I've been running the remastered swashbuckler. Panache generation is much easier, but they are still a big hit class like the magus without the severe crit damage potential.
Do you feel the finishers match the aggregate damage of other classes to the point that the Finisher tag should deny attacking a second or third time?
I've noticed that against high AC enemies the swashbuckler damage really drops badly. The fighter is the king martial for dealing with high AC targets. Single big hit classes really have their damage reduced against high AC targets. The Swashbuckler in particularly really suffers with the single big hit strategy.
How do your remastered swashbuckler players deal with a high AC target? Do they start doing multiple attacks and avoid finishers or do they keep trying to land a finisher?
How are you seeing the class perform after the remaster?
Remastered swashbuckler still suffers many of the DPR problems that its legacy version suffer in a lesser scale but it still there. But despite that the remastered version just become way more fun to play.
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As the guy who wrote a guide on it (which gets an extensive rework after the easter holidays, when I have a week of vacation), I love it. :)
The almost assured panache generation makes the class an excellent skirmisher, the different styles make for a different play experience as well, the class is very good with skills, especially if you take the Acrobat dedication at lvl 2 and the flavor of the class is awesome as well. Only thing I don't vibe with is precision damage, but that is rather a system-specific complaint. I think adding a type of damage which nerfs certain classes for no good reason against some types of enemy is outdated design and should be relegated to the dustbin of history. Maybe in 3E it will.
I've noticed that against high AC enemies the swashbuckler damage really drops badly. The fighter is the king martial for dealing with high AC targets. Single big hit classes really have their damage reduced against high AC targets. The Swashbuckler in particularly really suffers with the single big hit strategy.
I mean, yeah, "the Swashbuckler isn't as good at hitting enemies like the Fighter is", is kind of a self-evident statement. The problem with high AC enemies is generally that the second and third attacks probably won't hit, either. Unless you are a fighter and get that extra +2 to attack that other classes don't get. That changes at higher levels if you have proper support from your teammates (Heroism, flanking, grappling, etc.), but then the "one big hit" classes will more reliably hit their first attack as well.
How do your swashbuckler players do against high AC targets? Do they just get frustrated and watch the casters and martials like the fighter or rogue take them out or is their an adaptive strategy that involves swinging more to gain hits due to the random nature of die rolling?
If you have a under 40 percent chance to hit on your first attack, then a single big hit class would hit every other round maybe. Does this match the damage of say a fighter or barbarian taking two or three swings a round to try to rely on random dice variation to do some damage?
How is the swashbuckler adapting?
I'm asking because the swashbuckler player in my group almost rage quit. It seemed that the one big hit style really hamstrung the swashbuckler compared to the fighter and rogue who landed more hits just due to rolling more often.
When the swashbuckler did land, it really didn't do that much damage compared to the rogue or fighter.
I'm starting to feel they set the swashbuckler damage dice a little too low or maybe the designers expect a playstyle other than finishers every round.
Has anyone tested what provides better results?
I'm not worried about fun in this instance. I'm worried about results. My player plays the class because he enjoys the concept and play-style, but he is super frustrated with performance. He really tries to do well, but bad dice rolls and low damage even when hitting can make the player feel pretty terrible combined with the sheer number of rolls for the class to operate. If he gets a nat 20 on the acrobatics check, then next random die roll is a miss on the finisher attack it feels really terrible.
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How do your swashbuckler players do against high AC targets? Do they just get frustrated and watch the casters and martials like the fighter or rogue take them out or is their an adaptive strategy that involves swinging more to gain hits due to the random nature of die rolling?
How do Rogues do any better against high AC enemies than the Swashbuckler? Fighters, as established, have a flat +2 to attacks better than any other class, so they are the outlier class here, compared to all other martials.
If you have a under 40 percent chance to hit on your first attack, then a single big hit class would hit every other round maybe. Does this match the damage of say a fighter or barbarian taking two or three swings a round to try to rely on random dice variation to do some damage?
How is the swashbuckler adapting?
Debuffing, flanking, the usual stuff all other classes do.
I'm asking because the swashbuckler player in my group almost rage quit. It seemed that the one big hit style really hamstrung the swashbuckler compared to the fighter and rogue who landed more hits just due to rolling more often.
When the swashbuckler did land, it really didn't do that much damage compared to the rogue or fighter.
I'm starting to feel they set the swashbuckler damage dice a little too low or maybe the designers expect a playstyle other than finishers every round.
Has anyone tested what provides better results?
I think this reflects more on your playstyle, which (according to your posting history) is heavily weighted towards high optimization. If your average enemy in your combats always sports high AC, then of course "one big hit per round" classes like the Magus or Swashbuckler are bound to me more frustrated. My combats sport normally a boss monsters and minions, so the Swashbuckler has a chance to shine. The Swashbuckler in my Abomination Vaults group usually gets in one or two big critical hits per session and hits very reliably.
I'm not worried about fun in this instance. I'm worried about results. My player plays the class because he enjoys the concept and play-style, but he is super frustrated with performance. He really tries to do well, but bad dice rolls and low damage even when hitting can make the player feel pretty terrible combined with the sheer number of rolls for the class to operate. If he gets a nat 20 on the acrobatics check, then next random die roll is a miss on the finisher attack it feels really terrible.
Basically, you are complaining about the random nature of dice rolling with a D20. That's a fact of life with the entire system and especially in 2E you cannot build your way out of randomness (where in 1E enough optimization often resulted in "hit on anything but a 1" in high level games).
Also, don't forget that with Confident Finisher you do half your precise strike damage even on a miss (full damage with Precise Finisher). That's low damage, but it happens even when you miss your attack. Of course, if you take a DPR enhancing finisher like Bleeding Finisher, you change fully to a risk/reward style, where you have to live with the randomness of the D20 and just try to mitigate that by doing the usual buff/debuff stuff.
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I think the remastered swashbuckler is a huge improvement compared to the legacy one, but yeah there are still a couple of things to work on.
1. Big hits vs high AC enemies
I don't think swashbucklers have any less ability to debuff such enemies than for example rogues. Maybe slightly more even, because a lot of panache inducing things also can debuff, so you're nudged into being good at those things.
However, sometimes the only real way to deal with high AC enemies is just to keep trying to hit them, and grind them down. The rogue and monk will just hit as often as they can and get through some of the time. The swashbuckler however has to choose: do I try to finish on my best to-hit, and lock out of follow up hits? Or do I try to finish with MAP, and therefore often miss it?
Maybe a solution is to lean really hard into the "confident" part of finishers, and go for doing some damage even on a miss, as a way of grinding through? That's kind of the deal the alchemist got, so can it work for swashbucklers too? I dunno.
