Swashbuckler Update & Single Weapon Fighting Feats

[Vargouille]

Hi! We're presenting some updates for Swashbuckler, and our current ideas for Single-Weapon Fighting Feats.

We've tried to balance these feats against THF and TWF. We feel these will scale well into higher levels, as these bonuses from Single Weapon Fighting are multiplied by higher +(W) weapons. Our current plan allows these feats to work alongside Two-Handed Fighting if you are using a Bastard Sword or Dwarven Axe. Due to both balance and technical concerns, these feats don't function with weapons that have multiple dice (as part of the base die, such as the 2d4 dagger "Agony, the Knife in the Dark"). Regular one-handed weapons and nearly all named one-handed items only have one die, but there are a few named items that won't function with Single Weapon Fighting.

Internally, we're discussing longer-range possibilities to address some issues with shield builds and thrown builds, which aren't covered by Single Weapon Fighting (except for Swashbuckler's exception where they can use bucklers with SWF).

(EDIT: Some updated ideas here: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/441556-Swashbuckler-Update-amp-Single-Weapon-Fighting-Feats?p=5324424#post5324424)

Single Weapon Fighting
While Single-Weapon Fighting, your weapon die gains an additional +2 sides.

Single Weapon Fighting: Requires fighting with a single one-handed melee weapon, and wielding only an orb, runearm, or nothing in your offhand.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d10 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (Example: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 2 ranks of Balance


Improved Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Single Weapon Fighting increases to +4 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d12 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 4 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +6


Greater Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Improved Single Weapon Fighting increases to +6 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d14 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 7 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +11


https://www.ddo.com/sites/default/files/Swashbuckler_01May2014.png


Changes in the Tree

Some of the more prominent changes to the tree include allowing Single-Weapon Fighting with a Buckler, putting more into the first core ability, adding in CHA / DEX / INT to-damage enhancements (while Single Weapon Fighting), and adding max-dex bonus to armor and reflex saving throws to both core abilities and Tier 5. Some abilities have also been renamed or had tentative numbers put in for various costs or cooldowns. All names and numbers still subject to further feedback, revision, and balancing.


Core Abilities


1 AP, class level 1: Confidence: Passive: +1% Dodge, +1 Reflex Save, and +1 to the Max Dex Bonus of your Armor per Swashbuckler Core Ability you have.
5 AP, class level 3: Swashbuckling: Defensive Stance: You gain 1% Doublestrike and Doubleshot as well as +1 to the Enhancement Bonus of the weapon in your main hand. Swashbuckling requires wielding a Finesseable or Thrown weapon in your main hand, wielding a Buckler or nothing in your off hand, and wearing Light Armor or no armor. (Druids cannot Swashbuckle while in animal forms.)

Passive: While Swashbuckling, the following weapons receive Competence bonuses to their critical profiles:
Dagger, Shortsword, Throwing Dagger: +1 Critical Threat Range, +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Light Mace, Sickle, Dart, Shuriken, Throwing Axe, Throwing Hammer: +2 Critical Threat Range, +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Kukri, Rapier: +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Handaxe: +2 Critical Threat Range
Light Pick: +1 Critical Threat Range


10 AP, class level 6: Uncanny Dodge: You gain the Uncanny Dodge feat. Passive: Swashbuckling grants an additional 1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, and +1 Attack Damage.
20 AP, class level 12: Panache: While Swashbuckling, you have an additional 1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, +1 Attack Damage, +1 Reflex Saving Throw, and the weapon in your main hand gains an additional +1 to its Enhancement bonus.
30 AP, class level 18: Roll with the Punches: While Swashbuckling, you gain +5 Insight Bonus to Character Dodge Cap, the Slippery Mind feat, +1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, and +1 Attack Damage.
41 AP, class level 20: Evasive Maneuvers: +2 CHA, +2 DEX.While Swashbuckling, you gain the Evasion feat, +1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, +1 Attack Damage, and the weapon in your main hand gains an additional +1 to its Enhancement bonus.


Tier One


On Your Toes: +1/2/3 Dodge
Blow By Blow (multiselector)

Melee or Thrown Attack: Make an attack with +(1/2/3) critical threat range that deals (+1/+2/+3)d6 extra Sonic damage, and reduces your threat with nearby enemies by (100/200/300). This Sonic damage scales with spellpower.


Insults (multiselector)

Scathing Words: Activate to reduce the Fortitude saves of nearby enemies by 3. (Costs 16/12/8 Spell Points, 20/15/10 Second Cooldown)
Cutting Jibes: Activate to reduce the Will saves of nearby enemies by 3. (Costs 16/12/8 Spell Points, 20/15/10 Second Cooldown)
Appalling Diatribe: Activate to reduce the Reflex saves of nearby enemies by 3. (Costs 16/12/8 Spell Points, 20/15/10 Second Cooldown)


Tavern Shanties: +1/2/3 Bard Songs.
Limber Up: +(1/2/3) to Balance, Jump, Swim, Haggle, and Tumble. 3rd Rank: When you Tumble, you gain +3 to saves against traps for 6 seconds. 12 second cooldown.


Tier Two


En Pointe: Melee Attack: Make two attacks with +4/8/12 critical threat range, but -1 Critical Multiplier. Costs 10 Spell Points to activate.
Deflect Arrows: You gain the benefits of the Deflect Arrows feat, knocking aside one incoming projectile that would have struck you every 6/4/2 seconds. (Antireq Tempest Deflect Arrows)
Fast Movement: You gain +1% Bardic Music bonus to movement for every Bard level you possess.
Sword Dance: While Swashbuckling, when enemies miss you in combat, you deal 1d10/1d12/1d20 Sonic Damage. This Sonic damage scales with spellpower.
Action Boost Multiselector

Action Boost: Doublestrike: You gain +10/20/30% Action Boost bonus to Doublestrike for 20 seconds. Usable 5 times per rest.
Action Boost: Doubleshot: You gain +10/20/30% Action Boost bonus to Doubleshot for 20 seconds. Usable 5 times per rest.



Tier Three


Elegant Footwork: When enemies miss you while Swashbuckling, they have a chance to be knocked down with no save. Cooldown: 12 seconds.
Swashbuckling Style (Multiselector)

Dashing Scoundrel: Passive: While Swashbuckling with nothing in your off hand, you gain +1 Attack Damage per 5 Character levels and 7% Doublestrike/Doubleshot.
Skirmisher: Passive: While Swashbuckling with a Buckler in your off hand, you gain 7% Dodge, and you may use a Buckler and still benefit from the Single Weapon Fighting line of feats.
Arcane Marauder: Passive: You can now Swashbuckle with an Orb in your off hand. (Does not count as a Buckler for Buckler-specific abilities). Requires Magical Training (or the Spellsinger enhancement equivalent).
Cannoneer: (Requires Runearm Proficiency feat): Passive: You can now Swashbuckle with a Rune Arm in your off hand. (Does not count as a Buckler for Buckler-specific abilities).


Resonant Arms: While Swashbuckling, the Finesseable or Thrown weapon in your main hand deals an additional 2d6/4d6/6d6 Sonic Damage on critical hits. This Sonic damage scales with spellpower.
Different Tack (Multiselector, Requires Single Weapon Fighting feat)

Swift Strikes: You get Dexterity to Damage with weapon attacks while Single Weapon Fighting.
Two Steps Ahead: You get Intelligence to Damage with weapon attacks Single Weapon Fighting.
Smooth Flourishes: You get Charisma to Damage with weapon attacks Single Weapon Fighting.


CHA/DEX


Tier Four


On the Mark: Passive +1/2/3 to attack rolls to confirm critical hits and damage on critical hits (before weapon multipliers)
Swashbuckling Style II (Multiselector)

Slap in the Face: While Swashbuckling and wielding nothing in your off hand, activate to deal 1 Bludgeon damage. Damaged enemies can't cast spells for 3/6/9 seconds and are stunned for one second (Perform + d20 saves for the Stun). 18 second cooldown. Costs 10 Spell Points.
Low Blow: While Swashbuckling and wielding a Buckler in your off hand, activate to perform a shield bash with +2 Critical Threat Range and Multiplier. On hit, knock down affected enemy for one second (Perform + d20 saves for the Knockdown). Costs 10 Spell Points.
Loud & Clear:Passive: While Swashbuckling with an Orb in your off hand, +20 Sonic Spell Power.
Tune Arm/Music Box: Passive: While Swashbuckling with a Rune Arm in your off hand, your Rune Arm Weapon Imbue deals an additional 1d6 Sonic damage. This Sonic damage scales with spellpower.


Battering Barrage: (2 AP, 2 ranks) While Swashbuckling, critical hits inflict Destruction/Improved Destruction.
Wind at my Back: +1 to the Enhancement Bonus of your equipped Throwing Weapons, plus an additional +1 for every five Bard levels.
CHA/DEX


Tier Five


Thread the Needle: While Swashbuckling, +5 Attack Damage while the Precision feat is active.
Second Skin: While Swashbuckling, +3/6/12 to your Reflex Saves and +2/4/6 to the Max Dex Bonus of your Armor.
Exploit Weaknesses:While Swashbuckling, every time you damage an enemy but do not critically hit, you gain a stacking +1 Insight Bonus to Critical Threat Range until you successfully crit.

[DemonStorm333]

still no ability to activate swashbuckling with a bsword with outh the added effects that the finessable weapon would get :(

[krimsonrane]

if it's not a dex based build and you don't allow dex to damage you're doing it wrong.

[Lifespawn]

if it's not a dex based build and you don't allow dex to damage you're doing it wrong.

? the only thing u can't use is con or wis

[ddorimble]

I think it's too bad that you made the Swashbuckling Style tiers a Multiselector. Why not grant them all and allow people to freely switch between the styles depending on the situation? That's the whole Bard idiom. Jack of all trades, master of none.

I would imagine the 'style change' would happen automatically as you swapped your gear.

[Cardtrick]

The choice of Dex/Int/Cha to damage with a tier 3 enhancement is very good, and will certainly be an appealing feature of this tree for pure or near-pure bards. That's a great change.

Bonuses to reflex save are very nice, too, although I wish it had been something stronger without requiring the investment of 3 ranks of a tier 5 enhancement. At least the first 2 ranks of that are probably going to be required to have sufficient reflex save to make the evasion useful in high level epics, with the third probably required for epic elite. You didn't list the AP costs, but if the other 2 tier 5 abilities each cost 2 APs, that prevents taking them and hurts this tree's damage output even more.



Due to both balance and technical concerns, these feats don't function with weapons that have multiple dice (as part of the base die, such as the 2d4 dagger "Agony, the Knife in the Dark"). Regular one-handed weapons and nearly all named one-handed items only have one die, but there are a few named items that won't function with Single Weapon Fighting.

I guarantee this is going to be confusing. People are already confused enough by the +W stuff. Why couldn't this have just been a straight up addition to base damage or to the enhancement level of weapons (like what warpriest gets for favored weapons)?






On a more general note, the Single Weapon Fighting feats are incredibly underwhelming to me.

Have you done the math to look at how a character's damage output with these feats compares to a TWF or THF character? I haven't done it yet, although I will try to do so, so these responses are more instinctive than calculated. That said . . .

I can't see any character ever using these feats or this fighting style except bards with the new tree. The problem is that bards don't get any bonus feats and already struggle to fit what they need, since they need both casting/healing feats and melee feats.

My gut feeling is that the damage output of a character with a reasonable strength bonus using a two-handed weapon and power attack (one feat) is going to be considerably better than that of a character using a single weapon and all 3 of these feats (three feats).

If the tier 3 Single Weapon fighting feat was a single feat that didn't require the previous two feats, it would conceivably be worth taking on some characters, and at least a much less painful required feat for pure bards.

But these bonuses can't possibly compare to the huge DPS increase of almost doubling your attack rate with the TWF feats and enhancements; or getting higher strength bonus, double benefit from power attack, and the increased single target and very significant AOE damage from glancing blows with the THF style (many of which don't even require spending feats).

EDIT:
I edited my comment on the reflex saves. I hadn't seen the tier 5 ability, I was just looking at the core.

[Grosbeak07]

if it's not a dex based build and you don't allow dex to damage you're doing it wrong.


Different Tack (Multiselector, Requires Single Weapon Fighting feat)


Swift Strikes: You get Dexterity to Damage with weapon attacks while Single Weapon Fighting.
Two Steps Ahead: You get Intelligence to Damage with weapon attacks Single Weapon Fighting.
Smooth Flourishes: You get Charisma to Damage with weapon attacks Single Weapon Fighting.

[alancarp]

The one big thing I don't see - and I tend to like what I do see (edit: I like the direction it's going compared to the 1st draft) - is help for spell points.


> Lots of abilities that require spell points to activate
> No swashbuckler enhancements to spell points.
> Compelling Tier 5 enhancements
>>> I cannot have Spell Song Vigor if I take Swashbuckler Tier 5 enhancements.

That's a bad combination.

Could we, possibly, pretty please, perchance.... move SSVigor to Tier 4??? You can get rid of Arcane Aid to make room for it.

[Krelar]

Due to both balance and technical concerns, these feats don't function with weapons that have multiple dice (as part of the base die, such as the 2d4 dagger "Agony, the Knife in the Dark"). Regular one-handed weapons and nearly all named one-handed items only have one die, but there are a few named items that won't function with Single Weapon Fighting.


Single Weapon Fighting
While Single-Weapon Fighting, your weapon die gains an additional +2 sides.

Single Weapon Fighting: Requires fighting with a single one-handed melee weapon, and wielding only an orb, runearm, or nothing in your offhand.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d10 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (Example: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 2 ranks of Balance


Instead of adding +2 sides is it possible to add a flat bonus to the die before +W is applied?
So W[1d8] becomes W[1d8+1] which would be equivalent to +2 sides as far as average damage but would also work on weapons with more than 1 die.

[ComicRelief]

*snip*Single Weapon Fighting
While Single-Weapon Fighting, your weapon die gains an additional +2 sides.
*snip*

Personally, I'd rather see a straight "+2" (stacking [with all other 'bonuses']) damage (to the total base damage), rather than "+2 sides". This would basically do the same thing, EXCEPT it would increase the minimum damage; e.g. a 1d8 weapon would now do 3-10 points damage (1d8 + 2) instead of 1-10 points (1d10). The maximum damage remains the same, just the minimum damage is increased. This should also bypass the 'technical' issues with weapons that have multiple base dice: 2d4 would do 4-10 damage (2d4 + 2), thus allowing the 'rare', special weapons to be used (which, IMO, they should be). Since you should not be mutiplying the added damage by the number of base dice (i.e. you would not be doing 2*[1d4 + 2] damage), I would think this might alleviate the balance concerns with using the multi-base dice weapons, too.

I would also think that it might also be easier to code, but what do I know?
;)

[Wizza]

We've tried to balance these feats against THF and TWF. We feel these will scale well into higher levels, as these bonuses from Single Weapon Fighting are multiplied by higher +(W) weapons. Our current plan allows these feats to work alongside Two-Handed Fighting if you are using a Bastard Sword or Dwarven Axe. Due to both balance and technical concerns, these feats don't function with weapons that have multiple dice (as part of the base die, such as the 2d4 dagger "Agony, the Knife in the Dark"). Regular one-handed weapons and nearly all named one-handed items only have one die, but there are a few named items that won't function with Single Weapon Fighting.

Internally, we're discussing longer-range possibilities to address some issues with shield builds and thrown builds, which aren't covered by Single Weapon Fighting (except for Swashbuckler's exception where they can use bucklers with SWF).


Single Weapon Fighting
While Single-Weapon Fighting, your weapon die gains an additional +2 sides.

Single Weapon Fighting: Requires fighting with a single one-handed melee weapon, and wielding only an orb, runearm, or nothing in your offhand.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d10 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (Example: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 2 ranks of Balance


Improved Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Single Weapon Fighting increases to +4 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d12 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 4 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +6


Greater Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Improved Single Weapon Fighting increases to +6 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d14 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 7 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +11


There are no words to describe how GARBAGE these SWF feats are.

Let's start with the feat requirement: WHAT? 7 Ranks of Balance on a bard? Why in the world..
It does not work with weapons with multiple dice?

And..+6 sides? THAT'S IT? No doublestrike even? We are going to lose a second weapon and 3 feats for this? You haven't tried hard enough. You haven't tried at all.


I don't even want to comment on the bard tree (cores are better) but NO CHARISMA TO HIT? Just to damage? And the Sonic Spellpower went from 10 to 20. Big deal.

Not sure who is going to play this with these garbage SWF feats.

[Cardtrick]

There are no words to describe how GARBAGE these SWF feats are

Yes. My first response was too measured. I'm trying to look at some numbers now, and these are just truly terrible.

Which is a shame, because I'm actually really starting to like the enhancement tree. It's just badly let down by these feats.

[Grailhawk]

Math seams to indicate these are at least as good as THF feat.

GSWF with a 4.5[w] adds on average 13.5 damage per hit (4.5*3=13.5)
GTHF assuming an average damage of 100.25 (4.5[1d8] + 80) is 12.5 (1.5*.75*100.25 - 100.25 = 12.5)

You should consider adding a bonus to finesse able weapons such as [3/6/10]% bonus to alacrity or armor piercing to make up for the fact that Bastardsword and DAxe users can use both the THF and the SWF feat.

[Cardtrick]

Math seams to indicate these are at least as good as THF feat.

GSWF with a 4.5[w] adds on average 13.5 damage per hit (4.5*3=13.5)
GTHF assuming an average damage of 100.25 (4.5[1d8] + 80) is 12.5 (1.5*.75*100.25 - 100.25 = 12.5)

Glancing blows apply to an area of effect.

Two handed weapons get 1.5 times strength modifier added to the base damage, not 1 times like a single weapon does.

Two handed weapons get 10 points damage added by power attack, not 5.

EDIT: Also, is it really reasonable to assume 4.5[W]? That's basically requiring thunder forged weapons. We absolutely want to think about endgame weapons and content when considering balance, but it shouldn't be the only concern. The single weapon style is going to be much farther behind THF and TWF until you get to thunder forged gear, since it's the only style that adds damage before the W multiplier rather than after it.

[Zoda]

Single weapon fighting feats are complete trash. Every other fighting style feats gives you a a percentage bonus, this one is 4.5 damage per feat at it's very best with thunder forged weapons, it's not getting even close to thf/twf.

Make me want to consider dropping my 2nd weapon/ 2 hander or don't bother.

[Madja]

Do the Single Weapon Fighting feats work on a druid in animal form? I'm just wondering if the reason that THF and TWF do not (besides balance) is that it counts as having a single weapon?

[Wizza]

Core Abilities


1 AP, class level 1: Confidence: Passive: +1% Dodge, +1 Reflex Save, and +1 to the Max Dex Bonus of your Armor per Swashbuckler Core Ability you have.



Tier Five


Second Skin: While Swashbuckling, +3/6/12 to your Reflex Saves and +2/4/6 to the Max Dex Bonus of your Armor.


I'm a bit dazzled at the moment but answer me this: Max Dex Bonus does not actually raise your Max Dodge cap right? It will still be 30 (25 base + lv18 core) right?

[Cetus]

Single Weapon Fighting
While Single-Weapon Fighting, your weapon die gains an additional +2 sides.


Improved Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Single Weapon Fighting increases to +4 sides.


Greater Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Improved Single Weapon Fighting increases to +6 sides.

The only way these are going to be useful is if we have a large enough W bonus. Give swashbuckler higher +W modifiers in order to make these feats worthwhile. A thunderforged weapon would capitalize decently on this with momentum swing, deadly weapons, weapon attachment, and dreadnaught .5 W. Without these, these feats are weak.







En Pointe: Melee Attack: Make two attacks with +4/8/12 critical threat range, but -1 Critical Multiplier. Costs 10 Spell Points to activate.

This attack is horrible. We ALWAYS crit. Penalizing the crit by a multiplier is horrible. I would never take this.







Slap in the Face: While Swashbuckling and wielding nothing in your off hand, activate to deal 1 Bludgeon damage. Damaged enemies can't cast spells for 3/6/9 seconds and are stunned for one second (Perform + d20 saves for the Stun). 18 second cooldown. Costs 10 Spell Points.

1 bludgeon damage? 1 second stun? Worthless, again...no change since last feedback.





Smooth Flourishes: You get Charisma to Damage with weapon attacks Single Weapon Fighting

this needs to include to-hit

[Lonnbeimnech]

Single weapon fighting...

How about instead of those you add the robilar's gambit feat

[Cetus]

Single weapon fighting feats are complete trash. Every other fighting style feats gives you a a percentage bonus, this one is 4.5 damage per feat at it's very best with thunder forged weapons, it's not getting even close to thf/twf.

Make me want to consider dropping my 2nd weapon/ 2 hander or don't bother.

Well, they're not COMPLETE trash.

Think about this - A thunderforged bastard sword has 1d10. Fully upgraded + momentum swing + deadly weapons = 10.5d10 swing = 57.5 average damage.

With three SWF feats = 10.5d16 = 84 average damage.

So having those three feats gives you almost 30 extra damage a swing, not bad. BUT you need a bunch of W bonuses to improve the use of these feats.

The real downside to this isn't about the feats, its about the fact that two weapons or THF will still do way better than this. And who can spend 6 feats on THF and SWF for bastard swords to improve glances? Its just not practical imo

[LucasMacKinnon]

I like the cha to damage, but i really wish you would put cha to attack as well pure bards that are more SS will have a lot higher cha then str or dex. giving them something that will allow them to utilize their high cha for melee will help make them a little more viable then just as buff, song, and healing the only weapon in the game really for a SS bard for epic just so we can do a little damage is the Eyld Edge. I would like to see something that allows us to have cha to attack and damage for all weapons we are prof in

[Andoris]

We've tried to balance these feats against THF and TWF. We feel these will scale well into higher levels, as these bonuses from Single Weapon Fighting are multiplied by higher +(W) weapons. Our current plan allows these feats to work alongside Two-Handed Fighting if you are using a Bastard Sword or Dwarven Axe. Due to both balance and technical concerns, these feats don't function with weapons that have multiple dice (as part of the base die, such as the 2d4 dagger "Agony, the Knife in the Dark"). Regular one-handed weapons and nearly all named one-handed items only have one die, but there are a few named items that won't function with Single Weapon Fighting.


The SWF feats are still quite weak.. +2 sides on a die is quite a bit weaker than +10% glancing damage or 20% off hand attack chance. Single Weapon Fighting is all about finesse and speed.. maybe change these to +0.5W/+1W/+1.5W and 2%/4%/6% Doublestrike/Doubleshot

Also, as swashbuckler adds the possibility of throwing builds that don't use shuriken's.. how about 2 new feats.. one is Throwing Expertise (works just like Shuriken Expertise, but for other throwers) and Quick Throw (works just like 10k stars, but for other throwers and uses Dex or Str mod).




Core Abilities


1 AP, class level 1: Confidence: Passive: +1% Dodge, +1 Reflex Save, and +1 to the Max Dex Bonus of your Armor per Swashbuckler Core Ability you have.
5 AP, class level 3: Swashbuckling: Defensive Stance: You gain 1% Doublestrike and Doubleshot as well as +1 to the Enhancement Bonus of the weapon in your main hand. Swashbuckling requires wielding a Finesseable or Thrown weapon in your main hand, wielding a Buckler or nothing in your off hand, and wearing Light Armor or no armor. (Druids cannot Swashbuckle while in animal forms.)

Passive: While Swashbuckling, the following weapons receive Competence bonuses to their critical profiles:
Dagger, Shortsword, Throwing Dagger: +1 Critical Threat Range, +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Light Mace, Sickle, Dart, Shuriken, Throwing Axe, Throwing Hammer: +2 Critical Threat Range, +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Kukri, Rapier: +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Handaxe: +2 Critical Threat Range
Light Pick: +1 Critical Threat Range


10 AP, class level 6: Uncanny Dodge: You gain the Uncanny Dodge feat. Passive: Swashbuckling grants an additional 1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, and +1 Attack Damage.
20 AP, class level 12: Panache: While Swashbuckling, you have an additional 1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, +1 Attack Damage, +1 Reflex Saving Throw, and the weapon in your main hand gains an additional +1 to its Enhancement bonus.
30 AP, class level 18: Roll with the Punches: While Swashbuckling, you gain +5 Insight Bonus to Character Dodge Cap, the Slippery Mind feat, +1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, and +1 Attack Damage.
41 AP, class level 20: Evasive Maneuvers: +2 CHA, +2 DEX.While Swashbuckling, you gain the Evasion feat, +1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, +1 Attack Damage, and the weapon in your main hand gains an additional +1 to its Enhancement bonus.



Doublestrike / Doubeshot should be higher (I like 3% per core versus the 1% now).. a bard swashbuckler fighting in SWF style can hit 46/76% ( +4% cores +7% Dashing Scoundrel +5% PTWF +9% Martial PL + 6% Inspire Recklessness + 3% artifact (black armor) +12% vengeful fury / + 30% action boost).

That is not enough to compete on any level with TWF (100% off hand attacks + up to 42%/72% double strike) or the staff builds that get about the same or higher Doublestrike.

There is still not enough in SWF to make it anything more than a flavor option when compared to other combat styles.




Resonant Arms: While Swashbuckling, the Finesseable or Thrown weapon in your main hand deals an additional 2d6/4d6/6d6 Sonic Damage on critical hits.
Different Tack (Multiselector, Requires Single Weapon Fighting feat)

Swift Strikes: You get Dexterity to Damage with weapon attacks while Single Weapon Fighting.
Two Steps Ahead: You get Intelligence to Damage with weapon attacks Single Weapon Fighting.
Smooth Flourishes: You get Charisma to Damage with weapon attacks Single Weapon Fighting




Resonant Arms, is it modified by Sonic Spell power? If so this will help in bridging some of the dps divide between Swashbuckling and other fighting styles

Different Track, should give both Attack and Damage.





