Quick Guide to the pre remaster Swashbuckler

Disclaimer: This guide has been written when the Swashbuckler got released. It hasn’t been updated after the remaster and is as such out of date. I won’t update it as its intended goal was to help players when the Swashbuckler was a brand new class (it was the first Swashbuckler guide). There are now very good and more thorough guides available about the Swashbuckler and I think it’s better for the whole community to have less reference documents.

Swashbuckler has been recently released in the Advanced Player Guide and I’ve been quite thrilled about the class. As it’s a complex class, I feel it could be useful to have a guide to help new Swashbuckler’s players.

Swashbuckler’s features:

Damage: Swashbuckler is quite similar to Monk and Precision Ranger when it comes to damage: It deals incredible damage with one action but using more than one action attacking won’t be efficient. As such, Swashbucklers are secondary damage dealers compared to Rogues, Fighters and Barbarians.

Tanking: Swashbuckler has average defensive abilities for a martial but nice defensive feats and a strong incentive in taking them to optimize its chance of triggering Opportune Riposte. Most Swashbucklers will be honorable tanks.

Mobility: Swashbuckler has crazy mobility with Panache on and still good mobility without it. It is only second to Monk when it comes to speed.

Skills: Swashbuckler has many skill Trained and extra Skill Feats. As such, it is a bit over average when it comes to skill. During combat on the other hand feats like Derring-Do makes it the best at Demoralize, Feint, Combat Maneuvers, Tumble Through…

Feats: Feats are Swashbuckler’s strength. Most of them are unmatched. Unlike most classes, you need feats for a Swashbuckler to shine and as such it should take a bit of time for a Swashbuckler to be competitive against more front-loaded classes like Fighter, Monk or Barbarian.

Attributes:

Swashbuckler has a big issue: It has 5 important attributes. You won’t be able to raise them all.

Dexterity is the class key ability and it will certainly be your main attribute. Starting with an 18 in Dexterity is hardly a bad idea for a Swashbuckler.

Strength is a secondary attribute for Gymnast. For other Styles, it impacts only damage. At low level, the damage impact of Strength is very high: 10% extra damage per +1 bonus. But its impact goes down the more you level up, ending at not even 2% extra damage per +1 bonus so it’s not very interesting to increase it every 5 levels. You can choose to stay at 10 Strength if you plan on playing at high levels.

Charisma is a secondary attribute for all Styles but Gymnast. Gymnast can safely dump it. It is even possible not to increase Charisma on other styles if you don’t plan on using much your alternate Panache-building skill or if you find a way to use another attribute instead of Charisma (Scout uses Sneak for Feint for example).

Constitution is always important especially for a melee character. Still, building an evasive Swashbuckler who uses his high mobility to stay out of reach is possible. But I’ll hardly consider that any class can safely dump Constitution.

Wisdom is important for Will and Perception (and Initiative when you can’t Avoid Notice). Most Swashbucklers keep it at 10. Using Avoid Notice as Exploration Activity partially solves the Initiative issue. Having very low Will is always problematic. I encourage to start low but increase it every five levels.

Intelligence is mostly useless to the Swashbuckler and shouldn’t be raised at all.

Ancestries:

Swashbuckler needs a lot of attribute, the only one you can dump safely is Intelligence. And there are very few Ancestry feats that can improve its efficiency. As a result, you can play a Swashbuckler from nearly every ancestry.

The worst Ancestries to play a Swashbuckler are those who increase Intelligence, namely Elf, Ratfolk and Hobgoblin.

Those who dump Intelligence, Lizardfolk and Leshies, are nice but they improve secondary attributes (Wisdom, Strength and Constitution) and as such are far from excellent.

Human and Half-Humans give you direct access to Unconventional Weaponry, which is always nice if you plan on using an Aldori Dueling Sword.

Skilled Human Heritage is fine as you have extra skill feats as a Swashbuckler but not extra skill increases.

It's also interesting to consider taking an ancestry with a d6 unarmed attack (Orc/Half-Orc, Kobold, Goblin, Catfolk) to complement your main weapon. It's especially useful if you choose a weapon with Reach or Thrown as they are mostly d4 weapons or if you plan on playing a grappler with both hands free to grapple two enemies at the same time.