Then again, I'm really not a fan of high defense enemies that are technically speaking a fair fight, because the players will overwhelm them with action economy. Because while it's technically fair, you miss so very often, and that's not great. I'd rather for example give the enemy lower AC but more HP. It'll take the same amount of rounds to wear them down, but the amount of actions where you get the little dopamine hit of success goes up.
2. finishing so soon?
Now that you still get temp panache on a failed bravado check, it's actually really really easy to end up with a leftover third action. You can use Tumble to get to an enemy and try to get panache. If you succeed, you move through their square. If you fail, you stop in front of their square, still within reach to perform a finisher. The key thing is that you compress the action to move within reach, with the action to gain panache. So you end up with a third leftover action because finisher locks you out.
You could spend the third action to gain panache, but you don't truly need to. Because then the next round you'll end up with even more leftover actions. You could do something like Demoralize, but tend to run out of targets.
I think this is a solvable problem, but it's not always directly obvious that this is a problem you ought to be solving. When you're building a swashbuckler there's no explicit step in making the character that says "now pick a favorite third action that's likely to be useful every round". But if you do, it could be really helpful.
Raise Shield is a candidate. You could use bucklers or regular shields. Reinforcing runes make bucklers even plausible with Shield Block if you like.
Feint and Bon Mot are also candidates. I feel like Feint is a bit overshadowed by how easy it is to get off-guard through flanking though.
Finally, just moving back out of reach is an option. Swashbuckler is a plausible class for actually kiting enemies. If you're only gonna do one attack per round, then why should you end your turn next to an enemy and give them multiple shots at you? But that does mean you're probably not gonna be the one in your party who shields the squishies from enemies coming close. (In that sort of party, maybe the Shield Block build makes more sense?)
In summary: I think the class has a lot of room for system mastery to play a role, more than is apparent at first look.
2. finishing so soon?
Now that you still get temp panache on a failed bravado check, it's actually really really easy to end up with a leftover third action. You can use Tumble to get to an enemy and try to get panache. If you succeed, you move through their square. If you fail, you stop in front of their square, still within reach to perform a finisher. The key thing is that you compress the action to move within reach, with the action to gain panache. So you end up with a third leftover action because finisher locks you out.
You could spend the third action to gain panache, but you don't truly need to. Because then the next round you'll end up with even more leftover actions. You could do something like Demoralize, but tend to run out of targets.
I think this is a solvable problem, but it's not always directly obvious that this is a problem you ought to be solving. When you're building a swashbuckler there's no explicit step in making the character that says "now pick a favorite third action that's likely to be useful every round". But if you do, it could be really helpful.
Raise Shield is a candidate. You could use bucklers or regular shields. Reinforcing runes make bucklers even plausible with Shield Block if you like.
Feint and Bon Mot are also candidates. I feel like Feint is a bit overshadowed by how easy it is to get off-guard through flanking though.
Finally, just moving back out of reach is an option. Swashbuckler is a plausible class for actually kiting enemies. If you're only gonna do one attack per round, then why should you end your turn next to an enemy and give them multiple shots at you? But that does mean you're probably not gonna be the one in your party who shields the squishies from enemies coming close. (In that sort of party, maybe the Shield Block build makes more sense?)
In summary: I think the class has a lot of room for system mastery to play a role, more than is apparent at first look..
The Swashbuckler, in my experience, has rather a pretty tight action economy, due to its multiple class feats which grant a benefit with your third action, some of which are part of your style gameplay.
Wit Swashbucklers will Bon Mot or One For All as often as they can with their third action, but many other Swashbucklers styles use Elegant Buckler or Extravagant Parry to get a +2 to AC. Also, the Swashbuckler lends itself to a skirmishing style of play, where your third action often is used for moving out of reach of an enemy (or the first is moving back into reach). Action compression abilities help the Swashbuckler just as much as they do most other classes.
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How do Rogues do any better against high AC enemies than the Swashbuckler? Fighters, as established, have a flat +2 to attacks better than any other class, so they are the outlier class here, compared to all other martials.
As you stated, random dice rolls and being able to attack more often during a round. A swashbuckler maxed out at 6d6 and a rogue at 4d6 with a thief rogue able to up that to 6d6.
Then the rogue has gang up and Opportune Backstab which often gives them flanking without needing to flank and a second no MAP attack.
Swashbucklers don't have gang up, but can benefit from it.
Their damage is tied to a single finisher strike that if it misses, their damage is terrible and they cannot attack again hoping for a better roll like a rogue or another damage class.
They don't have any reactions that activate as easily as Opportune Backstab.
I think this reflects more on your playstyle, which (according to your posting history) is heavily weighted towards high optimization. If your average enemy in your combats always sports high AC, then of course "one big hit per round" classes like the Magus or Swashbuckler are bound to me more frustrated. My combats sport normally a boss monsters and minions, so the Swashbuckler has a chance to shine. The Swashbuckler in my Abomination Vaults group usually gets in one or two big critical hits...
Yes. We do weight towards optimization.
I'm asking for people experienced with optimizing the swashbuckler. If you have fun playing it, that's fine. But I need to know what you do when a variety of factors negatively impact the swashbuckler more than other classes.
The magus as an example may have a similar big single hit problem, but it's single hits can be absolutely nutters. They have focus spells that allow them to recharge and guarantee some damage like force fang
The swashbuckler has confident finisher which guarantees some damage. Do you switch to something like this against high AC targets?
Do you start using regular attacks then maybe working in a confident finisher to guarantee damage?
Would this be a better strategy to put more consistent damage against higher AC targets?
Let's say you swing once with extra precision damage for a normal strike, then do a Confident Finisher with your second attack with guaranteed damage on a failed strike with with a feat to enhance this to full finisher damage on a regular failure.
Does this produce better results than trying to land a big finisher every round? Has anyone tried this?
I've noticed that against high AC enemies the swashbuckler damage really drops badly. The fighter is the king martial for dealing with high AC targets. Single big hit classes really have their damage reduced against high AC targets. The Swashbuckler in particularly really suffers with the single big hit strategy.
That doesn't make sense from a statistical point of view. Against high AC targets your damage gets more and more concentrated on your first attack. While a second attack against a same level enemy will deal 55-60% of a first attack average damage, against a level +3 enemy it drops to 40% of a first attack average damage. So the higher the enemy and the less attacks you do, significantly improving big hit martials like Swashbuckler and Magus.
The only classes that don't really suffer from that are Fighters and Gunslingers due to their higher original chances to hit.