Swashbuckling Style II (Multiselector)

Slap in the Face: While Swashbuckling and wielding nothing in your off hand, activate to deal 1 Bludgeon damage. Damaged enemies can't cast spells for 3/6/9 seconds and are stunned for one second (Perform + d20 saves for the Stun). 18 second cooldown. Costs 10 Spell Points.




Stun really needs to be more than 1 sec, 2-3 seconds seems more reasonable





Second Skin: While Swashbuckling, +3/6/12 to your Reflex Saves and +2/4/6 to the Max Dex Bonus of your Armor.





Nice improvement, as it lets a dex based 20 bard actually have the evasion ability be useful (looks like Ref save ~mid 70s at cap)

[knightgf]

Every style of fighting should have purpose. I hardly see any in single weapon fighting. Let me break down the purpose of the styles of melee combat in DDO:



What is the purpose of Two-Weapon Fighting? To deal lots of damage against a single target by multiple attacks.
What is the purpose of Two-Handed Fighting? To deal blows that each deal heavy damage, and to do a bit of 'crowd control' by being able to attack multiple targets with glancing blows.
What is the purpose of unarmed combat? When you are disarmed, or primarily if you are a monk who specializes in unarmed combat.
What is the purpose of sword and board fighting? To provide valuable protection at the cost of some DPS. Currently, the DPS cost is a bit too high for what's offered.


What do I see in single-weapon fighting? Damage that is way lesser than two-weapon and two-handed, yet somewhat above unarmed combat for non-monks. And maybe a tiny bit of defense, though probably not close to sword and board fighting. What should the purpose of Single-Weapon fighting be? To deliver precise, crippling blows that hamper the enemy's efforts, as well as to provide a level of self-defense. It shouldn't be the top of the line DPS, but it should offer worthy benefits that are worth taking. For example, to be an effective single-weapon fighter compared to other classes, Swashbucklers should be able to apply debuffs as a % chance on each hit and critical hit. Some examples of debuffs worth applying on every hit as a % chance include:



Hamstring
Improved Feint
Destruction
1 damage of a random stat
Bleed damage


And some examples of debuffs worth applying on a critical hit as a % chance include:



Stunned (Or paralyzed)
1d6 damage of a random stat (bypasses epic ward)
Improved Destruction
Crippled
Extra stacks of bleed


Keep in mind these are examples, and that there are definitely better debuffs that could also be added to the list. In short: Think of a swashbuckler's offensive attacks as debuffs that trigger as randomly as colors of the queen, though with different % chances than colors of the queen.

In addition to these debuffs, swashbucklers should also be able to bypass quite a bit of fortification, and share that benefit with allies. A swashbuckler's ability to bypass fortification may not be much, but when you combine it with other fortification lowering stats, such as improved sunder, it adds up and makes the swashbuckler's ability to bypass fortification viable. As for defense, swashbuckler needs a lot more dodge, and maybe toggle-able abilities that really improve dodge at the cost of a lower chance to proc debuffs. In addition, to make the swashbuckler's ability to defend itself unique, they should have some sort of ability to treat the PRR of light armor as if it were heavy armor. These two things might make the defense abilities of a swashbuckler worthwhile.

That's all I got on my mind. I sure hope it helps.

[viktorserak]

Math seams to indicate these are at least as good as THF feat.

GSWF with a 4.5[w] adds on average 13.5 damage per hit (4.5*3=13.5)
GTHF assuming an average damage of 100.25 (4.5[1d8] + 80) is 12.5 (1.5*.75*100.25 - 100.25 = 12.5)

You should consider adding a bonus to finesse able weapons such as [3/6/10]% bonus to alacrity or armor piercing to make up for the fact that Bastardsword and DAxe users can use both the THF and the SWF feat.

Ehm, yes... but, you are forgeting three facts:

1. THF is superior because of how it calculates strenght bonus.

2. 4.5(w) is something, that only one kind of finessable weapons can offer. and those are all lvl 28 - I.E. lvl CAP. which means that untill then (and assuming that you are ETRing, which is something most ppl do) and for the most part of the game, you are running with much LOWER dice. Which makes SWF inferior.

3. Most of all, THF has glancing blows. Which meas that in 95% of the game content, I will be done killing things with THF long before I am done killing things with SWF.

The thing is: If I want single target DPS over AoE DPS (THF), I go TWF - it has almost double the attacks and that is simply something, that SWF cannot compete with. Yet, it costs the SAME amount of feats.

I thus challenge anyone, who thinks that SWF is comparable to THF or TWF to show us a build that utilizes it and actually profits from it over over TWF or THF. And I would also like that build not to be bard. Because if devs are just making a feat line for bards (which is prolly close to inferior anyway, even for them) then... well.... there are some QoL fixes they could be doing instead.

[Cardtrick]

Well, they're not COMPLETE trash.

Think about this - A thunderforged bastard sword has 1d10. Fully upgraded + momentum swing + deadly weapons = 10.5d10 swing = 57.5 average damage.

With three SWF feats = 10.5d16 = 84 average damage.

So having those three feats gives you almost 30 extra damage a swing, not bad. BUT you need a bunch of W bonuses to improve the use of these feats.

You're right. My reaction to this has been bouncing all over the place as I look more into it and make some calculations.

I think I'm settling on "decent enough to be viable for the swashbuckler enhancement tree but unappealing to any other builds, but still a really weird and confusing direction to take that doesn't really become competitive with the alternatives until epic levels and endgame equipment."

A straight stacking doublestrike bonus would have been so much easier to balance. I hate how equipment-dependent this version is, although I guess I can admit that it has more flavor and will feel distinct from the existing options.

I think it's potentially problematic that these feats won't scale with strength bonus (or CHA or DEX or whatever) the way the benefits from THF or TWF will. Nor will they scale with Deadly items, nor Inspire Courage's damage boost, nor anything like that. They'll only scale with [W] bonuses and attack rate (including doublestrike).

The real killer to me is still that it requires 3 feats, which is a huge cost on a feat-starved pure bard. It's pretty much going to prevent taking Overwhelming Critical, at least if you want Quicken and Empower Heal -- never mind Heighten or Extend or Spell Focus. Since these single weapon feats aren't appealing enough for any non-Swashbucklers to use, that's well worth considering. But if you multiclass to pick up the feats, Swashbuckler loses a lot of its appeal.

[jakeelala]

Bolded And Dark Blue


Hi! We're presenting some updates for Swashbuckler, and our current ideas for Single-Weapon Fighting Feats.

We've tried to balance these feats against THF and TWF. We feel these will scale well into higher levels, as these bonuses from Single Weapon Fighting are multiplied by higher +(W) weapons. Our current plan allows these feats to work alongside Two-Handed Fighting if you are using a Bastard Sword or Dwarven Axe. Due to both balance and technical concerns, these feats don't function with weapons that have multiple dice (as part of the base die, such as the 2d4 dagger "Agony, the Knife in the Dark"). Regular one-handed weapons and nearly all named one-handed items only have one die, but there are a few named items that won't function with Single Weapon Fighting.

Seriously, why? Can you explain to me in one sentence convincingly why you would make one more way of calculating weapon base damage that is different from how you can do it today? Including why this is so good that it's acceptable to not have it work with current end-game, raid loot like Agony. To me, this seems unconscionable.

Internally, we're discussing longer-range possibilities to address some issues with shield builds and thrown builds, which aren't covered by Single Weapon Fighting (except for Swashbuckler's exception where they can use bucklers with SWF).

So, just to clarify because I'm unsure, you're saying that these feats do nothing for Thrown builds? As in, Thrown weapons won't get the dice increase? Or they will, but you're acknowledging that this does not fill the whole for Throwing some were hoping for left by the absence of an equivalent to either Shuriken Expertise or Monk Ninja Spy Core 2 for chances of extra missiles when throwing? Without some sort of boost form these feats, the will still be no logical alternative to Shuriken for a thrower build with 3-6 Monk levels at a minimum. Am I missing something or do you disagree?

Single Weapon Fighting
While Single-Weapon Fighting, your weapon die gains an additional +2 sides.

Single Weapon Fighting: Requires fighting with a single one-handed melee weapon, and wielding only an orb, runearm, or nothing in your offhand.


Ok so this is where you make it more clear that Throwers are totally unaffected by this line of feats. Which I have to just weigh in on and say this is really really disappointing. Throwing is just as one handed as wave around a rapier.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d10 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (Example: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 2 ranks of Balance


Improved Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Single Weapon Fighting increases to +4 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d12 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 4 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +6


Greater Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Improved Single Weapon Fighting increases to +6 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d14 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 7 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +11



Changes in the Tree

Some of the more prominent changes to the tree include allowing Single-Weapon Fighting with a Buckler, putting more into the first core ability, adding in CHA / DEX / INT to-damage enhancements (while Single Weapon Fighting), and adding max-dex bonus to armor and reflex saving throws to both core abilities and Tier 5. Some abilities have also been renamed or had tentative numbers put in for various costs or cooldowns. All names and numbers still subject to further feedback, revision, and balancing.

CHA DEX INT to damage is EXCELLENT. It opens up way more Multiclass possibilities. GOOD change.

Core Abilities


1 AP, class level 1: Confidence: Passive: +1% Dodge, +1 Reflex Save, and +1 to the Max Dex Bonus of your Armor per Swashbuckler Core Ability you have.
5 AP, class level 3: Swashbuckling: Defensive Stance: You gain 1% Doublestrike and Doubleshot as well as +1 to the Enhancement Bonus of the weapon in your main hand. Swashbuckling requires wielding a Finesseable or Thrown weapon in your main hand, wielding a Buckler or nothing in your off hand, and wearing Light Armor or no armor. (Druids cannot Swashbuckle while in animal forms.)

Passive: While Swashbuckling, the following weapons receive Competence bonuses to their critical profiles:
Dagger, Shortsword, Throwing Dagger: +1 Critical Threat Range, +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Light Mace, Sickle, Dart, Shuriken, Throwing Axe, Throwing Hammer: +2 Critical Threat Range, +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Kukri, Rapier: +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Handaxe: +2 Critical Threat Range
Light Pick: +1 Critical Threat Range


Million Dollar Question: Have you actually fixed Critical Threat/Muliplier with this update? If so, does that include Halfing Enhancements, and Kensei? I understand competence bonuses don't stack, but what about Improved Critical feats and Epic Destiny abilities that aren't labeled Competence? Also, please consider adding Scimitars and Quarterstaves to this list they can be finessed and used with Dex based on Class Enhancements.

10 AP, class level 6: Uncanny Dodge: You gain the Uncanny Dodge feat. Passive: Swashbuckling grants an additional 1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, and +1 Attack Damage.
20 AP, class level 12: Panache: While Swashbuckling, you have an additional 1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, +1 Attack Damage, +1 Reflex Saving Throw, and the weapon in your main hand gains an additional +1 to its Enhancement bonus.
30 AP, class level 18: Roll with the Punches: While Swashbuckling, you gain +5 Insight Bonus to Character Dodge Cap, the Slippery Mind feat, +1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, and +1 Attack Damage.
41 AP, class level 20: Evasive Maneuvers: +2 CHA, +2 DEX.While Swashbuckling, you gain the Evasion feat, +1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, +1 Attack Damage, and the weapon in your main hand gains an additional +1 to its Enhancement bonus.


Tier One


On Your Toes: +1/2/3 Dodge
Blow By Blow (multiselector)

Melee or Thrown Attack: Make an attack with +(1/2/3) critical threat range that deals (+1/+2/+3)d6 extra Sonic damage, and reduces your threat with nearby enemies by (100/200/300). Sonic damage scales with Spell Power.


Insults (multiselector)

Scathing Words: Activate to reduce the Fortitude saves of nearby enemies by 3. (Costs 16/12/8 Spell Points, 20/15/10 Second Cooldown)
Cutting Jibes: Activate to reduce the Will saves of nearby enemies by 3. (Costs 16/12/8 Spell Points, 20/15/10 Second Cooldown)
Appalling Diatribe: Activate to reduce the Reflex saves of nearby enemies by 3. (Costs 16/12/8 Spell Points, 20/15/10 Second Cooldown)


Super underwhelming. Make this more like Shadows Upon you, where you cast and it's say -2, after each successive hit or spell cast against it it can go up with a max stack of something like 5 or 6. Much more useful and not OP. Remember, you're buffing bards here, the worst class in the game when it comes to anything but buffing other people, which they aren't even that good at anymore.

Tavern Shanties: +1/2/3 Bard Songs.
Limber Up: +(1/2/3) to Balance, Jump, Swim, Haggle, and Tumble. 3rd Rank: When you Tumble, you gain +3 to saves against traps for 6 seconds. 12 second cooldown.


OMG I love this. But I love tumbling just for the animation. Having a number of Max Tumble toons I have to say it isn't very fast since it doesn't take things like Monk and Barbarian move speed into account. You should consider making Tumbling faster at higher skill levels if possible. It's been the same since lvl 10 cap, but you're making it useful. So make it more useful. Remember, offensively, Tumbling reduces your DPS to ZERO. It's the equivilent of shield blocking. Right not it's totally not worth it to almost ever tumble in combat. Consider buffing this or making it scale higher at each tier for the tumble portion. Sheild blocking is way better then tumbling currently, and they both effectively make you to 0 damage during their duration. That needs to give a BIG defensive trade off.

Tier Two


En Pointe: Melee Attack: Make two attacks with +4/8/12 critical threat range, but -1 Critical Multiplier. Costs 10 Spell Points to activate.

Is this an instantaneous, non attack chain breaking active? If so, that's cool. Whats the cooldown? if the cool down is low, 10SP is a lot on a low SP class when you a wizard get's Chain Missles at lvl 6 for like 3 SP which is their primary tool at end game for killing EE mobs. Fair and Balanced?

Deflect Arrows: You gain the benefits of the Deflect Arrows feat, knocking aside one incoming projectile that would have struck you every 6/4/2 seconds. (Antireq Tempest Deflect Arrows)
Fast Movement: You gain +1% Bardic Music bonus to movement for every Bard level you possess.

Wow. Awesome.

Sword Dance: While Swashbuckling, when enemies miss you in combat, you deal 1d10/1d12/1d20 Sonic Damage. Scales with Spell Power.

Make AC matter more and this will be awesome. Does this include Deflected Arrows/Projectiles and Dodge misses?

Action Boost Multiselector

Action Boost: Doublestrike: You gain +10/20/30% Action Boost bonus to Doublestrike for 20 seconds. Usable 5 times per rest.
Action Boost: Doubleshot: You gain +10/20/30% Action Boost bonus to Doubleshot for 20 seconds. Usable 5 times per rest.



Tier Three


Elegant Footwork: When enemies miss you while Swashbuckling, they have a chance to be knocked down with no save. Cooldown: 12 seconds.

Have you ever seen the speed and quantity at which damage comes in on EE in quests like What Goes Up? Eliminate the cooldown completely. It's already a percentage based change making it unreliable and inconsistent at best. 12 second cool-down makes this totally underwhelming.

Swashbuckling Style (Multiselector)

Dashing Scoundrel: Passive: While Swashbuckling with nothing in your off hand, you gain +1 Attack Damage per 5 Character levels and 7% Doublestrike/Doubleshot.
Skirmisher: Passive: While Swashbuckling with a Buckler in your off hand, you gain 7% Dodge, and you may use a Buckler and still benefit from the Single Weapon Fighting line of feats.
Arcane Marauder: Passive: You can now Swashbuckle with an Orb in your off hand. (Does not count as a Buckler for Buckler-specific abilities). Requires Magical Training (or the Spellsinger enhancement equivalent).
Cannoneer: (Requires Runearm Proficiency feat): Passive: You can now Swashbuckle with a Rune Arm in your off hand. (Does not count as a Buckler for Buckler-specific abilities).


Resonant Arms: While Swashbuckling, the Finesseable or Thrown weapon in your main hand deals an additional 2d6/4d6/6d6 Sonic Damage on critical hits.

I'd like to recommend that in the absence of any other improvements to Throwing weapons that aren't shuriken, that this scale HEAVILY with crit Multiplier. Like 4 or 5x if you use a throwing Axe or Hammer. I mean, Shuriken are like 120% than any other throwing weapon at 60 Dex if have 3 monk levels. There's no comparison with other Throwing weapons. You have excluded Throwers from the 1 handed weapon fighting Feats. As of today, you have excluded ALL throwing weapons that are not Shuriken from play for anything but favor or ranged backup on a melee character. This is one place you could improve the power of other throwers, though they will still pale in comparison to shuriken as of now.

Different Tack (Multiselector, Requires Single Weapon Fighting feat)

Swift Strikes: You get Dexterity to Damage with weapon attacks while Single Weapon Fighting.
Two Steps Ahead: You get Intelligence to Damage with weapon attacks Single Weapon Fighting.
Smooth Flourishes: You get Charisma to Damage with weapon attacks Single Weapon Fighting.

Excellent



CHA/DEX


Tier Four


On the Mark: Passive +1/2/3 to attack rolls to confirm critical hits and damage on critical hits (before weapon multipliers)
Swashbuckling Style II (Multiselector)

Slap in the Face: While Swashbuckling and wielding nothing in your off hand, activate to deal 1 Bludgeon damage. Damaged enemies can't cast spells for 3/6/9 seconds and are stunned for one second (Perform + d20 saves for the Stun). 18 second cooldown. Costs 10 Spell Points.

Cooldown will prevent peopel from using this with any regularity. Length of stun means this is only for use against casters. Will it work on Red and Purple names? If not, it's really really really meh for Tier 4.

Low Blow: While Swashbuckling and wielding a Buckler in your off hand, activate to perform a shield bash with +2 Critical Threat Range and Multiplier. On hit, knock down affected enemy for one second (Perform + d20 saves for the Knockdown). Costs 10 Spell Points.

One second? What is with these new abilities that are effective for as long as they take to do? This isn't useful. Also, bucklers have terrible damage, you could double or even triple the buckler strike and this would still be terrible at end game.

Loud & Clear:Passive: While Swashbuckling with an Orb in your off hand, +20 Sonic Spell Power.

How about +20 Sonic, +20 Postive, and +5% stacking Crit for both? Is that really going to make a bard OP? It's Tier 4 so it's a deep splash for a Shiradi caster anyway, so still good there.

Tune Arm/Music Box: Passive: While Swashbuckling with a Rune Arm in your off hand, your Rune Arm Weapon Imbue deals an additional 1d6 Sonic damage.

Scale this with character levels. Every 5 CL up the W. 1-5:d6. 5-10:d8 10-15:d10 16-20:d12 20-25:d14 26-30:d16. There's a use for your new and confusing damage dice system outlined for the 1 Handed Fighting Feats above. I still don't agree with it though.



Battering Barrage: (2 AP, 2 ranks) While Swashbuckling, critical hits inflict Destruction/Improved Destruction.
Wind at my Back: +1 to the Enhancement Bonus of your equipped Throwing Weapons, plus an additional +1 for every five Bard levels.

If you really want deep bard levels (12-20 Bard levels) to be compelling, make this +1 at lvl 1 Bard, +2 at Bard 5, +3 at Bard 10, +5 at Bard 15, and +6 at Bard 20.

CHA/DEX


Tier Five


Thread the Needle: While Swashbuckling, +5 Attack Damage while the Precision feat is active.
Second Skin: While Swashbuckling, +3/6/12 to your Reflex Saves and +2/4/6 to the Max Dex Bonus of your Armor. Add Max Dodge Cap to these Tiers as well. These guys are supposed to be unhittable. And this is Tier 5, it better be awesome.
Exploit Weaknesses:While Swashbuckling, every time you damage an enemy but do not critically hit, you gain a stacking +1 Insight Bonus to Critical Threat Range until you successfully crit.

[Seikojin]

I think the Tact part is misprinted right now. It would make no sense whatsoever to make it stat to damage, but require other stats for to hit considering all the work in other trees to make other stats to hit and damage.

I think the feats need to be changed to straight +x weapon die since that is existing, prevalent, and easier to manage. I also agree that making three feats is a bit excessive considering all you are doing is boosting the damage of the weapon by 1 die total in most cases (meaning most weapons do D6 damages).

Given how quickly current feats offer huge diminishing returns (IE dodge's +3 bonus is quickly irrelevant as you get past level 1), then I think having one single weapon fighting feat with a flat +1[W] would be fine. At level 1 it is strong, and provides viability until you hit 10 or so, then it is just another notch in the belt as you build up (like any other feat).

I like the boosts to spellpower for the sonic damage in this tree. I would like to see more, but considering how much you can pump it already, the small amount here is good. I also like that most of the sonic abilities scale with spellpower. Definitely pushes the usability of this tree up there. I definitely will give it a go (if fred and lockania gets fixed).

[Cardtrick]

The SWF feats are still quite weak.. +2 sides on a die is quite a bit weaker than +10% glancing damage or 20% off hand attack chance. Single Weapon Fighting is all about finesse and speed.. maybe change these to +0.5W/+1W/+1.5W and 2%/4%/6% Doublestrike/Doubleshot

This would actually be much weaker than what they have now, at least with endgame or near-endgame equipment.

[Impaqt]

*** does "+2 sides" even mean?

Having this not apply to special weapons with multiple base die damage is pretty lame.
How bout you Fix/Change the weapons?

Let me guess... Theres not enough time to do it right? Thats kinda what I though....

I guess it doesnt really matter in the end, I'll never play this PrE anyway. Just kinda bugs me that we're getting flavor PrE's when there are still Core PrE's Missing.

[Cardtrick]

If you go this direction for SWF, it would be nice to add an ability to Fatesinger that grants a significant +W increase when wielding a single weapon. Maybe something like +.5W for every 2nd core (total of +1.5) with a tier 1 or 2 ability available that adds another +1W.

It would also be nice to see an Epic Single Weapon Fighting feat that grants a doublestrike bonus while wielding a single weapon. +15% would seem about right (since Epic TWF adds +10% to offhand and +5% to mainhand).

[Tinco]

I kinda disagree with the design of the feats.

1. Especially in heroic levels, a lot of the damage of melees come from item effects like 'Flaming' or 'Holy'. SWF feats do nothing for those and considering that most heroic weapons have 1W or 1,5W the bonus is very small.

2. Animations for SWF are not 'swashbucklery' at the moment at all. For a good feeling of the whole playstyle I highly recommend speeding it up and those feats are the perfect place for that. I think 5%-10% attack speed per feat would go a long way.

3. Increasing the damage doesn't really fit the style of SWF. Fencing is about speed and precision and those are best modeled by attack speed and critical hits and I really think that the feats should embrace that. What about 10 stacking exceptional seeker per feat?

So my idea would be:

SFW/ISWF/GSWF - 10 seeker , 5% attack speed

Some scaling with the attack speed and a strong distinctive feature revolving around crits because high crits make all people happy.

[LuKaSu]

Could we add SWF as bonus artificer feats too? I haven't gotten around to building my melee arty yet, but I keep wanting to, and I think that it could yield some interesting possibilities.

Oh, and I really like the progress that has been made on the Swashbucker tree! Great job, folks!

[jakeelala]

I kinda disagree with the design of the feats.

1. Especially in heroic levels, a lot of the damage of melees come from item effects like 'Flaming' or 'Holy'. SWF feats do nothing for those and considering that most heroic weapons have 1W or 1,5W the bonus is very small.

2. Animations for SWF are not 'swashbucklery' at the moment at all. For a good feeling of the whole playstyle I highly recommend speeding it up and those feats are the perfect place for that. I think 5%-10% attack speed per feat would go a long way.

3. Increasing the damage doesn't really fit the style of SWF. Fencing is about speed and precision and those are best modeled by attack speed and critical hits and I really think that the feats should embrace that. What about 10 stacking exceptional seeker per feat?

So my idea would be:

SFW/ISWF/GSWF - 10 seeker , 5% attack speed

Some scaling with the attack speed and a strong distinctive feature revolving around crits because high crits make all people happy.

Don't forget, they should get a lot of Fort Bypass too. That's part of being Precise

[Ovrad]

Elegant Footwork: When enemies miss you while Swashbuckling, they have a chance to be knocked down with no save. Cooldown: 12 seconds.

And again, what is that chance?

[Gorijun]

Personally, I'd rather see a straight "+2" (stacking [with all other 'bonuses']) damage (to the total base damage), rather than "+2 sides". This would basically do the same thing, EXCEPT it would increase the minimum damage; e.g. a 1d8 weapon would now do 3-10 points damage (1d8 + 2) instead of 1-10 points (1d10). The maximum damage remains the same, just the minimum damage is increased. This should also bypass the 'technical' issues with weapons that have multiple base dice: 2d4 would do 4-10 damage (2d4 + 2), thus allowing the 'rare', special weapons to be used (which, IMO, they should be). Since you should not be mutiplying the added damage by the number of base dice (i.e. you would not be doing 2*[1d4 + 2] damage), I would think this might alleviate the balance concerns with using the multi-base dice weapons, too.

I would also think that it might also be easier to code, but what do I know?
;)

This is a good idea. Or, if it's easier to code, divide the die increase by the number of base dice so 2d4 become 2d5 then 2d6 then 2d7 (by adding +2/2, +4/2, +6/2 "sides" to the dice). But that is harder to describe in text for the player base, so I'd suggest adding the +2 as the better option.

[ddorimble]

Thread the Needle: While Swashbuckling, +5 Attack Damage while the Precision feat is active.

Oh yeah, I also forgot to add, Precision is one of those 'unexpanded' abilities. Power Attack opens other things up--like Cleave and Great Cleave and Overwhelming Critical--and also particularly things in Legendary Dreadnaught. While it is nice that you can somewhat replace Power Attack with Precision with this enhancement, it doesn't open up any other neat things. Precision still stands alone.

