened 2 on a hit. And many more.

If anything a feat to give effects the fighter grievous rune on their weapons but without the rune cost would make more sense.

As a 4th level Fighter going into 5th level soon it does sure suck knowing that I’ll be stuck with one group the rest of the game. Being able to switch to hammers to deal with skeletons was really fun. So was being able to see a new weapon and use it. Especially in APs where they can be relevant and thematic to the campaign. It also hurts because Fighters only get crit spec if they are Master while most martials have a wider access to crit specs.

Sure runes are limiting but every class has to deal with them.

The first time I read about focus powers, I laughed so hard it startled people nearby. I was CACKLING. "They did it! Pathfinder has looped around to being the game that it was the substitute for!". Something is so perfect about the full circle nature of it.

If we're getting obscure enough to get to the 4e style Runesmith, I hope one day we can get the 4e Ardent. It had a really strong thematic and roleplay hook built right into its mechanics, which PF2E tends to do well especially lately. You were a psionic "emotions knight"- your psychic powers weren't focused on raw intelligence and mental control, but about absorbing and projecting emotions.

You walk by the funeral of a man you've never met, and you pick up their emotions so hard that you start crying too. But it also means that you can force enemies to become so depressed they can't even bother fighting for their lives in combat, or inspire your teammates with so much of each other's adrenaline that everyone can shrug off exhaustion and injury.

It clearly started off as just the combination of "power source + team role" that all 4e classes are- a "Psionic + Leader". But it has such amazing story potential! Such fun themes!

And it didn't hurt that their mechanics were fun, too! You attack so much based on raw psionically powered enthusiasm or seriousness, you use charisma to attack.

I liked how the class it was 4th Edition's version of Star War's Battle Meditation. A PF2e version of the Ardent can smash that and the Battlemind into one full class easily.

Man I’m really hoping Guardian got the craziest playtest to final rework in history. It was just a mess. I really want another out of the box Defender that isn’t Reach/Shield Fighter, Wood, Kin or “Good” Champion.

I have full faith in Commander. Despite Strike Hard being way too good, the class was incredibly fun to play.

Some good Fury Barbarian feats would be nice. xD

Would be interesting to see class archetypes for Investigator or Ranger that tie more into warfare. Would also want to get a Bard class archetype similar to Battle Harbinger.

And finally more combat skill feats for undercooked skills. Survival seems like a good candidate for War themed combat skill feats.

A shame, because no frills jus pure martial rage is my favorite Barbarian.

Sucks that 90% of Barbarians are some form of magic and that the one that isn’t is just barely supported and cursed with worse damage and no upsides. D&D 5e also had this issue with the Berserker being very mid.

Speaking as an organized play GM with lots of gaming experience—no class goes down in fights more often than rogues. I have numerous players who’ve complained that they go down in nearly every fight that doesn’t have a dedicated healer buffing them.

I don’t mind that they eventually get three good saves.

Hmm

Frankly, the players weren't playing Rogue correctly. Rogues don't go down faster in any significant way compared to other d8 classes. This is not a knock on them, as it takes time to get good at playing any class. And at low levels lets be frank everyone is going down fast. Even the Barbarian can get snuffed by a +1 monster's critical hit.

They should be skirmishing around the battlefield, especially when fighting higher-level foes. Against lower-level foes, they are immune to being flatfooted. They also have solid saves and do excellent damage. When they can't do damage, they have plenty of skill feats to do something else. They have DEX so they can easily retreat to the backline, hide to get flatfooted, drop their weapon and then use quick draw to apply sneak attack. Thus, they are one of the best switch hitters.

My Rogue player has gone down the least in my current campaign. And now they at high levels with legendary sneak and foil senses it is pretty much in the best interest of enemies to ignore them. They're pretty much the MVP.

This buff won't help most society players anyway as very rarely are characters hitting 9th level. This feature is coming online at a time where Rogues have found ways to be able to avoid being in the thick of things and are starting to pile on more and more damage. They don't need the help. The class is well designed and already top tier.

I think this game is going to have some very nice immersive sim qualities or at the very least allow for some very varied encounters and solutions.

They are letting characters jump, climb, and create ways to climb when you are normally can't. And then eventually players will be flying around. I also believe one of the lead designers said (when asked) that they are making the game heavily system based so if you manage to get somewhere that would be incredibly unlikely, that the game will be able to account for it.

I wouldn't be surprised if maybe they get inspired by the Make an Impression/Attitude systems to do a basic disposition system like Morrowind or Oblivion.

