Swashbuckler question

[qwerty1971]

Can you build a swashbuckler using the Aldori Dueling Sword? Or are swashbucklers limited to scimitars and rapiers?

[Torbyne]

you can use it but it is not ideal. what do you gain with it over one of those two options? An extra 1 damage on average and a lower crit potential which is what fuels a lot of your class abilities.

[qwerty1971]

Would one need to take both Slashing Grace and Slashing Strike to still recoup panache with a dueling sword?

[GeneMemeScene]

qwerty1971 wrote:

Would one need to take both Slashing Grace and Slashing Strike to still recoup panache with a dueling sword?

Slashing Grace makes it qualify as a piercing weapon for the purposes of features, so it would work.

What is Slashing Strike? And what does it do that is needed?

[lemeres]

The thing with Aldori Dueling Sword is that its value is more in the fact that you DON'T need to be a swashbuckler to get a 1 handed slashing weapon to 'fully' work with slashing grace.

Slashing grace only does dex to damage, not attack. Thus, most 1 handed weapons would be useless with the feat. The level in swashbuckler is needed in that set up, sicne it applies weapon finesse (and thus dex to attack) to 1 handed piercing weapons (and weapons with slashing grace count as piercing).

The dueling sword can do finesse anyway though. So it is for nonswashbucklers, who might enjoy using a weapon with larger damage dice over the critical (which is an actual place for debate- some comparisons even between short swords and kukri has the short sword's +1 extra average damage winning out for a long time against the occasional extra damage of the kukri).