Either add some Precision stance improvements elsewhere (some maybe here in Swashbuckler), or allow Precision to also count as Power Attack to qualify for other currently existing things (either in general, or as a benefit of this PrE).

Also consider allowing the Dex/Int/Cha Enhancements to allow you to use those same stats to qualify for other things that have Str requirements (like Power Attack).

The whole 'something other than Str to damage' thing just falls apart because so many other things are still so Str centric.

[Synthetic]

Math seams to indicate these are at least as good as THF feat.

GSWF with a 4.5[w] adds on average 13.5 damage per hit (4.5*3=13.5)
GTHF assuming an average damage of 100.25 (4.5[1d8] + 80) is 12.5 (1.5*.75*100.25 - 100.25 = 12.5)

You should consider adding a bonus to finesse able weapons such as [3/6/10]% bonus to alacrity or armor piercing to make up for the fact that Bastardsword and DAxe users can use both the THF and the SWF feat.

Your calculations are off. You're multiplying the full damage by .75 and seeing a 12% increase for thf it's actually .5*.75*damage or a 37% increase. Granted that damage doesn't increase on critical or benefit from double strike but you don't get str or power attack increases for swf.

Why would you gain added bonuses if the other guy spent 4 more feats?

[Enoach]

Here is my issues with the direction:


Most people that do any melee with a single handed weapon will have a Shield in the off-hand - making this feat only usable by those that can use an Orb or Runearm
Increasing the sides by +2 and not including weapons that have multiple dice as base is too limiting. Even though most Single handed weapons are 1dN it removes the possibility of benefit from a single handed weapon that has multiple dice for a base.


Two Handed Fighting gains damage in Glancing Blows and increase chance of Weapon Procs on glancing blows as much as 50% damage and 9% proc

Two Weapon Fighting gains reduced to-hit penalty on Off-Hand weapon and increased chance of an off-hand weapon attack as much as 80% with all 3 feats

The Single Weapon Fighting will increase a 1d8 to as much as 1d14 (A non-standard increment) which will increase the average damage from 4.5 to 7.5


Now considering what types of builds would benefit from only using a single weapon and nothing/Orb/Runearm in the off hand this would be limited to Divine/Arcane melee builds and with release swashbucklers when they become available.

My thought if you wanted to add this kind of focus feat would go a step further and allow Multi-dice weapons to also benefit allowing a 2d6 weapon to also benefit from these feats. But not stop there and also add a measure of either Attack Speed or Double Strike to the Feats maybe even adjusted based on weapon classifications such as Light to Heavy weapons getting different speed bonuses. Using a Single Weapon for Melee will mean more if more attacks occur.

[Nibor]

Math seams to indicate these are at least as good as THF feat.

GSWF with a 4.5[w] adds on average 13.5 damage per hit (4.5*3=13.5)
GTHF assuming an average damage of 100.25 (4.5[1d8] + 80) is 12.5 (1.5*.75*100.25 - 100.25 = 12.5)

You should consider adding a bonus to finesse able weapons such as [3/6/10]% bonus to alacrity or armor piercing to make up for the fact that Bastardsword and DAxe users can use both the THF and the SWF feat.

Your math seems really odd - i think your 1.5* and your - 100.25 is supposed to represent a .5* effect, but you can't do it that way when you're also multiplying times .75. But it's not clear what you meant. Here's a cleaner approach, using your assumption of 100 average damage/swing for the 2HF. Having all 3 THF feats gives you a 30% boost to glancing blow damage (and you start at 20%, so you're at 50% now). GTHF also gives glancing blows on one attack in the sequence that doesn't have it without. So you're going from:
Glancing blows, 20% damage, 50% of the time = 100*.2*.5 = 10 damage per swing
to:
Glancing blows, 50% damage, 75% of the time = 100*.5*.75 = 37.5 damage per swing
for a total improvement of 27.5 damage per swing - ignoring multiple nearby mobs, 9% improved chance of weapon procs, and crits, which are all non-trivial. Even this amount shows that the THF line is worth twice as much as the single weapon fighting feats if you can reach 100 average damage per swing.
The breakeven point for average damage on THF is 49. If you average 49 damage per swing with your THF, excluding crits and weapon procs, then the THF feats are worth the same to you as SWF feats. A thunderforged Greataxe at Tier 2 (enough to get the 4.5[W], so same as the SWF is using) is 4.5*6.5+11=40.25, with no power attack, strength bonus, deadly item...nothing. It's almost impossible to have average THF damage that low when you're at the same level of weapon that the SWF is using.

Let's not even try to compare them to TWF, right? As we see, the bonus with a thunderforged weapon is 13.5 damage. If the TWF was getting a base of only 23 damage per swing - and this does include weapon procs, since it's a full attack (with less ability score bonus to the attack), then 60% proc increase of off-hand attacks is still higher than 13.5 from the SWF feats. Absurd.

I'm pretty underwhelmed by the value of Single Weapon Fighting. The feats need to be not only on par with, but *better* than THF and TWF feats, because the mechanics of THF and TWF are better than SWF without feats to begin with.

So...yes, the SWF are trash. The swashbuckling bard will use them because it's better than nothing, but they'll be sad about it. No other build is going to be created because of these feats; they don't even help S&B builds (I would *LOVE* to hear the reason for not giving S&B access to the single weapon fighter feats, that's what I thought they were for!). May as well just make these enhancements in the swashbuckler tree and not make the feat-starved bard pay 3 feats for this trash.

[Loromir]

Double Strike and Alacrity...That is where the Swashbuckler offensive bonuses should be.


Swashbuckler should get the highest Doublestrike percentages in the game.
Swashbuckler should get a nice bonus to Melee Alacrity.
Swashbuckler should get a bonus the Crit Range over and above Improved Critical (with a slight penalty to multiplier....maybe -0.5).


Think about it in real life. I liken a Swashbuckler to a fencer. They specialize in speed and accuracy. The single hit damage of a fencer would be would be much lower than someone wielding a two handed sword or two Khopeshes...but that fencer/Swashbuckler might hit you 3 times before the other two could get one hit in.

Hint....Think speed/accuracy/multiple attacks

[viktorserak]

I did a little math and...

Those single weapon fighting feats are REALLY underwhelming.

I mean... untill you hit later epic and endgame, there are far behind TWF and THF (yet, they require 3 feats as well), and when you hit thunderforged, then its actually even WORSE. Much dmg on Thunderforged comes from procs and "on attack" dmg - which kicks TWF far ahead of SWF and THF is, ofc, ahead against masses, as it should be.

Right now, it looks like 3 feats that were made exclusively for feat starved bards. And quite sadly, it seems that you can either feat starve yourself to death and be a much less effective fighter with some bard mojo and evasion (mind: MUCH LESS EFFECTIVE) and without tactics, or you will have to splash said fighter for feats and loose evasion. Or splash fighter and rogue and loose last two cores.

I mean.. the swashbuckler tree starts to look promising and fun, but it is in fact a big trap, because you simply cant make an effective meele bard with only 7 feats.

Not unless you gimp everything else you could do.

And for nonbards, that SWF is just awfull.

SWF in this form should be autogranted for everyone and activates on its own everytime you will hold just one weapon in your hand and nothing in the other. The current version is THAT weak.

[maddmatt70]

It is not worth picking up the single weapon feats at all especially for a character like a bard that has very little available feats. Really not enough dps in this enhancement tree, the bard class, and the single weapon feats. It is hard to get that point across to the devs. This is a flavor enhancement for casual players and nothing more.

[Mryal]

Well, obviously the feats are underwhelming.Not only because their bonus is horrible compared to the other fighting feats, but also because they only provide a benefit for Swashbuckling bard Pre.
For starters add a 10%/20%/30% attack speed bonus, and +50/75/100% damage to weapon effects (such as flaming, holy).

Now the good part : the pre is looking way better now! sadly evasion is still on 20.But the massive reflex bonuses make up for it.Staying pure is prob not a bad idea now.One thing thought is remove the SP costs from ALL abilities, other melee classes have melee special attacks for free.Another thing is where is the parry/counterattack mechanic.Youre a swashbuckler!
And consider adding at least one of the SHF feats autogranted for bards.Bards are supposed to be versatile and having to spend 3 feats there in addition of the other melee feats and also now precision to benefit from tier 5's severely damages the other aspects of the class.TBH bard should grant all 3 feats over leveling, like ranger does for TWF.

[brian14]

Every style of fighting should have purpose. I hardly see any in single weapon fighting. Let me break down the purpose of the styles of melee combat in DDO:



What is the purpose of Two-Weapon Fighting? To deal lots of damage against a single target by multiple attacks.
What is the purpose of Two-Handed Fighting? To deal blows that each deal heavy damage, and to do a bit of 'crowd control' by being able to attack multiple targets with glancing blows.
What is the purpose of unarmed combat? When you are disarmed, or primarily if you are a monk who specializes in unarmed combat.
What is the purpose of sword and board fighting? To provide valuable protection at the cost of some DPS. Currently, the DPS cost is a bit too high for what's offered.


What do I see in single-weapon fighting?
My immediate thought when I read Vargouille's OP was: "This single-weapon fighting feat is great for Artificers. Pretty much useless for everyone else, including Bards."

As it stands now, single-weapon fighting allows the use of rune arm, which is how Artificers melee already -- and a rune arm can seriously boost a weapon. That's about its entire usefulness.

Question for Vargouille:

Some of Swashbuckling abilities are described to function only "while Swashbuckling". Does it mean that others work when not in Swashbuckling stance? In particular, does Different Tack work when not in the stance? The description says "You get <X> to Damage with weapon attacks Single Weapon Fighting", so presumably no shield. Can one use Different Tack and/or SWF while wearing medium or heavy armor?

[nibel]

Hi! We're presenting some updates for Swashbuckler, and our current ideas for Single-Weapon Fighting Feats.

Thanks for the continuing feedback. Let's go to the second part.


Single Weapon Fighting
While Single-Weapon Fighting, your weapon die gains an additional +2 sides.

Feat Requirement: 2 ranks of Balance

Improved Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Single Weapon Fighting increases to +4 sides.

Feat Requirement: 4 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +6

Greater Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Improved Single Weapon Fighting increases to +6 sides.

Feat Requirement: 7 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +11

Since those feats will be competing directly whit THF and TWF (and no one other than a fighter or ranger can realistically get SWF/THF for dwarven axes and bastard swords), we will make a direct paralel between them, using: Rapiers (SWF/TWF) and Falchions (THF). All have a 18-20/x2 crit profile, so we can focus only in the other parts of the feats.

No feats

SWF have 4 attacker per chain. Nothing extra
TWF have 4 attacks per chain. Each attack have 20% of procing an off-hand attack.
THF have 4 attacks per chain. Two attacks (1st and 4th) have glancing blows that deal 20% of base damage to everyone around you.

SWF is strictly inferior to both. Even without a feat, you want something on your off-hand. Be either a shield for extra defense, or an off-hand weapon for extra wielding bonus (deception, seeker, parry...)

First feat only

SWF have +1 damage per [W] on weapon. No extra bonus.
TWF have 4 attacks per chain. Each attack have 40% of procing an off-hand attack.
THF have 4 attacks per chain. Two attacks (1st and 4th) have glancing blows that deal 30% of base damage to everyone around you, and 3% chance to proc weapon effects on glancing blows.

Both TWF and THF have doubled their extra damage (and THF got a little extra on weapon procs). SWF, during most of heroic levels, have gained +1 damage.

First and second Feat

SWF have +2 damage per [W] on weapon. No extra bonus.
TWF have 4 attacks per chain. Each attack have 60% of procing an off-hand attack.
THF have 4 attacks per chain. Two attacks (1st and 4th) have glancing blows that deal 40% of base damage to everyone around you, and have 6% chance to proc weapon effects on glancing blows.

TWF and THF continue to progress on a 20% extra damage. SWF get another +1 damage (+2 if you are using paragon-level weapon)

Full feat chain

SWF have +3 damage per [W] on weapon. No extra bonus.
TWF have 4 attacks per chain. Each attack have 80% of procing an off-hand attack.
THF have 4 attacks per chain. Three attacks (1st, 3rd and 4th) have glancing blows that deal 50% of base damage to everyone around you, and have 9% chance to proc weapon effects on glancing blows.

TWF keep going on their 20% increase, and now almost guarantee an off-hand proc in every attack.

THF got a great damage bump with a third glancing blow on its chain, and raising the additional damage steadily in another 10%.

SWF have an extra +1 damage. If you keep up all the way to thunder-forged weapons (4.5 [W] base), this means this feat alone is giving you (3 * 4.5) = 13.5 damage per hit.

Three feats for 13.5 damage.

Power Attack alone, on THF is +10 damage. On TWF is +8 damage (If keeping in the three-feats limit, with only ITWF).

That means, if you go with THF (saving two feats), you have almost the same damage output BEFORE counting out stuff like glancing blows and 1.5 str modifier on weapon damage. If you go with TWF (only up to ITWF), you get half the damage bonus, but half your attacks will be double weapon hits.

Also, you require skill graduations, which, while not that costly for classes that have balance as a class skill, like rogue (no tree that benefit SWF over TWF), monk (no benefit from SWF either, since it doesn't affect handwraps) and bards, is a pain for artificers and clerics (classes who MIGHT get interested in using SWF with runearm/orb).

So, I believe those feats missed the mark for both its intended competition (THF/TWF) AND as a generalist feat (that interests more people than only swashbucklers).

Sure, a swashbuckler, in LD, with the right equipment and combination of feats, enhancements, gear and epic destinies may take a big boost from those feats. But the same optimization level being applied to THF or TWF will wield better results.

I would add extra dodge or doublestrike there, since the original Single Weapon Style from 2e gave the masters of the style extra AC and attacks. By adding no-damage benefits on this feat line, you would create incomparables. No one could actually say if SWF is strictly better than the other two styles because you can't compare damage to defense. It would stop being compared to THF/TWF and be compared to S&B instead, which is an entirely new beast.


Changes in the Tree

Aqua Vitae is gone, that was good.

Confidence (Core 1) should also give Weapon Finesse by default.

Evasion should be moved to Core 4 (Panache, level 12), and Capstone altered to Improved Evasion.

Capstone still don't give much more over simply going Bard 18/Rogue 2. One of the main reasons for that is also that we simply lack good level 4+ bard spells that can fill all the extra spell slots we get on those two levels. Moving Evasion earlier, and giving Improved Evasion here is more tempting, since you don't get improved evasion on a rogue before level 10.

En Pointe is still useless. With swashbuckling threat bonus, once we get improved critical, we will crit one attack in three. DDO combat is too fast paced to give up on a 30% crit chance for a guaranteed crit. It was raised to two attacks, which, depending on the animation, may makes them worst than your common attacks/cleave. Make it an adrenaline-like attack (click to activate, next attack have those benefits), and it might have a niche being activated before a big attack. That, or make tier 3 remove the crit multiplier penalty.

I still believe Cannoneer should grant Runearm proficiency.

Different Tack, if you don't want to grant Weapon Finesse on Core 1, should also use the respective ability to hit.

I think Second Skin is too powerful. +12 reflex is a lot of reflex. Specially now that the tree have the ability to use dex to damage (making dex a primary stat option). Bards already have good base reflex saves (+12 versus +6), and will get an extra +1 reflex per core. You don't need extra +12 on top of this. Unless you just assumes everyone should have Divine Grace, and is covering for that. If that is the case, then I will take this as a signal that you will never balance EE saves again.

[jakeelala]

I think Second Skin is too powerful. +12 reflex is a lot of reflex. Specially now that the tree have the ability to use dex to damage (making dex a primary stat option). Bards already have good base reflex saves (+12 versus +6), and will get an extra +1 reflex per core. You don't need extra +12 on top of this. Unless you just assumes everyone should have Divine Grace, and is covering for that. If that is the case, then I will take this as a signal that you will never balance EE saves again.

Agreed. What about adding +3 Max Dodge Cap and having it be +6 Reflex?

[Andoris]

This would actually be much weaker than what they have now, at least with endgame or near-endgame equipment.

While I am okay with it being more, I think you are missing the 2/4/6% doublestrike I included, which pushes it over the top. Also the increase in +W means that it is useful in more situations (and wider level ranger) than just a perfect TF raiper with weapon attachment+ momentum Swing ... etc

[Nibor]

I'm pretty underwhelmed by the value of Single Weapon Fighting. The feats need to be not only on par with, but *better* than THF and TWF feats, because the mechanics of THF and TWF are better than SWF without feats to begin with.

So...yes, the SWF are trash. The swashbuckling bard will use them because it's better than nothing, but they'll be sad about it. No other build is going to be created because of these feats; they don't even help S&B builds (I would *LOVE* to hear the reason for not giving S&B access to the single weapon fighter feats, that's what I thought they were for!). May as well just make these enhancements in the swashbuckler tree and not make the feat-starved bard pay 3 feats for this trash.

I'm quoting myself because this is important. SWF feats are not going to support some previously-existing thing people want to do (it seems, since S&B is being excluded). You are trying to entice people to play in a new way. This means they need to be GOOD. They need to be POWERFUL and interesting!

Give me a reason to give up my offhand weapon. +3 damage isn't it.

Want to stick to you "increase die sides"? Get wild. How about +6 sides per feat? Yeah, my d4 dagger is now a d22. Average damage is still reasonable but boy howdy there are going to be damage spikes up and down. My T2 thunderforged war-axe is 11+4.5[1d22] that can hit for 15 or 110 (before my own damage bonuses).
Or maybe add +W instead. Doesn't scale as much as you get into epic but it's a nice jump when you get it. Probably can't be balanced well to be both strong enough at level cap and not completely overpowered when you take the feat in heroics.
Or add massive doublestrike - along with some way to get a "third strike" from your doublestrike. And fourth in some cases.
Or have the first feat add +1 "feat" bonus to your crit multiplier on 20. And the second feat adds it on a 19, and the third on an 18. Don't take them if you don't crit on a 19 or 18. I haven't done the math to see how this lines up with THF/TWF. You should! Run the math before you unleash them! They have to not only sound cool, but actually be cool.

[Scraap]

Single Weapon Fighting
While Single-Weapon Fighting, your weapon die gains an additional +2 sides.

Single Weapon Fighting: Requires fighting with a single one-handed melee weapon, and wielding only an orb, runearm, or nothing in your offhand.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d10 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (Example: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 2 ranks of Balance


Improved Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Single Weapon Fighting increases to +4 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d12 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 4 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +6


Greater Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Improved Single Weapon Fighting increases to +6 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d14 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 7 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +11





I gotta say, that would be more compelling if there were more weapon mutations that factored base dice into the equation.

[jakeelala]

Also want to say my interest is primarily in Throwers, I didn't really include much about melee. On that topic though, On a feat starved bard I would NEVER take SWF feats as they are laid out today. They are terribad. Double all of their effects and we can talk.

[Grailhawk]

Glancing blows apply to an area of effect.

Two handed weapons get 1.5 times strength modifier added to the base damage, not 1 times like a single weapon does.

Two handed weapons get 10 points damage added by power attack, not 5.

EDIT: Also, is it really reasonable to assume 4.5[W]? That's basically requiring thunder forged weapons. We absolutely want to think about endgame weapons and content when considering balance, but it shouldn't be the only concern. The single weapon style is going to be much farther behind THF and TWF until you get to thunder forged gear, since it's the only style that adds damage before the W multiplier rather than after it.

Dance of Flowers makes TF weapons a 7[W] CitW weapons become 4-4.5[W] 4.5 is a reasonable assessment.

The math shows that SWF feat are about as good as the THF feat adding a bit more such as 10% armor piercing or alacrity like i suggested and the fighting style will be set.

[alancarp]

En Pointe is still useless. With swashbuckling threat bonus, once we get improved critical, we will crit one attack in three. DDO combat is too fast paced to give up on a 30% crit chance for a guaranteed crit.

This. Especially when you consider the doublestrike add-ons. I still would never take En Pointe. Please make it go away.

OTOH, this might be a decent slot to use for the addition of both Sonic spell power (+10/+20/+30) and Spell points (+30/+60/+90).

[Mryal]

I think Second Skin is too powerful. +12 reflex is a lot of reflex. Specially now that the tree have the ability to use dex to damage (making dex a primary stat option). Bards already have good base reflex saves (+12 versus +6), and will get an extra +1 reflex per core. You don't need extra +12 on top of this. Unless you just assumes everyone should have Divine Grace, and is covering for that. If that is the case, then I will take this as a signal that you will never balance EE saves again.

Keep the +12.Allows you not not necessarily be DEX build to have good reflex.Also its not that its balancing vs 'everyone has divine grace', but balancing for 'bards can never get divine grace'.

[Cardtrick]

While I am okay with it being more, I think you are missing the 2/4/6% doublestrike I included, which pushes it over the top. Also the increase in +W means that it is useful in more situations (and wider level ranger) than just a perfect TF raiper with weapon attachment+ momentum Swing ... etc

I don't disagree with your direction at all -- a bonus to doublestrike and a +W bonus are a lot easier to understand, and I would prefer them to this. I just think the numbers would have to be quite a lot higher. More like 25% doublestrike than 6%.

[Caprice]

Since the SWF feats only apply to melee weapons, and Different Tack only applies while Single Weapon Fighting (NOT while Swashbuckling), my reading is that Different Tack will not work with thrown weapons. Is that correct? I am disappointed.

[jakeelala]

Keep the +12.Allows you not not necessarily be DEX build to have good reflex.Also its not that its balancing vs 'everyone has divine grace', but balancing for 'bards can never get divine grace'.

Also a good point. This was probably also meant as a (crappy) trade-off for not moving Evasion out of Capstone. Sadface.

[HungarianRhapsody]

Single Weapon Fighting
While Single-Weapon Fighting, your weapon die gains an additional +2 sides.

Single Weapon Fighting: Requires fighting with a single one-handed melee weapon, and wielding only an orb, runearm, or nothing in your offhand.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d10 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (Example: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 2 ranks of Balance


Improved Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Single Weapon Fighting increases to +4 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d12 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 4 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +6


Greater Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Improved Single Weapon Fighting increases to +6 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d14 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 7 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +11

Do these feats function with Handwraps?

PLEASE note: I'm not asking if they *should* work with handwraps. I'm asking if they *do* work with handwraps.

TWF feats currently work with handwraps, but when you equip handwraps, they are a single item in your hand and there is nothing in your off-hand, so it's possible that they would work, depending on how this is coded.

[Desonde]

We've tried to balance these feats against THF and TWF. We feel these will scale well into higher levels, as these bonuses from Single Weapon Fighting are multiplied by higher +(W) weapons. Our current plan allows these feats to work alongside Two-Handed Fighting if you are using a Bastard Sword or Dwarven Axe.

Which now makes the Sacred Defender line even more feat starved (Having to choose between Power Attack-Cleave-Great Cleave, 3 Two Handed Fighting Feats, 3 Single Handed Fighting Feats, and 4 Shield Feats [Choice of 7 of 13 feats when a nearly identical Stalwart Defender can select all 13 + 6 more]).



Due to both balance and technical concerns, these feats don't function with weapons that have multiple dice (as part of the base die, such as the 2d4 dagger "Agony, the Knife in the Dark"). Regular one-handed weapons and nearly all named one-handed items only have one die, but there are a few named items that won't function with Single Weapon Fighting.

Does this mean that multiple [w] items will stop being made? How will the general user base know that their feat may not function with the new item they got (using Agony as an example since it's got one of the smallest drop rates and likely chosen as a 20th reward, what happens when they equip it and notice their 3 feats are no longer benefiting them?)



Internally, we're discussing longer-range possibilities to address some issues with shield builds and thrown builds, which aren't covered by Single Weapon Fighting (except for Swashbuckler's exception where they can use bucklers with SWF).

Shield Mastery [Small+Large/Tower or Small/Large+Tower]?



Single Weapon Fighting
While Single-Weapon Fighting, your weapon die gains an additional +2 sides.

Single Weapon Fighting: Requires fighting with a single one-handed melee weapon, and wielding only an orb, runearm, or nothing in your offhand.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d10 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (Example: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 2 ranks of Balance


Improved Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Single Weapon Fighting increases to +4 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d12 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 4 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +6


Greater Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Improved Single Weapon Fighting increases to +6 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d14 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 7 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +11


I like them, will definitely help out the SWF's [will need a way to help the Defender classes, otherwise this is going to be an Arti+Bard line, but will struggle with feat lack of feats though].



Changes in the Tree

Some of the more prominent changes to the tree include allowing Single-Weapon Fighting with a Buckler, putting more into the first core ability, adding in CHA / DEX / INT to-damage enhancements (while Single Weapon Fighting), and adding max-dex bonus to armor and reflex saving throws to both core abilities and Tier 5. Some abilities have also been renamed or had tentative numbers put in for various costs or cooldowns. All names and numbers still subject to further feedback, revision, and balancing.

Core Abilities

1 AP, class level 1: Confidence: Passive: +1% Dodge, +1 Reflex Save, and +1 to the Max Dex Bonus of your Armor per Swashbuckler Core Ability you have.

That's a solid Core ability.



5 AP, class level 3: Swashbuckling: Defensive Stance: You gain 1% Doublestrike and Doubleshot as well as +1 to the Enhancement Bonus of the weapon in your main hand. Swashbuckling requires wielding a Finesseable or Thrown weapon in your main hand, wielding a Buckler or nothing in your off hand, and wearing Light Armor or no armor. (Druids cannot Swashbuckle while in animal forms.)
Passive: While Swashbuckling, the following weapons receive Competence bonuses to their critical profiles:
Dagger, Shortsword, Throwing Dagger: +1 Critical Threat Range, +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Light Mace, Sickle, Dart, Shuriken, Throwing Axe, Throwing Hammer: +2 Critical Threat Range, +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Kukri, Rapier: +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Handaxe: +2 Critical Threat Range
Light Pick: +1 Critical Threat Range

Still missing Light Hammers and Kamas.