Shoony has an extremely nice 5th level feat: Tough Tumbler. It trivializes the gain of Panache. Only drawback is that it comes a bit late (Panache issues are mostly low level issues).

Kobold gives you access to Grovel which is absolutely excellent for a Fencer Swashbuckler.

Apart from these considerations, you can really play whatever ancestry suits you. Your overall efficiency won't be much impaired.

Panache:

First, let’s have a word about Panache. Panache is one of your main concern as a Swashbuckler. When you don’t have it you want it. When you have it you want to get rid of it the proper way. There are 3 ways of managing Panache:

All-out Panache: Every round, you try to use a Finisher and gain Panache. This is certainly the most classical (and flashy) way to play a Swashbuckler. At low levels it is quite hard to play a Swashbuckler that way due to the difficulty of the Panache building checks but it gets easier and easier the higher your level. It is important to build Panache at the end of your round, so you benefit from Precise Strike bonus damage on your Opportune Ripostes and Attacks of Opportunity. Also, starting your round with Panache allows you to better organize your actions without too much impact of luck.

Always on Panache: Some Swashbucklers prefer to keep Panache and avoid using Finishers. In my opinion, it’s not very interesting without Derring-Do. But once you get it, you can focus on skills and become an incredible demoralizer or an unstoppable wrestler.

Discontinued Panache: You build Panache during one round and use it during another one. It’s a low stress way to play as you take your time to build Panache and won’t lose your round if you roll badly at your Panache-building skills. It’s important to maximize your Finisher (with conditions like Flat-Footed, Frightened) and it may sometimes be better to just make a standard Strike one round instead of wasting a Finisher if you don’t have any bonus to attack. It works very well for Gymnasts, to give them time to set their Exemplary Finisher up, or if you use True Strike. You may also sometimes have issues building your Panache (monster with very high saves or high mobility) so you may end up in this situation against your will.

An important point about gaining Panache is that, due to skills increasing faster than difficulties, you’ll have easier time building it at high level than at low level. You have roughly 60% chance to succeed at Tumbling Through against a same level opponent at level 1 and 95% at level 20 (considering you have Boots of the Daredevil equipped).

Precise Strike:

Precise Strike extra damage compensate for the limitations on the weapons you can use. Compared to a Greatsword Dragon Barbarian, you deal roughly 50% of its damage without Panache, 60% of its damage with Panache on, 90% of its damage with a Finisher and 130% of its damage with Bleeding Finisher considering that the enemy takes the Bleed damage once. So, we can see that Finishers are very important for your damage output, there’s nearly no point attacking without performing a Finisher.

Finishers:

Finishers are very important for a Swashbuckler and most of the time you’ll do your best to make one per round.

There are 2 important things to take into account with Finishers: You can’t attack after a Finisher and if you attack before a Finisher you increase your MAP and reduce the efficiency of your Finisher. As a result, attacking then making a Finisher does as much damage than just making a Finisher. I can see builds encouraging multiple attacks (with Precise Finisher and Combination Finisher) but you won’t get crazy damage out of them. In my opinion, it’s better to consider that you will attack only once per found and focus on getting the most out of your 2 other actions.

Speed bonus:

As a Swashbuckler, you’ll benefit from increased mobility. As Tumbling Through is one of the easiest ways of gaining Panache you should be moving all the time around the battlefield. 2 important points about Tumbling Through: First, if you fail at Tumbling Through you’ll stop your movement. As much as possible start Tumbling Through from a good position so a failure won’t put you into a very bad place. Also, if I’m not wrong, any modification to your move speed has immediate impact. So if you succeed at Tumbling Through you should immediately gain your Panache mobility to continue your Stride.

Reactions:

Swashbuckler most iconic reaction is Opportune Riposte. As a Swashbuckler, raising your AC is both a defensive and an offensive choice.

It’s also important to note that Opportune Riposte and Attack of Opportunity complement each other. If the enemy attacks you a lot he’ll certainly trigger Opportune Riposte on his last attack. And if he does anything else he’ll certainly trigger Attack of Opportunity. As a Swashbuckler you should very often have an extra attack per round.

Swashbucklers love to end their round next to a lower level enemy.

