Ok so there's a tone of other examples of ideas for this kind of class on here, often using the samurai as a base or a whole new class. But I finished this before I remembered there was a homebrew section on here, so I thought I might as well add my thoughts and preferences to the pile and hopefully get feedback to make sure it's not horrendously broken.
What I've done is mostly just take existing mechanics from elsewhere and swap them in, in a way I hope is balanced. Also I'm aware of Everyman Gaming's Ronin archetype, but it doesn't quite scratch the itch for me, tho I have swiped two things from it which I will point out below.
So for me the key aspects of the way these types of characters fight (tho there is variation and what I focus on may not be to your taste), translates mechanical to a focus on; bonuses for being lightly armored, bonuses to initiative, making multiple quick attacks and of course an iaijutsu style attack.
So what I have at the moment is below, assume anything I don't mention is the same as a standard swashbuckler.
Archetype - Sword Saint [name not final]
A sword saint uses strength of will/spirit instead of her force of there personality to achieve her goals. Instead of using her Charisma to determine the amount of panache she gains at the start of each day, she uses Wisdom. This ability works in all other ways like the Swashbuckler’s Panache class feature.
This change isn't totally necessary but I like it. It's partly for fluff as these types of characters often are portrayed as having a very strong will and/or spirit (tho many do also have a strong personality) and partly it's a left over from when I considered trading nimble and light armour for the monks 'AC Bonus' ability.
Any deed that would use a sword saint's charisma instead uses her wisdom.
A sword saint gains the following deeds, each of which replaces an existing deed.
- Iaijutsu(Ex)
At 3rd level, while the sword saint has at least 1 panache point, she can draw a weapon as a free action and she is treated as having the Quick Draw feat for the purpose of determining if she can draw a weapon with the swashbuckler's initiative deed. Additionally, if the sword saint draws a weapon on the first turn of combat and attacks a foe within her reach, she can spend 1 panache point as a swift action to make a feint attempt against the target of her attack. This deed replaces kip-up. As the EmG Ronin deed named 'Derring-Do' on pfsrd, name changed for flavor. - Iaijutsu Strike(Ex)
At 3rd level, while she has at least 1 panache point, a sword saint gains the ability to add double her sword saint level to the damage on all attacks made against a single target till the end of her turn. To use this deed, at the start of the turn her weapon must be sheathed (or stowed in a similar fashion) and her off-hand must be empty (with the exception of a buckler). This can only be used on the same target once every 24 hours. Any creature that is immune to sneak attacks or has any item or ability that protects a creature from critical hits is immune to the extra damage from iaijutsu strike. This additional damage is precision damage, and isn't multiplied on a critical hit. This deed's cost cannot be reduced by any ability or effect that reduces the amount of panache points a deed costs (such as the Signature Deed feat). This deed replaces precise strike.Basicaly the same as precise strike but gets more damage at no cost in return for greater restrictions. Not sure if it's too much or too little tho.
- Iaijutsu Focus(Ex)
At 15th level, while the sword saint has at least 1 panache point, she may always act and may draw her weapon as a swift action during a surprise round, though she is considered flat-footed until he acts. During a surprise round or when attacking a flat-footed opponent, she adds his Wisdom modifier on damage rolls(minimum 0). This deed replaces swashbuckler's edge.Essentially the Kensai Magus ability of the same name. I'm concerned if keeping the added damage in is too much but the rest is fair I think.
- Iaijutsu Master(Ex)
At 19th level, when a sword saint rolls for initiative, she can spend 2 panache points to treat the roll as a natural 20. This deed replaces stunning stab.
Given the point cost and how late it's given I think it's ok.
As the EmG Ronin class feature of the same name, have copy-pasted to the spoiler below for people's convenience.
At 5th level, the ronin gains a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls when using her chosen weapon. When a ronin wields her favored weapon, she gains the benefits of the Improved Critical feat with that weapon. Every 4 levels thereafter, the bonus on attack and damage rolls increases by 1.
This ability replaces swashbuckler's finesse and swashbuckler weapon training.
