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Damage Control
2007-10-15, 09:45 PM
Yeah, I know, bad class, best as a dip to get insightful strike, but I'm playing one in a campaign with more roleplay than combat. However, I still want to be able to look at my technical choices and not smack myself for being stupid.

So I'm playing a human swashbuckler, starting at 3rd level in a campaign that will be going for a while. I'm trying not to multiclass or be some kind of optimization monster, just be able to contribute to the party. The DM has access to PHB 2, XPH, Completes other than Mage and Scoundrel, Races of Destiny and Heroes of Horror. Core classes are not allowed. Any tips?

Quietus
2007-10-15, 09:46 PM
What kind of flavor are you going for with him? The out-of-the-box "Haha!", of swashbuckler, or something with a bit of a twist? What kinds of skills are important to him, and that sort of thing?

Mike_G
2007-10-15, 09:53 PM
You could go Swashbuckler/Beguiler for the worlds most skilled and social Gish ever.

Nice synergy with Intelligence for both classes, great skill points, great class skill overlap, and a nice compliment of spells, especially for a roleplay heavy campaign.

Sir Jason
2007-10-15, 10:09 PM
Core classes not allowed? Thats too bad, rogue/swash with the feat in Compl. Scoundrel for stacking their clas features are pretty good

Damage Control
2007-10-15, 10:28 PM
Definitely some party face; he was the subject of an experiment in which his entire body was tattooed with runes that didn't actually do anything. He's really sensitive about it, so one of my goals is for him to overcome that. I suppose that beguiler or some other magical class would work well there, and I could chalk it up to being a delayed manifestation of the ritual's power. Otherwise, athletic skills are good.

He's slightly more serious than most swashbucklers when it comes to actual combat, but is very good at being over the top when it's necessary. He'll always try to talk his way out of a conflict if possible, and doesn't like to kill things if he can help it, but I'm not a fan of non-lethal damage.

Well no Complete Scoundrel either, so that's not a big loss.

....
2007-10-15, 10:37 PM
Yeah, you should really get Scoundrel.

I had an awsome Swash/Rogue with Daring Outlaw. I know all the optomizers cringe at anyone playing swash beyond 3 or so, but 10/10 works alright.

But there's also nifty Skill Tricks like the one that lets you flip off walls or use your whip as an instant rope/grappling hook.

Damage Control
2007-10-15, 10:43 PM
Oh, I have Scoundrel, the DM either doesn't or just isn't allowing it.

Quietus
2007-10-15, 11:25 PM
Definitely some party face; he was the subject of an experiment in which his entire body was tattooed with runes that didn't actually do anything. He's really sensitive about it, so one of my goals is for him to overcome that. I suppose that beguiler or some other magical class would work well there, and I could chalk it up to being a delayed manifestation of the ritual's power. Otherwise, athletic skills are good.

He's slightly more serious than most swashbucklers when it comes to actual combat, but is very good at being over the top when it's necessary. He'll always try to talk his way out of a conflict if possible, and doesn't like to kill things if he can help it, but I'm not a fan of non-lethal damage.

Well no Complete Scoundrel either, so that's not a big loss.

Well, the Swash/Beguiler idea isn't a bad one; It does, however, do nasty things to your combat abilities, reducing your HP to a d6 and dropping your BAB like a rock.

Another option is the natural extension of Swashbuckler, Duelist. You don't get some important "face" skills like Diplomacy, but you keep your HD and BAB, while picking up Int to AC, and eventually, a bonus to AC equal to class level when fighting defensively. Requires Dodge/mobility/weapon finesse, along with ranks in Tumble (which you may already have, being a Swashbuckler), and a few ranks in Perform, which can fit in with your "face" aspect. Also an option, if you go in the "I know how to dance" direction, is Dervish - an excellent PrC, and your Insightful Strike will apply to scimitars once you take a single level of Dervish.

