Gort
Explorer
I have three beefs with the swashbuckler from Complete Warrior. These are:
1. His big advantage over normal fighters is his skills. However, he only gets 4 skill points a level, and there are ten class skills any good swashbuckler should have.
2. The "insightful strike" ability is there to make up for the loss in damage the swashbuckler suffers from his restricted weapons choices. However, this damage is lost whenever critical-immune enemies are fought, meaning that it doesn't work properly.
3. As many have ruled, the dodge feat is annoying since you have to declare a target. Many people forget, especially DMs. The swashbucklers dodge bonus only works on one opponent, exactly the same. However, it's there to make up for the AC the swashbuckler loses from the regular fighter, so why's it only one target? This doesn't work properly either.
Now, my solutions are to raise skillpoints to 6 a level, make insightful strike work on everything, and make dodge a simple AC bonus ala dervish. Some may think this makes a character who can talk, be an acrobat, and still do as much damage as a standard fighter, but there are several reasons why that's not true. They are:
1. A swashbuckler does not get weapon specialisation or greater focus. The fighter will hit more often for more damage.
2. A swashbuckler does not get lots of bonus feats, so won't be doing tripping, power attacking, all that stuff, nearly as well as the fighter.
3. A swashbuckler cannot fight with two-handed weapons, or go the power attack way, and still is not proficient with shields. (though he could learn to be, which is fine by me)
4. A swashbuckler requires four good stats to be a solid contender. These are strength for damage, dexterity for AC, constitution for hitpoints, and intelligence for skills and damage. A regular fighter gets by with only two good stats (strength and con) and an okay dex. (say, 12, and plate mail) This means that generally speaking a fighter will have more high stats where they really matter.
So, I'm fairly certain this is balanced. I made some tweaks that don't concern balance that much, just my personal preferences:
1. The acrobatic charge ability (able to charge over obstacles, but still needs jump checks etc) should be standard issue to all players. If anyone wants to jump off a balcony onto the badguy, sure, make the check, take the falling damage, get the +2 to hit. It shouldn't be just for swashbucklers. I changed this to a fighter bonus feat. (the only one in the class, by the way)
2. I felt that grace was a rather silly way of avoiding putting "okay" saves into D&D. I just added it in directly.
3. However, I felt that swashbucklers are not "tough guys who dodge a bit" but instead "fast guys who are a bit tough", I gave them an okay fortitude save and a good reflex save.
4. Slippery mind seems really random in this class. I changed it to evasion. Fits well with the reflex save, and it does come at 17th level, so I don't think it's unbalancing.
So, without further ado, here is the class, in Excel format.
1. His big advantage over normal fighters is his skills. However, he only gets 4 skill points a level, and there are ten class skills any good swashbuckler should have.
2. The "insightful strike" ability is there to make up for the loss in damage the swashbuckler suffers from his restricted weapons choices. However, this damage is lost whenever critical-immune enemies are fought, meaning that it doesn't work properly.
3. As many have ruled, the dodge feat is annoying since you have to declare a target. Many people forget, especially DMs. The swashbucklers dodge bonus only works on one opponent, exactly the same. However, it's there to make up for the AC the swashbuckler loses from the regular fighter, so why's it only one target? This doesn't work properly either.
Now, my solutions are to raise skillpoints to 6 a level, make insightful strike work on everything, and make dodge a simple AC bonus ala dervish. Some may think this makes a character who can talk, be an acrobat, and still do as much damage as a standard fighter, but there are several reasons why that's not true. They are:
1. A swashbuckler does not get weapon specialisation or greater focus. The fighter will hit more often for more damage.
2. A swashbuckler does not get lots of bonus feats, so won't be doing tripping, power attacking, all that stuff, nearly as well as the fighter.
3. A swashbuckler cannot fight with two-handed weapons, or go the power attack way, and still is not proficient with shields. (though he could learn to be, which is fine by me)
4. A swashbuckler requires four good stats to be a solid contender. These are strength for damage, dexterity for AC, constitution for hitpoints, and intelligence for skills and damage. A regular fighter gets by with only two good stats (strength and con) and an okay dex. (say, 12, and plate mail) This means that generally speaking a fighter will have more high stats where they really matter.
So, I'm fairly certain this is balanced. I made some tweaks that don't concern balance that much, just my personal preferences:
1. The acrobatic charge ability (able to charge over obstacles, but still needs jump checks etc) should be standard issue to all players. If anyone wants to jump off a balcony onto the badguy, sure, make the check, take the falling damage, get the +2 to hit. It shouldn't be just for swashbucklers. I changed this to a fighter bonus feat. (the only one in the class, by the way)
2. I felt that grace was a rather silly way of avoiding putting "okay" saves into D&D. I just added it in directly.
3. However, I felt that swashbucklers are not "tough guys who dodge a bit" but instead "fast guys who are a bit tough", I gave them an okay fortitude save and a good reflex save.
4. Slippery mind seems really random in this class. I changed it to evasion. Fits well with the reflex save, and it does come at 17th level, so I don't think it's unbalancing.
So, without further ado, here is the class, in Excel format.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