Also, as you will very often use your reactions for attacks, it’s important not to use them for anything else. Nimble Dodge or Shield Block are bad choices of reactions for a Swashbuckler.

Styles:

Swashbuckler styles won’t have that much of an impact on the way you’ll fight but they are so important from your character identity.

Battledancer:

At first glance, Battledancer is a very weak style. But it has 2 very nice advantages. The first one is that you gain Panache with Leading Dance, one of the best control option of the game available as early as level 4. The second is that you can gain Panache at long range and on multiple opponents with Fascinating Performance, something that not all Styles can do. Exemplary Finisher is not very useful. Quick note: Acrobatic Performance doesn’t work well with Battledancer as even if you can make an Acrobatics check to Perform you only gain Panache if you use a Performance check.

Braggart:

A classic. If you want a crazy intimidation build, you’re looking for a Braggart. I don’t have much more to say as Braggart is just plain good and straightforward. Exemplary Finisher is very important against single foes.

Fencer:

In my opinion, Fencer is the worst style as is. Feint rolls against Perception DC, which is often high on monsters. You can’t gain Panache at range with a Fencer. Exemplary Finisher is not very good. There are a few ways to increase Fencer efficiency through Dedication but they don’t allow you to shine. Monk’s Stumbling Stance can help but it’s not impressive. Scout allows you to Feint using Stealth. It would be very nice if you hadn’t to attack after the Feint. The only thing that makes Fencer fine is the Grovel feat from Kobold ancestry which both solves the range issue of the Fencer and the fact that you no more target Perception but Will. Outside that feat, I would not play a Fencer.

Gymnast:

Gymnast is a very complex Style. An important point about Gymnast is that Combat Maneuvers are Attacks. If you use them before your Finisher, they will increase your MAP. And after your Finisher you won’t be able to use them any more. As a result, Gymnasts works better if you intend to have discontinued Panache. The only way to gain Panache at range with a Gymnast is by using a Ranged Trip weapon (Bola) so it’s nice to keep one easily accessible just in case. Gymnast has the best Exemplary Finisher but at the same time the hardest one to use. If you have a grappling/tripping ally, Gymnast can get to pretty crazy amount of damage.

Wit:

Wit is a very nice Style. Bon Mot is absolutely excellent and improves your toolkit. One for All is one of the best level 1 Swashbuckler feat so it’s always nice to build Panache with it even if it has not much in-combat use. And the Exemplary Finisher is very nice to set Opportune Riposte up.

Hands setup:

There are a few classical hand setups for Swashbuckler:

One handed weapon + free hand/buckler/shield: The most defensive choice as you can get a +2 AC action as early as level 1. Buckler is most of the time a superior choice to free hand as you can keep a light item (potion, scroll, wand) in hand while raising your buckler. Shield is only interesting at low level for a Swashbuckler, and not incredibly interesting. Shield Block will compete with your other reactions and once you get the stances to raise your shield for free there’s not much reason to use a shield over a Buckler.

2-weapon fighting: A second very classical choice for Swashbuckler. You’ll have to wait 4 more levels to get the +2 AC action feat and stance but you’ll have access to Dual Finisher and more weapon traits to play with.

Unarmed: Most unarmed attacks are either Agile or Finesse and as such they complement well with Swashbuckler’s abilities. It’s very interesting to take Ancestry feats to get one. Monk Stances are very nice at low level, but once you get to level 10 they compete with the Swashbuckler Stances and are no more that interesting.

2-handed weapon: Swashbuckler doesn’t support much 2-handed weapons. There are lots of feats you can’t use with them, like the +2 AC action feats or Impaling Finisher (they are all Slashing). Also, because you can’t raise your AC, they don’t interact well with Opportune Riposte.

Bow: Swashbuckler doesn’t have any bonus to use a bow outside its superior Dexterity and high Strength. Still, having a bow as backup weapon for long range fights/flying enemies is important.

Weapon choice:

Choosing proper weapons is very important for any combattant. It’s even more important to a Swashbuckler as you will very often use more than one (either because you use 2 weapons or because you have an Ancestry Unarmed attack).

Weapon dice: Most of your damage will come from your Finisher extra dice. Weapon dice is not that important for a Swashbuckler and choosing a lower dice weapon with good traits is a very valid choice.

