D&D 5E Xanathar's Bard College of Swords

[Kurotowa]

So what would the party makeup be for a Swashbuckling party?

Let's see. Depends how you define it. Let's go broad, "Party with a focus on Dex and Cha that mostly uses melee weapons and isn't heavily armored."

So for plain old "whips a rapier around" options there's Swashbuckler Rogue and Battle Master Fighter. Those are your bread and butter. If you want to mix in some spellcasting, top candidates are College of Swords Bard and Hexblade Warlock. They're where you get some AoE, healing, and other spell utility into the party. Stretching the bubble you've got Kensei Monk and Hunter Ranger. They take a bit of wiggling to make the flavor fit, but it's not hard and both are candidates for the swashbuckler sub-variant who specializes in throwing knives.

I think that's the high points. If you want to widen yourself to things that are more generally genre appropriate, you might have room for a Paladin or Divine Soul Sorcerer or Illusionist Wizard. Edit: Or Trickster Cleric, of course, thank you gyor.

 

[Sacrosanct]

So what would the party makeup be for a Swashbuckling party?

gnome paladins. Every class. Because at some point someone will mention how paladins can do everything any other class can do anyway, and do it better.

 

[Charles Rampant]

Sounds fun. I suspect that the “not focused on buffing others” is a hint that Valor will retain the niche of being the guy who buffs AC and damage rolls, even if Swords becomes the premier shiv-bard.

 

[pukunui]

Up where?

The video is up. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

 

[Leatherhead]

I didn't like the College of Swords. It had(has?) some bizarre Attack Action replacement that caused oodles of rules to fall apart. I know Mearls thought that Bonus Actions were the cause of this problem, but really it was just the way Attacking itself worked.