Now the change I'm most concerned about.
A sword saint is so fast she can nearly double the number of attacks she can make. As brawler's flurry but can only be performed with the sword saint's favored weapon. So a sword saint who favors a longsword, need only hold one in order to perform a flurry attack.
This replaces charmed life 1 to 5.
My concern with this is I'm not sure how to value charmed life. Flurry gives you the base TWF feats perquisite free, plus a bit more versatility in how you use them, but only with use of a single weapon. Charmed life gives an immediate bonus on a single saving throw, with a limited number of uses per day. So flurry sounds way better, but saves can mean the difference between life and death were as the extra attacks are at a penalty (albeit a small one). A possible alternative option could be to have the flurry as a 1 point cost deed, that replaces two others (such as swashbuckler's grace and targeted strike?). And then probably borrow from Ronin again and swap charmed life for the Resolve feature.
As the inspired blades rapier weapon mastery except it only applies to the sword saints favored weapon.
So thats it. Many thanks for any advice you give.
First thanks for the feedback.
it is an incredibly huge up-trade.
Agreed, just after I posted I decided I should have gone with the second idea (making it a deed and trading it in to replace two or maybe even three others). What do you think of that idea by the way?
thematic disconnect...deadshot deed+pummeling charge
A good point. I went that way because in some works while you see a single swing then the object/person is cut into many pieces, implying many cuts. Also having it only apply to a single attack would be too weak in comparison to normal precise strike. Making it function as dead shot/pummeling style is a good solution, tho what would be the best way to implement it?
Deadshot is a 7th level dead, precise strike is 3rd. Dead shot only multiplies weapon damage, not modifiers, again making probably it weaker than precise strike. But if you change it so it works as pummeling style (i.e. it is exactly the same as a full-attack with damage modifiers applied per attack) then thats a considerable strength increase and should probably have a higher level than 7.the number on your iaijutsu is actually the same as a daring champion on his challenge target
Thanks for the reassurance. Are you are referring to the I.strike's damage? In which case challenge does extra damage equal to class level, not level x2 as my strike does, maybe I'm misunderstanding something.
you should edit the weapon profs as well (since this version doesn't even get katana prof).
I did consider making the profs be 'all simple weapons and a single martial or exotic weapon of your choice' but I wasn't sure if that would be a bit much, then again the point is you've specialized at the cost of a lot else. Could also maybe make it simple weapons + a select list of blades (rapier, dueling sword, etc) but it feels a bit like curtailing people's choices to fit in line with my vision of the theme.
More good feedback. I get what you meant about the daring champion now. Ok so I'll basically just make this archetype a rework & extension of EmG's Ronin and swap charmed life for the same modified version of the samurai's resolve ability. For completeness I will copy/paste that abilities description below.
Starting at 2nd level, the ronin gains the samurai resolve class feature. She can use resolve once per day at 2nd level, plus one additional time per day for every four swashbuckler levels beyond 2nd. Instead of regaining uses of resolve by defeating the target of a challenge, the ronin can spend 2 panache points as a free action in order to regain one use of resolve, up to her maximum number of uses per day. If the ronin gains resolve from another class, the daily uses of this ability stack and the ronin may regain uses of resolve as detailed by both classes. This ability replaces charmed life.
For making flurry a deed, how about this:
At first level as a full-attack action, a sword saint can spend one panache point to attack as if she had the Two-weapon Fighting feat. She must use her favored weapon for all the attacks, but does not need to use two different weapons to use this ability. At 8th level she gains use of the Improved Two-Weapon Fighting feat when using bladed flurry. And at 15th level she gains use of the Greater Two-Weapon Fighting feat when using bladed flurry. She can use this ability in conjunction with the iaijutsu strike deed. This deed replaces derring-do and targeted strike.
If swapping out those two deeds isn't enough then could also trade out dizzying defense, however since the whirling dervish trades two deeds for what amounts to a better form of spring attack, which takes 3 feats (admittedly 2 of those are considered bad feats by many), so I think it balances.
