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One idea earlier in this thread I really liked was making finishers work better towards the end of your turn. Make the mechanics support the flavor better.
"If your previous action was an attack and was successful, do not apply MAP to your finisher."
Suddenly, the maths of how strong finishers are change a lot, because it's an extra attack at full to-hit. Which is generally a first-pick feat for most classes.
We also get rid of the wonky "won't risk a finisher on second attack, so I'll only attack once" bit.
Gymnasts get a wonderful trip + finish routine.
In general, maneuver + finisher is going to be interesting for all swashbucklers, so we smuggle Strength back in the door as a genuinely attractive stat. Which is good because a fair amount of swashbuckler flavor stuff is Athletics checks. (Lots of jumping.)
After your first attack hits, you have a choice: finish, or try another attack and hope it hits and then finish. That's the kind of gambling that makes sense for swashbuckler class to have. Incidentally, it plays well with a bias towards agile weapons.
It opens the door a bit for swashbucklers to dabble more with other feats that enhance your first attack.
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Looking at newer classes like thaumaturge, some auto skill scaling is definitely appropriate. Maybe the easiest would be to get a free skill upgrade at level 3, 7 and 15 that you may apply to Acrobatics or your flair skill.
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Finally, looking again at thaumaturge and how Exploit Weakness deals with unique high level monsters, there's a lesson there for panache DCs. It shouldn't be harder to gain panache against boss monsters. Maybe even easier, since swashbucklers live for drama. Since I'm already proposing a major upgrade to finishers, this one is a bit more conservative than the "I meant to do that";
Underdog
When you try a skill check that could gain you panache, and the primary or only target is an enemy of higher level than you, you also gain panache when you fail (but not critically fail) the check.
These are pretty cool ideas. I'm into it. Personally, I'd just give every Swashbuckler scaling in acrobatics (or acrobatics AND the style skill, if further boosts are needed) rather than making it optional.
Swashbuckler is also a class that would benefit if some of their skill based options became skill feats. Class feats are a fairly precious resource for them.