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Level 3 swashbuckler running through dragons demand part 1 for PFS.
Str-5
Dex-17
con-14
int-12
wis-14
Cha-16
Traits: Blade of mercy (deal subdual without penalty and do +1 subdual damage), Muscle of the society
This is a PFS character, and my SOP with DM credit is to say pbthtthths to first level.
1st: Swashbuckler 1 Extra Panache
2nd: Dawnflower Dervish Dancing Bard 1
3rd: Swashbuckler 2 Combat reflexes
Damage: MW Scimitar +6 for 1d6+4 subdual damage (+3 dex +1 trait)
AC: 17 (+4 from darkcloth studded leather armor +1
(I'd probably reverse the first two levels if I were playing through first level, but this way is 2 extra HP and I don't need to spend a level plunking away with a crossbow)
Hey, how come you're not falling over?
The muscle of the society trait keeps the effective strength at 7 for encumbrance purposes. 1 rank in handle animal for a pack dog, darkleaf studded leather armor for half the weight and he's good.
[spoiler=This is a swashbuckler playtest, whats with the level of dervish?]
Part of the point of a playtest is to see what players are going to do with the class "in the wild" and that includes combining it with other classes/archetypes out there. The dervish dancing bard gets damage to dex, shores up the will save, lets you activate CLW wands, and gives you some nice mobility spells (featherstep and expeditious retreat in this case), and gets you the free dervish dancing feat. Getting dex to damage is almost mandatory on a dex build, and its either the bard dip or waste 2 feats (as currently written, will probably be 1 feat once finesse moves to level 1) Variations on this are definitely going to be one of the big cookie cutter builds.
Fight 1: Kobolds in tight spaces.
A good acrobatics score was great for pulling a matrix, running up the wall and flipping over the kobolds head in bullet time. Spend a point of penache, flip over the kobolds head, knock it on the head with the flat of the blade, get penache point back. Get attacked by the other kobold, spend 2 penache to parry/riposte knock kobold out and collect another penache point. Instead of worrying through the paper with an eraser I was using some polished stones to keep track of penache
because it comes and goes so quickly on this build.
Fight 2: Kobolds on a cliff.
Since I was level 3 with a bunch of level 1's I volunteered for guard duty over the priso... our new boss. could have easily made the climb/jump rolls and reaked some havok though.
Fight 3: Over too fast to contribute. A good diplomacy score was helpful though.
Fight 4: Party fall down da hoooooole
Easily jump over an obstacle, miss a kobold, miss an attack of opportunity, parry an attack knock kobold out. The damage isn't very high but against anything that swings at me its VERY consistent.
Fight 5: Turtle soup
The rogues went ahead and ran into some trouble. Ran up to heal one , then whacked a turtle for a little damage and provided flanking. Having a free hand without a shield in it is actually kind of handy.
Fight 6: Skeletons and a necromancer
Skeletons.... I'd pick up a darkwood morning star, except losing dex to damage is probably more loss of damage than their DR.
Fortunately the boss is both a more important target and not immune to a slashy slashy scimitar. Against a magic using boss type (are there other boss types?) the damage is very Meh (1d6+5) because the boss isn't swinging at me to feed the parry/riposte machine. A crit to the boss drops him anyway, netting two panache to refill the pool.
Fight 7: Sticky situation
Party gets webbed in the hall. Yay insane reflex save. Expeditious retreat the way into the fight, Ko a kobold. Whack a boss for meh damage, he moves away and casts mirror image. Whack an Image, party sets up a flank sandwich and downs him.
Overall:
The damage is Meh. It however gets better next level and starts to scale from there. I don't see it ever getting near a 2 handed fighters.
The AC seems well enough without a shield. You get hit, thats what wands of CLW are for.
Its a mook killer: you can walk through a pile of mooks drawing Aoes all day parry riposte parry riposte. They swing at you, you stab them. It has a little more trouble with bosses, who have more HP and more often than not don't need to swing at you.
Setting up a standard operating procedure for the parry before hand was definitely helpful: in this case i always try to parry/riposte with 2 panache or higher. It went faster than I expected it to.