I'm not expecting Baldurs Gate 3 or Tears of the Kingdom levels of systemic driven gameplay: but just having a basic generic persuasion system, a stealth system, spells, and vertical movement, should make this game at least move it towards the level of design.

As opposed to a modern Bioware game or CD Project game which go for a traditional scripted game design.

A monk class archetype, that lower's attack proficiency to let them become legendary in unarmored defense, allow the monk dodge tank to be fully realized.

The monk already gets legendary in unarmored defense.

I think most games with indepth character creation and heroic fantasy like PF2e should just adopt the Fabula Ultima approach: You choose when your character dies. If you choose for your character to live the bad guys advance plans. If you choose for your character to die it decelerates the bad guys plans as you sacrifice yourself.

Maybe in PF3e we’ll see something like that.

One of my players is playing a Swash and has a tekko-kagi. Agile + Freehand + Disarm is decently solid as he's always drawing and throwing bombs.

I also played a Swashbuckler that used Scorpion Whip for reach with Guardian's Deflection and then Reactive Strike. Disarm + Finesse + Trip with one-hand is a very good set of traits.

TheWayofPie wrote:

Swashbuckler trades the versatility and damage of a rogue for better survivability and being exceptionally good at skills in combat. Any roll with the Bravado trait gets a +1 circumstance bonus. At 9th level it increases to +2.

This is correct but also-

It's kind of wild to me that "worse damage but better at certain skills" is the direction they took the swash relative to the rogue.

It is a little strange.

I guess they decided Skill Versatility vs Skill Specialization.

Hello people, a question, playing with Swash, what should I expect from the class?What would be its cornerstone, what makes it unique? Damage? Support? Maneuver? You know that kind of thing? In a game using FA for example, can I play healer with Swash? Grateful!

Swashbuckler trades the versatility and damage of a rogue for better survivability and being exceptionally good at skills in combat. Any roll with the Bravado trait gets a +1 circumstance bonus. At 9th level it increases to +2.

So first off you need to decide if your Swashbuckler is going to focus on damage or not. If they are you need to decide if you’re going for one bit hit or multiple attacks.

For big hits you want to get the biggest damage die or a trait like deadly or fatal on your weapons. Make sure you apply conditions and get flat footed. Your go to finisher will likely be Bleeding Finisher at 8th level.

Or you can go Normal + Finisher. This DRP focused Swahbuckler highly values an agile weapon and Combination Finisher and Precise Finisher feats.

If you don’t want to focus on damage you can focus on maneuvers and the variety of Bravado actions Swashbucklers gain to debuff their foes. A favorite of mine is taking Goading Feint, Enjoy the Shadow and Antagonize to debuff the hell out of an enemy and force it to come to you. Combine Reactive Strike, Trips, Disarms, and Grapples to turn yourself into a Defender. A Swashbuckler who really wants to forgo damage all together eventually gets Derring-Do to roll twice on their debuffs/control/tanking abilities.

As for a Healer Swash there is no innate synergy besides a Finisher that gives temporary hit points to the party. If you did want to play one you would take Rascal Style to not have to increase Charisma or Strength at all. Just focus on Dex, Wisdom, and Con. Then grab the Medic Archetype, and eventually Blessed One.

Here is a good off-tank build.

Style: Braggart

STR +2, DEX +4, CON +1, WIS +0, INT +0, CHA +2

Natural Ambition: Disarming Flair (Another way to get Panache)/You're Next (Probably will Errata'd to work like Remastered Rogues)
Level 1: Extravagant Parry
Level 2: Antagonize
Level 4: Enjoy the Show (Wording Allows Acrobatic Performer to work if you want to)
Level 6: Reactive Strike
Level 8: Filler (Probably Stunning Finisher if you're leaning on disabling enemies)
Level 10: Reflexive Riposte (if you want to punish more on miss)/Derring-Do (if you want to lean more into your debuffs)

They’ve always been that way by default in PF2e. I don’t know why the One-Hit playstyle is being touted as a new thing.

That being said if you want flurry of attacks Swashbuckler one would take Combination and Precise Finisher at the earliest opportunity. My only gripe with it is Combination Finisher should be an earlier feat. Like 2nd or 4th level to get the build online early.

Flurry style Sashbucklers also want to take advantage of the agile trait and pick up The Bigger They Are at later tier 3 play.

And finally Eternal Confidence at 19th level allows Confident/Precise Finisher to apply to all other Finishers. This is when you would grab Perfect Finisher to maximize the chance of your MAP attack working. Then the new 20th level feat that lets you do two Finishers at once and even apply Bravado to the strike.

