Is the Swashbuckler's Continuous Flair meant mostly for Battledancers?

[claymade]

So I'm building a Swashbuckler, and looking ahead at Continuous Flair, only to find myself a bit confused. Its description says that "The circumstance bonus from Stylish Combatant applies in exploration mode."

Okay, so... what circumstance bonus is getting that boost? Well, the text from Stylish Combatant says "You gain a +1 circumstance bonus to skill checks with the bravado trait while in a combat encounter."

Okay, so which skill checks are those, that now get the bonus out of combat as well? I did a search as best I could, and this was the list I came up with of the different skill checks that have (or can get) the "bravado" trait.

Perform
Create a Diversion
Bon Mot
Demoralize
Tumble Through
Feint
Grapple
Reposition
Shove
Trip
Dirty Trick
Disarm(via Disarming Flair)
Aid(via One for All)

Of all of those, Perform (if you're a Battledancer) was the only one I could see getting ANY kind of real use outside of combat. Maaaaybe Create a Diversion, Demoralize or Bon Mot, in niche cases where you wanted a one-round debuff? But in almost all those cases, wouldn't that usually just qualify as starting combat with a surprise round? It seems like most Intimidate uses outside of combat are going to be be things like Coerce rather than Demoralize.

Am I just reading this wrong? How is this ability intended to be used? Does it expand to all uses of the larger skills that are associated with the skill checks? And if so, how would that interact with something like Versatile Performance, if obtained through a multiclass?

[YuriP]

Yes, if you read again the Panache rule you will see “Normally, you gain and use panache only in combat encounters; when an encounter ends, you lose panache”.

So unless your GM authorizes an exception, you lose panache at the end of an encounter.

Continuous flair opens a clear exception to this allowing you to take and keep the during your exploration to use it outside of combats or even to start an encounter with the panache.

And yes as your read in Stylish Combatant, you get +1 circumstance bonus with bravado outside a combat what restricts the usage a lot but it still have some uses like the extra speed.

That said it's not hard to a GM to allows using the +1 circumstance bonus for other skill uses if make sense like a Braggart using it to Coerce and even other uses of the style skill that aren't inside an existent action.

[claymade]

YuriP wrote:

Continuous flair opens a clear exception to this allowing you to take and keep the during your exploration to use it outside of combats or even to start an encounter with the panache.

And yes as your read in Stylish Combatant, you get +1 circumstance bonus with bravado outside a combat what restricts the usage a lot but it still have some uses like the extra speed.

Huh, does Continuous Flair really allow you to generate and keep Panache outside of combat? I didn't get that impression from anything in the rules text. It allows the bonus to the skills, but that doesn't use or require Panache for them; you have those as a constant regardless, so I'm not sure where the Panache stuff is coming into Continuous Flair. Is there a rule I'm missing somewhere?

Similarly, I hadn't thought that the extra speed applied either, since the only thing that Continuous Flair says applies out of combat is "the circumstance bonus from Stylish Combatant". But the bonus to your movement speed is a status bonus. So it doesn't seem like that would apply either.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love it if either of those two were the case. Since, yeah, it seems like if they weren't then that entire class feature really doesn't do ANYTHING if you're, like, a Gymnast Swashbuckler. And that just seems so weird to me that I feel like I have to be missing something here.

[Finoan]

It is weird. But I don't think you are missing anything.

I also don't see anything in Continuous Flair indicating that you can keep Panache when not in combat.

Continuous Flair wrote:

While not equal to your panache in combat, you have a dramatic flair about you in any situation. The circumstance bonus from Stylish Combatant applies in exploration mode.

In fact, it looks rather explicit that it reinforces that it's bonus is not the same as having Panache.

It allows you to gain the bonus from Panache on specific skill actions (not even all checks using that skill). Very few of which can be meaningfully used outside of combat.

But you aren't paying any significant build cost to get it, so just ignore that it is there and play on.