Finesse: Well, is there anything to say about Finesse? In general, all your weapons will have this trait.

Reach: Very interesting trait if you want to play a lot with your reactions. Also interesting if you use Guardian’s Deflection. Unfortunately, only Whip and Scorpion Whip have Reach and Finesse. If your DM annoys you about the Uncommon tag on Scorpion Whip, choosing the Whip is not that bad of an idea as long as you have a second weapon/unarmed attack for Undeads and Constructs.

Thrown: Thrown (20 feet range or more) is a desirable trait if you get Flying Blade.

Parry: If you fight with 2 weapons, you want one of your weapons to have Parry to get the most out of Twin Parry.

Agile: If you fight with 2 weapons, you want one of your weapons to have Agile if you plan on using Dual Finisher (and you plan on using Dual Finisher). If you don’t fight with 2 weapons, you don’t care at all about Agile as you’ll attack only once per round anyway.

Trip/Grapple/Shove: Interesting traits if you play a Gymnast. Otherwise, they are mostly useless.

Free-Hand: Absolutely great trait to have both a free hand and 2 weapons. Unfortunately, there are no Finesse + Free Hand weapons yet.

Piercing/Bludgeoning: If you plan on using Impaling Finisher, these types of damage are very interesting.

Forceful/Backswing/Sweep: As you’ll attack only once per round, these traits are absolutely useless.

Fatal/Deadly: As you attack only once without MAP, Fatal and Deadly will be a bigger part of your weapon damage. The Rapier Deadly d8 is roughly 2/3rd of an increase of the damage die.

Aldori Dueling Sword: Well, hard not to speak about it as it’s the highest dice one-handed Finesse weapon of the game and a clear choice for a Swashbuckler. You need Unconventional Weaponry to get it, so be a human or be adopted. But because of the low impact of the damage die on your overall damage and the higher impact of Deadly, an Aldori sword will only deal on average 2-5% extra damage compared to a Rapier, even less if you choose a Finisher with lots of extra damage like Bleeding Finisher or Confident Finisher. So the Aldori Dueling Sword is clearly an excellent choice but it’s not a must have and if you can only get access to a Rapier you should do fine.

Feats:

Level 1:

Buckler Expertise/Dueling Parry: An obvious choice if you fight with a Buckler or a free hand.

Disarming Flair: Disarm is bad. Disarming Flair makes it work. Is it interesting to make Disarm work? Not much in my opinion. You can skip it.

Flying Blade: At first glance, Flying Blade is not incredible. But it’s a very strong choice actually. It allows you to use Finishers at a range of 20 feet. Thing is, when you are 20 feet away from an enemy with Panache on, moving is losing an action. Thanks to Flying Blade you can make a Finisher and then move while gaining Panache. It’s a very nice feat in terms of action economy. It’s only drawback is that all Finesse Thrown weapons have d4 hit dice (but the Light Hammer works fine as long as you avoid to use it as a melee weapon).

Focused Fascination: Fascinated is a roughly useless condition during combat. It doesn’t force the enemy to attack you, it drops as soon as any teammate makes a hostile action and it doesn’t impair much. Its only use is to annoy spellcasters but they have high Will save so it’s hard to affect them. As a result, Focused Fascination is not interesting.

Goading Feint: Feint is quite bad, Goading Feint makes it better, but not good enough to care. For a Fencer, it’s more interesting, but still not very interesting. Take it only if you have extra first level feats which should not happen.

Nimble Dodge: Nice feat at level 1 and 2. Once you get Opportune Riposte, I strongly encourage you to retrain it.

One for All: A crazy level 1 feat, worth of taking Swashbuckler Dedication. Like Inspire Competence, it allows you to roll Diplomacy to aid at range. But unlike Inspire Competence, it’s not limited to skills. As it uses your Reaction, it’s not ideal in combat before you get Reflexive Riposte. But once there, you’ll be able to give +1 to +4 to attack rolls to any one of your allies. Wit Styles recover Panache when using it, but it’s not very interesting as it happens outside your round and as such you won’t benefit from Precision Strike if you happen to make a Riposte before aiding. Make sure you help an ally who’s playing just after you to avoid this issue.

