Swashbuckler Build Advice

[Rockblood]

I really need help with this. My head hurts just trying to figure this out and its driving me insane. I'm trying to make a Picaroon Swashbuckler and I just cant make it work at all. The race I'm using is the Vishanya and for stats I rolled 17, 15, 11, 11, 11, and 13. I know that the 17 is going to dex and the 15 is going to cha but carrying capacity and what feats to pick is whats driving me nuts. Please help.

[avr]

Ah, you might want to rethink that 15 roll to cha. A swashbuckler is on the front line and really needs the con, and with the racial charisma bonus you can probably make do with 13+2=15 there. For a vishkanya who uses their racial poison the con matters there too.

If you're going to multiclass to gunslinger after level 1 then you get point-blank shot and the other usual ranged feats.

If you instead plan to fight in melee mainly then you get weapon focus followed by slashing or fencing grace.

[Rockblood]

Yea that would be better to put the 15 in con and the 13 in cha. Forgot the poison was tied to con.

I'm actually going to try to mix the two together. Right off the bat the two weapon fighting the archetype gives is useless with what i have planned on how to attack because of slashing grace saying nothing can be in your other hand when doing a attack for this feat to work.

I was thinking of having him start off with a shot from the one handed firearm then either dropping the gun so that he can do his move action to go in front of the group or use his move action to put his gun away. If he has time to reload before the enemy gets into melee he would do so then if he can again he will take another shot at the enemy. Once their in melee he will have the gun away at that point and fight with his melee weapon getting weapon finesse to his cutlass because of slashing grace and get slashing grace because he put the gun away.

With that in mind should i even try to mix the two or just go pure melee?

[avr]

Fencing grace isn't as restrictive about what you have in the off-hand, if you're planning to mix ranged and melee then a cutlass is not the way.

You probably won't use TWF in any case due to it working poorly with two one handed weapons (there are no light firearms IIRC unless you use a pistol sized for a small character, which sucks.) You have no particular ability to make the one shot you get before melee count; you could get the opening volley feat at level 5 to make it a little useful I guess.

i.e. if you're going pure melee your feats might look like
1: Weapon focus (cutlass)
3: Slashing grace
4: Weapon spec. (cutlass)
5: Extra panache
7: Lunge

Trying to mix the two, maybe
1: Weapon focus (rapier)
3: Fencing grace
4: Weapon spec. (rapier)
5: Opening volley
7: Lunge or extra panache.

Either way get a weapon cord so that you can drop the gun if you have to without losing it.

Edit: forgot swash bonus feat.