"must be done after unsheating" restriction...nerf the weapon finesse down to only work with the chosen weapon
I've got both those restrictions already already so thats ok. Pummeling style requires a BAB of +6, so not sure how that should effect this. But heres a go at an adjusted version of iaijutsu strike.
At 3rd level, while she has at least 1 panache point, a sword saint may pool her attacks into a single strike. Make a number of attack rolls equal to the number of attacks she can make with a full-attack or Bladed flurry(your choice) with the normal attack bonus for each attack. For each roll that is a hit, you deal the normal amount of damage, adding it to any damage the attack has already dealt from previous rolls (if any). If a critical is threatened it only applies to that single attack roll and a confirmation roll must be made for any threats individually.
On each damage roll made as part of this special attack action, she gains double her sword saint level as additional precision damage(which isn't multiplied on a critical hit). To use this deed, her weapon must start the attack sheathed and her off-hand must be empty (with the exception of a buckler). This can only be used on the same target once every 24 hours.
Creatures that are immune to sneak attacks or critical hits is immune to the extra damage from iaijutsu strike. This deed's cost cannot be reduced by any ability or effect that reduces the amount of panache points a deed costs (such as the Signature Deed feat). This deed replaces precise strike.
That is one looong deed description. Hopefully this is what you were thinking of. With this deed tho I'm concerned about how it effects the usefulness of perfect thrust. DR becomes a lot less of a hassle when you can pool damage like this, perfect thrust lets you attack against touch AC but still is that enough when it's a full-round action to make that single attack? Could have Iaijutsu strike replace precision strike and perfect thrust, but add extra progression later at where you can use iaijutsu strike at the end of a charge and/or spend points to use it that way. Hmmm.
I think all simple weapons+ 1 one handed slashing weapon or rapier/sword cane sounds about right
Ye I went and double checked and the kensai magus has pretty much that same thing, so there is a precedent for it. So I'll have the proficiency as follows:
A sword saint is proficient in simple weapons and in a single martial or exotic one handed melee weapon (including light weapons) of their choice. Her armor and shield proficiency is unchanged.
bump
So close to having this feel balanced. Any amount of input is appreciated.
Yeah, I was using the sword saint name as a place holder name. Thanks, I hadn't thought to check more 3rd party material for ideas, I'll look into that.
I do like daring hero, but it's just not quite what I'm going for.
Paragon of the Perfect Poke!
heeeeeeyaaaaa!!!!
Flavor-wise, are you trying to make this an Asian-themed, samurai archetype or just a general archetype that doesn't have any sort of regional bias? I'd say you could do something like the Inspired Blade archetype, and have the focus be on Katana/Longsword(?) instead of rapier. Have the archetype treat it like a one-handed light piercing weapon, and then it can get a bump in power so long as its special abilities are restricted to this weapon. That way you don't have to worry so much about balancing a terribly hard amount, because any time a class has to restrict itself to a single weapon that's got the potential to be a pretty big drawback.
I'd also say doing something like Pummeling Style or Clustered Shots would be a great way to do it, and if you put the deed at 7th that's just in time to take advantage of iterative attacks. Alternatively, if you want it to be a flurry of blows deal, you could put that at 3rd pretty easily, though you may want to look at taking away or modifying Precise Strike for this.
Cool idea. I like the concept of a swashbuckler doing a flurry of attacks, though I think a single perfect strike is also very much in line with what a swashbuckler/monk-flavored archetype would be going for. Maybe lean towards a ki pool type deeds selection, with stuff that feels more martial arts?
how about quickblade for a name?
Simple but captures the core concept, I like it.
Flavor-wise
I was trying to go for a regional neutral feel, tho my naming needs work in that regard.
...focus be on Katana/Longsword(?)
What I have currently is you choose a single martial/exotic one-handed slashing weapon to be proficient in (on top of simple weapons), it's treated as piercing for class abilities and is the only weapon the finesse ability applies to. That way its limited to one weapon, but the player still has a bit of choice.