What about Scimitars from the T2 Tempest Core? And Shinning Crescent from Titan Awakes?



Tier One
Limber Up: +(1/2/3) to Balance, Jump, Swim, Haggle, and Tumble. 3rd Rank: When you Tumble, you gain +3 to saves against traps for 6 seconds. 12 second cooldown.

Still not sure why there is a long cooldown.



Tier Two
Deflect Arrows: You gain the benefits of the Deflect Arrows feat, knocking aside one incoming projectile that would have struck you every 6/4/2 seconds. (Antireq Tempest Deflect Arrows)

Since this isn't tied to the Tempest Improved Defenses line or Swashbuckling, a Tempest splash not wanting the 18 and 20 core enhancements could get ranged attack immunity?



Tier Five
Second Skin: While Swashbuckling, +3/6/12 to your Reflex Saves and +2/4/6 to the Max Dex Bonus of your Armor.

Now that's an ability to make me want to take T5 here.

[Scrabbler]

While Single-Weapon Fighting, your weapon die gains an additional +2 sides.
Without having done a lot of math, that seems like a quite inadequate bonus. (Except maybe in the case of special named Bastard Swords that benefit from THF feats as well, which wasn't the goal for Single-Weapon Fighting). TWF and THF feats give a multiplicative bonus, where magic effects have a higher chance to proc.

Single-Weapon Fighting might become a trap for newbies? At very low levels it would seem to add a lot of power compared to TWF/THF, but it wouldn't keep up with the scaling as your gear advances...


Due to both balance and technical concerns, these feats don't function with weapons that have multiple dice (as part of the base die, such as the 2d4 dagger "Agony, the Knife in the Dark"). Regular one-handed weapons and nearly all named one-handed items only have one die, but there are a few named items that won't function with Single Weapon Fighting.
You absolutely need to find a way to let all one-handed weapons work with Single-Weapon Fighting. In the case of Agony, for example, you could have it change from 2d4 to (1d4+1d6). That is, the "+X sides" bonus is added only once per weapon, splitting up any 2DZ into (1DZ + 1D(Z+X)).

Another way to handle it would be that the +X sides bonus from SWF is divided by the number of dice in the weapon's D. So GSWF adds +6 to a 1d4 weapon (total 1d10) but only +3 to a 2d4 weapon (total 2d7).


Feat Requirement: 2 ranks of Balance
Requiring skill ranks for a feat seems almost terrible, especially if it isn't possible to respec a skill as easily as a feat. (Meaningless for a lot of characters, obstructive to others)

[Tinco]

Dance of Flowers makes TF weapons a 7[W] CitW weapons become 4-4.5[W] 4.5 is a reasonable assessment.

The math shows that SWF feat are about as good as the THF feat adding a bit more such as 10% armor piercing or alacrity like i suggested and the fighting style will be set.

Except all existing +[W] enhancements require you to be centered or using PA (+1[W] from sixth LD core might work, not sure atm), both things that are not really promoted by this PrE and shoehorning people again into being centered and/or using PA should not be the goal here.

Still think roughly 10 seeker and 5% attackspeed per feat would be the way to go.

[Nibor]

Someone commented on having "guard/parry" effects for SWF. That actually might be a unique way to take these feats.

Have each of the SWF feats give you a % chance at an attack on any melee mob that misses you for any reason. Probably 20% each feat. DO NOT cap this at once per X seconds - let it fly. This is powerful. It's unique. It's thematic. It scales in value as your combat damage increases.

This might be too good, and create non-shield tanks that take these feats to take this amazing guard effect. But at least they'd get used, and you already decided you want to solve the shield users problems another day, so that's for another day...

[Systern]

Historically, classes that have been SWF combatants are because they're too feat starved to fit in actual melee feats. 3 new combat feats doesn't help the problem that Bards have no place to put them.

Monks lost their die steps in the move to +W[] conventions... Part of the reason given was it simplifies coding (agreed) and understanding (disagree). Why reverse this now?

The die step increases may almost balance with Swashbuckler's +1 critical multiplier, but for paladins or anyone else that might consider the feat, they're extremely weak. If you can afford 3 combat feats, these will never be taken over THF/TWF/PA->Cleaves. Even on a fighter or a 6 fighter splash, taking the Weapon Specialization feats and the kensai tree are more advantageous.

Am I reading Fast Movement correctly? a Pure bard could get +50% run speed, 10% faster than monks and barbs? I thought Eladrin said that any faster than 40%, and the combat engine gets wonky...


Looking better... not sure it's good yet though.

[CaptainSpacePony]

Personally, I'd rather see a straight "+2" (stacking [with all other 'bonuses']) damage (to the total base damage), rather than "+2 sides". This would basically do the same thing, EXCEPT it would increase the minimum damage; e.g. a 1d8 weapon would now do 3-10 points damage (1d8 + 2) instead of 1-10 points (1d10). The maximum damage remains the same, just the minimum damage is increased.

Ofc +2 would be better (stronger) than +2 sides. How much? Twice as much, as you explain in your example, but contradict yourself by saying it's basically the same thing.

3-10 averages 7.5 while 1-10 averages 6.5. +2 sides = +1 damage (on average) whereas +2 averages +2 (obviously).

[Cardtrick]

Except all existing +[W] enhancements require you to be centered or using PA (+1[W] from sixth LD core might work, not sure atm), both things that are not really promoted by this PrE and shoehorning people again into being centered and/or using PA should not be the goal here.

I agree with this so much. Let's please not add yet more reasons to the game for melee players to wear robes.


Still think roughly 10 seeker and 5% attackspeed per feat would be the way to go.

I agree with both of these things, at least in terms of their direction. Very good thematically, and useful bonuses that are fairly straightforward to balance and not confusing. Numerically, I do think they'd have to be higher.

The old argument that attack speed boosts caused lag seems to have fallen by the wayside. 15% attack speed boost would be no more than what any character can get with quarterstaves if they splash 1 rogue level, and that doesn't appear to bring the servers to their knees.

[jakeelala]

I think thematically, and if you want these feats to be interesting, you should make them do something cool and useful.

I think every-time the swashbuckler is attacked, hit or miss, they should get a +50% Doublestrike bonus for 1 second. This should be able to take Doublestrike over 100%, resulting in a possible third strike.

Each tier of these feats should increase that bonus like say +50, +75, and +100%.

In addition to the already existent benefits.

Then people would use these feats. Making something too powerful so that you can go back and tone it down is ALWAYS better than making something useless and never going back to fix it like DDO tends to do.

[Vargouille]

Thanks to everyone who is contributing to the different mathematical possibilities and directions SWF feats could move in.


Increasing the sides by +2 and not including weapons that have multiple dice as base is too limiting.

For what it's worth, we did search for these and there's only a handful of items excluded. We'd be more likely to go back and alter those few items (though those items of course are no worse than before, and continue to be just as great for TWF).


I'm a bit dazzled at the moment but answer me this: Max Dex Bonus does not actually raise your Max Dodge cap right? It will still be 30 (25 base + lv18 core) right?

Correct.


Some of Swashbuckling abilities are described to function only "while Swashbuckling". Does it mean that others work when not in Swashbuckling stance? In particular, does Different Tack work when not in the stance? The description says "You get <X> to Damage with weapon attacks Single Weapon Fighting", so presumably no shield. Can one use Different Tack and/or SWF while wearing medium or heavy armor?

Yes. Or when using non-finessable weapons (such as Bastard Swords).

The SWF feats and many of the Swashbuckler enhancements are intentionally not the same limitation as Swashbuckling. The current proposal in this thread allows for d16 Bastard Swords using CHA for damage, for instance.


Do these feats function with Handwraps?

No.


Requiring skill ranks for a feat seems almost terrible, especially if it isn't possible to respec a skill as easily as a feat. (Meaningless for a lot of characters, obstructive to others)

Compare to switching from STR to DEX (for THF vs. TWF). SWF doesn't require any particular ability scores.


Let's please not add yet more reasons to the game for melee players to wear robes.

OK.


Making something too powerful so that you can go back and tone it down is ALWAYS better than making something useless and never going back to fix it like DDO tends to do.

It's OK to nerf things and make players have to consider rebuilding their characters: Check!

https://www.ddo.com/forums/images/smilies/smile.png

[Lauf]

Otto's irresistible dance:
45 spell points
lasts an average of 22 seconds (17 to 27).
Costs roughly 2 spell points for 1 second of incapacitation.

requires:

a spell penetration roll (only for mobs with spell resistance)


Low Blow:
Costs 10 Spell Points for 1 second of incapacitation

requires:

you hit the mob (attack roll)
the mob to fail a save (perform + d20)


clearly using it would be a trap for bards, rather than a useful new ability.


--------------------------------------------------------

Sword Dance: when enemies miss you in combat, you deal 1d20 Sonic Damage. Scales with Spell Power.

Very very bad for low-level (=new player) balance. players running through waterworks with 1d30 (1d20*1.5 spell power) sonic damage on every miss is a major power creep (though zergers would love it)

I urge you to consider connecting the damage to either class levels or character levels.

[Scrabbler]

Passive: While Swashbuckling, the following weapons receive Competence bonuses to their critical profiles:
Dagger, Shortsword, Throwing Dagger: +1 Critical Threat Range, +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Light Mace, Sickle, Dart, Shuriken, Throwing Axe, Throwing Hammer: +2 Critical Threat Range, +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Kukri, Rapier: +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
[/LIST]
Have the devs noticed the problem where for a lot of Swashbuckler characters, using a named Shortsword, Dagger, or Sickle will be far superior to any available Rapier? There are some Shortswords with 18-20/x2, Daggers with 17-20/x3, and even Sickles with 19-20/x2. Add the Swashbuckler bonuses to them and they're much better than the 18-20/x3 you get with a Rapier (if you haven't got Balizarde yet). And then once you do get Balizarde, it becomes incredibly better than any other weapon you could conceive.

This is a problem that's also seen in places like Acrobat:
An enhancement tree grants crit bonuses to encourage using certain types of weapons, but combining that with a named weapon which has abnormal crit profile produces a much bigger improvement than the enhancement gave to regular weapons of that type. Characters using that tree are nearly locked-in to just a few named weapons.

[nibel]

Keep the +12.Allows you not not necessarily be DEX build to have good reflex.Also its not that its balancing vs 'everyone has divine grace', but balancing for 'bards can never get divine grace'.

Let's face a dex-dumped swashbuckler that will use int or cha to damage.

Starting Dex: 8 (Because we can)
Reasonable level 28 dex: 18 (8 base +2 favor tome +8 item/augment)

Base reflex save: 16 (12 bard, 8 Epic)
Swashbuckler reflex save without Second Skin: 42 (16 Base +4 Dex +10 item +4 GH +7 Cores* +1 Good Luck)
*(Panache gives extra +1)

42 Reflex save with an almost ignored dexterity value. If you go dex-primary its easily to raise it up at least +8. That is a good value. Unless you believe you absolutely should have 60+ saves to even have a chance at all to Evade.

Which brings my point that currently it is only a necessity because EE requires absurd values.

[jakeelala]

It's OK to nerf things and make players have to consider rebuilding their characters: Check!

https://www.ddo.com/forums/images/smilies/smile.png

It's always terrible, but at least there's a chance that the ability wont be throwaway if it's too powerful to begin with as long as Devs don't over-nerf. But when you guys release stuff that is just out and out useless, and you dont go back and fix it (or wait 4 years, like Bards), that's not more useful, it's less.

[Caprice]

Thanks for the continuing feedback. Let's go to the second part.
[....]
Since those feats will be competing directly whit THF and TWF (and no one other than a fighter or ranger can realistically get SWF/THF for dwarven axes and bastard swords), we will make a direct paralel between them, using: Rapiers (SWF/TWF) and Falchions (THF). All have a 18-20/x2 crit profile, so we can focus only in the other parts of the feats.
[....]
I still believe Cannoneer should grant Runearm proficiency.
[....]
I agree with a lot of your assessment, but 2 particular comments on these.

An artificer or EK arcane can probably manage to fit in both the SWF and THF feats thanks to a reasonable number of class bonus feats that can be spent on their spellcasting needs. It does require build sacrifices but it is an option. If the SWF feats were stronger than what is presented here then it could even become a good option to do so.

Currently runearm damage scales directly with Artificer levels, so having Runearm proficiency with no Artificer levels would still be fairly weak. I think that this would also need to change. I would lobby strongly for making Runearm Proficiency a selectable feat and changing the damage to scale at a lesser rate with character level, and give Artificers a passive feat which increases their effective level when using runearms to bring the damage back up to the current numbers.

[Cardtrick]

Thanks to everyone who is contributing to the different mathematical possibilities and directions SWF feats could move in.

You know that we don't really know what your planning and development process is like, right?

I mean, I know we can get sarcastic sometimes, mostly because we're frustrated. (Although you get sarcastic right back, so it's probably fair.) And sometimes it seems like we keep repeating things. But we really don't know what kind of numbers you look at or simulations you run or testing you do.

For all I know, you're sitting there, shaking your head, a disdainful look on your face, saying to yourself, "Oh come on, don't they know I would have already checked those numbers and found out that these changes are balanced?"

Maybe you have some spreadsheet model of damage output and compare the numbers statistically. (I've tried putting something like this together and it's incredibly hard, but as a developer with access to the code, presumably it would be a little easier.) Or maybe you can even do something like implement test versions of the feats and then spawn dummy NPCs that have certain sets of level appropriate gear/feats/enhancements, each with slightly different modifiers to the enhancements under consideration, and have them automatically whack a dummy or fight a monster so that you can compare the time it takes against some baseline TWF and THF characters.

My point is this -- I don't know what kind of feedback you would find helpful.

Do you want us to try to put together numbers to show how this stacks up against TWF/THF, or are you already so far beyond our capabilities for that that there's no point? Are you just trying to see how we feel about a tree and feats that you've already confirmed are correctly balanced, or do you want us to go further?

[CeltEireson]

Which brings my point that currently it is only a necessity because EE requires absurd values.

And it requires absurd values because of 2 level splashes of paladin for divine grace and/or monk splashes giving characters massive boosts to saves. They need to at least limit divine grace to a max of paladin level or something similar.

[Scraap]

It's OK to nerf things and make players have to consider rebuilding their characters: Check!
:)

At the risk of digressing: Purchase of a +1 heart via coms would go a long way towards mitigating that. As it stands, it's quite likely taking the feats would require folks rebuilding their characters as well.

[CeltEireson]

Which now makes the Sacred Defender line even more feat starved (Having to choose between Power Attack-Cleave-Great Cleave, 3 Two Handed Fighting Feats, 3 Single Handed Fighting Feats, and 4 Shield Feats [Choice of 7 of 13 feats when a nearly identical Stalwart Defender can select all 13 + 6 more]).
.

I'd assume if your'e going down the Sacred Defender line and using bastard swords you'd be using a shield and as these feats don't work with a shield you no longer need to worry about which feats to take ;)

[Lauf]

15% attack speed boost would be no more than what any character can get with quarterstaves if they splash 1 rogue level, and that doesn't appear to bring the servers to their knees.

I think you're on to something here, as quarterstaves are 1d6 base damage, which is roughly the same as your run-of-the-mill one handed weapon.

ideally, to make one-handers worthwhile, the feats should award at least the same bonuses (or different ones that are similar in value) as quarterstaff users do (15% attack speed + 20% double strike).

keep in mind that quarterstaff users also enjoy THF strength multiplier to damage (1.5?), which is why I've stated the bonuses should at least be on par with those of a quarterstaff, if the single weapon playstyle is really meant to be viable.

[Scrabbler]

Historically, classes that have been SWF combatants are because they're too feat starved to fit in actual melee feats. 3 new combat feats doesn't help the problem that Bards have no place to put them.
Yeah, they should really look at putting the SWF feats into Swashbuckler as enhancement icons, so there are two ways a Bard build can pay for the SWF abilities.


[LIST] 5 AP, class level 3: Swashbuckling: Defensive Stance: You gain 1% Doublestrike and Doubleshot as well as +1 to the Enhancement Bonus of the weapon in your main hand. Swashbuckling requires wielding a Finesseable or Thrown weapon in your main hand, wielding a Buckler or nothing in your off hand, and wearing Light Armor or no armor. (Druids cannot Swashbuckle while in animal forms.)
[LIST]
What about when I equip a scroll?? That's a HUGE problem if Swashbuckling turns off and I have to do an extra icon to get it back each time.

[nibel]

And it requires absurd values because of 2 level splashes of paladin for divine grace and/or monk splashes giving characters massive boosts to saves. They need to at least limit divine grace to a max of paladin level or something similar.

No. No. No. This is not an "egg and chicken" problem.

First came the huge DC spells in epic elites. People who splashed for evasion noticed they weren't evading enough. So, they found a way to tack in 2 pally levels to raise their numbers because that was the only reasonable trade-in other than giving up your twist slots for all the +6 reflex stuff.

The pally splash is a reaction to over-the-top EE DC. Not the other way around.

If they balance the DC back in 10 or 15, many of those people will just find out they don't need those 2 pally levels to reach a benchmark, and go back to the builder to find if there is something better to do with those 2 levels.

Second Skin having a +12 reflex in a already high reflex base class is a signal that they are covering for the lack of Divine Grace, instead of trying to push the DC back into reasonable numbers. Those +12 reflex are overkill in heroic and EN/EH content, and you can access them from as early as level 12.

[Grace_ana]

I would never, ever, ever take the SWF feats as they are suggested right now. Not only is the damage at best underwhelming, but it costs three feats and skill points to get to underwhelming damage that won't even work on every weapon. Why would anyone do that?

Things that need to be fixed to make it worthwhile (and ALL of these things would need to be fixed to make it work):

1. Once again, the damage needs to equate to TWF and THF. It doesn't come close. It might be okay once you are capped and have thunderforged weapons (and I say might), but three feats that are basically useless until you get to cap is not a good plan.

2. These feats need to be usable with a shield or in animal form (it's unclear whether this works in animal form). There is no reason to leave paladins even further behind. The previous suggestion to meld SWF with shield feats was excellent. A feat line shouldn't only be good for one or two builds, or it isn't a very good feat line.

3. It needs to work with all weapons.


We'd be more likely to go back and alter those few items (though those items of course are no worse than before, and continue to be just as great for TWF).

Oh god, please don't. You will try to alter them, and something will go wrong, and then you will break my Agony. Or handwraps. Why make a feat line that then requires you to go change actual individual items and still then need to go back and develop something for S&B when you could just create a feat line that has respectable damage, works for swashbuckler or S&B, and doesn't require more item coding? I know you guys aren't that bored.

4. Get rid of the skill point requirement. There's no reason or equivalent for it. Sure, if you fight TWF you might go to dex (but certainly not always, plenty of TWF are str builds), and if you go THF you are probably str-based (or cha if you are PDK), but that's not a requirement per se. That's a plan in which you determine synergy for your character build. While balance might thematically make sense for a swashbuckler, a feat line shouldn't be just for one kind of build. Lots of builds have tight skill points, and it should be up to them how they spend them.

As far as the tree is concerned, there are a lot of improvements. I still cannot understand why not a single song, though. It's a BARD.

*leaping into the room waving a rapier* "Ah ha! I am Swashbard the Buckler, here to kill you all!"
"A bard, you say? Where's your lute?"
"Um, I don't play the lute. I, um, sing?"
"Let's hear a song, then."
*crickets* "Uh, give me a second..." *slaps the guy across the face, which will only stun him literally momentarily before he kicks your butt because you lack DPS feats*

[CeltEireson]

Hmmm wont let me edit my previous posts so I'll just tack this on here.

With regards to how poor the swf feats are - compare them to the likes of weapon focus or weapon specialisation feats. Weapon specialisation gives you a whopping +2 to damage that doesn't scale with level or weapons compared to a possible additional 4d6 for a thunderforged weapon.

Not saying that the swf aren't a lil underpowered compared to the thf feats of twf feats, but there are a lot of feats out there that either have always been very weak or have been devalued by the introduction of new feats or enhancements that are far more powerful. Maybe something that needs addressed when looking at balance.

[Cardtrick]

Second Skin having a +12 reflex in a already high reflex base class is a signal that they are covering for the lack of Divine Grace, instead of trying to push the DC back into reasonable numbers. Those +12 reflex are overkill in heroic and EN/EH content, and you can access them from as early as level 12.

I'd rather they cover for the problem now than not, though. Evasion was going to be useless at high levels without something like this.

If (and hopefully when) they do a pass through to reduce the DCs we face in high level epics, then they can tone this enhancement down to something more reasonable like +2/+4/+6. (And at the same time, they could cap the benefit from Divine Grace to be equal to the number of paladin class levels.)

For the reality of the game as it stands right now, pure swashbucklers need something like this to make their evasion useful. Since swashbucklers will be coming out before some possible future pass through the epic DCs, they need to be designed for the game as it stands right now.

There's more than enough to talk about balancing this with the current game; I don't think it's productive to try to balance it for some imagined future version.

[Cardtrick]

Hmmm wont let me edit my previous posts so I'll just tack this on here.

With regards to how poor the swf feats are - compare them to the likes of weapon focus or weapon specialisation feats. Weapon specialisation gives you a whopping +2 to damage that doesn't scale with level or weapons compared to a possible additional 4d6 for a thunderforged weapon.

Not saying that the swf aren't a lil underpowered compared to the thf feats of twf feats, but there are a lot of feats out there that either have always been very weak or have been devalued by the introduction of new feats or enhancements that are far more powerful. Maybe something that needs addressed when looking at balance.

Why on earth would we compare them to Weapon Focus or Weapon Specialization?

Yes, Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization are bad. They're only taken right now because they're prerequisites for useful enhancements or other feats.

The point is that if we're taking the SWF feats, we don't get to benefit from the advantages of TWF or THF -- so these feats need to be similarly powerful to make up for it.

[Havok.cry]

Yeah, they should really look at putting the SWF feats into Swashbuckler as enhancement icons, so there are two ways a Bard build can pay for the SWF abilities.


What about when I equip a scroll?? That's a HUGE problem if Swashbuckling turns off and I have to do an extra icon to get it back each time.

I disagree. This would leave out any other class that might engage in single weapon fighting, unless they splashed enough bard to get these.

[CeltEireson]

No. No. No. This is not an "egg and chicken" problem.

First came the huge DC spells in epic elites. People who splashed for evasion noticed they weren't evading enough. So, they found a way to tack in 2 pally levels to raise their numbers because that was the only reasonable trade-in other than giving up your twist slots for all the +6 reflex stuff.


Hmmm maybe a bit of both? ;) Saves were upped because some characters were finding it too easy to evade, including some pally splashes, and once raised pally splashes became more popular?





Second Skin having a +12 reflex in a already high reflex base class is a signal that they are covering for the lack of Divine Grace, instead of trying to push the DC back into reasonable numbers. Those +12 reflex are overkill in heroic and EN/EH content, and you can access them from as early as level 12.

This I agree with - in a d20 system +12 to any save is a phenomenal amount.

[Grace_ana]

Let's face a dex-dumped swashbuckler that will use int or cha to damage.

Starting Dex: 8 (Because we can)
Reasonable level 28 dex: 18 (8 base +2 favor tome +8 item/augment)

Base reflex save: 16 (12 bard, 8 Epic)
Swashbuckler reflex save without Second Skin: 42 (16 Base +4 Dex +10 item +4 GH +7 Cores* +1 Good Luck)
*(Panache gives extra +1)

42 Reflex save with an almost ignored dexterity value. If you go dex-primary its easily to raise it up at least +8. That is a good value. Unless you believe you absolutely should have 60+ saves to even have a chance at all to Evade.

Which brings my point that currently it is only a necessity because EE requires absurd values.

I'm not really sure that was the point of the reflex stuff in the enhancement. Remember, evasion doesn't come in the tree until cap. That being the case, the tree has to offer a lot of reflex saves to make up for it through heroics. It's actually not a terrible way to build in growth for the character - the reflex saves through the tree (and additional should you choose to be dex-based) will be high enough for heroics even without evasion, and adding evasion for the capstone makes the reflex workable in epics.

[viktorserak]

Hmmm wont let me edit my previous posts so I'll just tack this on here.

With regards to how poor the swf feats are - compare them to the likes of weapon focus or weapon specialisation feats. Weapon specialisation gives you a whopping +2 to damage that doesn't scale with level or weapons compared to a possible additional 4d6 for a thunderforged weapon.

Not saying that the swf aren't a lil underpowered compared to the thf feats of twf feats, but there are a lot of feats out there that either have always been very weak or have been devalued by the introduction of new feats or enhancements that are far more powerful. Maybe something that needs addressed when looking at balance.

Dear Celt,

you are absolutely correct.

Compared to weapon focus and weapon specialization feats, SWF feats looks neat.

That said, aside from newbies, the only ppl who are taking weapon specialization and focus are kensei fighters who are floaded with feats and they are still taking these for one reason only - to qualify for the tasty final tier enhancement. There is no other reason.

Weapon focus and specialization are dead feats. They are investment in feats, so you can get One with the blade and stuff like that. If you, by any chance, are taking these for their effect and not as deadweight prerequisite, then... well... I highly suggest you go to meele forum and start a topi there on these feats. People will explain you everything.

[ZenPuppy]

(snip)

As far as the tree is concerned, there are a lot of improvements. I still cannot understand why not a single song, though. It's a BARD.



To be fair,
Tier 1, 4th item is "Tavern Shanties: +1/2/3 Bard Songs".

[Cardtrick]

What about when I equip a scroll?? That's a HUGE problem if Swashbuckling turns off and I have to do an extra icon to get it back each time.

I have asked this several times now and have not received a response. I assume this means that either the answer is not something we're going to like, or that they're not sure how to answer because they aren't sure of the implementation details.

I can say with some certainty that I won't play a swashbuckler if I have to re-enable my stance every time I use a scroll.