So I don't know where you get this impression but there are certainly other factors generating it than concentrating damage on one big hit.
Edit: You answered while I was typing. Opportune Backstab is clearly strong and significantly increase Rogue damage output. But outside classes that have easily triggered reactions, the Swashbuckler should not be sad as other classes are hit more significantly.
As you stated, random dice rolls and being able to attack more often during a round. A swashbuckler maxed out at 6d6 and a rogue at 4d6 with a thief rogue able to up that to 6d6.
Then the rogue has gang up and Opportune Backstab which often gives them flanking without needing to flank and a second no MAP attack.
Swashbuckler has access to Reactive Strike and Tumble Behind, so they also have easy access, if wanted, to off-guard for their enemies and an additional attack at no MAP.
Their damage is tied to a single finisher strike that if it misses, their damage is terrible and they cannot attack again hoping for a better roll like a rogue or another damage class.
They don't have any reactions that activate as easily as Opportune Backstab.
Reactive Strike is pretty consistent, I've found, since enemies normally move around a lot. Also, at least Swashbucklers get some damage if they miss, which the Rogue does not get. To the best of my knowledge, I could be wrong and there is some ability which gives damage on a miss.
Yes. We do weight towards optimization.
I'm asking for people experienced with optimizing the swashbuckler. If you have fun playing it, that's fine. But I need to know what you do when a variety of factors negatively impact the swashbuckler more than other classes.
The magus as an example may have a similar big single hit problem, but it's single hits can be absolutely nutters. They have focus spells that allow them to recharge and guarantee some damage like force fang
The swashbuckler has confident finisher which guarantees some damage. Do you switch to something like this against high AC targets?
Do you start using regular attacks then maybe working in a confident finisher to guarantee damage?
Would this be a better strategy to put more consistent damage against higher AC targets?
Let's say you swing once with extra precision damage for a normal strike, then do a Confident Finisher with your second attack with guaranteed damage on a failed strike with with a feat to enhance this to full finisher damage on a regular failure.
Does this produce better results than trying to land a big finisher every round? Has anyone tried this?
In practical play my group isn't that far yet, but mathematically it would make more sense to switch to Confident Finisher and get Precise Finisher to do your entire finisher damage on a miss. Or you have enough teamwork in your group to make consistent hits more likely, so using Bleeding Finisher would make more sense. As usual with PF2E, it depends on your campaign and how well your group works together.
Also, if your player who plays a Swashbuckler hates so much the feeling of missing his one big strike per round, maybe he is playing the wrong class in the first place. I don't know if swinging for the fences and maybe hitting one in ten attacks with MAP would make him feel better, though. Maybe he should just play a Fighter with Exacting Strike if that is his problem.
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It's still basically the same as before but with the option of a few more ways get panache with a few bravado feats and that panache is basically always on.
For consistent damage something like dual finisher with Flying blade is likely the best approach.
Against high AC targets however, something like Derring-Do control with a gymnast (trip + grab) with retributive strike is what I would do.
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Then the rogue has gang up and Opportune Backstab which often gives them flanking without needing to flank and a second no MAP attack.
I'm getting the pretty strong impression that your issue is mostly
"Rogues and fighters rock. The swashbuckler isn't as good as them".You're pretty much right. Rogues and Fighters ARE the best martials. Many, many people (including me) think that they're overtuned.
The swashbuckler really isn't in their class, but then again neither is any other martial. The swashbuckler compares well with the other martials.
One big issue that I personally have is that the swashbuckler so directly competes with the rogue (they both spend part of their power budget on skills, they both do precision damage, they both often make good skirmishers, etc). And swashbucklers still DO come out on the losing side of that comparison.
They are now a very solid class and they have one huge thing going for them. They satisfy the swashbuckler fantasy very, very well. If you want to buckle your swash and play Errol Flynn then they're the class for you. And for the vast majority of campaigns they're more than good enough. But if you're in a campaign where high optimization is required then yeah the rogue or fighter IS probably a better choice
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Swashbuckler, Investigator, and Ranger do all suffer a bit from living in the Fighter and Rogue's shadows.
As for how I handle high AC enemies,
-Confident Finisher does become more attractive, although if you've got the debuffs on Bleeding Finisher does become more attractive.
-Stylish Combatant does mean you are still very good at applying your chosen skill debuffs
-Relying on a single powerful strike is beneficial when skirmishing, which is more viable in optimized parties where you can get everyone on board with that instead of standing in place using the same three action rotation each turn until you or the enemy drops dead.
-2 Attacks/turn can actually be viable if you build around it.
Well a good houserule imo is that Opportune Riposte activates on failed attacks as well critical attacks IF you have Panache. This gives u reason to not spend the panache on a finisher as soon as possible (and of course remove that horrible 18 lvl feat). But it doesn't do much for the High AC foes. But at least u get to make a extra attack now and then.
One other thing that occurs to me is that hybrid classes also fit well into small parties. Being more skilled than a fighter and sturdier than a rogue can be an asset in a 2-3 person party.
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I'm asking because the swashbuckler player in my group almost rage quit. It seemed that the one big hit style really hamstrung the swashbuckler compared to the fighter and rogue who landed more hits just due to rolling more often.When the swashbuckler did land, it really didn't do that much damage compared to the rogue or fighter.
I'm starting to feel they set the swashbuckler damage dice a little too low or maybe the designers expect a playstyle other than finishers every round.
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I will say a thing that not directly makes the swashbucklers looks better but may solve your problem.
Convince this player to play with another class like a fighter or barbarian (including a fighter with any light weapon like archetype if your player want to play lightly).
IMO swashbucklers are not developed with damage efficiency as primary objective but as a class that provokes, disable and debuffs the opponents with grace. Finishers are very good but they are finishers, they are only one part of the class concept.
This class is more focused in players that want to embarras (with actions that debuffs and have bravado trait), provoke (Antagonize), protects allies (due debuffing and thinkgs like Antagonize and Guardian's Deflection), take some advantage of enemies failures (due many Riposte feats).
Reactive Strike is pretty consistent, I've found, since enemies normally move around a lot. Also, at least Swashbucklers get some damage if they miss, which the Rogue does not get. To the best of my knowledge, I could be wrong and there is some ability which gives damage on a miss.Their damage is tied to a single finisher strike that if it misses, their damage is terrible and they cannot attack again hoping for a better roll like a rogue or another damage class.
They don't have any reactions that activate as easily as Opportune Backstab.
There is a notable difference between most martials Strike reactions over Swashbucklers reaction. They keep their main benefits in these reactions. Fighters use their higher proficiency bonus, barbarians put their rage additional damage in its attacks, rogues can do precision damage even in reactions if the target is off-guard even thaumaturges still exploits the enemies weakness during reactions.