...Pummeling Style or Clustered Shots...Alternatively, if you want it to be a flurry of blows deal
I would like to have both an iaijutsu/quick-draw strike and flurry abilities as I feel both are important parts of this style of fighting. Thanks for reminding me of Clustered Shots, it's helped me simplify the explanation of the strike deed. Here's the new version (kinda long but still shorter than the Dead Shot deed), please also have a look at the Bladed Flurry deed further up in my third post.
On each damage roll made as part of this special attack action, she gains double her sword saint level as additional precision damage(which isn't multiplied on a critical hit). To use this deed, her weapon must start the attack sheathed and her off-hand must be empty (with the exception of a buckler). This can only be used on the same target once every 24 hours.
Creatures that are immune to sneak attacks or critical hits are immune to the extra precision damage. This deed's cost cannot be reduced by any ability or effect that reduces the amount of panache points a deed costs (such as the Signature Deed feat). This deed replaces precise strike.
I think a single perfect strike...Maybe lean towards a ki pool type deeds selection
The change to make the strike deed so it functions similar to the Pummeling/Clustered feats, focused on a single target, was so that thematically you can consider it as a single powerful attack or as a full-attack at lightning speeds, allowing for people's preference. Mimicking the sword saint samurai's handful of d6's seemed too much for a deed, and this way means the flurry can work double duty which I like.
As for giving a ki feel to the pool and deeds, thats one of the reasons I have panache using Wis. And I feel that as the concept is "light armored master of a single weapon type" most of the existing deeds and class features work well toward that end as is, tho I have ideas to replace one or two more with something like Deflect arrows as the duelist ability.
Alrighty, cool. I'd even say that the "Panache" gets replaced with "Grit," straight across, since it uses the same ability score and, in my opinion, makes the archetype sound more like a hardened swordsman and less like a roguish swordplay guy. There's also the idea that you could do something like the Inspired Blade's "Inspired Panache" and have the pool be based on Charisma + Wisdom, and regaining points only happens when the character kills an opponent (which is suitably gritty). This way you've got plenty of points to fiddle with for flurries right off the bat, it's still a "swashbuckler", but it's adjusted for the specific archetype's use. Here, that use is taking enemies out as quickly as possible with blinding speed and incredibly hard-hitting attacks. It also has a nice mirror feel to the archetype already presented, so there's precedence; the Inspired Blade is about fancy swordplay, while the "Quickblade" is about raw efficiency.
I am worried about what's being swapped out to get Bladed Flurry. Getting something at 1st level by swapping out a 7th level ability is a lot of front-loading, and also getting rid of Derring-Do is swapping out a skill bonus for a damage bonus. That doesn't mesh too well for me, personally. I'd say get rid of Opportune Parry and Riposte, as they're both combat-oriented. Even if it's a bit of a loss, giving up a class ability that isn't (directly) related to combat for one that is pushes the balance a little bit. One could argue that martials aren't super powerful anyways, but the intent behind that space of class design is there. It also feels correct to me to have Targeted Strike for a character archetype focused on the style you're going for here, so I wouldn't give that up. Also, to be honest, flurrying with only one specific weapon isn't so powerful that you necessarily have to give up two other abilities. I think the fact that it's a full-attack action, with only one one-handed weapon that's chosen at 1st level, is balance enough to hot swap for one deed.
Having a character with just combat damage tricks is a recipe for a player who only feels like they've got cool class abilities in combat, and only rewarding straight attacks also gives the player less fun things to do when situations call for it. Consider the times you'd want to just knock someone prone or stagger them instead of killing them; that kind of versatility is what sets casters and martials apart, usually, so I'd oppose giving up an ability that lets the swordmaster be a swordMASTER.
I'd also be worried about the Quick Strike ability's "drawback" of the weapon having to be sheathed not really being much of a drawback. With Quick Draw it's a free action, so it's really just a flavor thing that could get into weird rules situations. I played a bunch of the old "Oriental Adventures" stuff, and I remember it being really frustrating trying to get sheathe --> attack abilities off, or being in a situation where it'd be reasonable for me to do so. It is true that she's not getting her level to damage on most/all attacks like a normal swashbuckler by giving up Precise Strike, so I'd just say that the character can do this whenever, but only once against a target in 24 hours.