But at the same time, when you have a scroll in your hand, you can punch with it. And I imagine they don't want the stance to apply to unarmed fighting. I wouldn't be surprised if there's something complicated with trying to fix this.

[CeltEireson]

Why on earth would we compare them to Weapon Focus or Weapon Specialization?

Yes, Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization are bad. They're only taken right now because they're prerequisites for useful enhancements or other feats.

The point is that if we're taking the SWF feats, we don't get to benefit from the advantages of TWF or THF -- so these feats need to be similarly powerful to make up for it.

Sorry, its more a pet peeve - I think ideally all feats should provide a similar level of benefit, although I know how hard it is to estimate this for those that aren't directly related to combat, but maybe that's just me. And yes I agree, if you have to choose between styles then they should offer similar levels of power to each other, although not necessarily in terms of straight damage, but as the swf doesn't provide any other bonuses either the damage needs to be increase in some form or you get some other additional benefit from them.

[Ebondevil]

Single Weapon Fighting
While Single-Weapon Fighting, your weapon die gains an additional +2 sides.

Single Weapon Fighting: Requires fighting with a single one-handed melee weapon, and wielding only an orb, runearm, or nothing in your offhand.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d10 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (Example: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 2 ranks of Balance


Improved Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Single Weapon Fighting increases to +4 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d12 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 4 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +6


Greater Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Improved Single Weapon Fighting increases to +6 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d14 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 7 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +11

Have a look at the Chart Here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/weapons.htm#weaponSize) for an idea of how to increase weapon damage dice more sensibly, without worrying about coding in exclusions.

Exclusions of this nature are a very very very bad idea, even if it's only for one or two weapons which are currently in game.

[Grace_ana]

To be fair,
Tier 1, 4th item is "Tavern Shanties: +1/2/3 Bard Songs".

Yes. If you knew any songs, you would get to sing them more. But you don't, because you're a swashbuckler.

(I know, I know you can take songs from other trees, but that's not the point. A bard tree should have at least one song. It's a bard tree.)

[CeltEireson]

Dear Celt,

That said, aside from newbies, the only ppl who are taking weapon specialization and focus are kensei fighters who are floaded with feats and they are still taking these for one reason only - to qualify for the tasty final tier enhancement. There is no other reason.

Weapon focus and specialization are dead feats. They are investment in feats, so you can get One with the blade and stuff like that. If you, by any chance, are taking these for their effect and not as deadweight prerequisite, then... well... I highly suggest you go to meele forum and start a topi there on these feats. People will explain you everything.

;) nope, only one of my characters who takes them is my kensai fighter. As I said in previous post, its not that I think theyre of use, more that I think they should be of more use than they currently are. They've improved other feats for various reasons, can't see why they don't do the same for these although I'm not exactly holding out any real hopes for that.

[ZenPuppy]

Yes. If you knew any songs, you would get to sing them more. But you don't, because you're a swashbuckler.

(I know, I know you can take songs from other trees, but that's not the point. A bard tree should have at least one song. It's a bard tree.)

Except you DO know songs on account of being a bard. Fascinate, Inspire Courage, Competence, Suggestion, Heroics, Freedom etc. aren't learned through enhancement lines, but through bard levels.

Am I missing something? o.O

[Grace_ana]

Except you DO know songs on account of being a bard. Fascinate, Inspire Courage, Competence, Suggestion, Heroics, Freedom etc. aren't learned through enhancement lines, but through bard levels.

Am I missing something? o.O


All bards get those. Part of what makes the flavor of each bard tree is the songs that specific tree gets. Spellsinger gets songs that boost magic and healing. Warchanter get melee buffs. Swashbuckler gets...oh. Nothing. So yeah, you're missing something.

[LeoLionxxx]

Slap in the Face: While Swashbuckling and wielding nothing in your off hand, activate to deal 1 Bludgeon damage. Damaged enemies can't cast spells for 3/6/9 seconds and are stunned for one second (Perform + d20 saves for the Stun). 18 second cooldown. Costs 10 Spell Points.



Not sure why such negative feedback on this ability. For me, the appealing part of it is the prevention of spell casting, which is a no-save ability. Prevents mob healing, the orange name from doing a flame strike and so on (it might even stop the drow priestesses from killing their allies, IDK). Looking at the description, it might even be able to do multiple enemies at once!

Or am I completely wrong in thinking that the ability to prevent someone from casting half the time (9 sec duration, 18 sec cooldown) is a good thing to have?

[ZenPuppy]

All bards get those. Part of what makes the flavor of each bard tree is the songs that specific tree gets. Spellsinger gets songs that boost magic and healing. Warchanter get melee buffs. Swashbuckler gets...oh. Nothing. So yeah, you're missing something.

Ah, So no SPECIAL songs. That makes sense, I suppose. I could see that. Maybe a song buff for temporarily increased double strike and dodge would round it out some.

[Cardtrick]

All bards get those. Part of what makes the flavor of each bard tree is the songs that specific tree gets. Spellsinger gets songs that boost magic and healing. Warchanter get melee buffs. Swashbuckler gets...oh. Nothing. So yeah, you're missing something.

He's not missing anything. You said "if you knew any songs, you could sing them more." All bards know songs, which he was pointing out. Some of the base songs are quite nice.

I really don't think this tree needs new songs.

[Scrabbler]

But at the same time, when you have a scroll in your hand, you can punch with it. And I imagine they don't want the stance to apply to unarmed fighting. I wouldn't be surprised if there's something complicated with trying to fix this.
Punching with your empty left hand shouldn't be treated like unarmed combat for any game balance purposes. The animation is slow, there's no handwrap, you're not centered... it's irrelevant, and they should ignore whether you can get swashbuckler bonuses with it.

[viktorserak]

;) nope, only one of my characters who takes them is my kensai fighter. As I said in previous post, its not that I think theyre of use, more that I think they should be of more use than they currently are. They've improved other feats for various reasons, can't see why they don't do the same for these although I'm not exactly holding out any real hopes for that.

Fair.

I still dont get why you mentioned focus and specialization as something that should be campared to SWF, which was the reason I reacted (I do get it, but I just disagree so strongly, that "I dont get it" is the proper term to show how much I disagree).

That said: there are TONS of feats that are useless or near useless. Most of them are DnD PnP legacy. I am fine with them beaing as they are.


Making a fighting style that is actually more comparable to these instead of TWF and THF is just.. sad.

[Sebastrd]

Single Weapon Fighting
While Single-Weapon Fighting, your weapon die gains an additional +2 sides.

Single Weapon Fighting: Requires fighting with a single one-handed melee weapon, and wielding only an orb, runearm, or nothing in your offhand.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d10 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (Example: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 2 ranks of Balance


Improved Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Single Weapon Fighting increases to +4 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d12 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 4 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +6


Greater Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Improved Single Weapon Fighting increases to +6 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d14 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 7 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +11

Even if these turn out to be mathematically beneficial, they are totally unsexy. And the consensus seems to be that they are only good if you manage to stack a bunch of +[W] modifiers on high end weapons. Where is the Armor Piercing that was mentioned in the original post? A simple Doublestrike bonus plus Armor Piercing elegantly accomplishes the same thing you're going for here (i.e., damage bonus with a SWF twist), while avoiding any crazy coding issues that exclude certain raid weapons. Someone is trying to be too clever for their own good and mucking up what could be some cool feats and a new fighting style.



Changes in the Tree

Some of the more prominent changes to the tree include allowing Single-Weapon Fighting with a Buckler, putting more into the first core ability, adding in CHA / DEX / INT to-damage enhancements (while Single Weapon Fighting), and adding max-dex bonus to armor and reflex saving throws to both core abilities and Tier 5. Some abilities have also been renamed or had tentative numbers put in for various costs or cooldowns. All names and numbers still subject to further feedback, revision, and balancing.


Core Abilities


1 AP, class level 1: Confidence: Passive: +1% Dodge, +1 Reflex Save, and +1 to the Max Dex Bonus of your Armor per Swashbuckler Core Ability you have.
5 AP, class level 3: Swashbuckling: Defensive Stance: You gain 1% Doublestrike and Doubleshot as well as +1 to the Enhancement Bonus of the weapon in your main hand. Swashbuckling requires wielding a Finesseable or Thrown weapon in your main hand, wielding a Buckler or nothing in your off hand, and wearing Light Armor or no armor. (Druids cannot Swashbuckle while in animal forms.)

Passive: While Swashbuckling, the following weapons receive Competence bonuses to their critical profiles:
Dagger, Shortsword, Throwing Dagger: +1 Critical Threat Range, +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Light Mace, Sickle, Dart, Shuriken, Throwing Axe, Throwing Hammer: +2 Critical Threat Range, +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Kukri, Rapier: +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Handaxe: +2 Critical Threat Range
Light Pick: +1 Critical Threat Range


10 AP, class level 6: Uncanny Dodge: You gain the Uncanny Dodge feat. Passive: Swashbuckling grants an additional 1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, and +1 Attack Damage.
20 AP, class level 12: Panache: While Swashbuckling, you have an additional 1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, +1 Attack Damage, +1 Reflex Saving Throw, and the weapon in your main hand gains an additional +1 to its Enhancement bonus.
30 AP, class level 18: Roll with the Punches: While Swashbuckling, you gain +5 Insight Bonus to Character Dodge Cap, the Slippery Mind feat, +1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, and +1 Attack Damage.
41 AP, class level 20: Evasive Maneuvers: +2 CHA, +2 DEX.While Swashbuckling, you gain the Evasion feat, +1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, +1 Attack Damage, and the weapon in your main hand gains an additional +1 to its Enhancement bonus.


I think you're missing a huge opportunity here. Adding Evasion to the level 12 Core and Improved Evasion to the level 20 Core would give us a third option to get Evasion (other than 2 Rogue or 2 Monk) while making Swashbuckler a truly interesting endgame class. So far it looks to have potential; it just needs that little something extra to push it over the edge from flavor-fully interesting to mechanically useful.

Tier OneInsults (multiselector) These are boring without some sonic damage tacked on. Similar damage to Soundburst would be perfect.



Scathing Words: Activate to reduce the Fortitude saves of nearby enemies by 3. (Costs 16/12/8 Spell Points, 20/15/10 Second Cooldown)
Cutting Jibes: Activate to reduce the Will saves of nearby enemies by 3. (Costs 16/12/8 Spell Points, 20/15/10 Second Cooldown)
Appalling Diatribe: Activate to reduce the Reflex saves of nearby enemies by 3. (Costs 16/12/8 Spell Points, 20/15/10 Second Cooldown)


I sincerely hope you guys are able to fully realize the potential of this tree and set of feats. An entirely new fighting style is a great way to extend the life of the game; unlike new quests, it doesn't get old after to run it a few times and grab the good loot. The return on investment is exponentially greater.

[Brolik]

I don't know all the math that goes along with deciding damage and all that jazz. don't care to take the time to do that. I for one am excited about this swashbuckler thing. I see people complaining that using 2 weapons or 1 big weapon is gunna do better damage. Of course it is. without any math to be done that just makes sense to me. I think this single weapon fighting style is more about personal preference for people who enjoy playing the game for the game and not to be the most dominant in the game. Lovin that you guys like to keep adding new things to try out. With 3 fighter PL I can see this being a decent melee bard build and still have allyour buffs. no maybe not the most dominate in the game but still fun. Thank you and keep it up. Youll never make everyone happy.

[Grace_ana]

He's not missing anything. You said "if you knew any songs, you could sing them more." All bards know songs, which he was pointing out. Some of the base songs are quite nice.

I really don't think this tree needs new songs.

Except he did actually miss what I was saying, as you will see in the post above yours.

I do think the tree should have at least one song, whether it be to help doublestrike or AC or PRR or something. Maybe blur everyone around you for the first tier? I don't know. But something.

[ZenPuppy]

He's not missing anything. You said "if you knew any songs, you could sing them more." All bards know songs, which he was pointing out. Some of the base songs are quite nice.

I really don't think this tree needs new songs.

That was how I read it. I didn't notice the lack of tree specific songs. Primarily because I didn't see the need. This tree seems more individual focused while the other two seemed more party focused. The lack of songs isn't really an issue given the enhancement line seems to increase general DPS and survivability in all situations to the point that lacking an extra special song didn't seem like a big deal.

I do wonder if anyone will bother making a cannoneer since it seems to do so you'd need to multiclass bard and artificer which don't have much by way of synergy. Is using a rune arm worth losing the evasion capstone? I wouldn't think so....

[Desonde]

I'd assume if your'e going down the Sacred Defender line and using bastard swords you'd be using a shield and as these feats don't work with a shield you no longer need to worry about which feats to take ;)

Could always splash in a little swashbuckler to gain light shield ability (since the Sacred Defender line doesn't require full plate, only a shield and weapon).

EDIT: Which isn't possible w/ a Bastard Sword or Dwarven Axe.

If the ability to add shields is added as suggested later on, it becomes an issue (as of right now, SWF only benefits Bards and Artis).

[ZenPuppy]

Except he did actually miss what I was saying, as you will see in the post above yours.

I do think the tree should have at least one song, whether it be to help doublestrike or AC or PRR or something. Maybe blur everyone around you for the first tier? I don't know. But something.

No, I didn't. Your phrasing made it seem like you didn't know any songs, not just specific tree songs. If I missed what you were saying, it was a result of your inability to make it clear ("if you knew any songs, you could sing them more"). I'm not sure how you define "any" but the litany of class songs would seem to apply.

[OverlordOfRats]

Having Balance as a prereq means anyone besides Bards, Monks and Rogues would have to put 14 skill points into balance to qualify for the SWF line.

That is four skill points at first level and one every level until eleventh when full BAB classes could take the third feat. This would make it difficult for paladins and fighters to take it at BAB 11.


An example:

On live I have a dwarf paladin 11 fighter 1.

Right now at level 12 she has 4.5 skill points in balance and BAB 12.
At level 15 she will hit 7.5 points in balance. This would be when she could take the GSWF feat, four levels after BAB 11.
At level 20 she will hit 11 points in balance. She will also max concentration(23), heal(23), and spot(11)-personal preference. Jump and tumble each have 1 rank and that leaves 2 extra points at level 20.

To do this she starts with an INT of 13 and has used a +1 INT Tome and is planned to use a +3 INT Tome.

She has the feats to take the SWF line as she takes the full THF line and uses dwarven axes.


Please do not require a minimum skill level of any skill to take the SWF line. Since most paladins would swap intimidate for spot, it still puts a high investment in INt to get the balance required. It can hurt builds that could benefit from the SWF line.


P.S. Missed the no shield requirement on the first read through.

If the SWF line is not going to be Swashbuckler specific, add in shields. If it is Swashbuckler specific, add it to the core enhancements not as feats.

[Scrabbler]

I do wonder if anyone will bother making a cannoneer since it seems to do so you'd need to multiclass bard and artificer which don't have much by way of synergy. Is using a rune arm worth losing the evasion capstone? I wouldn't think so....
People might try it for Bard/Rogue/Art triclasses, like 16/2/2 or 3/2/15. But it's not clear that the benefit from even the best kind of Runearm would outweigh 7% Doublestrike and +5 damage.

[CeltEireson]

Except he did actually miss what I was saying, as you will see in the post above yours.

I do think the tree should have at least one song, whether it be to help doublestrike or AC or PRR or something. Maybe blur everyone around you for the first tier? I don't know. But something.

Given that the enhancement line seems to be character rather than party focused maybe a personal song buff that ups both dps and defence, a bonus to doublestrike and max dodge sounds about right.

[Urjak]

To help readability, I copied only the important stuff:



*snip*

Single Weapon Fighting
While Single-Weapon Fighting, your weapon die gains an additional +2 sides.

Single Weapon Fighting: Requires fighting with a single one-handed melee weapon, and wielding only an orb, runearm, or nothing in your offhand.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d10 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (Example: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 2 ranks of Balance


Improved Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Single Weapon Fighting increases to +4 sides.

*snip*

Greater Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Improved Single Weapon Fighting increases to +6 sides.

If these were to apply to thrown weapons, I would take them into consideration ... so not so much. Especially the limitation to only a single base die is ridiculous. At least consider just simply adding +1 damage to the base die like Thornlord for example. (Other example: 4.5[2d4]+10 = 19 - 28 = ~23,5 -> 4.5[2d4+1]+10 = 23.5 - 32.5 = ~28 as you can see that would work fine regardless of number of base dice)

*snip*


5 AP, class level 3: Swashbuckling: Defensive Stance: You gain 1% Doublestrike and Doubleshot as well as +1 to the Enhancement Bonus of the weapon in your main hand. Swashbuckling requires wielding a Finesseable or Thrown weapon in your main hand, wielding a Buckler or nothing in your off hand, and wearing Light Armor or no armor. (Druids cannot Swashbuckle while in animal forms.)

Passive: While Swashbuckling, the following weapons receive Competence bonuses to their critical profiles:
Dagger, Shortsword, Throwing Dagger: +1 Critical Threat Range, +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Light Mace, Sickle, Dart, Shuriken, Throwing Axe, Throwing Hammer: +2 Critical Threat Range, +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Kukri, Rapier: +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Handaxe: +2 Critical Threat Range
Light Pick: +1 Critical Threat Range



Does this mean crit range modifying enhancement will now FINALLY work with throwing weapons? Or will this be just another broken ability that won't ever work anyways? (After all throwing weapons only have become MORE broken recently - not less. (Talking about Ninja Poison no longer working with named throwing weapons) - oh and when I'm already at it: Any plans on making stone of change rituals work with throwers?)

*snip*


Melee or Thrown Attack: Make an attack with +(1/2/3) critical threat range that deals (+1/+2/+3)d6 extra Sonic damage, and reduces your threat with nearby enemies by (100/200/300). Sonic damage


*snip*


En Pointe: Melee Attack: Make two attacks with +4/8/12 critical threat range, but -1 Critical Multiplier. Costs 10 Spell Points to activate.


Only commenting on these two since I read a lot of negative feedback on them:

First I don't see how we now crit with EVERY hit - sure with adrenalin you will always crit - but not every attacks has adrenalin. I agree though that these attacks are not all that powerful, but when comparing them to other special attacks from first and second tiers they are in good company. Only thing I would change is the spell point requirement - this attack really isn't even remotely powerful enough to qualify such a steep spell point cost.

*snip*


Sword Dance: While Swashbuckling, when enemies miss you in combat, you deal 1d10/1d12/1d20 Sonic Damage. Scales with Spell Power.


I like the idea, but the damage is way too low. Even with 500 sonic spellpower (haven't done the math, but kinda guess most people will have a lot less even at cap) that's ~63 average damage per getting missed. Assuming EE content, I don't see a bard or bard splash having significantly more than 50% effective getting-missed-chance. For the math-heads:

getting missed chance = 1 - 0.95 (AC) * 0.95 (Lvl 28 ED-Feat) * 0.67 (dodge for halfling + lvl 18 core) * 0.9 (incorporality) | sometimes: * 0.5 (displacement, if foe has no TS)

so:

getting missed chance vs. meaningful foe: 1 - 0.95 * 0.95 * 0.67 * 0.9 = ~45.6%
getting missed chance vs. weak trash: 1 - 0.95 * 0.95 * 0.67 * 0.9 * 0.5 = ~72.
For simplicity assuming 50:50 => ~59.2% and that is assuming foes never have dodge-bypass or ghost touch ... so effectively even lower than that
So I think it is a valid simplification to just assume on crude average every 2nd attack will hit / miss.

Combine this with low DR, PRR and HP ... those 63 damage per getting hit for 300 damage when fighting foes with 300,000+ hp ... simply not worth it.

*snip*


Resonant Arms: While Swashbuckling, the Finesseable or Thrown weapon in your main hand deals an additional 2d6/4d6/6d6 Sonic Damage on critical hits.


So far imo the only really intriguing ability.

*snip*


Two Steps Ahead: You get Intelligence to Damage with weapon attacks Single Weapon Fighting.


Not wanting to oppose any of the int fanboys, but what does intelligence have to do with bards and swashbuckling? *scratches-head*

*snip*


Wind at my Back: +1 to the Enhancement Bonus of your equipped Throwing Weapons, plus an additional +1 for every five Bard levels.


Is this tier 4 ability supposed to make up for the loss of Ninja Spy core 2 and 10k stars? While shuriken expertise should still function with bards - those other two won't, and a few small damage bonuses won't make up for a loss of on average effective ~100% doublestrike (referring to some crude statistics of my own toons ...)

*snip*


Thread the Needle: While Swashbuckling, +5 Attack Damage while the Precision feat is active.
Second Skin: While Swashbuckling, +3/6/12 to your Reflex Saves and +2/4/6 to the Max Dex Bonus of your Armor.
Exploit Weaknesses:While Swashbuckling, every time you damage an enemy but do not critically hit, you gain a stacking +1 Insight Bonus to Critical Threat Range until you successfully crit.


Exploit Weaknesses is weak - really weak - the other two look nice and are imo fitting the overall theme!

*snip*



Every style of fighting should have purpose. I hardly see any in single weapon fighting. Let me break down the purpose of the styles of melee combat in DDO:


What is the purpose of Two-Weapon Fighting? To deal lots of damage against a single target by multiple attacks.
What is the purpose of Two-Handed Fighting? To deal blows that each deal heavy damage, and to do a bit of 'crowd control' by being able to attack multiple targets with glancing blows.
What is the purpose of unarmed combat? When you are disarmed, or primarily if you are a monk who specializes in unarmed combat.
What is the purpose of sword and board fighting? To provide valuable protection at the cost of some DPS. Currently, the DPS cost is a bit too high for what's offered.


What do I see in single-weapon fighting? Damage that is way lesser than two-weapon and two-handed, yet somewhat above unarmed combat for non-monks. And maybe a tiny bit of defense, though probably not close to sword and board fighting. What should the purpose of Single-Weapon fighting be? To deliver precise, crippling blows that hamper the enemy's efforts, as well as to provide a level of self-defense. It shouldn't be the top of the line DPS, but it should offer worthy benefits that are worth taking. For example, to be an effective single-weapon fighter compared to other classes, Swashbucklers should be able to apply debuffs as a % chance on each hit and critical hit. Some examples of debuffs worth applying on every hit as a % chance include:

*snip*

While totally agreeing with the basic idea - single weapon fighting should NOT have anything to do with fort-bypassing EVER:

So - what is the REAL purpose of single weapon fighting?

Historically there were two main factors that encouraged the development of this fighting style:

Improved metallurgy to be able to craft such thin long blades that are very flexible yet won't break easily.
A reduction of armor, since various guns could penetrate them anyways and for example chain mail made gun shot wounds even worse.


Single weapon fighting should be lightning fast (doublestrike, alacrity), very precise when it comes to hitting vital areas (threat range) and all the while leaving the fencer very agile (dodge, reflex, AC) and able to defend themselves well (AC, riposte). In my opinion what is missing is something like counterattacks ... or "driving" enemies (like all those rapier duelers).

Thus some suggestions:

SWF: While single weapon fighting you get +1 damage to your weapons base die and when an enemy misses you in melee you get an immediate counterattack with -25% fortification bypass and for the duration of this counterattack your foe is treated as being bluffed but also having +50% PRR. This counterattack may trigger at most once per second. Additionally every attack (whether you hit or not) applies one stack of distraction on your target (does not work with glancing blows). This may also trigger at most once per second.
ISWF: While single weapon fighting you get +2 damage to your weapon base die. Counterattack can now trigger 3 times per second and distraction may trigger twice per second. The counterattack fortification bypass penalty is reduced to -20%.
GSWF: While single weapon fighting you get +3 damage to your weapon base die. Counterattack can now trigger 4 times per second and distraction may trigger 3 times per second. The counterattack fortification bypass penalty is reduced to -10% and targets of your counterattack only get +25% PRR.


Distraction:

Duration: 3 seconds
Non-bosses receive -1 attack, -1% attack speed, -1% doublestrike/shot and -1% movement speed. Bosses only receive -1 attack, -1% doublestrike/shot and -1% movement speed. This effect stacks up to 30 times. Creatures more than two size categories larger or smaller than you are automatically immune (= do not get any stacks from you).

Fortification Bypass Penalry:

IF your foe has more than 0% fortification, increase its fortification by the given amount. For example a foe with 20% fortification receives a counterattack by a player in precision stance with ISWF. Since the fortification of the foe is greater than 0%, it is increased by the penalty: 20% + 20% = 40%, only then precision is taken into account and reduces the fortification to 15%.

[Urjak]

omfg ... while I was writing my above post this thread got FOUR more pages??? O_O

[unbongwah]

Initial thoughts:

Agree with what everyone said about SWF feats being too weak and not liking the Balance pre-req. So if I take all three feats, I can raise a rapier for d6 to d12 - same as a greataxe - but with NONE of the benefits associated with THF? No thanks. Also don't like it won't work while S&B; Skirmisher allows it, but what about non-Swashbuckler SWF toons?
I'm starting to think that Swashbuckler should have its bard-y elements stripped out entirely so it can become a shared PrE between bard, fighter, and artificer. If that happens, then pure arties would have some interesting options for 1H melee+RA.
I would strip the SP requirements for the special atks; the cooldowns are enough of a penalty / limiting factor, you don't need to eat up mana as well.

[Grace_ana]

No, I didn't. Your phrasing made it seem like you didn't know any songs, not just specific tree songs. If I missed what you were saying, it was a result of your inability to make it clear ("if you knew any songs, you could sing them more"). I'm not sure how you define "any" but the litany of class songs would seem to apply.

The lack of tree-specific songs was mentioned several times in the original thread. I didn't see the need to rehash and assumed people would be able to look at the tree and understand the point.

[jakeelala]

omfg ... while I was writing my above post this thread got FOUR more pages??? O_O

and your post was almost the same as mine, even with blue text and all. 4 pages ago.