Even without those feats Normal Strike + Confident Finisher tends to do more DPR than just a Confident Finisher.

Swashbuckler Dedication should at the very least give a nerfed Panache speed bonus. I imagine they wanted to avoid making other classes using the panache skill buffs better than Swashbuckler, but just getting nothing from it sucks.

I do agree that Investigator can fumble pretty badly if the player does not bother to prepare extra things they can do. I would say that it is not unlike a caster in that sense. That being said, every subclass is dedicated on an activity to focus on.

But remaster did lead the player to this conclusion better because of Skill Strategem.

And of course, the subclasses always did this pre-remaster.

Alchemical Sciences to prepare useful alchemical elixirs and tools.
Empiricism to Recall Knowledge efficiently.
Forensic Medicine to be a solid martial healer with little investment.
Interrogation to focus on Charisma skills.

And GM fiat is a small problem. I saw a YouTube comment that said they're only allowing Investigators to use free action DaS against mini-bosses or above which is absolutely ridiculous use of GM fiat.

I GM'd forgetting about the free action devise and my new player said she said she would rather just not use it anymore with how punishing that ability feels.

A GM should for the most part reward the free DaS as long as the investigator player is playing the investigation minigame. It is good role and rollplay. Players are rewarded heavily for indulging in the class fantasy. That is good design, even if it relies on fiat that a game like this tends to avoid.

While not as blatantly an upgrade as the new Swash is, I like it a lot and the class has a good place in the game now.

But anyway, maybe I should just make an Investigator thread before I go off topic.

Yeah, that +1/+2 to skills with the bravado trait is IMO more than enough to compensate having less damage than a rogue.

Investigators in the other hand...

Remaster Investigators also get +1/+2 and supposedly eventually +3. Their Devise a Strategem is actually much more lenient that it was before upon further examination. So as long as they are proactively behaving as an investigator, they should almost always have a free action DaS.

Investigators aren't about damage anyway. They are about being proactive during quests and in doing so are able to use their superior intellect to foresee how their offensive action will go. The vast majority of the time, a remastered Investigator should only have to pay the action cost if they aren't behaving as they should.

Wizards confused on why they don't get that same nice Recall Knowledge feat from Arcane Bloodlines.

I’m cool with tankier and less damage as the Swash’s thing. They also always have +1 or +2 circumstance to any check with bravado trait making them the “Skill Focus” class when it comes to Strength, Dexterity, and Charisma.

BadLuckGamer just dropped the giga sized Swashbuckler video.

This is the most buffed class in the system. Swashbucklers are now way less one trick pony thanks to the huge variety of bravado traits. A very noticeable feat is one that lets you draw a weapon and perform a finisher in one action. And it can be any finisher you qualify for.

Karmagator wrote:

Guntermench wrote:

It was always a good class. Really didn't need like 6 separate buffs.

It was always an ok class, with lots of little and not so little problems. These buff look like they really make it shine, so I'm happy.

I dunno, I played the class for three years in multiple games and still don't think it really needed any of this. Let alone all of it.

Your in the minority. Swashbuckler being my first class I must say it is quite mediocre in performance until high levels when Skills start outscaling DCs and they start getting good outlier feats like Bleeding Finisher.

Yeah these Fury feats are awful. So once a day I can reduce single digit damage? Nice!

I don’t know why Fury just can’t catch a break.

TheWayofPie wrote:

they do get auto scaling to Acrobat or their style skill.

It's not quite auto-scaling. They get an additional skill increase at 3rd, 7th and 15th level and can use those only on acrobatics or their style skill. You don't need to spend all those increases on the same skill.

(You will likely end up doing it regardless, but you don't have to.)

You’re right. It’s even better.

And funny enough it’s pretty much exactly like the homebrew I made for the game I’m running.

Good news saw on reddit that +1 circumstance bonus to Bravado checks increases to +2 at 9th level. On top of that they do get auto scaling to Acrobat or their style skill.

This pretty much means that when it comes to their style they are best in game in using those skills in combat.

I also imagine that it’s not really a thing developers are able to Yay or Nay easily. Developers are a little concerned about their calls being used as a bludgeon. So if it’s a mistake, it makes sense that they’d rather not confirm or deny.

Even if it was on purpose I’ve removed it from my games. Rogue is already an awesome class and it doesn’t really need it.

It seems like some designers assigned to Player Core have had more time and desire to change classes than others.

Ranger is just sitting there confused as heck, while Wizard is wondering why it’s other subclasses besides Universalist exist.

Barbarian and Rogue are just laughing at how much murder they got away with. My old Barb wasn’t exactly struggling!