So what we're looking at could be something like this:
"Quickblade"
Grit (Ex)
Each day, a quickblade gains a number of grit points equal to her Wisdom modifier (minimum 1). Her grit goes up and down throughout the day, but usually cannot go higher than her Wisdom modifier (minimum 1), though some feats and magic items may affect this maximum. A quickblade spends grit to accomplish deeds, and regains grit in the following ways.
[Critical, Killing Blow, yadda yadda]
Weapon and Armor Proficiency (Ex):
A quickblade is proficient in simple weapons and in a single martial or exotic one handed melee weapon (including light weapons) of their choice. Her armor and shield proficiency is unchanged.
Deeds
The quickblade gains the following deeds, each of which replaces an existing deed.
Bladed Flurry (Ex) At 1st level, a quickblade gains the ability to strike with incredible speed. A quickblade can spend a point of grit as part of a full-attack action to perform a bladed flurry with her favored weapon. When doing so, a quickblade may make one additional attack, taking a -2 penalty on all of her attack rolls, as if using the Two-Weapon Fighting feat (she does not need to use two weapons to utilize this ability).
At 8th level, the quickblade can make two additional attacks when she uses bladed flurry, as if using Improved Two-Weapon Fighting (even if she does not meet the prerequisites for the feat).
At 15th level, the quickblade can make three additional attacks using bladed flurry, as if using Greater Two-Weapon Fighting (even if she does not meet the prerequisites for the feat).
These additional attacks can be used with the quick strike deed.
This ability replaces opportune parry and riposte.
Quick Strike (Ex):
At 3rd level, while she has at least 1 grit point, a quickblade may pool all of her attacks into a single lightning-fast strike. As part of a full-attack action against a single target (including attacks made with the bladed flurry deed), the quickblade can total the damage from all of her hits before applying that opponent’s damage reduction.
For each damage roll made as part of this attack action, the quickblade adds double her quickblade level as precision damage. Once a creature has been hit by a quickblade’s quick strike, he cannot become the target of the same quickblade’s quick strike again for 24 hours. Creatures that are immune to sneak attacks or critical hits are immune to the precision damage from this attack.
This deed replaces precise strike.
Resolve (Ex):
Starting at 2nd level, the quickblade gains the samurai resolve class feature. She can use resolve once per day at 2nd level, plus on additional time per day for every four swashbuckler levels beyond 2nd. Instead of regaining uses of resolve by defeating the target of a challenge, the quickblade can spend 2 grit points as a free action to regain one use of resolve when she reduces a creature to 0 or fewer hit points with her favored weapon. If the quickblade gains resolve from another class, the daily uses of this ability stack.
This ability replaces charmed life.
One of the names (quickblade or quick strike) should probably be changed, maybe "lightning strike" or something, to make the wording easier to parse.
[Now, this is just me shooting off some ideas]
If the intent is that this is a lightning attack that takes advantage of an opening in the enemy's defense, you could even make the condition one that this works any time an opponent is denied Dex to AC. Further, if you go this route, you could give Improved Feint as a bonus feat and allow feint actions as part of flurries. This works out decently, because you're incorporating move actions into full-attacks. Get rid of Superior Feint (which is pretty meh anyways) at 7th and replace that with something a little more interesting, flavorful, or mechanically necessary. I will admit it would be a little weird to drop Charisma as the "pool" ability and then have a build rely on a Charisma skill. Feint also has some monster type issues, so this is more flavor-meets-mechanics than anything.
"Panache" gets replaced with "Grit,"...have the pool be based on Charisma + Wisdom, and regaining points only happens when the character kills an opponent.
While you can get more points from a dual mod pool, it also adds to the MAD of the character. Also I just personally prefer the total swap (of which the gunslinger has a few). However I do agree with perhaps making point regain happen only on a kill, as flurrying with a high crit range weapon will produce a lot of crits (even more so when you add things that increase that). So perhaps to offset that the dual mod pool is needed. Names will get decided at the end as I'm mostly concerned on the mechanics. For while thematics are important 'a pool by any other name would still fuel sweet deeds'. Comparing it as a mirror to the Inspired blade is interesting, but there are a number of ways to interpret this style and I'd be apprehensive at suggesting it can't or shouldn't be viewed in X way.
