RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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Hi everyone,
I just thought I'd quickly give my two cents on the Swashbuckler that one of my players rolled up for our Skull & Shackles game. So far, we've only had one session, and the Swashbuckler can definitely hold its own (as it should, in a pirate-themed campaign). I'd like to point out that Daring-do gives the player some serious advantages for several of the on-ship jobs that involve Climb, Swim or Acrobatics checks. He also built the character to be very Charisma-focused, and he's blowing through the Diplomacy checks to make the crew members like the party.
Overall, the Swashbuckler doesn't feel overpowered or anything to me. One thing that I think needs fixed is that you can technically use a morningstar or a "mere club" along with the Swashbuckler's Finesse ability (since they are both bludgeoning and piercing) and i don't think that was intended. I don't think it's game-breaking or anything, just feels silly.
I am re-writing a few of the NPCs in the game using the new classes to test those out as well. One thing that I've already determined is that the Warpriest definitely does need some boosts to its effectiveness, as shown in the spoiler below.
When I rebuilt Sandara Quinn from Cleric of Besmara 3 to Warpriest of Besmara 3, she became unquestionably worse overall, with losing 2nd level spells and domain spells and reducing the number of times per day she can use her Blessing/Domain powers (with the Domains, she could use each of them 3 + Wis times per day, with the Blessings the two powers share 3 + Wis uses per day) to only gain a single extra feat (which I used to give her Bodyguard).
I'll update this thread as my players interact with more of the NPCs, and to give more info on the Swashbuckler's progression through the game.
Tyler
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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Update:
So, we had our second session last night, and my Swashbuckler player had JUST enough time to update his character sheet with the new version of the playtest. He's excited about the new feat, Slashing Grace, which will let him use a cutlass instead of the rapier he's currently using. He plans to retrain at 5th level to use the cutlass as his main weapon (I forget why he decided he didn't want to do that now, at first level, but I'll see if he'll post his reasoning here after me).
He again did very well with many of his skill checks, especially now that more skills have been added to the options for Derring-do. His Perception check is the one thing that's really slowing him down, as he dumped Wisdom and it's not one of the options for Derring-do.
In combat, dodging panache is super useful and he was able to avoid being poisoned by a Reefclaw , which would have sucked. I also saw him use Opportune Parry and Riposte to great effect against the same Reefclaw in another round.
As far as my rebuild of Sandara goes:
Wow, this update fixed pretty much every issue that I had with rebuilding Sandara from Cleric to Warpriest.
She now has a +6 to her attack with her masterwork rapier (compared to a +4 as a Cleric), she still has the copycat ability to make illusory copies of herself, she can heal herself with fervor up to 5 times per day (though she will be using at least one of those each day for a swift action buff of protection from evil or divine favor) and if she's prepared to do battle, she can use ice strike (gained from the Water blessing) on her rapier to get an additional 1d4 cold damage.
She's missing out on 2nd level spells, which stinks, but I gave her a couple of scrolls of instant armor to compensate for that loss. She also gained a bonus feat compared to her Cleric version, so I gave her Bodyguard, so that she can help the PCs out a bit more in combat.
Overall, I feel like these new classes are fitting very well into the world of Skull & Shackles, and I haven't seen anything yet that will break the game. We left this session with the PCs spotting a ship off in the distance, so the next time we play (sadly it's a month from now because of the holidays) we will see how their hand-to-hand combat goes.
I'm playing the swashbuckler in Cartmanbeck's campaign, and it seems there was a slight miscommunication about the future of my character.
Instead of a scimitar, my character is going to use a dueling sword. I am looking at going into swordlord. They gain dueling mastery as a bonus feat (level 1 class ability, 6th character level in my case)which has an important line of text. "Although the dueling sword inflicts slashing damage, you treat it as if it were also a piercing weapon when determining the effects of weapons used by a duelist." We are going under the assumption that this will be revised to work for swashbuckler.
As it stands, I could use the dueling sword with the swashbuckler with the slashing grace, but it would still not work with weapon finesse. If I added exotic weapon proficiency, it would then work with all abilities and use my dex mod instead of str. There are several problem with this plan. First, I would not be able to have both of these feats until 3rd level. Second, at 6th level slashing grace would become redundant with the ability from dueling mastery. Finally, Swordlord requires more feats than I would have available at that time, and I would have to wait to join the class until I could acquire more feats.
Instead of that system, I have opted to simply build my swashbuckler around the rapier for the first levels, and retrain some feats at the last minute before joining swordlord.
My feat progression will look something like this:
1: Weapon Focus (rapier) > Retrained to: Exotic Weapon Proficiency (dueling sword)
3: Combat Reflexes > Retrained to: Weapon Focus (dueling sword)
4: Bonus Feat: Weapon Specialization (rapier) > Retrained to Weapon Specialization (dueling sword)
5: Dazzling Display (unchanged)
jooker
I have some good news for you...slashing grace will work with swashbuckler finesse
feat
Slashing Grace
Choose one type of one-handed slashing weapon.
Prerequisites: Dex 13, Weapon Finesse, proficient with
chosen weapon.
Benefit: When wielding your chosen weapon one
handed, you can treat it as a one-handed piercing weapon
for all feats and class abilities that require such a weapon
(such as swashbuckler’s precise strike). The weapon must
be one for your size.
swashbuckler finesse
Swashbuckler Finesse (Ex): At 1st level, a swashbuckler
gains the benefits of the Weapon Finesse feat with light
or one-handed piercing melee weapons, and she can
use her Charisma score in place of Intelligence as a
prerequisite for Combat Expertise. This ability counts as
having the Weapon Finesse feat for purposes of meeting
feat prerequisites.
The bolded lines show that RAW you are good to go. I'm thinking about making some chanegs myself for my S%S swashbuckler thanks to this.