[Ralmeth]

Thanks for the update! In general, the enhancement trees look pretty interesting! However I have a few suggestions on how to make this better (from the perspective of a RL fencer as well as long-time DDO player):

Single Weapon Fighting Feats
I'm pretty disappointed in these, and you've managed to lessen my enthusiasm for playing a Swashbuckler. They just don't seem like they are going to be doing a lot of extra damage. I'm wondering how good a Bard Swashbuckler would be if you didn't take these feats. Please go back and rethink these. Fighting with a single weapon means that all of your focus is on using your one weapon, and you're looking for that perfect high damage attack. Perhaps have each feat increase your crit multiplier by 1 and adds some amount of doublestrike? I.e The increase to doublestrike means that as a Swashbuckler you are faster in combat and you can get in more attacks on an enemy. You may not crit on all of these, but your precision due to your focus on one weapon means that when you land that perfect hit, it's going to do a lot of damage. Just a thought.

Parrying
Parrying is one of the top ways to stop an opponent's attack (with the other one being able to dodge the attack altogether), yet I don't see this used or mentioned anywhere in the Swashbuckler tree!!! Really?!?! I highly recommend that you go fence a little, or watch some real fencing on TV. This should be a key, integral part of the Swashbuckler tree, and I would expect this to be part of the core, perhaps part of the Swashbuckler defensive stance. As for game mechanics, perhaps make this an AC bonus related to your level (ex. 1 point per level) to show as you gain levels you get better at parrying. Or perhaps make this a passive blocking % (like how dodge works) that increases with the # of points spent in the tree.

Attack Animations
Are you going to have new attack animations that make it look like you're fencing? If you're going to use the same slashing animations then this will look pretty dumb.

Thanks for your consideration.

[gurgar78]

Oh yeah, I also forgot to add, Precision is one of those 'unexpanded' abilities. Power Attack opens other things up--like Cleave and Great Cleave and Overwhelming Critical--and also particularly things in Legendary Dreadnaught. While it is nice that you can somewhat replace Power Attack with Precision with this enhancement, it doesn't open up any other neat things. Precision still stands alone.

A new Epic Feat that parallels Overwhelming Crit, but using Precision as a base, Dex as a stat requirement and instead of increasing Crit Multiplier by 1 on a 19-20, instead increases your Crit threat range by 2. Or improves Crit threat by +1 and adds an additional +25% fort bypass, maybe? Penetrating Strikes?

[Scrabbler]

Passive: While Swashbuckling, the following weapons receive Competence bonuses to their critical profiles:
Dagger, Shortsword, Throwing Dagger: +1 Critical Threat Range, +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Light Mace, Sickle, Dart, Shuriken, Throwing Axe, Throwing Hammer: +2 Critical Threat Range, +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Kukri, Rapier: +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Handaxe: +2 Critical Threat Range
Light Pick: +1 Critical Threat Range

Do an image search for Swashbuckler (http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=swashbuckler&FORM=HDRSC2) and what you see are rapiers, longswords, and scimitars (cutlass). So why doesn't the Swashbuckler tree encourage using any of those weapons?

Even putting aside special named items, Swashbuckler makes most allowed weapons exactly the same: Mace, Sickle, Shortsword, Handaxe, and Rapier all become 1d6 15-20/x3 (after Imp Crit). So a Swashbuckler Bard is just as likely to use any of them, or even prefer Mace/Sickle because they beat some DR. Rapier isn't the preferred weapon: it's just one member of a list.

(And once special named loot is included, Rapier is usually worse than the other offerings)

[axel15810]

I have the same concern as others. Just doesn't seem like the feats will do enough damage to compete with THF/TWF.

Keep working on it devs. Run the math to make sure SWF does equivalent damage. The +2 for each feat seems a little quick and dirty.

[ZenPuppy]

The lack of tree-specific songs was mentioned several times in the original thread. I didn't see the need to rehash and assumed people would be able to look at the tree and understand the point.

I've been reading the thread from its inception. Apparently not having a malleable definition of "any" or inferring an assumed "special" to your "song" is my undoing. Who knew?

[geoffhanna]

I do not believe the Single Weapon Fighting feats (three feats to get a total of +3 to damage) are enough to make the fighting style competitive.

If SWF is not competitive then the Swashbuckler will not be as popular as it should be.

You need more. How about a Dodge bonus? How about built-in Precision? Something. More.

You need to make SWF all by itself good enough that someone who is not a Swashbuckler might still want it, instead of TWF or THF. You need SWF Rogues and SWF Fighters and even the odd SWF Barbarian.

Once you have achieved that, once you have made SWF something that is by itself worthwhile and part of the balanced melee style discussion, only then you will have truly given Swashbuckler a reason to exist, because the Swashbuckler will be the best SWF build of all.

[ZenPuppy]

Given that the enhancement line seems to be character rather than party focused maybe a personal song buff that ups both dps and defence, a bonus to doublestrike and max dodge sounds about right.

I can see this. If they do put in a song (which to me seems unnecessary), have it focus on a personal buff rather than a party buff to keep it in line with the "melee group"/"caster group"/"personal" distinction.

Ralmeth brings up another thing that sounds like it should be brought in too. Parrying already exists as a game mechanic and this would seem like an enhancement line suited to using it.

[Lonnbeimnech]

Single Weapon Fighting
While Single-Weapon Fighting, you gain +4 to all saves and +5% dodge and dodge cap, additionally any time you are attacked in melee combat you gain 25% double strike for 1 second

Single Weapon Fighting: Requires fighting with a single one-handed melee weapon, and wielding only an orb, runearm, or nothing in your offhand.



Improved Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Single Weapon Fighting increases to +6 to all saves and +10% dodge and dodge cap, additionally any time you are attacked in melee combat you gain 50% double strike for 1 second


Greater Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Single Weapon Fighting increases to +8 to all saves and +15% dodge and dodge cap, additionally any time you are attacked in melee combat you gain 75% double strike for 1 second

[OverlordOfRats]

5 AP, class level 3: Swashbuckling: Defensive Stance: You gain 1% Doublestrike and Doubleshot as well as +1 to the Enhancement Bonus of the weapon in your main hand. Swashbuckling requires wielding a Finesseable or Thrown weapon in your main hand, wielding a Buckler or nothing in your off hand, and wearing Light Armor or no armor.

Single Weapon Fighting
While Single-Weapon Fighting, your weapon die gains an additional +2 sides.

Single Weapon Fighting: Requires fighting with a single one-handed melee weapon, and wielding only an orb, runearm, or nothing in your offhand.



Seems to me there is a disconnect here.

You can Swashbuckle with a buckler but then you lose the SWF bonus if you do.

[dejafu]

Nice improvements to the Swashbuckler tree - it still seems on the weak side overall, but is at least playable. Honestly, the tree now feels like a more fun (and better synergy) alternative to Warchanter for those who pick Spellsinger as their main tree. Which is nice, but still feels lacking.

The Single Weapon Fighting feats... these are awful. The damage increase doesn't come close to compensating for giving up a slot, much less competing with TWF or THF. If you want to make it worthwhile, add something like 5-10% doublestrike and 2% dodge per feat taken. We give up a lot to use this style, we need to gain a lot to even consider it!

[viktorserak]

I do not believe the Single Weapon Fighting feats (three feats to get a total of +3 to damage) are enough to make the fighting style competitive.

If SWF is not competitive then the Swashbuckler will not be as popular as it should be.

You need more. How about a Dodge bonus? How about built-in Precision? Something. More.

You need to make SWF all by itself good enough that someone who is not a Swashbuckler might still want it, instead of TWF or THF. You need SWF Rogues and SWF Fighters and even the odd SWF Barbarian.

Once you have achieved that, once you have made SWF something that is by itself worthwhile and part of the balanced melee style discussion, only then you will have truly given Swashbuckler a reason to exist, because the Swashbuckler will be the best SWF build of all.

+1

Devs, listen to him.

[HungarianRhapsody]

Hmmm wont let me edit my previous posts so I'll just tack this on here.

With regards to how poor the swf feats are - compare them to the likes of weapon focus or weapon specialisation feats. Weapon specialisation gives you a whopping +2 to damage that doesn't scale with level or weapons compared to a possible additional 4d6 for a thunderforged weapon.

Not saying that the swf aren't a lil underpowered compared to the thf feats of twf feats, but there are a lot of feats out there that either have always been very weak or have been devalued by the introduction of new feats or enhancements that are far more powerful. Maybe something that needs addressed when looking at balance.

The SWF feats are also better than Skill Focus: Swim.

[ZenPuppy]

(snip)
Seems to me there is a disconnect here.

You can Swashbuckle with a buckler but then you lose the SWF bonus if you do.

That's addressed on the tier 3 enhancement.

Tier Three

Swashbuckling Style (Multiselector)
Skirmisher: Passive: While Swashbuckling with a Buckler in your off hand, you gain 7% Dodge, and you may use a Buckler and still benefit from the Single Weapon Fighting line of feats.

So yeah, SWF line is useless with a buckler until you can take the Skirmisher selector.

[HatsuharuZ]

A few points:

First, I find it strange that this tree does not give any sonic spellpower or dexterity to to-hit.

Secondly, En Pointe shouldn't have a critical multiplier penalty. After all, most of the weapons that a swashbuckler will use have an x2 critical multiplier!

Third, It's silly that Low Blow's stun effect only lasts *1* second! If it doesn't last at least 3 seconds, there is no point in the effect having a DC.

Fourth, please allow SWF to work with all shields except for tower shields. Is there a reason for a shield-user to not have a good offensive option?

Now, a question: Should I assume that, since SWF doesn't work with handwraps, it won't work with druid animal form, either?

[HungarianRhapsody]

What I don't get is why they went the "extra dice sides" route instead of a more powerful and, I would argue, more thematically correct doublestrike bonus.

Current options for increasing damage:

1) X[W] increases.
2) +X Damage modifier.
3) +to Doublestrike
4) Crit Range Increase
5) Crit Modifier Increase
6) X% Damage modifier

And now they introduce something entirely new? What the heck? Why did they need ANOTHER way to affect damage? It's similar to die stepping, but not exactly. In reality, it's basically an average of +1/+2/+3 damage for the three tiers. Why not just do to that and let everyone see exactly how disappointing it is. I guess when combined with X[W] boosts from other sources it can be magnified, but it's never going to be as good as 2WF or 2HF. It's terrible.

[Vargouille]

I mean, I know we can get sarcastic sometimes, mostly because we're frustrated. (Although you get sarcastic right back, so it's probably fair.) And sometimes it seems like we keep repeating things. But we really don't know what kind of numbers you look at or simulations you run or testing you do.

I want to clear this up; I was not trying to be in any way sarcastic in thanking you guys for many posts about the Single Weapon Fighting Feats. I see how that could have been interpreted that way, but that is in fact stuff we're interested in.


Do you want us to try to put together numbers to show how this stacks up against TWF/THF, or are you already so far beyond our capabilities for that that there's no point? Are you just trying to see how we feel about a tree and feats that you've already confirmed are correctly balanced, or do you want us to go further?

Nearly all of the feedback so far is useful. Sometimes we've still got ideas we're considering that we don't always run right out to you guys because we want to see the response to a simpler concept and also to not limit the discussion. There's been (at the least) suggestions relating to attack speed, doublestrike, critical profile, seeker bonuses, dodge, PRR, and other options for SWF. It's important to us to see what actually gets said by you guys (even if it's things we've thought of before), and to also see how strong and differing your collective thoughts and opinions are.

(We do in fact pay attention to who is posting, so you aren't pulling a fast one by posting the same ideas repeatedly. We read in enough detail to be able to say, "Oh, that's just Steelstar posting about making awesome raids again.")

[OverlordOfRats]

/snip
Fourth, please allow SWF to work with all shields except for tower shields. Is there a reason for a shield-user to not have a good offensive option?
/snip


The answer to that question is Paladins :)

[bbqzor]

Lots to review.


We've tried to balance these feats against THF and TWF. We feel these will scale well into higher levels, as these bonuses from Single Weapon Fighting are multiplied by higher +(W) weapons. Our current plan allows these feats to work alongside Two-Handed Fighting if you are using a Bastard Sword or Dwarven Axe.
Okay, although if youre allowing someone to sink SIX feats into something, one would expect a rather excessive cumulative bonus. The default feat allowance is only 7 in heroic, meaning someone could go their whole career virtually doing nothing but buying these. It would be worth ensuring such a path is not a "trap"... which right now it completely is. I rather like the idea of just having them overlap rather than forcing people to choose, it allows something like a fighter to pick and choose a bit. But in total there should be more aggregate benefit for having the whole package.


Due to both balance and technical concerns, these feats don't function with weapons that have multiple dice (as part of the base die, such as the 2d4 dagger "Agony, the Knife in the Dark"). Regular one-handed weapons and nearly all named one-handed items only have one die, but there are a few named items that won't function with Single Weapon Fighting.
Yea, I get it, you dont want it adding +4 avg dmg instead of +2 or something, okay fine. But its completely lame because 1) You cant use some weapons which exist now, and 2) It implies future weapon design will not follow the multi-die W path, instead going for high W single die codes. Both of those are completely uninteresting to me and things which make me sad about the games future. I realize there is a balance concern here, but I suggest you go with a more "so what" approach. Two Handed Power Attack gets more benefit... why cant single weapon fighting on a multi die weapon get more benefit? Its completely parallel, and means that there will be some weapon choice difference between a 2wf and a 1wf and thats completely fine in my book. I know saying "dont worry about balance" is probably anathema to you, but seriously, a few pts of dmg isnt a concern. Fury working on all 4 arrows of a manyshot instead of 1, is a concern. Some guy using a 1hd with nothing else hitting for 5 more is just a player trying to synergize their character.


Internally, we're discussing longer-range possibilities to address some issues with shield builds and thrown builds, which aren't covered by Single Weapon Fighting (except for Swashbuckler's exception where they can use bucklers with SWF).
Okay. I will state for the record, the game does NOT need more feats at this volume. It just doesnt. Builds already struggle to fit the "required" stuff in, because right now the game pushes you very hard towards hitting specific criteria (ie, taking one spell focus feat isnt too useful, frequently you may need to take 2-3, along with a lot of other stuff, to land anything... taking one 2wf feat isnt useful, you really have to take all 3 to be functional, etc). Adding more and more feat chains, some of which will be *in addition* to existing chains (like if you add another shield style chain, and it works with 2hd for bswords and daxes, and it works with the existing shield line) it just gets to be too many required feats. I mean that situation alone basically locks Paladins out from ever utilizing their defensive stance (which still egregiously requires a shield, bleh) in the same manner as a fighter. I realize you guys dont play on live like we do but, whens the last time anyone saw a s/b paladin do as well or better than a similarly build/geared fighter? They already cant keep up with the feats, this isnt going to help. If you want to adjust or tweak feats fine, or add one or two new stand alones fine, but adding more chains is compounding an existing problem: we often dont have enough feat currency to go around.



Single Weapon Fighting
While Single-Weapon Fighting, your weapon die gains an additional +2 sides.
Single Weapon Fighting: Requires fighting with a single one-handed melee weapon, and wielding only an orb, runearm, or nothing in your offhand.
For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d10 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (Example: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)
Feat Requirement: 2 ranks of Balance

Improved Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Single Weapon Fighting increases to +4 sides.
For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d12 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)
Feat Requirement: 4 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +6

Greater Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Improved Single Weapon Fighting increases to +6 sides.
For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d14 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)
Feat Requirement: 7 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +11
Okay, Im sorry, but these are terrible. Each feat is basically +1 dmg per hit at heroic, up to a max of perhaps +4-5 dmg per hit in Epic (with a thunderholm weapon). Power attack with a 2hd weapon (perhaps the closest thing you could relate here) is +10 dmg for one feat. Handwraps with 2wf (another close thing, since its like a single 1hd weapon with empty offhand) gets 80% more hits. If +15 dmg from these is a gain of 80% to your dps, it means your hit without them was only ~19 dmg... and if youre hitting for only 19 dmg at the point you can equip thunderholm gear you have failed. I get what you are trying to do here, but use some math. This isn't even remotely adequate, and does zero to address losing a whole item slot via the offhand. Seriously what else can I say, do more math. Two handed offers 50% str, and double for power attack, and glances. Two Weapon offers 80% more swing speed. One Weapon offers... +15 dmg? Facepalm... what else is there to say.


Some of the more prominent changes to the tree include allowing Single-Weapon Fighting with a Buckler, putting more into the first core ability, adding in CHA / DEX / INT to-damage enhancements (while Single Weapon Fighting), and adding max-dex bonus to armor and reflex saving throws to both core abilities and Tier 5. Some abilities have also been renamed or had tentative numbers put in for various costs or cooldowns. All names and numbers still subject to further feedback, revision, and balancing.
Sounds good, taking a look.


Core Abilities

1 AP, class level 1: Confidence: Passive: +1% Dodge, +1 Reflex Save, and +1 to the Max Dex Bonus of your Armor per Swashbuckler Core Ability you have.
5 AP, class level 3: Swashbuckling: Defensive Stance: You gain 1% Doublestrike and Doubleshot as well as +1 to the Enhancement Bonus of the weapon in your main hand. Swashbuckling requires wielding a Finesseable or Thrown weapon in your main hand, wielding a Buckler or nothing in your off hand, and wearing Light Armor or no armor. (Druids cannot Swashbuckle while in animal forms.)

Passive: While Swashbuckling, the following weapons receive Competence bonuses to their critical profiles:
Dagger, Shortsword, Throwing Dagger: +1 Critical Threat Range, +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Light Mace, Sickle, Dart, Shuriken, Throwing Axe, Throwing Hammer: +2 Critical Threat Range, +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Kukri, Rapier: +1 Critical Damage Multiplier
Handaxe: +2 Critical Threat Range
Light Pick: +1 Critical Threat Range

10 AP, class level 6: Uncanny Dodge: You gain the Uncanny Dodge feat. Passive: Swashbuckling grants an additional 1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, and +1 Attack Damage.
20 AP, class level 12: Panache: While Swashbuckling, you have an additional 1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, +1 Attack Damage, +1 Reflex Saving Throw, and the weapon in your main hand gains an additional +1 to its Enhancement bonus.
30 AP, class level 18: Roll with the Punches: While Swashbuckling, you gain +5 Insight Bonus to Character Dodge Cap, the Slippery Mind feat, +1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, and +1 Attack Damage.
41 AP, class level 20: Evasive Maneuvers: +2 CHA, +2 DEX.While Swashbuckling, you gain the Evasion feat, +1% Doublestrike, 1% Doubleshot, +1 Attack Damage, and the weapon in your main hand gains an additional +1 to its Enhancement bonus.

Level 1: Perfect. I had considered posting that as well, very happy with that adjustment.
Level 3: Again perfect. Allowing bucklers was a good decision, as again giving up an item slot fully is just not practical at this point.
Level 6: Question is +1 Attack Damage mean +1 to each? (I ask because it seems you would have either typed Attack/Damage, or re-listed it like +1 Attack, +1 Damage as you did with all the other bonuses... which makes me think it might be a typo). If so, good, I think it makes a lot more sense to have it apply to both instead of just one.
Level 12: Lost 1% dodge here, not sure what the motivation for that was. It did gain +1 atk, perhaps that was a trade?
Level 18: Again nice, added the +1 atk in.
Level 20: Well, again +1 atk. I still feel Evasion at this point is the wrong decision, it should be earlier (at 12). As that post has already been made, will simply state as such again here, although with the rest of the changes to the tree there is a bit less pressure on this point.

Overall, the adjustments to the Core were good. Many of the issues were solved, the progression was made a bit more consistent, and it seems to work better with the concept. The capstone is still on the weak side, as are most (all?) capstones at this point in the game. I think the resistance to adjusting that highlights that you as devs feel differently than we as players, and are content to continue with the rather strong pro-multiclass paradigm mechanically. So be it, bards are no worse off than anyone else in this regard, the capstone is at least appealing enough to avoid punishing pure bards at epic, and that is an important distinction. Once into epics, its a meaningful ability, and frankly thats the more important issue at this point in the game.

Tier One

On Your Toes: +1/2/3 Dodge
Blow By Blow (multiselector)

Melee or Thrown Attack: Make an attack with +(1/2/3) critical threat range that deals (+1/+2/+3)d6 extra Sonic damage, and reduces your threat with nearby enemies by (100/200/300). Sonic damage scales with Spell Power.

Insults (multiselector)

Scathing Words: Activate to reduce the Fortitude saves of nearby enemies by 3. (Costs 16/12/8 Spell Points, 20/15/10 Second Cooldown)
Cutting Jibes: Activate to reduce the Will saves of nearby enemies by 3. (Costs 16/12/8 Spell Points, 20/15/10 Second Cooldown)
Appalling Diatribe: Activate to reduce the Reflex saves of nearby enemies by 3. (Costs 16/12/8 Spell Points, 20/15/10 Second Cooldown)

Tavern Shanties: +1/2/3 Bard Songs.
Limber Up: +(1/2/3) to Balance, Jump, Swim, Haggle, and Tumble. 3rd Rank: When you Tumble, you gain +3 to saves against traps for 6 seconds. 12 second cooldown.

One your toes: It is what it is, same as before.
Blow by blow: About as expected, and seemingly worth taking. Whats the cooldown on this... 6s?
Insults: Total failure, all cautionary feedback seemingly ignored. Bards have spells which are more efficient, and everyone has epic abilities which are more efficient. Not everything in a tree should be a "must have" (theres simply not enough points to sustain that approach mechanically) but in the same way, nothing should be a "never take". Thats where this is right now. It needs to be less mana and faster cooldown, and/or less AP (like a 2 pt single tier ability at the best values).
Tavern shanties: Again, it is what it is, no change.
Limber Up: Still a failure in that with previous analysis it was shown that the ref save really should apply to everything not just traps, due to the ref save math on a pure bard, the cooldown, and frankly the class thematics. As it stands, theres no reason to take it for the skills (hagglebot aside), and no reason to take it for the 3rd rank. I guess grats hagglebots on 3 more haggle.

In total, the stuff that was okay stayed okay, the stuff that needed fixing still needs fixing. Tier 1 didnt really see any improvement at all, and perhaps in a way thats good since it means there wont be a lot of pressure to spend 10s of AP at the first tier.


Tier Two

En Pointe: Melee Attack: Make two attacks with +4/8/12 critical threat range, but -1 Critical Multiplier. Costs 10 Spell Points to activate.
Deflect Arrows: You gain the benefits of the Deflect Arrows feat, knocking aside one incoming projectile that would have struck you every 6/4/2 seconds. (Antireq Tempest Deflect Arrows)
Fast Movement: You gain +1% Bardic Music bonus to movement for every Bard level you possess.
Sword Dance: While Swashbuckling, when enemies miss you in combat, you deal 1d10/1d12/1d20 Sonic Damage. Scales with Spell Power.
Action Boost Multiselector

Action Boost: Doublestrike: You gain +10/20/30% Action Boost bonus to Doublestrike for 20 seconds. Usable 5 times per rest.
Action Boost: Doubleshot: You gain +10/20/30% Action Boost bonus to Doubleshot for 20 seconds. Usable 5 times per rest.

En Point: Okay three things. First, this entire ability is riding on the animation time it uses. Moving to two attacks was a great move, but if the animation is slow(er) than just basic attacking, youre giving up a lot of dps just activating it. Last I checked the animation speed with a 1hd was about 102 attacks/minute (at 28 with blinding speed), so this animation has to complete in about 2 seconds or less (including activation time, the animation, gcd, etc... 2s or less lost out of an autoattack animation chain) to be worth hitting. (Or if my numbers are wrong, Im going to assume you as devs have the right ones and can do the same calculation). Second, assuming the speed passes, 10 mana is a bit high. It really pushes you to have a lot of crit-based things to be worth it... not bad per se but definitely at the high end. And lastly, whats the cooldown, 10s? Thats a critical thing to know, given the above. Thanks.
Deflect arrows: Again, same as before, if its working fantastic.
Fast Movement: Okay, moving this to here was an interesting move. The value starts a bit low, but is obtainable at a very low level now so thats fine, and it ends exactly where it should. Great choice overall.
Sword dance: Eh... good at level I guess. By epic, probably not useful. 1d20 even with 400 spellpower (which Im pretty sure you cant achieve that in sonic but lets assume) its only landing for ~50 damage. And assuming youre trying to fully utilize this class you probably have 30% dodge and blur or displacement (from being a bard). So this things probably only firing 1/3 to 1/2 the time, even at 50 a pop, its pointless at epic. But before you get any of that, I suppose a 1d20 guard might help in waterworks. Still, Id rather see abilities which grow with the character, and this one doesnt. Maybe you could change it to d6/d8/d10 but you get 1 die for every core ability you purchased? So when you first get it, it caps at 2d10, but at level 20 it could be 6d10?
Action boost: Same as before, still solid.

Tier 2 stayed about the same. En Pointe has potential, if the animation speed and cooldown fit the high costs, and getting fast movement early is very nice. The rest is about the same, but was already good. Overall good adjustments Id say, with the hope that sword dance is modified into something useful beyond level 6. Loss of Aqua Vitae is essentially unnoticed, although I think it would have been neat to see what that could turn into. Perhaps in a future Artificer PRE, where it might make more sense anyhow =)


Tier Three

Elegant Footwork: When enemies miss you while Swashbuckling, they have a chance to be knocked down with no save. Cooldown: 12 seconds.
Swashbuckling Style (Multiselector)

Dashing Scoundrel: Passive: While Swashbuckling with nothing in your off hand, you gain +1 Attack Damage per 5 Character levels and 7% Doublestrike/Doubleshot.
Skirmisher: Passive: While Swashbuckling with a Buckler in your off hand, you gain 7% Dodge, and you may use a Buckler and still benefit from the Single Weapon Fighting line of feats.
Arcane Marauder: Passive: You can now Swashbuckle with an Orb in your off hand. (Does not count as a Buckler for Buckler-specific abilities). Requires Magical Training (or the Spellsinger enhancement equivalent).
Cannoneer: (Requires Runearm Proficiency feat): Passive: You can now Swashbuckle with a Rune Arm in your off hand. (Does not count as a Buckler for Buckler-specific abilities).