I am worried about...
Flurry is worth 3 an a bit feats. The extra bit and some more is balanced out by limiting it to a single weapon but I'm uncertain by how much (I looked at the Whirlwind Dance deed as a point of reference as it's also comparable to three feats). And as those three feats are given at a progression, not all at once, I felt it made sense trading an early deed and a later one. As for trading a semi-non combat deed for a combat one, glancing through other archetypes, a lot of the deeds fit a similar category to what they replace, but not all of them (also as Wis is a more useful stat than Cha I hope that helps balance lost diversity).
But I see what you mean with targeted strike and front loading. How about this;
At 3rd level, a quickblade can...etc
Replaces Menacing Swordplay and Bleeding Wound deeds
A little less versatility is lost and its not quite so strong at 1st level (Menacing swordplay isn't quite a combat deed but meh)
...the weapon having to be sheathed...Now, this is just me shooting off some ideas...
Lighting Strike sounds good.
Hmmm, one of the other deeds I swap in (called Iaijutsu, see first post) effectively gives quick draw and a way to feint at the start of a combat, so it is just a case getting that free action, but I may get rid of it as the 24 hour limit stops it being used repeatedly on the same guy.I'm not sure about adding in the 'loss of dex' requirement, as it runs the risk of making things overly complicated. From the player point of view it's another thing they have to be incorporate into their build( even if I do give some feats/deeds to help) and from a design point, If I go that route, then start adding in more options for feinting, thinking about that, the archetype begins to feel a little bloated to me.
I think I may go and amalgamate all the changes and the design so far into a google doc, may be a little over kill but it avoids me having to say "See X post for detail on Y"
Well, Whirlwind Dance has different limitations on it than a flurry. Since a whirling dervish gets to move their speed as part of the action, it's more mobile and also allows (forces?) the dervish to hit multiple opponents. Flurry requires that the character move 5 feet or less and reduces the chance to hit, but in exchange you get more attacks when you're able to get off the action. I feel like that's a decent power trade. You also have to consider that Iaijutsu/Quick/Lightning Strike replaces Precise Strike, which I've found is the main way Swashbucklers get consistent damage. Since it seems like limiting the big hit ability (I'll just call it iaijutsu for now) to 1/day per target is what we're aiming for here, that extra damage comes once.
It's big, but if that doesn't take the guy out then you're losing a lot of DPR. Flurry mitigates that in a fun/mechanically interesting way, and I think you might be overestimating just how much damage flurrying 1dX + 6 or so is. Since the class is still presumably aimed at being a Dex-based damage class, Dex doesn't scale as well as Str does later in the game, which is why classes like Rogue, Swashbuckler, Investigator, Gunslinger, etc. get other ways of increasing damage in more of a situational manner. I personally think you'll find flurry pretty balanced given the design parameters and limitations of the Iaijutsu Strike.
The idea of Bladed Flurry coming in at 3rd seems fine, and probably more balanced, since martial characters typically don't have much trouble just smacking things in the first couple levels anyways. You're also giving a neat thing in the first two levels by adjusting the "swashbuckler weapon" and giving Resolve, so that makes the archetype already stand out among other swashbucklers. Putting flurry at 3rd also means that the player gets iaijutsu and flurry at the same time, which is clean and doesn't step on the Monk or Brawler's toes in the first two levels. I'd say just make iaijutsu, flurry, and initiative the only three deeds at 3rd. You're losing versatility and some debuff stuff, but it solidifies the mechanics early on and keeps the archetype from referencing later or earlier level abilities.
