Swashbuckler's Dizzying Defense

[Renegade Paladin]

I have two questions; I'll put the second one in a followup post to make it easier on the dev team to answer them in the FAQ.

First question: How is the swashbuckler's Dizzying Defense deed supposed to work? In the first playtest document it was simply the ability to take Total Defense as a swift action instead of a standard action (allowing Total Defense in combination with an unmodified full attack); this was changed to being able to fight defensively as a swift action instead of a standard action. The problem is that fighting defensively modifies either the attack action or the full attack action, and is not a standard action in itself. Is this an editing mistake held over from the playtest and it's actually intended to simply modify the bonuses and penalties without taking an extra action, or are you supposed to be able to use your swift action to start fighting defensively (at -2 attack and +4 AC) after you've taken other attacks for the round without penalty?

[Renegade Paladin]

Second question: How does the modified dodge bonus from Dizzying Defense work with having three ranks in Acrobatics? Three ranks in Acrobatics normally modifies the AC bonus from fighting defensively from +2 to +3 and the bonus from total defense from +4 to +6. Does having three or more ranks in Acrobatics change the +4 bonus Dizzying Defense bonus to +3, increase it to +6, or not interact with Dizzying Defense at all?

[Renegade Paladin]

I hate to bump, but these questions still have not been answered to the best of my searching. I have a swashbuckler approaching 15th level, and as written the Dizzying Defense deed simply doesn't work. The ability as written:

"Dizzying Defense (Ex): At 15th level, while wielding a light or one-handed piercing melee weapon in one hand, the swashbuckler can spend 1 panache point to take the fighting defensively action as a swift action instead of a standard action. When fighting defensively in this manner, the dodge bonus to AC gained from that action increases to +4, and the penalty to attack rolls is reduced to –2."

And fighting defensively:

"You can choose to fight defensively when attacking. If you do so, you take a –4 penalty on all attacks in a round to gain a +2 to AC until the start of your next turn."

Alternatively:

"You can choose to fight defensively when taking a full-attack action. If you do so, you take a –4 penalty on all attacks in a round to gain a +2 dodge bonus to AC until the start of your next turn."

In neither case (standard action or full-round action) is fighting defensively an action in itself; it's an option you take when taking the attack action or full attack action. The only reading of the deed that tracks with the rest of the rules it references at all is that the swashbuckler can take an attack action as a swift action as long as he fights defensively with it. So if he charges, takes a full attack action, or some other combination of things, he could do it without penalty and then take another attack action as a swift action as long as he fights defensively with it and get the AC bonus until his next turn? I don't see another way to read it (because fighting defensively is not an independent action whose action type can be changed without changing the attack action), yet it just feels wrong. Can the design team please clarify what this ability is supposed to do?

[Renegade Paladin]

Again, I hate to bump, but as far as I can tell this has never been answered in the years at this point that it's been an outstanding problem.

[blahpers]

Quote:

the swashbuckler can spend 1 panache point to take the fighting defensively action as a swift action instead of a standard action

You can perform the "fight defensively" standard action as a swift action. You get to attack once as the standard attack action. You apply a -2 to all attack rolls that round, and you get a +4 bonus to your AC until your next turn.

[Trekkie90909]

There's some murky area here; I'd say it's not as the standard attack action, since you couldn't use feats like vital strike as a swift action. Fighting defensively doesn't explicitly give you an attack, because it's a modifier for an attack or full-attack action. Using it as a swift action would only make sense if you already had a swift action attack from some source.

Regarding your other stuff; since fighting defensively applies the -2 penalty on all attacks you make in a round, you can't cheat out attack bonus with it.

It does not interact with the dodge bonus from acrobatics (or any other source) it does what it says; your normal bonus is instead a +4.

The design team rarely responds to posts, and almost never unless they have dozens of FAQ flags, so I wouldn't expect an official ruling on this.

[blahpers]

When fighting defensively as a standard action, it's the standard attack action. You can use vital strike and so forth. Dizzying defense allows the swashbuckler to "take the fighting defensively action as a swift action instead of a standard action". I interpret this to mean that you take the same action that you would have taken before but as a swift action instead of a standard action.

I agree that once you've decided to fight defensively, you're locked in until your next turn, for better or worse.