Now, both those PrCs do require Dodge/Mobility, which is unfortunate - however, having access to Cwar is helpful, because now you qualify (once you get BAB +4) for Elusive Target. It's REALLY hard to find the fault with "If you're flanked, one of them automatically misses you, always", along with "That guy can't power attack me" and "If they miss, they might get tripped". Now, I know I've seen a class somewhere out there that gives you a Dodge-like thing, where you can apply your Dodge bonus to a second enemy at the same time, or can stack them against one enemy. I can't remember which class/feat/whatever that was, though... but if that's worded in such a way as to be treated as the Dodge feat, or you can convince your DM that it's equivalent, then Elusive Target gets that much better.

Stam
2007-10-15, 11:34 PM
The true benefit to both those PrCs and actually continuing in the Swashbuckler class is, its 5th-level benefit actually counts as the Dodge feat. Bingo, at 6th-level all you need to do is snag Mobility and you're good for Duelist.

Dervish takes a little more work, but can be done fairly easily.

hamstard4ever
2007-10-15, 11:45 PM
The feat is Daring Outlaw, and it's pretty much the only way to make swashbuckler levels 4-17 worth taking. It's regrettable that core classes are banned, because honestly, if you're not going to multiclass any one of them would be better than the swashbuckler. Most of them are better at being a swashbuckler than the swashbuckler is. If you can't use Complete Scoundrel, the sooner you stop taking swashbuckler levels the more effective you'll be; if you're bound and determined to stick to your swashbuckling roots you can go as far as swashbuckler level 5 and straight into a PrC of choice without being too far behind the curve, but every additional swashbuckler level is just stabbing yourself in the foot.

Multiclassing as a spellcaster might work, but your options aren't great if wizards are banned. You'll be at least three caster levels behind, so you're not going to be very effective as a spellcaster; the main value is what your spells can do to boost your swashbuckler abilities. In the case of a beguiler, that's really not very much; beguilers don't have a lot of buffs (especially decent duration ones) or swift action spells. You'll gain versatility, but after a few levels you'll be too spread out from being a jack-of-all-trades that you'd be pretty easy to replace. Duskblades have lots of swift action buffs, it's practically what they were made for, but they don't mesh well with swashbucklers either; the main thing you get out of swashbuckler is a small damage boost from Insightful Strike, which is the last thing duskblades need since they're made for damage output. If you don't mind the oriental feel the Wu Jen might be your best bet as far as INT-based casters go. They're not as good as wizards but they have some halfway decent buffs. You could go with a WIS- or CHA- caster, but then your abilities are getting spread awfully thin.

Also bear in mind that with the exception of Duskblade your BAB is going to be hurting badly unless you're willing to take some PrCs to advance BAB and spellcasting simultaneously. If Eldritch Knight is banned (being a core class) and you can't use Complete Mage, your options there are generally not very good since you're going to have a hard time getting anything better than 1/2 spellcasting progression out of a PrC.



So personally, I'd probably recommend staying away from spellcasters in this case and just trying to PrC your way out of swashbuckler as soon as possible. Since you said you want to avoid multiclassing, here are some PrCs that you can take straight through that can be halfway decent:

Dervish (CWar): Eats all your feats but does a halfway decent job of keeping your skill progression up and gets some very combat-worthy abilities. Your one decent swashbuckler ability is your Insightful Strike. Since it adds a relatively small fixed amount to every attack, you generally want as many attacks as possible to rack up that bonus damage as much as you can, and Dervish can deliver a lot of attacks. You're not going to break the game as a plain Swashbuckler/Dervish but you should be decent in combat.

Bladesinger (CWar): If you're an elf it might actually be worth it dipping into an arcane spellcasting class for 1 level for this. It doesn't advance spellcasting very much but it has nice bonuses for a light-armor-and-rapier fighter.

Invisible Blade (CWar): If you want to be a badass knife fighter this is the way to go, although it also eats all your feats. You get full BAB and 4 skill points per level to keep pace with the Swashbuckler, but you get sneak attack and a few other decent abilities. If you're a human and can afford the feat investment it might not be a bad option, although it's only 5 levels long.