Swashbucklers doesn't get such passive benefits. They can't use a finisher with its reactions what diminishes their DPR in general when compared to other martials.
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Relative to their premaster version, the Swashbuckler has for sure been improved. In particular, they can generate panache more reliably, which was one of their bigger pain points. I personally wish there were more ways to spend panache beyond just one big attack, but also understand that a Swashbuckler that doesn't use finishers would probably have some of the worst damage output in the game.
With that said, I also am okay with the Swashbuckler not dealing too much damage overall, because I don't think damage is actually meant to be their specialty. There seems to be this misconception that as a martial class with the ability to inflict big hits, the Swashbuckler is meant to be a major damage-dealer, but in practice I think they're much more of a utility-based tank, one that shines through skills and defense and who concentrates what little damage output they have mostly (but not completely) into finishers. If the class really struggles against high-AC enemies, then perhaps Confident Finisher could deal more damage on a failure (half damage, perhaps?), but otherwise I don't think the class needs to be a damage powerhouse to excel at their intended purpose.
It feels to me that the damage of the finisher isn't set high enough to justify finisher not allowing additional attacks.
It's hard to tell at lower level given Perfect Finisher is pretty amazing and Bleeding Finisher can be quite brutal. Those two are outliers. Bleeding has a strong variable component and and Perfect Finisher is level 14.
I may still remove the limitation on finishers again. It seems arbitrary and I'm not sure if I could mathematically prove it works to balance their damage against other martial classes.
I'd like to think the designers based losing additional attack actions on math that showed one finisher a round allowed the swashbuckler to do similar damage to other martials, but I'm starting to feel the tag is purely conceptual to fit with the idea of a Finisher rather than a mathematically tested ability that makes the swashbuckler competitive.
If that is the case, I'd rather they give the ability a different name. If the name Finisher is what caused the no other attacks or attack actions in the same round as a finisher, then that is definitely a concept that didn't match the power of the ability, it would in fact created a real weakness in swashbuckler's damage.
I can't be sure though.
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I find the main "finisher" ability to be garbage in concept and execution. Play a better designed class.
Let's take it easy.
Finishers are not garbage. They provide swashbucklers with a good damage output and are quite thematic. The mistake is to consider that because of finishers the swashbuckler is a DPR-focused class, when do some DPR is just one of the things he does in parallel with others.
And then we get to the point I got to. If the player's goal is to deal as much damage as possible, the pure swashbuckler is probably not the ideal one for him.
It feels to me that the damage of the finisher isn't set high enough to justify finisher not allowing additional attacks.
Here comes a point that I completely agree with and that was something I complained about in the swashbuckler criticism threads in the pre-remaster.
Finishers are too punishing for the swashbuckler. For something that prohibits you from attacking again for the rest of the turn, they simply aren't strong enough. Even if the idea is to do other non-attack actions in the turn in parallel with it, the feeling I have is that it is still an excessively punishing restriction.
The remaster solved the problems of the panashe, not the finisher.
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It feels to me that the damage of the finisher isn't set high enough to justify finisher not allowing additional attacks.Finishers are too punishing for the swashbuckler. For something that prohibits you from attacking again for the rest of the turn, they simply aren't strong enough. Even if the idea is to do other non-attack actions in the turn in parallel with it, the feeling I have is that it is still an excessively punishing restriction.
I disagree.
The only problem that I have with it is how it is defined. Making it based on Attack trait actions makes it so that you can't do some things, but can do others that are so similar that the distinction is lost - mostly regarding spells. For some reason you can start your turn with a Finisher and then can cast Frostbite, but can not cast Ignition. Because one of those two spells has the Attack trait and the other doesn't. There are some skill actions too. You can Feint and Bon Mot, but you can't Grapple or Trip. And you can't Escape after using a Finisher... for reasons.
What I don't think makes much of a difference is restricting second or third Strike attempts after using a Finisher. That isn't so much a restriction as mechanically enforced guidance that the Swashbuckler has better things to be doing with the rest of their turn than doing chip damage with a one-hand weapon, little strength bonus, and no precision damage rider - at a low probability of success since further Attack actions after a Finisher will have MAP penalty.
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Against a lot of foes the swashbucklers mathematically optimal strategy is
Gain Panache, Attack, Finisher (Or Attack, Finisher, Gain Panache). This definitely does NOT work as well against particularly high AC foes but against low - mid AC it works out fairly well.
In my experience one of the reasons that a swashbuckler can feel bad is that it is really easy to ignore the miss damage since it is such a piddly amount. But if you actually math it out its generally pretty decent.
Not rogue/fighter decent, of course. But other martial decent
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what character or class (besides monk)'s optimal strategy is ever "attack two times in a turn". The Swashbuckler's class design is to encourage you to take other options, especially since you get a bonus to your skill attacks to things that would give you panache, most of which debuff your enemy. I would think that your best strategy is gain panache, debuff, strike or finisher.
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I think I will make the Finisher tag work more like a flourish. I am not seeing a reason why a finisher prevents all further attack actions.
The investigator does 5d6 once per round and they made it far easier for remastered investigators to get the Devise a Stratagem as a free action. I see no reason why one additional d6 of damage should lead to such an intense limit on the swashbuckler other than the name "Finisher" which I guess the designer wanted to be a killing blow type of attack.
Since it doesn't actually work this way in the game, I'll consider the "finisher" more of a deadly technique of the swashbuckler they can use once a round without additional limitation. I'll adjust if I see problems with it.
I think with the need to obtain panache every round and a maximum of one finisher a round and MAP, that should all be enough to throttle the finisher to the right level of power, especially compared to the rogue or fighter or barbarian.
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what character or class (besides monk)'s optimal strategy is ever "attack two times in a turn". The Swashbuckler's class design is to encourage you to take other options, especially since you get a bonus to your skill attacks to things that would give you panache, most of which debuff your enemy. I would think that your best strategy is gain panache, debuff, strike or finisher.
All martials except magus. Two attacks per round is what you should aim for, adjusted for build.
Many fighters and all rogues do debuffs while doing damage, so why should the swash jump through more hoops to get less done?Allowing riposte to use confident finisher and then allowing Combination finisher to allow a single attack after a finisher as a follow up would help a lot with those issues I think.
I think I will make the Finisher tag work more like a flourish. I am not seeing a reason why a finisher prevents all further attack actions.
The investigator does 5d6 once per round and they made it far easier for remastered investigators to get the Devise a Stratagem as a free action. I see no reason why one additional d6 of damage should lead to such an intense limit on the swashbuckler other than the name "Finisher" which I guess the designer wanted to be a killing blow type of attack.