You’re Next: Nice on paper, non functional in fact. First, it happens only when you kill an enemy, so in general at the end of fights when you finish the remaining enemies and don’t care much about scaring the last ones. Second, it uses your reaction during your turn, very bad idea once you get Opportune Riposte. Like Nimble Dodge, you should retrain it at level 3.

Level 2:

After You: After You is useful if the enemies are far away and you plan on waiting for them during the first round, if you have low Wisdom and aren’t Avoiding Notice or if you have no way to gain Panache during a fight (like a Fencer fighting flying enemies). Too situational to be really good.

Antagonize: Funny feat. Forcing a weak enemy with no Reach to attack you to trigger your Opportune Riposte is always nice. Unfortunately for Braggarts, it can’t be turned off. So, be careful not to draw too much attention.

Charmed Life: Charmed Life would be really nice if it was no reaction. It will compete with your other reactions, strongly reducing its effectiveness (until you take Reflexive Riposte). It can still be useful for all the saves you make outside combat or when you face spellcasters (as they will hardly trigger Opportune Riposte). It’s a prerequisite for Incredible Luck but it’s a level 18 feat so you can always retrain later on to take it.

Fane’s Fourberie: I haven’t given a color to this feat as it’s clearly one you choose for fun and not for efficiency. For a Swashbuckler, it’s not really optimized, but it shouldn’t hurt your build much if you choose to go in the Flying Blade direction. As a side note, you should still enchant your deck of cards with a Returning Rune to avoid losing an action drawing a card every round.

Finishing Follow-Through: Nice feat. Finishers will often kill enemies and keeping your Panache is always a good thing. But most of the time you’ll have to move after killing an opponent, so it won’t have that much of an effect (unless you use your Finishers as your last action of the round which is a bad idea).

Tumble Behind: Nice feat. Tumble Through will be your main way of gaining Panache. Making the enemy Flat-Footed at the same time is always nice.

Unbalancing Finisher: Only useful if you face an enemy that you can’t flank to help the whole party. Too situational to be good.

Dedications: As a Swashbuckler, taking a Dedication is most of the time a bad idea unless you want to invest zero extra feat on it. There are a few exceptions.

Occult/Arcane casters Dedications. The obvious goal is to get access to True Strike. True Strike will increase your damage output by nearly 50%, putting you on par with the most damaging martial builds of the game. Unfortunately, it will have an impact on your action economy as you will need one action for True Strike, one for your Finisher and only one left to get Panache back. As a result, you won’t be able to maintain it every round and you will certainly play your Swashbuckler with discontinued Panache. If you plan on taking True Strike, feats improving your Panache conservation like Finishing Follow-Through are very interesting.

Devise a Stratagem from Investigator Dedication can have a similar effect compared to True Strike. The only issue being prerequisites as you’ll need 14 Intelligence. But you can take it at level 9 with a Half-Elf to ignore the prerequisite and then Devise a Stratagem at level 10.

Flying Blade is a very nice feat if you choose to take True Strike and even better with Devise a Stratagem. It allows you to maximize your action efficiency if you properly manage to get your Panache back at the end of your rounds.

Another Dedication that is worth it is Acrobat. The Dedication feat gives you an automatic progression to Acrobatics allowing you to invest your skill increases somewhere else.

Level 4:

Flamboyant Athlete: Level 4 is when the competition starts to be fierce. Flamboyant Athlete would have been very nice at lower level but you have more important feats to take now.

Guardian’s Deflection: It’s a reaction and that’s a bad thing but… the effect is awesome: As long as you have your reaction up allies in your Reach have +2 to their AC. Very good feat, especially if you use a Reach weapon. The only drawback is the need for an empty hand.

Impaling Finisher: One of the best Finishers. 1-action double attack with no MAP. Its main drawback is the need for proper positioning, forcing you to move (or use Leading Dance) before attacking. It means losing an action if you start your round with Panache. As Impaling Finisher uses only one attack roll, it’s very interesting to use it with True Strike or a Hero Point.

Leading Dance: The Battledancer signature move and a very nice feat even for other Styles. It’s one of the best, if not the best, control option in the game. You can move an enemy in any direction, it’s not an attack and as such doesn’t suffer from MAP so you can use it even 3 times in a row and it targets Will which is the lowest save of most monsters. It’s a very nice move to set an Impaling or Dual Finisher up. Definitely a great feat, I can even imagine someone Dedicating to Swashbuckler just for this feat.