Resonant Arms: While Swashbuckling, the Finesseable or Thrown weapon in your main hand deals an additional 2d6/4d6/6d6 Sonic Damage on critical hits.
Different Tack (Multiselector, Requires Single Weapon Fighting feat)

Swift Strikes: You get Dexterity to Damage with weapon attacks while Single Weapon Fighting.
Two Steps Ahead: You get Intelligence to Damage with weapon attacks Single Weapon Fighting.
Smooth Flourishes: You get Charisma to Damage with weapon attacks Single Weapon Fighting.

CHA/DEX

Elegant Footwork: This is an improvement and may actually be a cool ability. All depends on what that "chance" actually is. At least 10% please... weve had 5% or less trip effects before and theyre always completely useless.
Swashbuckling Style: Eh, same comments as before. Cannoneer should allow bsword/daxe in the mainhand (perhaps with no critical modifiers from the stance, but at least enable the stance with them).... otherwise its non-optimal to ever make a melee artificer/swashbuckler since their abilities are at odds with one another (swashbuckler cant use glance weapons, the point of melee runearm is added dmg fx on glances).
Resonant arms: The damage no longer scales with sonic spellpower? Bleh, I hope thats a typo. If you want to scale it at 50% spellpower like some other things in game fine, but it needs that scaling to stay relevant.
Different Track: Okay, this I can actually go with. Requiring one feat to open the option is fair, and its very fitting for the class and to the pnp background. The way its worded suggests you gain it in addition to str, but Im assuming its in place of like all the other abilities? May want to clean the wording up to be explicit about that.
Cha/dex: Yep.

Some ups and downs here. Generally some improvements, the big one being allowing dex/int/cha as damage options. But losing spellpower on resonant arms takes the wind out of the sails there, and the style options are still a bit too limiting for my tastes. But given what could have been, I guess this was a move in the right direction. Even the trip guard might be playable.


Tier Four

On the Mark: Passive +1/2/3 to attack rolls to confirm critical hits and damage on critical hits (before weapon multipliers)
Swashbuckling Style II (Multiselector)

Slap in the Face: While Swashbuckling and wielding nothing in your off hand, activate to deal 1 Bludgeon damage. Damaged enemies can't cast spells for 3/6/9 seconds and are stunned for one second (Perform + d20 saves for the Stun). 18 second cooldown. Costs 10 Spell Points.
Low Blow: While Swashbuckling and wielding a Buckler in your off hand, activate to perform a shield bash with +2 Critical Threat Range and Multiplier. On hit, knock down affected enemy for one second (Perform + d20 saves for the Knockdown). Costs 10 Spell Points.
Loud & Clear:Passive: While Swashbuckling with an Orb in your off hand, +20 Sonic Spell Power.
Tune Arm/Music Box: Passive: While Swashbuckling with a Rune Arm in your off hand, your Rune Arm Weapon Imbue deals an additional 1d6 Sonic damage.

Battering Barrage: (2 AP, 2 ranks) While Swashbuckling, critical hits inflict Destruction/Improved Destruction.
Wind at my Back: +1 to the Enhancement Bonus of your equipped Throwing Weapons, plus an additional +1 for every five Bard levels.
CHA/DEX

Not going to list as its just cut/paste from last version. Stances are terrible, the rest of its average. The 3/6/9 listing in "slap in the face" is still there despite it being single tier. The effects of all style choices are lacking as before. The rune arm imbue is the exact kind of thing which should work with bswords/daxes. One second duration effects are not worth 10 sp, and AP to buy, especially when theres a save allowed. Seemingly feedback ignored or discounted.

This tier could use some help. Generally T4 is seen as one with expensive choices (20 in tree to open it) but appealing because its the top stuff you can get without locking yourself into a single T5. This tier has none of that, except perhaps Battering Barrage given the crit driven nature of the tree, and the fact it helps the whole party out. On the mark isnt bad, but its the same thing, in the same place in the tree, as elsewhere. Those stances really need work to make this level shine. Getting to 30 pts for tier 5 likely means buying more at lower levels. Sigh.


Tier Five

Thread the Needle: While Swashbuckling, +5 Attack Damage while the Precision feat is active.
Second Skin: While Swashbuckling, +3/6/12 to your Reflex Saves and +2/4/6 to the Max Dex Bonus of your Armor.
Exploit Weaknesses:While Swashbuckling, every time you damage an enemy but do not critically hit, you gain a stacking +1 Insight Bonus to Critical Threat Range until you successfully crit.

Thread the needle: Did this pick up +5 atk too? Wow nice.
Second skin: Wow okay, heres a solution to some of those ref and armor dex problems. Sure, it eats 3AP, but its worth every one. Great addition... it does almost nothing "new" from a dev standpoint, but is a standout ability for players to enable their characters to do all the stuff you already wanted us to do here. Win all around.
Exploit Weakness: I still think this should have a small secondary component as per my original post, but the way the tree is shaping up that is not as necessary as it was. That said, resonant arms being reduced also hurts it... so perhaps reinstating the sonic spellpower to that would suffice here as well.

Tier 5 is now an actual T5, worth giving up another trees abilities for. If resonant arms is giving spell power again, that makes exploit weakness shine a bit more, thread the needle got increased to a "must have" which affects feat choices for the build, and second skin is the kind of boost which makes the tree ee viable. Nice work, I hope.

Overall the tree looks better but still has glaring abilities. Insults and Swashbuckling Style II are easily the two worst offenders, I frankly see little reason to invest in either, ever. Resonant arms took the worst nerf, which I hope was an oversight as it was a thematic, useful, and fun ability... now its something which will likely be outgrown or simply taken to reach 41 pts in tree. Reworking Fast Movement and adding Different Track and Second Skin were easily the best changes, promoting ease of play in heroic, and viability to epic. The 1WF feats are terrible atrocities, but only requiring one for the enhancement potion of the character is a livable crime. Between that, weapon finesse, and precision, it "requires" three feats, which is perfectly parallel to taking three feats out on 2wf, its biggest competitor. Im not sure I would call them even just yet, but at least in terms of resources used they are, meaning its workable to build one and see.

I hope this feedback was useful, and look forward to future changes (I hope). While there is a lot of good here, some of the abilities are still terrible, and with fixes/reworks to trees being a long time coming (please barbarian next... omg their enhancements make baby kobolds cry) it feels like theres a lot of pressure to get these right the first time. Thanks, cheers.

[alancarp]

(We do in fact pay attention to who is posting, so you aren't pulling a fast one by posting the same ideas repeatedly. We read in enough detail to be able to say, "Oh, that's just Steelstar posting about making awesome raids again.")

And that is very much noted and appreciated. Cheers.

[Steelstar]

Resonant arms took the worst nerf, which I hope was an oversight

It was, in fact. It's been re-added to the first post of this thread. Tune Arm/Music Box was also missing text saying that it scales with Sonic Spell Power, that's been added also.

[Scrabbler]

Secondly, En Pointe shouldn't have a critical multiplier penalty. After all, most of the weapons that a swashbuckler will use have an x2 critical multiplier!
No weapon a Swashbuckler uses has a 2x multiplier: increasing the multiplier to at least 3x is one of the leading benefits of the tree.


Fourth, please allow SWF to work with all shields except for tower shields. Is there a reason for a shield-user to not have a good offensive option?
If they want to increase the damage from S&B people, they can just add more bonuses into Shield Mastery / Shield Bash feats. The S&B guys can't afford to spend even more feats on an SWF line.

[unbongwah]

How I would want to implement the SWF feats:

Single Weapon Fighting: while you have a 1H melee weapon in your main hand and no weapon in your offhand, you gain +5% Doublestrike. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%. You also gain the Deflect Melee feat. [Every time you are about to be struck with a melee attack and are not helpless, there is a 5% chance of parrying that attack, taking no damage. This effect can proc once every 6 seconds.] In addition, if your offhand is:

Empty: you gain +0.5[W] modifier to your main-hand weapon. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%.
Shield: You gain an additional +5% parrying chance to your Deflect Melee feat.
Orb or Runearm: +10 Universal Spellpower and +1% spell crit chance.


Improved Single Weapon Fighting (reqs BAB 6 & SWF): while you have a 1H melee weapon in your main hand and no weapon in your offhand, you gain +5% Doublestrike. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5% (stacks w/SWF bonus). Your Deflect Melee feat gains an additional +5% parrying chance and can now proc once every 4 seconds. In addition, if your offhand is:

Empty: you gain +0.5[W] modifier to your main-hand weapon. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%.
Shield: You gain an additional +5% parrying chance to your Deflect Melee feat.
Orb or Runearm: +10 Universal Spellpower and +1% spell crit chance.


Greater Single Weapon Fighting (reqs BAB 11, SWF, and ISWF): while you have a 1H melee weapon in your main hand and no weapon in your offhand, you gain +5% Doublestrike. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5% (stacks w/ISWF bonus). Your Deflect Melee feat gains an additional +5% parrying chance and can now proc once every 2 seconds. In addition, if your offhand is:

Empty: you gain +0.5[W] modifier and Vorpal property to your main-hand weapon. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%.
Shield: You gain an additional +5% parrying chance to your Deflect Melee feat. You also gain the Counterattack ability: if you successfully parry a melee attack, you have a 5% chance of making an immediate counterattack on your attacker with a -5 to-hit penalty.
Orb or Runearm: +10 Universal Spellpower and +1% spell crit chance. You also gain a 5% Enhancement discount to the Spell Point cost of all your spells. [Does not stack with other Enhancement discounts such as Amauntor's Blessing.]


So if you have GSWF, then your bonuses based on your offhand are:



Empty: +15% doublestrike, -30% Fortification w/Precision, 15% Deflect Melee chance, +1.5[W], Vorpal
Shield: +15% doublestrike, -15% Fortification w/Precision, 30% Deflect Melee chance, Counterattack
Orb or Runearm: +15% doublestrike, -15% Fortification w/Precision, 15% Deflect Melee chance, +30 Universal Spellpower, +3% spell crit chance, -5% SP cost to all spells


I tried to include something interesting in GSWF for each offhand option. I made the numbers up; I'm sure it would take plenty of testing to decide if they should be tweaked higher or lower. I did NOT want it to depend on what armor you wear; and I wanted to keep it compatible with S&B. I also wanted it to be setup so your bonuses change based on what's in your offhand; i.e., keep it empty when you're trying to max out your melee DPS, swap in a shield if you need to fight defensively for a while, swap in an orb if you need a caster boost.

Swashbuckling has stricter restrictions than SWF, such as light armor and Finessable weapons, but adds extra bonuses, which seems reasonable. A conventional S&B toon could benefit from SWF (for doublestrike & defensive bonuses), THF (glancing blows), and Shield Mastery (doublestrike & PRR) if they can afford that many feats. While a battlecaster might want SWF for Deflect Melee + caster bonuses.

[Postumus]

There are no words to describe how GARBAGE these SWF feats are.

Let's start with the feat requirement: WHAT? 7 Ranks of Balance on a bard? Why in the world..
It does not work with weapons with multiple dice?




Forget the +X sides stuff and convert to increased double-strike. Seriously the +X sides stuff sounds like a mechanic just begging to be broken.

[OverlordOfRats]

How I would want to implement the SWF feats:

Single Weapon Fighting: while you have a 1H melee weapon in your main hand and no weapon in your offhand, you gain +5% Doublestrike. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%. You also gain the Deflect Melee feat. [Every time you are about to be struck with a melee attack and are not helpless, there is a 5% chance of parrying that attack, taking no damage. This effect can proc once every 6 seconds.] In addition, if your offhand is:

Empty: you gain +0.5[W] modifier to your main-hand weapon. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%.
Shield: You gain an additional +5% parrying chance to your Deflect Melee feat.
Orb or Runearm: +10 Universal Spellpower and +1% spell crit chance.


Improved Single Weapon Fighting (reqs BAB 6 & SWF): while you have a 1H melee weapon in your main hand and no weapon in your offhand, you gain +5% Doublestrike. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5% (stacks w/SWF bonus). Your Deflect Melee feat gains an additional +5% parrying chance and can now proc once every 4 seconds. In addition, if your offhand is:

Empty: you gain +0.5[W] modifier to your main-hand weapon. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%.
Shield: You gain an additional +5% parrying chance to your Deflect Melee feat.
Orb or Runearm: +10 Universal Spellpower and +1% spell crit chance.


Greater Single Weapon Fighting (reqs BAB 11, SWF, and ISWF): while you have a 1H melee weapon in your main hand and no weapon in your offhand, you gain +5% Doublestrike. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5% (stacks w/ISWF bonus). Your Deflect Melee feat gains an additional +5% parrying chance and can now proc once every 2 seconds. In addition, if your offhand is:

Empty: you gain +0.5[W] modifier and Vorpal property to your main-hand weapon. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%.
Shield: You gain an additional +5% parrying chance to your Deflect Melee feat. You also gain the Counterattack ability: if you successfully parry a melee attack, you have a 5% chance of making an immediate counterattack on your attacker with a -5 to-hit penalty.
Orb or Runearm: +10 Universal Spellpower and +1% spell crit chance. You also gain a 5% Enhancement discount to the Spell Point cost of all your spells. [Does not stack with other Enhancement discounts such as Amauntor's Blessing.]


So if you have GSWF, then your bonuses based on your offhand are:



Empty: +15% doublestrike, -30% Fortification w/Precision, 15% Deflect Melee chance, +1.5[W], Vorpal
Shield: +15% doublestrike, -15% Fortification w/Precision, 30% Deflect Melee chance, Counterattack
Orb or Runearm: +15% doublestrike, -15% Fortification w/Precision, 15% Deflect Melee chance, +30 Universal Spellpower, +3% spell crit chance, -5% SP cost to all spells


I tried to include something interesting in GSWF for each offhand option. I made the numbers up; I'm sure it would take plenty of testing to decide if they should be tweaked higher or lower. I did NOT want it to depend on what armor you wear; and I wanted to keep it compatible with S&B. I also wanted it to be setup so your bonuses change based on what's in your offhand; i.e., keep it empty when you're trying to max out your melee DPS, swap in a shield if you need to fight defensively for a while, swap in an orb if you need a caster boost.

Swashbuckling has stricter restrictions than SWF, such as light armor and Finessable weapons, but adds extra bonuses, which seems reasonable. A conventional S&B toon could benefit from SWF (for doublestrike & defensive bonuses), THF (glancing blows), and Shield Mastery (doublestrike & PRR) if they can afford that many feats. While a battlecaster might want SWF for Deflect Melee + caster bonuses.

Good ideas!

It provides variety for non Swashbucklers and works with Swashbuckler also.

[Drwaz99]

How I would want to implement the SWF feats:

Single Weapon Fighting: while you have a 1H melee weapon in your main hand and no weapon in your offhand, you gain +5% Doublestrike. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%. You also gain the Deflect Melee feat. [Every time you are about to be struck with a melee attack and are not helpless, there is a 5% chance of parrying that attack, taking no damage. This effect can proc once every 6 seconds.] In addition, if your offhand is:

Empty: you gain +0.5[W] modifier to your main-hand weapon. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%.
Shield: You gain an additional +5% parrying chance to your Deflect Melee feat.
Orb or Runearm: +10 Universal Spellpower and +1% spell crit chance.


Improved Single Weapon Fighting (reqs BAB 6 & SWF): while you have a 1H melee weapon in your main hand and no weapon in your offhand, you gain +5% Doublestrike. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5% (stacks w/SWF bonus). Your Deflect Melee feat gains an additional +5% parrying chance and can now proc once every 4 seconds. In addition, if your offhand is:

Empty: you gain +0.5[W] modifier to your main-hand weapon. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%.
Shield: You gain an additional +5% parrying chance to your Deflect Melee feat.
Orb or Runearm: +10 Universal Spellpower and +1% spell crit chance.


Greater Single Weapon Fighting (reqs BAB 11, SWF, and ISWF): while you have a 1H melee weapon in your main hand and no weapon in your offhand, you gain +5% Doublestrike. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5% (stacks w/ISWF bonus). Your Deflect Melee feat gains an additional +5% parrying chance and can now proc once every 2 seconds. In addition, if your offhand is:

Empty: you gain +0.5[W] modifier and Vorpal property to your main-hand weapon. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%.
Shield: You gain an additional +5% parrying chance to your Deflect Melee feat. You also gain the Counterattack ability: if you successfully parry a melee attack, you have a 5% chance of making an immediate counterattack on your attacker with a -5 to-hit penalty.
Orb or Runearm: +10 Universal Spellpower and +1% spell crit chance. You also gain a 5% Enhancement discount to the Spell Point cost of all your spells. [Does not stack with other Enhancement discounts such as Amauntor's Blessing.]


So if you have GSWF, then your bonuses based on your offhand are:



Empty: +15% doublestrike, -30% Fortification w/Precision, 15% Deflect Melee chance, +1.5[W], Vorpal
Shield: +15% doublestrike, -15% Fortification w/Precision, 30% Deflect Melee chance, Counterattack
Orb or Runearm: +15% doublestrike, -15% Fortification w/Precision, 15% Deflect Melee chance, +30 Universal Spellpower, +3% spell crit chance, -5% SP cost to all spells


I tried to include something interesting in GSWF for each offhand option. I made the numbers up; I'm sure it would take plenty of testing to decide if they should be tweaked higher or lower. I did NOT want it to depend on what armor you wear; and I wanted to keep it compatible with S&B. I also wanted it to be setup so your bonuses change based on what's in your offhand; i.e., keep it empty when you're trying to max out your melee DPS, swap in a shield if you need to fight defensively for a while, swap in an orb if you need a caster boost.

Swashbuckling has stricter restrictions than SWF, such as light armor and Finessable weapons, but adds extra bonuses, which seems reasonable. A conventional S&B toon could benefit from SWF (for doublestrike & defensive bonuses), THF (glancing blows), and Shield Mastery (doublestrike & PRR) if they can afford that many feats. While a battlecaster might want SWF for Deflect Melee + caster bonuses.

With ideas like those, I wish you did.

[Cardtrick]

Since Vargouille's response didn't outright tell us not to do math :), I figured I'd give it a try. This whole post is about the SWF feats, not the Swashbuckler enhancement tree.

Any math is necessarily limited, since there are so many character builds and pieces of equipment out there. I believe that what I'm going to post here is at least representative enough to be worth considering, but I'm interested in critiques and improvements. I am probably missing some things, but if so I hope people will point them out. I will try to make my simplifications explicit.

* For right now, I'm just going to consider THF vs. SWF. The math is a bit easier to deal with, and it seems like overall THF is currently pretty reasonably balanced against TWF.

* For right now, I'm just looking at the SWF feats, not the enhancement tree. (If we are supposed to only consider them together, then they should come together, and not be separate feats.)

* Where possible, I think I'm skewing my asssumptions and choices in favor of the SWF feats. Most importantly, I'm going with Thunderforged weapons, which have very high [W] modifiers, and I'm assuming equal (and low) stat modifiers for both versions (even though in reality a strength-based THFer can get much higher here than a DEX/CHA-based SWFer).

* I'm going for approximately an "early endgame" character, with reasonably level-appropriate gear but nothing ridiculous, and unspecified and ignored epic destiny

Details on the example character:

Damage stat (str/dex/cha/whatever): 60 (note that this probably too high for cha/dex to damage and definitely way too low for str to damage)

Deadly Item Level bonus to damage: 10

Miscellaneous Damage Bonus: 5 (probably way too low -- this is a catchall to cover bard songs/divine favor/enhancements/ED abilities/etc.)

Seeker: 15 (10 base + 5 exceptional)

Relevant assumed feats: improved critical, overwhelming critical, either power attack or swashbuckler precision, all 3 of either SWF or THF feats

For weapon, let's assume Thunder-forged, Tier 2 or higher. This is giving a big advantage to SWF compared to most other weapon types, due to the 4.5 W modifier.
Let's go with Falchion for THF (4.5[2d4], 18-20x2) and Rapier for SWF (4.5[1d6], 18-20x2). Greataxe might be a better choice for the THF weapon, but rapier is the clear choice for swashbuckling-eligible SWF weapon and the identical critical profiles make falchions and rapiers a bit easier to compare.

Methodology:

Consider 20 swings, one at each die roll, and assume that every swing is a hit and every critical is confirmed.

My belief is that this simplification is extremely reasonable for self-buffed endgame characters. Note that due to Seeker's bonus to confirmation rolls and the fact that a roll of 1 on a confirmation roll is not an auto-fail the way a roll of 1 is an auto-miss in melee, I'm pretty sure the critical confirmation piece is true to a good approximation. Missing is harder to quantify, but I very very rarely miss in the real game -- infrequently enough that I think they're probably all rolls of 1. I also don't think there's any major reason that missing should benefit one of these builds more than the other (I think we can ignore the attack penalty from power attack).

Note that I might be modeling glancing blows a bit wrong, but I don't think I am -- or at least not wrong enough to matter. My understanding is that with all 3 feats:

1. Glancing blows will occur on 3 swings out of 4
2. Glancing blows do not miss
3. Glancing blows do not crit
4. Glancing blows apply 50% of the total "base" damage

For hits, crits, and glancing blows, I am ignoring any damage "procs" that can trigger beyond the base damage. This slightly favors SWF over THF, since in reality glancing blows have a chance to trigger these procs.

I am not going to try to factor in the fact that glancing blows apply to more than just your current target, in a cleave-like area of effect. This is obviously a major advantage for THF, but it's too hard to model and doesn't apply all the time.

The numbers:



Swing
Falchion (THF Feats)
Falchion (No Feats)
Rapier (SWF Feats)


1
Miss: 0
Miss: 0


2-14
Hit: 4.5 * Avg[2d4] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1.5*25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 10 (power attack)
+ 5 (misc)
+ .75 * .5 * <above total> (glancing blows)
= 97 base + 36.375 glancing blows
= 133.375 total

Hit: 4.5 * Avg[2d4] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1.5*25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 10 (power attack)
+ 5 (misc)
+ .50 * .2 * <above total> (glancing blows)
= 97 base + 9.7 glancing blows
= 106.7 total

Hit:
4.5 * Avg[1d(6+6)] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1 * 25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 5 (power attack or swashbuckler precision)
+ 5 (misc)
= 86.25


15-18
Crit:
2 * (
4.5 * Avg[2d4] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1.5*25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 15 (seeker)
+ 10 (power attack)
+ 5 (misc)
)
+ 36.375 (glancing blows, unaffected by crit)
= 224 base + 36.375 glancing blows
= 260.375 total

Crit:
2 * (
4.5 * Avg[2d4] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1.5*25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 15 (seeker)
+ 10 (power attack)
+ 5 (misc)
)
+ 9.7 (glancing blows, unaffected by crit)
= 224 base + 9.7 glancing blows
= 233.7 total

Crit:
2 * (
4.5 * Avg[1d(6+6)] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1 * 25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 15 (seeker)
+ 5 (power attack or swashbuckler precision)
+ 5 (misc)
)
= 202.50


19-20
Extra Crit:
3 * (
4.5 * Avg[2d4] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1.5*25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 15 (seeker)
+ 10 (power attack)
+ 5 (misc)
)
+ 36.375 (glancing blows, unaffected by crit)
= 336 base + 36.375 glancing blows
= 372.375 total

Extra Crit:
3 * (
4.5 * Avg[2d4] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1.5*25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 15 (seeker)
+ 10 (power attack)
+ 5 (misc)
)
+ 9.7 (glancing blows, unaffected by crit)
= 336 base + 9.7 glancing blows
= 345.7 total

Extra Crit:
3 * (
4.5 * Avg[1d(6+6)] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1 * 25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 15 (seeker)
+ 5 (power attack or swashbuckler precision)
+ 5 (misc)
)
= 303.75



Total
3520
3013
2539


Per Swing
176
151
127



This came out actually a lot worse for SWF than I expected. As you can see, based on this model, on normal swings not only is a falchion with the THF feats 38% more damage than a rapier with the SWF feats -- but using the falchion even without the feats is still 19% more damage than the rapier with all three feats.

With my numbers, the breakeven point at which the 3 SWF feats with a rapier would come out to as much damage as just using a falchion is just about 20[W]. So no combination of Dance of flowers + Momentum Swing + whatever is going to come even close to that. (The breakeven point for the 3 SWF feats to match the 3 THF feats, including the glancing blow damage, is about 205[W] -- yes, that's two hundred and five, not twenty-five.)

I know I'm simplifying a lot of things, but I think most of those simplifications favor the SWF approach rather than THF.

All in all, it seems to me like the SWF feats don't go anywhere near far enough to make up for the obvious deficiencies of using a single one-handed weapon. The only characters for whom these feats might make sense to take are swashbuckler bards, although they still don't have enough feats to make taking these an easy choice.

[viktorserak]

It was, in fact. It's been re-added to the first post of this thread. Tune Arm/Music Box was also missing text saying that it scales with Sonic Spell Power, that's been added also.

That is a VERY good call!

Excellent, actually!

Now, if it would be able to make bards proficient with rune arms /need to take that as a enchantement, in worst case scenario a feat - but dont forget, that class is terribly featstarved/, it would be even more awesome!

Pretty please? :-)

[DagazUlf]

How I would want to implement the SWF feats:




Way mo' betta.

[Nightmanis]

Double Strike and Alacrity...That is where the Swashbuckler offensive bonuses should be.


Swashbuckler should get the highest Doublestrike percentages in the game.
Swashbuckler should get a nice bonus to Melee Alacrity.
Swashbuckler should get a bonus the Crit Range over and above Improved Critical (with a slight penalty to multiplier....maybe -0.5).


