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I ran a very brief (so far 1 shot) playtest that involved a level 5 swashbuckler. He had 3 NPCs out the NPC Codex. A level 5 bard, cleric, and rogue. During this playtest, it was almost exclusively a dungeon crawl. During which he encountered a few groups of enemies, traps, locked/jammed doors, a few skill checks, and one "boss" encounter at the end.
The results:
Swashbuckler is a "slow and steady" class. He almost always fought defensively, getting his AC to a 26, and relied on attacks of opportunity (combat reflexes) to get the job done. Damage output was still effective.
Swashbuckler works well with others. During the encounter, he was a great asset to the rouge and bard as he provided flanking, and "DPS" (absorbed a lot of attention from enemies). The bards inspire courage was enough to offset the accuracy penalty for fighting defensively.
Swashbuckler is very MAD. As the class clearly relies on at least 3 ability scores to be effective. The class needs a good STR as any melee class should. He needs a good CHA for his panache ability, and a good DEX to offset the AC and weapon finesse. The player put this class solidly next to the Monk in terms of requiring good ability scores and anything less than a 20pt buy is just not worth playing.
Swashbuckler is a very narrow class...almost too narrow. There will be almost no distinction between one swashbuckler and the next (much like the gunslinger). That being said, it is very good at what it does.
The skills the Swashbuckler posses make it still effective during a crawl and out of combat utility. However, the class posses almost no class features that are useful out-of-combat other than skills.
The player enjoyed himself while playing and enjoyed the class. I asked him to rate the class on a 1 to 5 scale. He said "a 4/5. The only reason for the loss of a point is because he feels the class is too narrow and lacks any flexibility to be a base class. This might be better suited as a alternate class."