"Loss of Dex" to trigger is really just a flavor call, honestly. I didn't quite 100% know what you were aiming at. In my mind I'm picturing those samurai fights where it's two dudes facing off and eventually one wins in a single blow, so mechanically the idea of getting the hit off on a flat-footed or off-balance opponent seemed appropriate. It is really narrow though, so I wouldn't recommend that unless you really push the archetype. I think what you have here is just tight and efficient enough to work without getting into that whole houserule feeling of "let's try to see how much more stuff we can cram in here before it turns into a new class." So great job on that.
It seems fine as is, since the big archetype changes seem to be: 1) Flurry replacing one or two other deeds, 2) iaijutsu replacing Precise Strike, and 3) Resolve replacing Charmed Life. It feels like an archetype and a different take on swashbuckler/sword artist. If you further change Panache to Grit, adjust the pool even more, it just edges things a bit closer that way, but it'll work fine as is. Just looking at it I don't see any balance issues, except that you might find iaijutsu a little less crazy awesome than it looks, mostly because it's precision damage and only gets big when all of the flurries hit. You could push it a little and just make it straight extra damage, so the big hits are big but still work against things immune to crits. This could go either way, but I'm not concerned about it.
Looks cool! I hope I've helped and not just trampled on your idea :P And yeah, a Google doc or a Dropbox link I've found are best ways to track changes on this sort of forum. It also lets you fiddle with it in a format that's a little easier to deal with and be as long-winded as you want.
Ok, here is a Google doc [link] of how it looks at the moment.
I'm pretty happy with it. It changes a lot but no more than some other archetypes do. I changed the type of Lightning Strike's extra damage to weapon damage instead of precision, as I am concerned about it not matching up to Precise Strike's lower but more consistent damage. I have put notes in [] to give credit when I've copied an ability from somewhere (aside from the super obvious stuff).
I'm debating starting a new thread for ease of access to the doc and for clarity, though I'd have a link back to this thread just in case.
As ever all constructive feedback is welcome
Outside of some formatting/word stuff, it looks good. A couple things:
1) Resolve says it can be reused "up to her maximum number of uses per day." Does this mean that the Resolve feature only works 1/day unless the swashbuckler spends panache? Or, say, a 6th level swashbuckler would get two uses and then could spend panache to get more. If the latter is the case, what is the cap or "maximum number of uses per day"?
2) Third level is a little tight. I'm not sure how you'd rearrange things, though. It just has a lot of big mechanics coming into play all at once.
3) You could easily make quick draw master not cost any points and it'd be balanced. Though, getting to level 19 is rare, so that's pretty minor.
I got rid of the highlighting and the lines. As far as phrasing goes. If theres particular instance that read weird then let me know.
1) Resolve
The wording is odd but that's how it is in the samurai description and I'm not sure how else to phrase it. I take it to mean you can spend points infinity to regain a daily use, but you can't 'hold' more than your limit at any one time. So if you have 2 uses, and you use them up, you can spend 4 points to regain both but no more beyond that, but as soon as you use one, you can spend points to regain another use.
2) Third level
Could maybe move quick draw to 1st level? A bit iffy as kick-up is a 3rd level deed but I don't think it would be terribly broken.
3) quick draw master
Got rid of the cost, I was trying to keep the deeds similar but I've broken that rule in other cases so why not here. Considering theres a lot of things to want to spend points on it probably balances.
Ah. So for Resolve it just doesn't want you saving up a bank of extra Resolve uses. I'd just take that clause out. I think in most cases, since Intuitive Panache is going to be used so frequently to flurry it won't crop up as an issue, and it'll look cleaner.
I think quick draw could easily be moved to first level. It doesn't do so much that it'll particularly overpower the archetype, since it's pretty much (maybe) 1/encounter. Otherwise it's just quick draw as a bonus feat and that's not particularly menacing, just necessary for this build idea.
Otherwise, yeah. Solid. If you want it to look official I can go in and edit, but if it's just for your own use then it looks fairly balanced and ready to go.
I suppose the limit for the samurai has a purpose, as they can't spend resolve uses for anything other than resolve (plus greater & true resolve). Guess I could change it so you can spend points for immediate uses without limit, but you can't store them for later.
Moved quick draw to 1st level. Anyone is more than welcome to use it if they find it to their liking.