Since it doesn't actually work this way in the game, I'll consider the "finisher" more of a deadly technique of the swashbuckler they can use once a round without additional limitation. I'll adjust if I see problems with it.
I think with the need to obtain panache every round and a maximum of one finisher a round and MAP, that should all be enough to throttle the finisher to the right level of power, especially compared to the rogue or fighter or barbarian.
That change is what I lobbied for the swashbuckler. What harm is it for a swashbuckler to do finisher/attack/panache instead of attack/finisher/panache.
I would go even further and remove weapon restrictions. Paizo adding all these fiddly requirements to classes that don't need them frustrate me.
I'd enjoy seeing some of the mathematical analysis that went into design to see if there is something we're all missing on the intended way to play a swashbuckler with finishers.
Right now the swashbuckler does 2d6 more precision damage once a round while being required to generate panache and with similar weapon limitations to the rogue who can do a whole lot of stuff. The swashbuckler was a rogue-fighter hybrid prior. So far it seems like they get a lot of rogue, very little fighter, and not much extra as a hybrid like they did in PF1. They were overpowered in PF1, but a little too weak in PF2.
You must be one of the only people I've ever heard refer to the Swashbuckler in 1E as "overpowered". ^^ It was a dip class, take the interesting stuff from level 1 (to maybe 3), then take levels in a better class. The overreliance of the 1E Swashbuckler on swift actions for multiple things the class wanted to do and the only one good save, which was Reflex to boot, made the class unattractive as a single-class character for high level gaming. I can tell you that from experience playing a Swashbuckler from levels 14 - 15, after which the character died because he had run out of Charmed Life rolls for the day and met a lich.
The 2E Remastered Swashbuckler is a much better designed class overall.
You must be one of the only people I've ever heard refer to the Swashbuckler in 1E as "overpowered". ^^ It was a dip class, take the interesting stuff from level 1 (to maybe 3), then take levels in a better class. The overreliance of the 1E Swashbuckler on swift actions for multiple things the class wanted to do and the only one good save, which was Reflex to boot, made the class unattractive as a single-class character for high level gaming. I can tell you that from experience playing a Swashbuckler from levels 14 - 15, after which the character died because he had run out of Charmed Life rolls for the day and met a lich.
The 2E Remastered Swashbuckler is a much better designed class overall.
Am I missing something? Wasn't the 1E swashbuckler the one that gained +1 damage per level and really good AC?
Am I missing something? Wasn't the 1E swashbuckler the one that gained +1 damage per level and really good AC?You must be one of the only people I've ever heard refer to the Swashbuckler in 1E as "overpowered". ^^ It was a dip class, take the interesting stuff from level 1 (to maybe 3), then take levels in a better class. The overreliance of the 1E Swashbuckler on swift actions for multiple things the class wanted to do and the only one good save, which was Reflex to boot, made the class unattractive as a single-class character for high level gaming. I can tell you that from experience playing a Swashbuckler from levels 14 - 15, after which the character died because he had run out of Charmed Life rolls for the day and met a lich.
The 2E Remastered Swashbuckler is a much better designed class overall.
The AC was decent enough (though not overwhelmingly so compared to other classes, except at the very high levels when DEX builds pulled away, anyway). You would do better taking a few levels in Swashbuckler and then going for one of the absurdly good classes like Alchemist if you wanted really good DEX-based AC.
The +1 damage/lvl was nice. But that damage was precision damage, which was not doubled on a critical hit like in 2E and otherwise suffered from the same limitations as precision damage suffers from in 2E (i.e. immunities to it). Oh, also crit immunity items also made you immune to it as well. For a high damage build, you normally still went to two-handed weapons and other classes, because of the normal limitations of a single one-handed weapon build in 1E.
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The investigator does 5d6 once per round and they made it far easier for remastered investigators to get the Devise a Stratagem as a free action. I see no reason why one additional d6 of damage should lead to such an intense limit on the swashbuckler other than the name "Finisher" which I guess the designer wanted to be a killing blow type of attack.
Sorry, but a Finisher does much more than 6d6 damage. Bleeding Finisher (which is a staple) does 6d6 damage + 6d6 Persistent damage. Dual Finisher allows you to make 2 attacks with no MAP + 6d6 damage. That's a whole lot of damage that could largely justify a second action. And even if Perfect Finisher doesn't exactly increase your damage, rolling twice and taking the best result, especially on an attack with extra damage, leads to crazy average damage output.
The damage issue of the Swashbuckler is mostly a low level one, when you are stuck with Confident Finisher which is far from overwhelming (dealing damage on a miss is kind of stupid, the whole goal of making a Finisher is to hit for high damage, not to get ridiculous damage on a miss).
Long before PC2 came out, I homebrewed and tried out a version of the Swashbuckler whose special thing was that they could access a brand-new degree of success, one even greater than a critical success, which they could access by using panache, which bumped up the degree of success on specific checks. This meant using panache on a Strike meant you dealt essentially normal damage on a failure, double damage on a hit, and quad damage on a critical hit, whereas using it on a skill check meant the check was both more reliable and capable of outshining even other characters who put increases in the skill, as befits the flashiest of all classes. I wonder how that model would hold up to the remastered class.
As for finishers, I feel the grounds for the restriction are more thematic than based on balance. The word "finisher" implies you're finishing someone off with your attack, so the designers probably wanted a hard restriction to implement that, while also wanting to enforce the Swash doing plenty of stuff on their turn besides attack (which is generally true to the fiction as well). If this restriction were lifted, I'd be curious to see how that would change the class's gameplay: if this allowed the Swash a little more flexibility in structuring their turns while still having them make lots of skill checks, that'd be fine, but I wouldn't want the class to devolve into making as many Strikes as possible every time.
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The investigator does 5d6 once per round and they made it far easier for remastered investigators to get the Devise a Stratagem as a free action. I see no reason why one additional d6 of damage should lead to such an intense limit on the swashbuckler other than the name "Finisher" which I guess the designer wanted to be a killing blow type of attack.Sorry, but a Finisher does much more than 6d6 damage. Bleeding Finisher (which is a staple) does 6d6 damage + 6d6 Persistent damage. Dual Finisher allows you to make 2 attacks with no MAP + 6d6 damage. That's a whole lot of damage that could largely justify a second action. And even if Perfect Finisher doesn't exactly increase your damage, rolling twice and taking the best result, especially on an attack with extra damage, leads to crazy average damage output.
