Swashbuckler/Bravo/Duelist Archetype

[Manbearcat]

The "empty hand dueling" is a red herring, though. People used bucklers, cloaks, parrying daggers, and offensive daggers in non-sport fencing for good reason. Giving you something back for foregoing a defensive item in your off-hand sounds like a good Theme, though.

This is a good post sans this portion. This is twice now that the rejoinder is basically the non-sequitur:

- By circumventing "genre emulation" (the whole point is the relevancy of the genre emulating build of one handed, empty handed fencing duelists...which has been stated multiple times now...the fighting style of Zorro, Dartagnan and the Three Musketeers, The Dread Pirate Roberts, Innigo Montoya, Captain Jack Sparrow, etc.), you can pull off a build that is competitive with Sword and Shield, Great Weapon, Two Weapon.

The relevancy of light armored warriors who are basically iterations of two weapon fighters and sword and shield does not address the point.

 

[mlund]

This is a good post sans this portion. This is twice now that the rejoinder is basically the non-sequitur:

- By circumventing "genre emulation" (the whole point is the relevancy of the genre emulating build of one handed, empty handed fencing duelists...which has been stated multiple times now...the fighting style of Zorro, Dartagnan and the Three Musketeers, The Dread Pirate Roberts, Innigo Montoya, Captain Jack Sparrow, etc.), you can pull off a build that is competitive with Sword and Shield, Great Weapon, Two Weapon.

Um, they fight with one hand behind their back, literally. The benefit of that style is that they have a free hand to interact with their environment to do things like swing from ropes, climb ladders, carry a damsel in one arm, or perhaps draw a pistol or throw a light weapon.

Indigo Montoya never uses his off-hand in a fight, save to keep his insides inside after getting a dagger buried in his belly. There's absolutely no benefit to it other than manipulating objects that might be around.

- Marty Lund

 

[Manbearcat]

There's absolutely no benefit to it other than manipulating objects that might be around.

The first paragraph cuts to the heart of the genre relevant "swashbuckling" aspect of the martial form. However, this bit is abjectly wrong.

I really don't want to get into an SCA or Olympic/competitive fencing breakdown, but there is historical record of the "soft martial art" featuring an agile blade in one hand and an empty offhand from Saber, to Rapier, to Kopesh, to Short Sword, to Sword of Mars, to Scimitar. A great many armies from the Huns, to the Spartans, to the Romans, to the Americans/French/British infantry of the last few centuries (amongst others) employed agile sword with empty hand (without shield or main guache/parrying dagger) to great effect on the battlefield.

Two-Weapon and Sword and Shield are "hard martial arts" that map to the "hard" forms inherent to Karate, Taekwondo, Dirty Boxing. Two Weapon is something of a hybrid soft (Kung Fu) and hard (Karate) components contingent upon the studied weapons. However, only One handed and Empty hand is a fully "soft martial art", mapping to the defensive elements of Aikido and Kung Fu with the "lunging attack and escape" elements of Karate (see Leodo Machita) . There are distinct advantages to the style that Great Weapon, Two-Weapon, Sword and Shield do not offer:

- Considerably smaller target. While this form allows the user greater freedom of stance and corresponding smaller target area, the other forms are premised upon the user being squared up with the opponent in order to maximize the "hard" aspects of the forms (blocks and "hard parries".
- Greater strategic and tactical mobility. While the other user is burdened with weight and the requirements of balance of an off-hand implement and the more rigid requirements of "squared stances", this "soft martial art" is considerably more free in its mobility.
- Variance of postures and fluidity of stances provides angles of attack and escape that the other forms inhibit.
- The "off-hand" is very much more than useless. It is used to balance, feint, parry and grapple...and it is effective in doing so.
- Ease of use. It is the most intuitive as most people are not ambidextrous and readily grasp, and can therefore attain higher proficiency within, the concepts of "freedom of movement" married to "strong hand" techniques.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

OK, so they delivered on the style and armor (equal AC to a guy in plate seems pretty nice to me) but not on the specialty. Easy enough to fix. Let's make a specialty!

Level 1 feat: Duelist. When you hit someone with a finesse weapon in your main hand and nothing in your off-hand, you grant them disadvantage on their first attack against you until the beginning of your next turn.

Level 3 feat: ???

 

[PTHoorah]

If you're a swashbuckler, the jab feat could be more useful if you had a free hand. I don't know what exactly constitutes "an attack" and what's something other than an attack, but could this include pulling the rug out from under an enemy, throwing a mug of beer in an enemy's face, throwing something on the floor to trip someone up or slow them down or distract them? These actions don't deal direct damage, but would they still count as an attack. It would be a neat way to play a swashbuckler, but would depend a lot on what a dm would allow.

 

[The Shadow]

The swashbuckler is an odd archetype for D&D, though an understandably popular one. It's odd because the source material, such as Princess Bride and Three Musketeers, are stories about men versus men in a time period where guns have reduced the use of heavy armor and metallurgy has improved to make light blades dominant among the gentry.

We have few examples of rapier versus monster.

Exactly. Whenever I try to picture Zorro, D'artagnan, or Inigo fighting a troll, it's hard to avoid a picture of them getting squished, or else running away. I grant that Inigo managed to skewer the king bats, but...

Westley, now, is a different matter. But only because he is the fantasy-genre blood-brother of the Batman.

That's not to say that the archetype can't be made to work in D&D; but I tend to see it working in a game focussing mainly on intrigue and combat against lightly-armored humanoids - not anything resembling a dungeon.

 

[gyor]

I fully expect the 5e rogue class to have access to an ability or technique that gives them combat advantage for doing something other than hiding behind a rock, so that non-"lurker" rogues will be viable in combat. (This doesn't necessarily mean they'll be flank-assassins like in 3e, but SOMEthing.)

Meanwhile, the fighter's combat superiority abilities are specifically designed to allow for a bunch of different martial styles, and swashbuckler is specifically mentioned in the article. The biggest thing missing is a real mechanical incentive for the character to stick to light/no armor and not carry around a giant shield in his off-hand. That sounds to me like the perfect job for a good theme (or at least feat). Even if it's as simple as a feat that lets you add your Int bonus to AC, or a slight bonus to hit when fighting with nothing in your off-hand, I can imagine plenty of good thematic feats that would work to make the lightly-armored swashbuckler durable and mobile enough to stand up in melee.

Ideally, in fact, the swashbuckler theme would work well with rogues AND with fighters, and maybe even rangers and paladins, to create a bunch of different ways to approach the same archetype/role. (For example, doesn't Inigo Montoya seem like more of a fighter, and Wesley more of a rogue?) The fighter would be tougher and more focused on swordplay and endurance, while the rogue would be slipperier and trickier. Heck, maybe Robin Hood is a ranger swashbuckler!

IMO, the swashbuckler is the perfect example of what a theme should be able to do. Let's hope it works out!

Rogues already have otherways to sneak attack. The Thug scheme allows it two or more allies surround the target and the Archer Theme's Sniper feat precise aim allows you to spend an action to choose a target and you gain advantage against that target next turn, no hiding needed.