Revised Swashbuckler Discussion

[Westley Roberts]

Lord_Malkov wrote:

I think that the Dex-Damage feat that may be coming might be something that solves the level 1 problem assuming that the only prerequisites are Dex X and Weapon Finesse.

Hopefully the Dex-to-Damage feat will be able to be taken at level 1.

Currently, the only way to get Dex-to-Damage at level 1 is to play a Dawnflower Dervish. My PFS Dawnflower Dervish did 1d6+9 when Battle Dancing, or 1d6+7 when not Battle Dancing.

The bad fortitude save on the Dawnflower Dervish is mitigated by the ability to cast Saving Finale as an immediate action whilst Dervish Dancing when you reach level 4.

[Westley Roberts]

Re: Useable Weapons

I would just like to say I want the Swashbuckler to be able to use more weapons with his class features without having to pay a feat tax.

As the class currently stands, Dervish Dance builds will dominate. The new Dex-to-Damage feat will mitigate this however.

The Slashing Grace feat allows Swashbucklers to do something I feel they should be able to do without a feat. Maybe Swashbucklers could just get this feat at level 1 as a bonus feat.

Currently, a katana is horrible weapon for a Swashbuckler to use - you have to expend two feats - EWP and Slashing Grace to use it. You would do better to use those two feats for Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization.

Longswords are also a worse option than a Rapier, but they require a feat to use. Aldori Duelling Swords actually fare even worse, as they become no better than a regular Longsword in the hands of a Swashbuckler.

[Malachi Silverclaw]

Any designer feedback on our feedback?

[Starfox]

DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

Rapid Strike
Prerequisites: Weapon Finesse
Benefit: When you make a full attack with a single one handed weapon that benefits from weapon finesse you may make an extra attack at your full Base Attack Bonus. All attacks this round take a -2 penalty.

I actually used a feat like this in 3.5. A swashbuckler (3.5)/bladesinger used this to level 20. It worked but, but felt a bit on the strong side.

[hoborider]

Ok - played around a bit.

If there is a dex to damage feat coming - great. If not, I will make one and house rule it as allowable. Otherwise this class really isn't that great. Worse than gunslinger which sucks until you CAN add dex to damage.

With dex to damage this class becomes amazing.

I haven't come up with a clever name yet. Swashbuckler's Strike - or something. Available at 3rd lvl I think to be fair.

Other things I will do if it isn't done in the finished product - create a weapons list that swashbucklers can use that fit thematically (sorry - NO KATANAS!!!). Rapier, Cutlass, dagger, perhaps scimitar, and some others. Throwing knives for sure. Also - exclude silly things that are currently allowed by the vague weapons proficiency wording (sorry - NO JAVELINS!)

For anyone that thinks swashbucklers should use a Katana - please show me how that fits thematically. You want to play a Katana-wielding badass? Play a far-east class.

--EDIT: Forgot to add my 2 cents on Parry/Riposte. I like it. No - I love it. Except the -2 per size category larger. At first this makes perfect sense. They're bigger. Harder to block. Physics 101 stuff. BUT!!!!!!! Monks can deflect bullets with their bare hands. SOOOOOO!!!!! Yeah. Fix that. Either take that power away from Monks or remove the penalty for Parry/Riposte.

--EDIT 2: Swashbuckler finesse - allow Char instead of Int for all the combat maneuver things. Just makes sense and seems RAI vs RAW.

--EDIT 3: Love the Slashing Grace feat. Allows for the useage of a wider array of weapons. I would keep this as a feat to open the door for useage of weapons that don't thematically fit with swashbuckler (see my comment about weapon list above) - Greatsword comes to mind.

Also - hoping for a bump in fort save category. If not - this would be another house rule. For a tank-esque class, you certainly need the slightly better fort save.

In the end - great class. Really truly fun to play (even the circumstantial things under panache that some here are commenting on).

As others have said - this class seems tailor-made for the halflings. Which is awesome. Who doesn't like halflings?

A halfling dual-wielding keen rapiers would be fairly deadly. In fact - I rolled one up with my above house rules and they are deadly. Able to keep pace with tanks as long as they aren't absorbing too much damage.

[hoborider]

Starfox wrote:

I thought of some more things that I think no-one has mentioned.

AC and Parry have a negative synergy - the more AC you have, the less benefit you get out of parry. This means that Strength and Parry have a positive synergy compared to Dexterity and Parry. Both Strength And Dex makes you better at hitting, and thus at parrying, but since Dex also increases your AC Strength gets a larger net benefit from parry. Strength really did not need another thing going for it.

Also, some other things that are pretty obvious, but I've not seen anyone point out:

Parry and Power Attack have a negative synergy - Power Attack makes you worse at parrying.

Fighting defensively and parry have an extreme negative synergy - fighting defensively both increases AC and punishes parry.

I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around this concept. Could you explain how having higher AC reduces Parry?

[hoborider]

And one more thing - haven't seen this brought up yet - racial favored class bonus - Halfling +1 panache. Houserule if it doesn't become official.

[Malachi Silverclaw]

Hoborider wrote:

I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around this concept. Could you explain how having higher AC reduces Parry?

Conceptually, the whole point of a parry is to turn what would be a hit into a miss.

Under the current parry rules, you don't wait for an attack to hit, then try to parry it (it would be a better mechanic if it worked like that, and better AC wouldn't make parrying worse).

If the baddy has a 50% chance to hit your AC, then your parry (and the Panache you spent to attempt the parry) is wasted 50% of the time, because the attack would have missed anyway!

If your AC is so high that the baddy has only, say, a 10% chance to hit you, then choosing to spend 1 Panache (and an AoO) to attempt to parry it ( before the baddy rolls his attack, per these rules) has a 90% chance to waste that Panache.

One reason to try it anyway is that Riposte is triggered by a 'successful' parry, and 'success' here is not turning a hit into a miss but winning the opposed attack roll. So high or low AC doesn't make a difference here. But you can only Riposte once per round.

[Throne]

hoborider wrote:

And one more thing - haven't seen this brought up yet - racial favored class bonus - Halfling +1 panache. Houserule if it doesn't become official.

You will be infinitely better off setting that as +1/4 Panache point per level.

That keeps it in-line with other favoured class bonuses that award bonus resources (Arcane Pool, Grit, etc). +1/level will get silly, fast.
(I'm also willing to bet money that we'll see the +1/4 panache point as a common racial favoured class award)

[Sean K Reynolds]

Oops, all threads in the ACG playtest folder were supposed to be locked when the playtest closed. Fixed!