The damage issue of the Swashbuckler is mostly a low level one, when you are stuck with Confident Finisher which is far from overwhelming (dealing damage on a miss is kind of stupid, the whole goal of making a Finisher is to hit for high damage, not to get ridiculous damage on a miss).
I already stated Bleeding Finisher was an outlier, but there are immune creature and bleed damage is subject to physical resistance.
Dual Finisher with two attacks requires two weapons which not every swashbuckler uses and close targets. It's about on par with Swipe and weaker than Whirlwind Attack when many targets are about.
Other than those, it does 6d6 damage which a rogue thief can do once they land a debilitation. Having played a high level rogue, once you obtain gang up getting flat-footed is pretty easy and even easier with double debilitation where you can stack on an extra 2d6 per hit for 6d6 every attack and flat-footed to every attack with no requirements to have panache or anything else. It works with Opportune Backstab.
The question is not whether the swashbuckler has a few good abilities, the question is does Bleeding Finisher or Dual finisher do enough to make the Finisher tag balanced against what other classes can do? It's a pretty big deal to have an attack sequence where you generate panache then can make one big attack for an extra 6d6 and maybe an extra effect then you're done attacking for the round.
Then Mr. Swashbuckler is watching the rogue attack again and again and again then reaction Opportune Backstab for often 6d6 as well. And the fighter just hammering away. And the big old raging barb is also.
The magus using a recharge action at least can really hammer when they hit for up to 10d6 often some effect using a Gouging Claw cantrip or even more if they dip into Psychic.
So do you think the finisher tag allowing only one finisher and no other attacks is balanced against what other martials can do? You like to run damage checks. What does a swashbuckler look like for damage performance against other damage classes which the swash should be since it is a combination of the two highest damage martials: fighter and rogue.
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Then Mr. Swashbuckler is watching the rogue attack again and again and again
...and miss and miss and miss and miss again, oh there was a 20 between all those misses...
then reaction Opportune Backstab for often 6d6 as well. And the fighter just hammering away. And the big old raging barb is also.
Then Mr. Swashbuckler does a Reactive Strike or an Opportune Riposte and says "Huh, that works as well".
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I think the whole "don't do attacks with MAP" thing can become a bit dogmatic. It's fairly accurate at low level, but at higher levels and against mooks it's really not that unusual for second and third attacks to hit.
It sure does feel like the "finisher" part of the name narrowed down the design space a lot. It's a bit like a sniper-themed class will tend to have abilities that sound like they're going to instantly kill enemies, but what with how many HP enemies get, it doesn't happen.
I do think there's some alternative design space available, for example:
- If your finisher doesn't finish them, you get some kind of "revenge" bonus.
- Finishers work better if they're used on an attack with MAP
- Finishers only lock you out of Strikes, not other kinds of attacks
- Finishers ignore the MAP caused by non-Strike attacks
- Finishers have a chance of disabling mooks outright, regardless of HP
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Then Mr. Swashbuckler is watching the rogue attack again and again and again...and miss and miss and miss and miss again, oh there was a 20 between all those misses...
then reaction Opportune Backstab for often 6d6 as well. And the fighter just hammering away. And the big old raging barb is also.Then Mr. Swashbuckler does a Reactive Strike or an Opportune Riposte and says "Huh, that works as well".
No, they don't. Reactive Strike or Opportune Riposte don't get finisher damage, but the rogue gets their sneak attack damage. They heavily out damage the swashbuckler on reaction attacks. It's not even close.
Fighter offsets rogue damage with high chance to hit and high damage weapons. Barb with high damage weapons and rage. Swashbuckler offsets it with nothing.
And the rogue doesn't miss and miss and miss. They get flat-footed very easy and master weapon proficiency. Their Opportune backstab is much easier to activate as well as being able to apply Flat-footed as a debilitation for a thief or a ruffian can apply a weakness to a damage type they are using.
I don't even think you could prove the damage is close.
It very much sounds like you don't know how much random dice rolling when using an agile weapon like a shortsword can hit quite a bit against debuffed, off-guard targets for the rogue to really tear them up. It's not miss and miss and miss. It's hit quite a bit attacking 3 and 4 times a round with haste and an easily activated reaction that also benefits from sneak attack damage.
Like I said, the rogue and fighter are two of the highest damage and most effective classes in the game. I'm not even sure it's close for everyone else except maybe a giant or dragon barbarian or an imaginary weapon magus.
Dual Finisher with two attacks requires two weapons which not every swashbuckler uses and close targets. It's about on par with Swipe and weaker than Whirlwind Attack when many targets are about.
It's true it requires a specific build but dual weapon Swashbuckler is definitely supported by the class. And it's significantly better than Swipe (Swipe requires targets to be next to each other and asks for 2 actions) and vastly better than Whirlwind Attack which is really usable only with a Giant Barbarian.
And I don't speak about ranged Dual Finisher, as it tends to raise oppositions.
I already stated Bleeding Finisher was an outlier, but there are immune creature and bleed damage is subject to physical resistance.
Definitely, but you have a default Finisher for these targets. It's also interesting to state that Bleeding Finisher works against creatures immune to Precision damage. That's not incredible but Precision builds hate these creatures.
a rogue thief
I think we can both agree the issue is with the Thief Rogue more than with the Swashbuckler. The Thief Rogue is definitely an outlier, even compared to most Rogue Rackets. Comparing anything to the most optimized class/build always lead to disappointments.
What does a swashbuckler look like for damage performance against other damage classes which the swash should be since it is a combination of the two highest damage martials: fighter and rogue.
It's not a high end damage dealer. It is around Ranger, so very average.
I also think it's a complex class to play. As you say, the Rogue attacks, attacks, attacks, etc... It's overall a rather simple class to play (even if it's paper made). But to get the most out of a Swash, you need to perfectly handle the dynamic of your Finisher. With a Routine of generating Panache, Finisher, thumb twiddling, you won't get the most out of a Swash.
But bringing a more effective routine asks for quite some tactical savvyness. If you take for example: "generating Panache, Finisher, generating Panache, new round, Finisher, Timber Sentinel/Imaginary Weapon/whatever". That's a routine that can clearly get your Rogue watching. But to get there, you'll need a very good Swashbuckler player. The strength of the Swashbuckler is in my opinion the same than the Precision Ranger and the Monk: All its damage is concentrated on one action. But most players never manage to leverage anything out of that.
So, to answer your question: Allowing the Swashbuckler to attack after a Finisher is missing the point in my opinion (as your second attack at -5 without the Finisher bonus damage is comparable to a d8 Champion second attack, so nothing you fight for). What you need is a 2-action activity for the rounds where you can start with a Finisher.
