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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 4050618" data-attributes="member: 40961">If this is true, I will be happy.  My fear is that the rogue did not kill the swashbuckler and take his stuff, that rather the rogue is what I will be told to play because the swashbuckler isn't there.The 3e swashbuckler, while a heavily flawed class, got some things very right.Flaws:1: Giving abilities that removed flaws in the rules-implementation of the swashbuckler archetype, and assuming that this counted as giving the class its ability for that level.  Weapon Finesse and Insightful Strike, while both abilities that I think definitely needed to be included, fall into this category.  The flaw in the way the rules treat swashbucklers is that dexterity is key for the archetype, but dexterity does not naturally increase attack bonus or damage.  That means that this flaw must be fixed to make a swashbuckler possible.  Weapon Finesse and Insightful Strike both remedy this problem, but all this accomplishes is bringing the Swashbuckler back up to par.  Unfortunately, paying two class abilities between levels 1 and 3 in order to meet par for level 1 is not good, because now you're two levels behind.  A lot of what is wrong with the swashbuckler could be met by giving out two early bonus feats to make up for this.2: Important abilities are received too late.  Past level 14, the swashbuckler is a solid critical hit machine.  With Improved Critical and a rapier, you can receive a slow but relatively reliable stream of critical hits that slowly weaken your foe.  But you have to make it to level 14 for this to work, and that involves traveling through a long list of very weak levels.3: Too many abilities are just a hair on the weak side.  Often they can be fixed with feats, but you have no surplus of feats.4: Slippery Mind lets you fail your save twice.  Grr.  Pet peeve of mine.Successes:1: Intelligence to damage was a quick way to increase the damage of a dexterity based fighter, while also allowing the character class to focus on its other schtick- skills.2: The dodge bonus.  The flaw with the feat "dodge" is that its so much bookkeeping for a single +1 to ac.  A class ability that helps raise that is nice.  Noting a single opponent per round and receiving +3 ac versus that opponent is actually worthwhile, and is an archetype-appropriate way to increase armor class.  Unfortunately this ability is not strong enough out of the gate- one of the lessons that seems to have been learned in Book of Nine Swords is that abilities like +X to AC (unlike +X to damage) inherently scale: +4 to AC is just as valuable at level 1 as it is at level 20.  This means there's no reason to start a character with +1 and slowly raise him to +4; you can start at +4 right away.  But that set aside, the idea was a very good one.3: Special effects on critical hits.  Fits the archetype, fits the traditional weapon choice, and is quite useful.4: Taking 10 on certain skill checks.  This makes them reliable, and means that you will use them in combat more often- letting you do more cool acrobatics than you otherwise might.Editted to add: I should have addressed bucklers.  I don't consider this a flaw or success in the swashbuckler, but they're something that needed addressed.  I can't figure out whether the designers expected swashbucklers to use bucklers even though they're non proficient, since a masterwork buckler has no penalty for non proficiency, or whether the designers assumed that swashbucklers would not be using bucklers.  This comes up with every class that has a free hand and no shield proficiecy, and needed to be resolved.  A buckler is a cheap source of a few extra points of AC at medium to high levels, and needs to be more explicitly included or excluded from a class.</blockquote>

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