Swaggering Initiative: Incredible Initiative + Quick Draw for one weapon. It’s nice but not very nice, especially considering the competition.

Twin Parry: The +2 AC action for two-weapon fighters. A must have for these builds.

Level 6:

Agile Maneuvers: Mostly useless unless you want to play a Gymnast focusing on maneuvers.

Attack of Opportunity: Swashbuckler feats are so good that I rate Attack of Opportunity as good but not major.

Combination Finisher: You don’t want to increase your Finisher’s MAP, so you won’t attack before a Finisher. It’s only useful for high risk high gain Gymnasts build.

Precise Finisher: If you plan on using Confident Finisher as your main single target finisher, you need to take Precise Finisher. It’s actually better than it looks as you will often use it on solo monsters with high AC and as such high chance of failing your attack. It’s also very interesting at level 19 once you get Eternal Confidence. It’s a competitor to Bleeding Finisher as both will have similar efficiency. I advise to take Precise Finisher if you don’t expect much buffs from your party and Bleeding Finisher if you have support (for example a Bard).

Vexing Tumble: As a Swashbuckler, you really hate Attacks of Opportunity. Vexing Tumble solves this issue while giving you Panache. A nice feat, nearly a must have for the Styles that can’t gain Panache at range.

Level 8:

Bleeding Finisher: Certainly the best boss killer available to the Swashbuckler. Bleeding Finisher persistent damage is one of the highest in the game, on par with a maximized Acid Flask and higher than Acid Arrow. Clearly, you need a very good reason not to take it. And if you have one, think about it again.

Dual Finisher: A very good reason not to take Bleeding Finisher as soon as you get to level 8. Dual Finisher is easy to position (especially if you have a Reach weapon), does incredible damage and has high chances of triggering Finishing Follow-Through and Exemplary Finisher. The best multi-target Finisher available. Too bad you get it at the same level than one of the best single target Finisher!

Flamboyant Cruelty: Rare feat with very specific conditions. I won’t speak much about it as it’s too special to be interesting for most builds.

Nimble Roll: Good feat for Rogues. Nuff said.

Stunning Finisher: Meh. Incapacitation trait makes it useless against a boss. Against mooks you have way better finishers.

Vivacious Bravado: It’s not bad per se, but competition is fierce at level 8. Even for a tanky Swashbuckler it’s more funny than efficient.

Level 10:

Buckler Dance/Dueling Dance: Quite an obvious choice if you have Buckler Expertise/Dueling Parry. A must have for these builds.

Derring-Do: An iconic feat for the Swashbuckler. The reason why the best Intimidation or Combat Maneuver builds are Swashbuckler's. Once you have Derring-Do, playing with constant Panache becomes viable. For me, it's a must have for Gymnasts, Braggarts and Battledancers.

Reflexive Riposte: Another excellent feat. If you have Attack of Opportunity, Guardian's Stance or like to use One for All in combat then you need Reflexive Riposte. It can even allow you to proc 2 Ripostes in the same round as many enemies will consider you have lost your reaction after the first one.

Targeting Finisher: You have the choice between 3 effects, but none of them are especially good. Maybe against a boss who's already bleeding from your Bleeding Finisher. Anyway, the competition is too fierce to take this feat.

Level 12:

Cheat Death: Such defensive feats shouldn't be disregarded. Cheat Death main use is to save you from instant death effects (Disintegrate, Finger of Death). It can also save you from nasty criticals when you are already at Wounded 2. For me, it's a nice feat, even if it will be very rarely useful.

Mobile Finisher: This feat is nice in terms of action economy but I prefer to use a Thrown weapon to get the same effect while using my preferred Finisher. For me, its main drawback is that it comes way too late. By level 12, you should be able to gain Panache with some reliability and as such should not need to improve your action economy much.

Level 14:

Flamboyant Leap: Super situational for a level 14 feat. At that level, you're supposed to have lots of ways to fly and should nearly never need to use it.