I think the whole "don't do attacks with MAP" thing can become a bit dogmatic. It's fairly accurate at low level, but at higher levels and against mooks it's really not that unusual for second and third attacks to hit.
It sure does feel like the "finisher" part of the name narrowed down the design space a lot. It's a bit like a sniper-themed class will tend to have abilities that sound like they're going to instantly kill enemies, but what with how many HP enemies get, it doesn't happen.
I do think there's some alternative design space available, for example:
- If your finisher doesn't finish them, you get some kind of "revenge" bonus.
- Finishers work better if they're used on an attack with MAP
- Finishers only lock you out of Strikes, not other kinds of attacks
- Finishers ignore the MAP caused by non-Strike attacks
- Finishers have a chance of disabling mooks outright, regardless of HP
I wonder if you added in that if your finisher misses, you can take additional attack actions. If it hits, then you cannot take attack actions.
I have a group with a fighter, rogue, and swashbuckler in the group all together. I think I will track their damage for a bit and analyze how all this is working as the levels stack.
As I stated earlier and others have agreed with, certain finishers can be quite potent like Bleeding Finisher and Perfect Finisher. Confident finisher at least applies some damage, which I think can be helpful.
So I will start tracking damage again. See how the swashbuckler compares.
Then if the damage is tracking badly, then I will start with altering the finisher tag to say, "That if you miss your finisher, you can make additional attack actions in the same round."
This would still make Confident Finisher useful as if you hit with a second attack after failing confident finisher, it would still be like you landed the Confident Finisher since you did the failure damage and the regular attack.
And it would make missing on other finishers not feel so bad.
While moving the balance barriers out a little bit at a time.
If I find the swashbuckler is still getting absolutely owned on damage as they level, then I'll remove the limitation on attacking after a finisher altogether.
I think it should be a good test against the two most powerful martials in the game to compare against as the fighter and rogue are the gold standard martials against which every other class is measured.
One thing I will note to be sure it doesn't pass unnoticed, the swashbuckler is more defensive than the rogue and a two-handed weapon fighter as well. As a fighter-rogue hybrid, they are like a single or dual weapon fighter that can build up their defense quite well to I think around 1 lower than a heavy armor defensive type of fighter. This increased defense may be one of the reasons they don't want the swashbuckler doing rogue damage given the rogue is pretty much heavy offense and soft defense, though their skill abilities are substantial.
We'll see how this goes as I slightly refine the class to get it where I want it in the martial tier.
No, they don't. Reactive Strike or Opportune Riposte don't get finisher damage, but the rogue gets their sneak attack damage. They heavily out damage the swashbuckler on reaction attacks. It's not even close.
Fighter offsets rogue damage with high chance to hit and high damage weapons. Barb with high damage weapons and rage. Swashbuckler offsets it with nothing.
And the rogue doesn't miss and miss and miss. They get flat-footed very easy and master weapon proficiency. Their Opportune backstab is much easier to activate as well as being able to apply Flat-footed as a debilitation for a thief or a ruffian can apply a weakness to a damage type they are using.
I don't even think you could prove the damage is close.
It very much sounds like you don't know how much random dice rolling when using an agile weapon like a shortsword can hit quite a bit against debuffed, off-guard targets for the rogue to really tear them up. It's not miss and miss and miss. It's hit quite a bit attacking 3 and 4 times a round with haste and an easily activated reaction that also benefits from sneak attack damage.
Like I said, the rogue and fighter are two of the highest damage and most effective classes in the game. I'm not even sure it's close for everyone else except maybe a giant or dragon barbarian or an imaginary weapon magus.
Alright, all good points. I truly had forgotten that the extra damage is completely not applied to Reactive Strikes. Probably something for 3E.
I actually never came back to the Swashbuckler after the remaster, considering the near automatic Panache to be a crime against the spirit of the class. I just took a first look at this new version, and it's much better than it used to be. The near automatic Panache is great, obviously, but the Swash gained a few nice feats, too. With a clear Panache generation, I really find the Swash plays very differently than it used to, you can now count on Panache generation in 95% of the cases and as such can devise much more precise routines.
I just looked at what a Swashbuckler with Psychic Dedication for Amped Frostbite would do compared to a Greatsword Fighter making 2 attacks and the Swash is at 90% of the Fighter damage. So I think the Swash can hold its ground in terms of damage, now. It's not as ridiculous as it used to be.
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Dual Finisher with two attacks requires two weapons which not every swashbuckler uses and close targets. It's about on par with Swipe and weaker than Whirlwind Attack when many targets are about.It's true it requires a specific build but dual weapon Swashbuckler is definitely supported by the class. And it's significantly better than Swipe (Swipe requires targets to be next to each other and asks for 2 actions) and vastly better than Whirlwind Attack which is really usable only with a Giant Barbarian.
And I don't speak about ranged Dual Finisher, as it tends to raise oppositions.
I already stated Bleeding Finisher was an outlier, but there are immune creature and bleed damage is subject to physical resistance.Definitely, but you have a default Finisher for these targets. It's also interesting to state that Bleeding Finisher works against creatures immune to Precision damage. That's not incredible but Precision builds hate these creatures.
a rogue thiefI think we can both agree the issue is with the Thief Rogue more than with the Swashbuckler. The Thief Rogue is definitely an outlier, even compared to most Rogue Rackets. Comparing anything to the most optimized class/build always lead to disappointments.
What does a swashbuckler look like for damage performance against other damage classes which the swash should be since it is a combination of the two highest damage martials: fighter and rogue.It's not a high end damage dealer. It is around Ranger, so very average.
I also think it's a complex class to play. As you say, the Rogue attacks, attacks, attacks, etc... It's overall a rather simple class to play (even if it's paper made). But to get the most out of a Swash, you need to perfectly handle the dynamic of your Finisher. With a Routine of generating Panache, Finisher, thumb twiddling, you won't get the most out of a Swash.
But bringing a...
Why would a class with no innate casting ability be expected to take such cantrips with a bad stat array for it?
Have you played a swashbuckler? Their rounds almost always require two actions to attack with with one action used to recover panache and one used to do a finisher combined with the usual movement.
Now you're expecting a swashbuckler to build to cast even if the player doesn't want to do that? They want to play a swashbuckler and use a rapier well or paly the Zorro or Errol Flynn type and be effective.
Now you're advising the way this class has to be played to be equally effective is some up with some two-action activity that combines casting? Sorry, that is not an answer for how to make a swashbuckler better. That's an answer for how to not be a swashbuckler to be effective enough.
That's not what most swashbuckler players want to have to do to be effective.