Exemplar (CAdv): You can't enter this class until level 11, but it's worth considering if you're going to get that far. It doesn't add much to combat ability (although you do get some minor CHA and INT bonuses, so decent synergy there) but it racks up tons and tons of skill bonuses.

Streetfighter (CAdv): Not a very good class, but just about anything beats plain swashbuckler. It needs Combat Expertise and Improved Feint as feats, so if you were planning to go that route it might not hurt to take streetfighter. Unfortunately it needs 5 ranks in 2 skills that are cross-class for swashbuckler, which hurts a lot. You might go for it if you're in love with the flavor, but it's not really good enough to aim for otherwise.

Thief-Acrobat (CAdv): Needs Evasion, so you're probably not going to be able to take this unless you're willing to go looking for something you can dip into for evasion. It's a pretty decent choice if you can somehow swing it, though; it gets some of the same abilities you'd get as a mid-level Swashbuckler, except it gets more of them.

I've been simu-ninja'd, but as mentioned, if core PrCs are allowed Duelist is not a bad choice. There's really not very much synergy between Duelist and Swashbuckler, but still, every level of Duelist you take is a level of Swashbuckler you're not taking and you'll be more effective for it.

Quietus
2007-10-16, 12:13 AM
Hrm. Well, since I've already officially looked like an idiot for not properly reading some stuff, let's go with this.


I earlier mentioned the synergy of Swashbuckler + Elusive Target + PrC (Dervish/Duelist, I like Dervish myself). It was, in fact, the Swashbuckler's "Dodge bonus" that I was referring to when I mentioned the other dodge-like bonus thing; If you can convince your DM that the Swashbuckler's "Dodge bonus" class feature is the same thing as the Dodge feat, then you might be able use Elusive Target against more than one target at a time, which means any time you're flanked, two of your attackers automatically miss you with their first attack, and could hit their opponents. That, in my not-so-expert opinion, is an absolutely HILARIOUS idea, as it wouldn't take very long before the fact that YOU aren't doing much damage doesn't matter, because those two giants have been knocking the living crap out of each other for the past couple rounds.

Damage Control
2007-10-16, 12:14 AM
Yes, core PrCs are allowed, just not the base classes. I think I might go for Duelist, if the DM says that's fine. Thanks to everyone for the advice, and feel free to keep it coming. Any specific feats I should take outside of PrC requirement ones? Equipment ideas? Anything is helpful.

hamstard4ever
2007-10-16, 12:46 AM
As mentioned before, Elusive Target can be a good feat option since it shares feat prerequisites with the Duelist PrC. You can have fun with the "cause overreach" function of Elusive Target; every time you provoke an attack of opportunity that misses you get a free trip attempt with no chance of getting tripped yourself. Thanks to Duelist you'll have no problem dodging attacks of opportunity, so you can run around the battlefield and take a free trip attempt on everything with relative impunity (since you're probably not going to be a strength-heavy build you won't necessarily succeed most of these attempts, but if any light rogue/caster types are dumb enough to take an attack of opportunity on you they're going down.) Also, your party rogue will love you since you can run right into the middle of things to set up flanking for them.

If you're going for Elusive Target, Combat Expertise and Improved Trip will give you a better shot at tripping plus a free potshot on anything you successfully trip; alternately, Combat Reflexes and Robilar's Gambit from PHII will let you counterattack any attacks of opportunity that get made on you, giving you lots of extra attacks to rack up insightful strike + precise strike damage (albeit at some risk to yourself). Of course, if you took all four of these feats on top of Elusive Target you'd get an attack of opportunity + free trip + free attack if the trip is successful, but you're not going to have enough feats to do that until super high level.

A simpler and less risky way of running around and getting lots of attacks is to just go Spring Attack/Bounding Assault/Rapid Blitz (PH II feats), but the results are less impressive and you're not getting many attacks that way until very high levels.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-10-16, 12:56 AM
Also, there was a Musketeer PrC out there that gave you tremendous bonuses, though it required exotic wep proficiency with guns. If you find it, use it, it makes duelist and Daring outlaw look sorry, and it'll make you a Dartagnan like swashy.