Impossible Riposte: There are 2 readings of this feat. Either you consider that it allows you to use Opportune Riposte against an enemy who's outside your Reach or you consider that it's only useful against ranged attacks. Being able to use Opportune Riposte on ranged attacks is nice but not incredible. Being able to use Opportune Riposte against enemies outside your Reach is very useful at levels where you start fighting more and more Gargantuan creatures.

Perfect Finisher: Very nice Finisher for single target damage. It does a bit more damage (roughly 5%) than Bleeding Finisher when considering one round of bleeding.

Twinned Defense: If you have Twin Parry, Twin Defense is a no-brainer.

Level 16:

Deadly Grace: Extra damage for no cost. Roughly 3% extra damage on Finishers, twice more on normal attacks.

Felicitous Riposte: Really nice feat if your Opportune Riposte is triggered often (and it should be). A reroll is roughly equivalent to 50% extra damage.

Level 18:

Incredible Luck: Completely crazy feat allowing you to roll twice a save at +2 once per round. Retrain one of your lower level feats for Charmed Life, make sure you have Reflexive Riposte and take Incredible Luck without a thought.

Lethal Finisher: On paper, it seems good. But then you remember that you only reach Master at your Class DC at level 19, that Fortitude is a universally high save and that single target Finishers are best used against bosses. If you want a good single target Finisher, go for Perfect Finisher.

Parry and Riposte: If you have both Felicitous and Reflexive Riposte, Parry and Riposte is a crazy feat. Unfortunately, it doesn't work with a Buckler (why on earth!!!).

Level 20:

Inexhaustible Countermoves: Even more Ripostes!!!! Unfortunately, at some point, enemies will just completely stop attacking you considering the number of Ripostes you can make per round. Depending on the party composition, it may end up being counterproductive by attracting attention away from you. This is a feat I have hard time rating as it's both absolutely crazy good and at the same time enemies will just adapt their strategy to avoid you. In my opinion it's party dependent. If the other martials stick to monsters then you'll just drive attacks away from you and get not much out of it. If you can isolate monsters, with Leading Dance for example, you can force them to lose 2 actions stepping then moving (or 3 if you have Reach) and it starts to be out of line. If you build your character around it (Attack of Opportunity, Dual Finisher, all the Riposte line of feats, Leading Dance, Reach weapon...) it gets so silly good I would just ban it as a DM.

Panache Paragon: Awesome on paper, but with a very little issue: What's the point in having 4 actions per round when you can just make one attack? At level 20, most of your Panache actions will succeed on a 2. So you have 4 actions, one for a Finisher, one to regain Panache and 2 for...? You need to build your character with meaningful actions outside attacking to get the most out of this feat. Otherwise, you'll end up doing mostly nothing with this 4th action.

Swashbuckler Dedication:

A small section to speak about Swashbuckler Dedication. The Dedication is hard to take because of the high attribute prerequisites. Dexterity is easy to have but Charisma is rare. Swashbuckler is easy to take for many casters (Sorcerers, Bards, Oracles, Cloistered Clerics) and for Rogues (especially Scoundrels and Thieves). And actually, I think these are the ones getting the most out of the Dedication.

The Dedication feat itself doesn’t give much.

Finishing Precision: The increase in damage is too low. You won’t be using Finishers often enough for an extra d6 to matter. Forget about this feat.

Swashbuckler’s Riposte: Clearly one of the major feature of the Swashbuckler. On a Fighter it’s a killer, as it combines greatly with Attack of Opportunity. If you play a defensive character (Monk, Champion), getting access to Riposte is also awesome as you will trigger it often.

Swashbuckler’s Speed: An 8th level class feat for a +5 feet of speed. Can you imagine a worse feat?

Evasiveness: Evasiveness would be great if it was actually giving Evasion. But no, you just get the +2 to Reflex from Master proficiency. And it’s a level 12 feat…

Basic Flair: Level 1 and 2 Swashbuckler feats contain a few gems. One for All is the no-brainer choice for a Charisma-based character. Antagonize is also the kind of feats you could take a Dedication for if you are playing a Demoralizing ranged character. Goading Feint and Disarming Flair can be useful for some builds. Charmed Life is very nice, too. Tumble Behind and Nimble Dodge can see some use.