I actually never came back to the Swashbuckler after the remaster, considering the near automatic Panache to be a crime against the spirit of the class. I just took a first look at this new version, and it's much better than it used to be. The near automatic Panache is great, obviously, but the Swash gained a few nice feats, too. With a clear Panache generation, I really find the Swash plays very differently than it used to, you can now count on Panache generation in 95% of the cases and as such can devise much more precise routines.
I just looked at what a Swashbuckler with Psychic Dedication for Amped Frostbite would do compared to a Greatsword Fighter making 2 attacks and the Swash is at 90% of the Fighter damage. So I think the Swash can hold its ground in terms of damage, now. It's not as ridiculous as it used to be.
90 percent of the damage with you somehow calculating them to use frostbite every round, something swashbuckler players don't want to do? And would open them to Reactive Strikes using in melee range while also having to generate panache?
This player wants to use a rapier in melee range and do swashbuckler things. He doesn't want to have to take a caster archetype and build up a caster stat to use a spell against a target while in melee range.
Sometimes I really wonder what you're thinking. Focus on what the class itself can do and imagine that base class must stand on its own with no archetypes. Just the base swashbuckler class.
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I don't have high level experience with the Swashbuckler, had one in our Abomination Vaults group till level 5.
The remaster upgraded the class from bad to okay.
Movement and panache generation can often be combined (tumble through), but the tradeoff between doing a finisher without MAP and having a regular strike is really annoying. You can risk it against mooks, but it is a real drawback against PL+ enemies.
On its own the swashbuckler profits from easier off-guard and some additional hitpoints compared to a rogue, but as the game is team-based and flanking often possible the advantage gets quite small.
I agree with Deriven that the class misses something to do against high AC enemies that require the finisher to be the sole attack, leaving you with a near-useless third action.
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Again, if you have a near-useless third action, it is because you did not take the "do something useful with your third action" feats, like Elegant Buckler and Elaborate Parry. There are options there, not everything has to be about DPR.
Their rounds almost always require two actions to attack with with one action used to recover panache and one used to do a finisher combined with the usual movement.
Not anymore. Panache generation can be done with reactions, free actions or carried from one round to the other. So you will have rounds with Panache right at the start and in position to use immediately a Finisher (especially with Flying Blade/Brandishing Draw) and as such left with 2 actions.
Now you're advising the way this class has to be played to be equally effective is some up with some two-action activity that combines casting?
No, I took a damaging spell because it's easy to compare to other options as it deals damage. But any 2-action ability will give the same effectiveness. Unfortunately, there are not that many 2-action abilities, spellcasting is the obvious one, Kineticist Impulses are also excellent and there are a few ancestry specific ones but they are rarely impressive. As for skills, the only one I see asks for high Intelligence :D
90 percent of the damage with you somehow calculating them to use frostbite every round
Every other round, as I don't think you'll have 3 actions every round. Even if, considering the amount of options, you can be pretty close once in the 2-digit levels if you use Flying Blade.
Sometimes I really wonder what you're thinking. Focus on what the class itself can do and imagine that base class must stand on its own with no archetypes. Just the base swashbuckler class.
When I analyze a class, I always look at how it fares when played to its best.
Anyway, you don't have to criticize my approach. You can just say that you don't think this level of optimization should be necessary to play a Swashbuckler, which I fully understand and agree with. Unfortunately, as it's often the case when it comes to complex action economy, Paizo makes good calls when it comes to determining their effectiveness but doesn't really think about the available options to get the most out of them. As of now, the Swashbuckler class really needs high impact 2-action abilities as otherwise you're forced to look for them through Archetypes.
Again, if you have a near-useless third action, it is because you did not take the "do something useful with your third action" feats, like Elegant Buckler and Elaborate Parry. There are options there, not everything has to be about DPR.
The player uses Extravagant Parry all the time. He loves that ability and it's great for panache generation.
This is strictly me doing a comparison of combat abilities and wanting to smooth things over some for a swashbuckler that wants to be a pure swashbuckler. They don't want to take archetypes to do caster things or other non-swashbuckler things.
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Near useless third action?! You are a swashbuckler, you're class is built to encourage you to take non-strike actions. And you don't need feats!
Tumble through to flank the guy, demoralize (you're a swashbuckler, your cha should be decent), make a distraction, raise a shield, recall knowledge. There are tons of useful things you can do with your third action. Even if you already have panache, you can increase your to hit bonus with this stuff, not only increasing your likelihood to hit, but likelihood to CRIT with that finisher. Or you can be defensive with it, raising a shield or cape.
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Not to mention all the things with the attack action that don't go against the armor class, like tripping, disarming, or shoving. Sure that will get a MAP, but If you have the right weapon your weapon bonus applies, and since it applies to saving throws, instead of AC you may have a better chance than an attack.
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Not to mention all the things with the attack action that don't go against the armor class, like tripping, disarming, or shoving. Sure that will get a MAP, but If you have the right weapon your weapon bonus applies, and since it applies to saving throws, instead of AC you may have a better chance than an attack.
Did get a ruling if skill based attack actions are exempt from the finisher tag?
Player is a fencer. He uses Feint often.
This is an analysis of if the swashbuckler damage is competitive in groups, so this talk of a third action is irrelevant. If that is what is expected of the swashbuckler, they are going to suck. Casters can do a third action and be far more effective with a 2 action spell than the swashbuckler can even dream of being.
Most of the other martial classes don't need some special third action be effective. If the classes that do need a third action that is hurting their competitiveness with other martials, then pretty bad design by the designers. Pretty darn bad.
I know right now a lot of my players have been avoiding the ranger because of its poor scaling at high level.
I don't need another martial class that is avoided for being non-competitive with the magical third action option that doesn't stack with caster debuffing which they do far better than any martial can do at high level.
So few people think of these classes in groups. They think what can they do individual to be better while completely forgetting some caster using vision of death or some other brutal spell for 2 actions does damage and debuffs more effectively than some martial using Demoralize or just about anything else.
That leaves martials needing to be focused on damage, mainly single target damage or a control build like grapple or trip.
No martial is going to beat a caster at debuffs, not even a rogue. Synesthesia, Vision of Death, Divine Wrath, and so on and so on that casters hammer with that debuff and do damage to many targets.
Martials as they level need to be able to hammer hard.
The ranger is one of the few that can be a support class by sharing their edge, but I'm testing that right now and it's not as great as I thought it would be because the group composition isn't ideal for flurry. You can build around the shared Hunter's Edge to make it good.
Swashbuckler doesn't really have such abilities, so they need to focus on the damage hammer to compete with other martials.