Advanced Flair: Advanced Flair is quite costly but can open some excellent options at level 8 (after that, feats get too weak). Guardian’s Deflection is excellent for Whip-wielding Bards (or any caster as you don’t need the proficiency). Being able to block an attack at the cost of a reaction on classes who lack reactions is just excellent. Impaling Finisher is expensive  but it opens a double attack with no MAP for one action so I could see some build considering it. Dueling Dance is also crazy good, especially if you have multi target abilities like Impaling Finisher or Swipe or if you need the enemy to be at specific position to deal most of your damage (Rogue). It’s also very nice for Monks as they have extra actions after their Flurry.

I’d take the Dedication on a few builds:

Charisma-based casters: One for All + Guardian’s Deflection complement Charisma-based casters options greatly by providing an excellent 1-action at-will third action and an excellent at-will reaction, 2 things too many casters lack.

Defensive Fighter: The Dedication is hard to take as Defensive Fighters have low Dexterity, but if you play a Half-Elf it can be great to take it at level 9. Swashbuckler’s Riposte is clearly the reason to go Swashbuckler for even more attacks as reactions.

Rogue: Swashbuckler Dedication is easy to take for a Rogue but it’s not crazy good. The Riposte can help by pushing enemies to attack someone other than you. Dueling Dance on the other can be helpful with Sneak Attack by putting enemies on flanking positions.

Defensive Monk (with Charisma): Swashbuckler’s Riposte is excellent on a Monk and Dueling Dance can also be very nice. Antagonize can push the enemies to attack you. Charisma is not a Monk basic stat but if you want to make such a Monk then you should consider Swashbuckler Dedication.

Example Builds:

I'll give you a few Swashbuckler builds. I won't enter into details and just give you their most important features.

Devil Dancer

Classic Battledancer Style build.

Dexterity as primary attribute, Charisma as secondary.

A strong Piercing or Bludgeoning weapon if you want to Impale, 2 weapons otherwise.

Feats: Buckler Expertise/Dueling Parry/Twin Parry, Leading Dance, Impaling Finisher or Dual Finisher, Buckler Dance/Dueling Dance/Twin Defense.

You dance with your enemies to build Panache while positioning them properly for your terrible Finisher. Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?

Braggart Tank

Classic Braggart Style build.

Dexterity as primary attribute, Charisma as secondary, Constitution as tertiary.

2-weapon fighting.

Feats: Antagonize, Twin Parry, Attack of Opportunity, Dual Finisher, Reflexive Riposte, Twin Defense, Felicitous Riposte, Parry and Riposte, Inexhaustible Countermoves.

You Intimidate enemies and push them to come to you, you avoid their attacks and retaliate swiftly.

Hammer Thrower

Human.

Wit Style.

Dexterity as main attribute.

Thrown (20 feet) weapon (Light Hammer, Starknife) or a deck of cards if you want to play it like Captain Fane.

Feats: Flying Blade, All For One (Natural Ambition), Occult/Arcane spellcaster Dedication, Basic Spellcasting, Finishing Follow-Through or Fane’s Fourberie, Bleeding Finisher, Panache Paragon.

True Strike, Finisher, All For One to recover Panache. Rinse, repeat.

If you like this build and want to know more about it, Dmerceless made a complete guide about it that you can find here.

Bear Wrestler

Gymnast Style.

Dexterity as primary attribute, Strength as secondary.

An Ancestry giving you a Jaws attack (Orc/Half-Orc, Goblin, Kobold).

Feats: Buckler Expertise/Dueling Parry, Agile Maneuvers, Derring-Do, Buckler Dance/Dueling Dance.

Grapple and trip your opponents, keep them in your grasp to unleash terrible Finishers or just let your allies kill them. Once you have Derring-Do it should become a lot more fun.

Coward Marshal

Braggart Style.

Dexterity as primary attribute, Charisma as secondary, Constitution as dump stat.

A Whip or Scorpion Whip, a free hand. A d6 Unarmed Attack.

Feats: Buckler Expertise/Dueling Parry, Charmed Life, Guardian’s Deflection, Attack of Opportunity, Derring-Do, Buckler Dance/Dueling Dance, Perfect Finisher, Incredible Luck.

You courageously demoralize enemies while staying behind your teammates, using your Reach to stay out of reach, protecting your allies from harm while they protect you from harm.