Think about it in real life. I liken a Swashbuckler to a fencer. They specialize in speed and accuracy. The single hit damage of a fencer would be would be much lower than someone wielding a two handed sword or two Khopeshes...but that fencer/Swashbuckler might hit you 3 times before the other two could get one hit in.

Hint....Think speed/accuracy/multiple attacks

My problem about saying "Should get super high doublestrike"

I'm already capable of hitting over 80% even without all the proper gear setups, and if I work toward it I can potentially break 100%.

Haek can sustain 70% on an Acrobat build easily enough.

So, now for the question:

Is there any benefit for going over 100%? After 100% is there a chance I can get a third strike, or maybe even a 4th?

[viktorserak]

Math

Wow.

That is actually even worse then I expected.

And not even factoring in the AoE dmg that falchion will do to multiple mobs per swing (which widens the gap even further).

There is obviously no reasonable way to close the DPS gap - I assume.

So, how about different approach?

Each tier of SWF could give +1 critical threat range that would apply AFTER the imp critical (so 3 feats for +3 total, NOT +6 total) and 5% - 10% doublestrike? (instead of what it gives now).

That would make SWF interesting choice and compared to THF and TWF actually not overpowered, but strong in another way.

IMPORTANT PART:

I mean, yes - you could prolly do something diabolical with bastard sword or dwarven axe, but to put it simply - 3 feats for SWF, 3 feats for THF (so it would actually do decent glancing blows), 2 feats for cleave and 2 for power attack and Improved crit + one epic for OC, thats 10 heroic and 1 epic feat, which means that it would be fighter only thing. Since this maxxing out would be for kensais mostly, you can also count in .... 3 more feats to qualify for kensai imp crit and you are on grand 14 feats (+1 more if you are not dwarf for exotic weapons profinency - and in the age of bladeforged, being dwarf is a disadvantage), which is unachiavable by almost anyone and even fighters will have to stay almost pure to achieve it, which will basically stop Cetus builds from using this (Cetus builds would also need +1 more feat for master stance, so 16 feats in total just for the offensive line).

taking in consideration that Cetus build has 16 feats available total (12/6/2 Ftr/Mnk/Pal) and one of these feats is not usable for anything you need (monk feat - you take one for THF, other for SWF), even the most feat.stuffed build would fall short. Taking in consideration that devs may not add SWF on monk feat list, itw even more feats short.
So, a Cetus would have to drop some offense/paladin levels/monk levels (would not work out anyway)/Bladeforged race (so, no reconstruct). And that would be an interesting choice.

Aside from even more pure Fighter, no one has more feats then Cetus (not usable for SWF/THF bastard/daxe user anyway), which means, that there is really not that much power creep available with my suggestion.

Yet, if you take the expanded crit range and doublestrike suggestion, you will end up with interesting SWF.

What do you think?

[N-0cturn]

Underwhelming would we an understatement for these Feats :( .

1. They are extremly weak when compared to THF or TWF (see below)
2. They have a horrible scaling and are almost useless from 1-20

Without any Feats THF has the following:
+0,5 Str DMG (50 Str are easy to archive for a high level character so at least +10 damage), +5 Power Attack Damage, Higher base damage that single weapon (About +4, Less if you take BS/DA but more if you take Finesse Weapons) 20% Glancing Blow Damage

With those SWF Feat I would spent two entire Feats just to get about the same base damage as THF and a third which would get me a slightly higher die (or the same if you have finesse weapon). Whohoo!

Sorry but please bury this idea deep in the ground and never speak about it again. It's necessary to start over with these Feats.

Please also consider this:

Right now I can see 2 types of characters that would be interested in SWF:
- Bards and bard splashes that invest in Swashbuckler
- Melee artificer with BS/DA

Both of the above are pretty Feat starved. Personally I would prefer only 2 offensive SWF Feats (because you have to take these), which should be powerful enough to deal as much damage as someone with a two-handed weapon but no THF Feats. You can then add 1-2 Feats for SWF that grant defensive Bonuses, which would be optional.

EDIT: I also like the ideas of unbongwah. I am not sure if 15 % Doublestrike, Vorpal and +1,5 W would be good enough, but considering the defensive boni it might be worth it. However like I said, I would prefer only 2 offensive Feats and a seperate devensive for builds that have to struggle with every Feat choice, like ... Bards!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Swashbucker:

Core Feats:
Ok - However I think both Longsword and Scimitar are iconic Swashbuckler weapons. The rapier is the most common Weapon that comes to mind but the Scimitar and LS would be the next two since the style is about fencing. You can just add a Tier 1 or 2 ability that lets you choose to fight as a Pirate-Swashbucker (Scimitar) or Swashbuckler of the old school (Longsword).

I have to say I like both Core 5 and 6 because those are really nice abilities which will make it a tough choice when multi-classing.
Uncanny Dodge - I assume this will work the same way as for Barbarians and Rogues? So +6% Dogde at lvl 20 Bard? Then its very nice :)

Abilities:

Tavern Shanties: +1/2/3 Bard Songs
- Weak ability in a tree with no bard songs. The name is cool but I would replace it. The other two trees already cover this.

En Pointe: Melee Attack: Make two attacks with +4/8/12 critical threat range, but -1 Critical Multiplier. Costs 10 Spell Points to activate.
- This depends on how fast these two attacks are executed. If it is 1 blow with two hits then it could be nice. The critical effect alone would not be enough.

Swashbuckling Style: Cannoneer
- Please change this to grant Runearm proficiency. Bards and Artificer don't mix well and since a bard is a jack of all trades it would make sense. If you leave it like this is will be worthless.

Second Skin: While Swashbuckling, +3/6/12 to your Reflex Saves and +2/4/6 to the Max Dex Bonus of your Armor.
- It is good that you include two bonuses that are needed to use the Cores Evasion and increased Dodge Cap. Personally I would have preferred Cha to Ref Saves, but I won't complain about a flat bonus.

I also like:
- The sonic damage
- Fast movement
- Dex/Cha/Int to damage


The tree still needs some work but please focus on the SWF Feats first. Without a realistic approach to those Feats it is hard to give Feedback on the strength of the tree.

[bbqzor]

It was, in fact. It's been re-added to the first post of this thread.
*tents fingers* Excellent. (and thank you!)


Tune Arm/Music Box was also missing text saying that it scales with Sonic Spell Power, that's been added also.
Nice, but very minor. With say 300 sonic spellpower (not practical at all but sake of argument) its only 4d6 (14). Most lv24 arms are 2d10 (11), Glass Cannon is 2d8+2d10 (20), so that looks to be somewhat in the middle, except: 1) to combine with the stance, means no glancing blows, so youre losing 2d10 or whatever on glances to gain 4d6 on mains, somewhat even-ish, and 2) youre taking this in place of Dashing Scoundrel (+1-5 dmg/hit and 7% doublestrike).

While this is obviously better than the nothing previously stated (not trying to look a gift horse in the mouth), it does somewhat highlight that its still underpowered as stated previously. Either you lose glances to gain the stance, or lose the stance to gain glances, *and* you lose the +1-5/7% to use it period (to be fair, you gain whatever other stats are on the rune arm though).

So basically, I like this new direction, but I would advocate for perhaps 1d10 base. 1d10 because it lets even a small amount of spellpower matter (on a 10, even 10 spellpower can help, where as with a d6 you need ~20 to show up in the rounding), and because with the inability to garner much sonic spellpower, I think using the same base die other high level rune arms use is completely in line with balance at that level. As for lower levels, given the difficulty of getting sonic spellpower, I cant think of a single situation where it would really be any different much before 20. If it starts getting good at 18 or something fine, but I dont think anyones going to be running around with a 5d10 (or 5d6 etc) Tune Arm/Music Box attack at level 9.

[Zzevel]

The numbers:




Swing
Falchion (THF Feats)
Falchion (No Feats)
Rapier (SWF Feats)


1
Miss: 0
Miss: 0


2-14
Hit: 4.5 * Avg[2d4] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1.5*25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 10 (power attack)
+ 5 (misc)
+ .75 * .5 * <above total> (glancing blows)
= 97 base + 36.375 glancing blows
= 133.375 total
Hit: 4.5 * Avg[2d4] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1.5*25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 10 (power attack)
+ 5 (misc)
+ .50 * .2 * <above total> (glancing blows)
= 97 base + 9.7 glancing blows
= 106.7 total
Hit:
4.5 * Avg[1d(6+6)] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1 * 25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 5 (power attack or swashbuckler precision)
+ 5 (misc)
= 86.25


15-18
Crit:
2 * (
4.5 * Avg[2d4] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1.5*25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 15 (seeker)
+ 10 (power attack)
+ 5 (misc)
)
+ 36.375 (glancing blows, unaffected by crit)
= 224 base + 36.375 glancing blows
= 260.375 total
Crit:
2 * (
4.5 * Avg[2d4] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1.5*25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 15 (seeker)
+ 10 (power attack)
+ 5 (misc)
)
+ 9.7 (glancing blows, unaffected by crit)
= 224 base + 9.7 glancing blows
= 233.7 total
Crit:
2 * (
4.5 * Avg[1d(6+6)] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1 * 25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 15 (seeker)
+ 5 (power attack or swashbuckler precision)
+ 5 (misc)
)
= 202.50


19-20
Extra Crit:
3 * (
4.5 * Avg[2d4] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1.5*25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 15 (seeker)
+ 10 (power attack)
+ 5 (misc)
)
+ 36.375 (glancing blows, unaffected by crit)
= 336 base + 36.375 glancing blows
= 372.375 total
Extra Crit:
3 * (
4.5 * Avg[2d4] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1.5*25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 15 (seeker)
+ 10 (power attack)
+ 5 (misc)
)
+ 9.7 (glancing blows, unaffected by crit)
= 336 base + 9.7 glancing blows
= 345.7 total
Extra Crit:
3 * (
4.5 * Avg[1d(6+6)] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1 * 25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 15 (seeker)
+ 5 (power attack or swashbuckler precision)
+ 5 (misc)
)
= 303.75


Total
3520
3013
2539


Per Swing
176
151
127



.


I dont care if its simply about the SWF not about the Swashbuckler, when are you going to use a SWF without the Swashbuckler enhancements or SOMETHING in the other hand?

A two handed weapon should ALWAYS do more damage than a 1 handed weapon.. you not factoring all the other bonuses that WILL accompany the SWF (like double strike etc) things that the THF can NEVER gain. You pst the THF " With Feats" to skew your arguement. In my opinion the SWF is way to OP when you START with thoes numbers (before add everything else in!)

Next you'll be saying a dagger and a 2 handed sword should be more equal... Seriously people...

[thegreatneil]

Is there any benefit for going over 100%? After 100% is there a chance I can get a third strike, or maybe even a 4th?

No.

[Cardtrick]

A two handed weapon should ALWAYS do more damage than a 1 handed weapon.. you not factoring all the other bonuses (like douple strike etc) the SWF can gain in this new prestiege that the THF cannot. In my opinion the SWF is way to OP! compred to what is already in the game.

Next you'll be saying a dagger and a 2 handed sword should be more equal... Seriously people...

Before I even bother trying to address this much, let's clear something up -- are you making an argument based on the game, or are you making an argument based on "what makes sense" in real life?

If it's a "what makes sense" argument, I'm not going to bother. That's the absolute worst thing to consider. This is a game, and the gameplay is what matters.

And no, I wasn't taking into account the bonuses from the new prestige. I was very explicit about that. I also wasn't taking into account the bonuses a centered kensai with divine might and power surge could get for THF. I was comparing apples to apples: just the weapons and the feats.

[Zzevel]

Before I even bother trying to address this much, let's clear something up -- are you making an argument based on the game, or are you making an argument based on "what makes sense" in real life?

If it's a "what makes sense" argument, I'm not going to bother. That's the absolute worst thing to consider. This is a game, and the gameplay is what matters.

And no, I wasn't taking into account the bonuses from the new prestige. I was very explicit about that. I also wasn't taking into account the bonuses a centered kensai with divine might and power surge could get for THF. I was comparing apples to apples: just the weapons and the feats.


In a game or in RL it dosent matter.

When compared buck nekid (no other forces applied) you actually think a OHW and a THW should come out equal? And following up on this non equality, you expect NOTHING exists in the other hand to help you or your build in some way that the THF can also magically gain?

It is way closer than it should be and that's what I said.

[darthhento]

Simple question:

HOW MANY NAMED BUCKLERS ARE THERE IN GAME and why the heck are you making this tree focus around a darn buckler in offhand?!?!

[Grailhawk]

Since Vargouille's response didn't outright tell us not to do math :), I figured I'd give it a try. This whole post is about the SWF feats, not the Swashbuckler enhancement tree.

Any math is necessarily limited, since there are so many character builds and pieces of equipment out there. I believe that what I'm going to post here is at least representative enough to be worth considering, but I'm interested in critiques and improvements. I am probably missing some things, but if so I hope people will point them out. I will try to make my simplifications explicit.

* For right now, I'm just going to consider THF vs. SWF. The math is a bit easier to deal with, and it seems like overall THF is currently pretty reasonably balanced against TWF.

* For right now, I'm just looking at the SWF feats, not the enhancement tree. (If we are supposed to only consider them together, then they should come together, and not be separate feats.)

* Where possible, I think I'm skewing my asssumptions and choices in favor of the SWF feats. Most importantly, I'm going with Thunderforged weapons, which have very high [W] modifiers, and I'm assuming equal (and low) stat modifiers for both versions (even though in reality a strength-based THFer can get much higher here than a DEX/CHA-based SWFer).

* I'm going for approximately an "early endgame" character, with reasonably level-appropriate gear but nothing ridiculous, and unspecified and ignored epic destiny

Details on the example character:

Damage stat (str/dex/cha/whatever): 60 (note that this probably too high for cha/dex to damage and definitely way too low for str to damage)

Deadly Item Level bonus to damage: 10

Miscellaneous Damage Bonus: 5 (probably way too low -- this is a catchall to cover bard songs/divine favor/enhancements/ED abilities/etc.)

Seeker: 15 (10 base + 5 exceptional)

Relevant assumed feats: improved critical, overwhelming critical, either power attack or swashbuckler precision, all 3 of either SWF or THF feats

For weapon, let's assume Thunder-forged, Tier 2 or higher. This is giving a big advantage to SWF compared to most other weapon types, due to the 4.5 W modifier.
Let's go with Falchion for THF (4.5[2d4], 18-20x2) and Rapier for SWF (4.5[1d6], 18-20x2). Greataxe might be a better choice for the THF weapon, but rapier is the clear choice for swashbuckling-eligible SWF weapon and the identical critical profiles make falchions and rapiers a bit easier to compare.

Methodology:

Consider 20 swings, one at each die roll, and assume that every swing is a hit and every critical is confirmed.

My belief is that this simplification is extremely reasonable for self-buffed endgame characters. Note that due to Seeker's bonus to confirmation rolls and the fact that a roll of 1 on a confirmation roll is not an auto-fail the way a roll of 1 is an auto-miss in melee, I'm pretty sure the critical confirmation piece is true to a good approximation. Missing is harder to quantify, but I very very rarely miss in the real game -- infrequently enough that I think they're probably all rolls of 1. I also don't think there's any major reason that missing should benefit one of these builds more than the other (I think we can ignore the attack penalty from power attack).

Note that I might be modeling glancing blows a bit wrong, but I don't think I am -- or at least not wrong enough to matter. My understanding is that with all 3 feats:

1. Glancing blows will occur on 3 swings out of 4
2. Glancing blows do not miss
3. Glancing blows do not crit
4. Glancing blows apply 50% of the total "base" damage

For hits, crits, and glancing blows, I am ignoring any damage "procs" that can trigger beyond the base damage. This slightly favors SWF over THF, since in reality glancing blows have a chance to trigger these procs.

I am not going to try to factor in the fact that glancing blows apply to more than just your current target, in a cleave-like area of effect. This is obviously a major advantage for THF, but it's too hard to model and doesn't apply all the time.

The numbers:



Swing
Falchion (THF Feats)
Falchion (No Feats)
Rapier (SWF Feats)


1
Miss: 0
Miss: 0


2-14
Hit: 4.5 * Avg[2d4] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1.5*25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 10 (power attack)
+ 5 (misc)
+ .75 * .5 * <above total> (glancing blows)
= 97 base + 36.375 glancing blows
= 133.375 total

Hit: 4.5 * Avg[2d4] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1.5*25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 10 (power attack)
+ 5 (misc)
+ .50 * .2 * <above total> (glancing blows)
= 97 base + 9.7 glancing blows
= 106.7 total

Hit:
4.5 * Avg[1d(6+6)] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1 * 25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 5 (power attack or swashbuckler precision)
+ 5 (misc)
= 86.25


15-18
Crit:
2 * (
4.5 * Avg[2d4] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1.5*25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 15 (seeker)
+ 10 (power attack)
+ 5 (misc)
)
+ 36.375 (glancing blows, unaffected by crit)
= 224 base + 36.375 glancing blows
= 260.375 total

Crit:
2 * (
4.5 * Avg[2d4] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1.5*25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 15 (seeker)
+ 10 (power attack)
+ 5 (misc)
)
+ 9.7 (glancing blows, unaffected by crit)
= 224 base + 9.7 glancing blows
= 233.7 total

Crit:
2 * (
4.5 * Avg[1d(6+6)] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1 * 25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 15 (seeker)
+ 5 (power attack or swashbuckler precision)
+ 5 (misc)
)
= 202.50


19-20
Extra Crit:
3 * (
4.5 * Avg[2d4] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1.5*25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 15 (seeker)
+ 10 (power attack)
+ 5 (misc)
)
+ 36.375 (glancing blows, unaffected by crit)
= 336 base + 36.375 glancing blows
= 372.375 total

Extra Crit:
3 * (
4.5 * Avg[2d4] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1.5*25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 15 (seeker)
+ 10 (power attack)
+ 5 (misc)
)
+ 9.7 (glancing blows, unaffected by crit)
= 336 base + 9.7 glancing blows
= 345.7 total

Extra Crit:
3 * (
4.5 * Avg[1d(6+6)] (base)
+ 12 (enhancement)
+ 1 * 25 (stat modifier)
+ 10 (deadly)
+ 15 (seeker)
+ 5 (power attack or swashbuckler precision)
+ 5 (misc)
)
= 303.75



Total
3520
3013
2539


Per Swing
176
151
127



This came out actually a lot worse for SWF than I expected. As you can see, based on this model, on normal swings not only is a falchion with the THF feats 38% more damage than a rapier with the SWF feats -- but using the falchion even without the feats is still 19% more damage than the rapier with all three feats.

With my numbers, the breakeven point at which the 3 SWF feats with a rapier would come out to as much damage as just using a falchion is just about 20[W]. So no combination of Dance of flowers + Momentum Swing + whatever is going to come even close to that. (The breakeven point for the 3 SWF feats to match the 3 THF feats, including the glancing blow damage, is about 205[W] -- yes, that's two hundred and five, not twenty-five.)

I know I'm simplifying a lot of things, but I think most of those simplifications favor the SWF approach rather than THF.

All in all, it seems to me like the SWF feats don't go anywhere near far enough to make up for the obvious deficiencies of using a single one-handed weapon. The only characters for whom these feats might make sense to take are swashbuckler bards, although they still don't have enough feats to make taking these an easy choice.


What you have proven here is that 1.5X STR bonus +5 damage on Power attack is grater then +3 Die step. You don't have to bring Glancing blows in for your Falchion to win out over the Rapier

4.5[2d4] + 74 = 96.4 avg per hit
4.5[1d12] + 57 = 86.25 avg per hit.

+3 Die Step vs +30% Glancing Damage is about equal in current game it is the other perk of THF that make THF better not the feat them selves.

[Cardtrick]

In a game or in RL it dosent matter.

When compared buck nekid (no other forces applied) you actually think a OHW and a THW should come out equal? And following up on this non equality, you expect NOTHING exists in the other hand to help you or your build in some way that the THF can also magically gain?

It is way closer than it should be and that's what I said.

I'm not interested in having that discussion, then. I really don't care whether things "should come out equal" from a realism perspective.

I don't know what you're talking about with the thing in the other hand. Do you mean a buckler or orb? If you can suggest a way in which that can make up for the deficiencies of single weapon fighting, I'm very interested.

If the option exists to wield a single weapon and take a 3-feat chain to improve it, then the developers are adding single weapon fighting to the game as a meaningful melee style. For gameplay purposes, it should therefore be competitive with THF and TWF. My numbers indicate that it is instead dramatically worse, which is a big balance problem and makes the new feats and enhancement tree very unattractive. It means that we can't just judge the Swashbuckler enhancement tree based on how it compares to other enhancement trees -- instead, we need to ask whether it's good enough to make up for the huge gap between single weapon fighting and THF or TWF.

[Cardtrick]

What you have proven here is that 1.5X STR bonus +5 damage on Power attack is grater then +3 Die step. You don't have to bring Glancing blows in for your Falchion to win out over the Rapier

4.5[2d4] + 74 = 96.4 avg per hit
4.5[1d12] + 57 = 86.25 avg per hit.

Yes, I know. That's why in the THF columns in my table, I displayed the base and glancing blow damage separately on the line right above the total in each row.

I just wanted to show it with all the numbers I could think of that might be relevant, to hopefully make the point more clearly.



+3 Die Step vs +30% Glancing Damage is about equal in current game it is the other pircs of THF that make THF better not the feat them selves.

Agreed. The feats themselves are just about equivalent, but the SWF feats would have to be much better to make up for the inherent disadvantage of using a single weapon. That's why I showed the column without even taking the THF feats.

TWF and THF are currently pretty balanced; that's achieved by the TWF feats being much better than the THF feats, to make up for not having the bonus damage of a THF weapon.

[Grace_ana]

You can't say that the SWF feats are okay because with everything that swashbuckler offers, it would be sufficient. (I still disagree with that assertion along with everyone else, but that's neither here nor there right now.) A three-feat line that only works with one or two trees is by definition terrible. A fighting style that requires three feats should be flexible enough to be used in many builds, just like TWF and THF. Right now, the proposed THREE feats don't even offer as much as a mid-level lootgen deadly item. Think about that. (Credit to karatemack for pointing that out to me during his phone rant today.)

I like the tree. I don't like the feats. Unbongwah had great suggestions, and I would say something close to that would be great and really add a lot of flexibility to builds and the game, as well as throwing both bards and paladins a bone. And let's be real, if you can make both bards and paladins happy in one fell swoop, it would go a long way towards getting people excited to try new things, as well as stirring the FotM pot, which is always a good time. Especially since bards can't have monk or pally levels.

I'd suggest the following songs that fill a defensive hole:

Tier 3: Yo Ho Ho (2 ranks, 1 pt each)
Your mournful tune remembering mateys lost at sea wraps you in gloom, giving you 10% incorporeality. At the second tier, your weapons achieve a similar effect, gaining Ghost Touch and bypassing miss chance when attacking incorporeal enemies. This effect is dispelled upon rest or death.

|
|
|
V

Tier 5: And a Bottle of Rum (2 ranks, 1 pt each)
You cheer up with a happy drinking song, surrounding you with a warm feeling reminiscent of molasses. You gain lesser displacement/displacement for 5 minutes.


I figured it would give more defense in the form of a song, which can't be dispelled by beholders and such (think of how nice displacement would be at the end of von 5). It's a bit longer than the displacement spell, which makes it worth a song. And since ghostly and displacement stack, your low-PRR/AC bard will be able to take the punches even without anything in the off hand.

[gurgar78]

Yes, I know. I just wanted to show it with all the numbers I could think of that might be relevant, to hopefully make the point more clearly.



Agreed. The feats themselves are just about equivalent, but the SWF feats would have to be much better to make up for the inherent disadvantage of using a single weapon. That's why I showed the column without even taking the THF feats.

TWF and THF are currently pretty balanced; that's achieved by the TWF feats being much better than the THF feats, to make up for not having the bonus damage of a THF weapon.

Two-hand weapon, 1.5x str bonus
Two Weapons, 1.5x str bonus (100% mainhand, 50% offhand)
One Weapon, 1x str bonus

That's the first obstacle that needs to be overcome - the mechanics differences between the weapon styles and how they are exacerbated by our hyper-inflated stats.

Increasing the die step of weapons that are used in a single hand might be a good *base* mechanic to add to the game when wielding a single one-handed weapon.

Then have SWF feats add additional bonuses beyond that.

[Scrabbler]

Two-hand weapon, 1.5x str bonus
Two Weapons, 1.5x str bonus (100% mainhand, 50% offhand)
One Weapon, 1x str bonus
There was an earlier suggestion that Swashbuckler could add 0.5x of an alternate stat to your damage, while keeping 1x of the main stat. So your Light Mace might add dex mod + cha mod/2, or something.

That would be pretty close to a 1.5x stat bonus, although not quite as good.

[Jasparion]

The increased damage is a good start, but you really should be looking at increased Crit range, as well as maybe some sort of Armor Piercing so you can get this increased Crit advantage on normally immune mobs.

Otherwise you will need to double the increase in damage (or even triple - but the Math nerds can crunch those numbers).

But Im glad you are at least recognizing that the Feats are 100% needed.

[gurgar78]

There was an earlier suggestion that Swashbuckler could add 0.5x of an alternate stat to your damage, while keeping 1x of the main stat. So your Light Mace might add dex mod + cha mod/2, or something.

That would be pretty close to a 1.5x stat bonus, although not quite as good.

I would say based on the fact that everything in this game is so strength-centric, it might not even be bad to let them have full bonus from both str and dex.

Also, instead of balance as a requirement, which seems silly, make it both str and dex, but 2 points less than the corresponding THF/TWF ranks, (11, 13 and 15)

That ties in to a single 1H weapon getting both str and dex bonuses to damage.

[Hilltrot]

I don't think anyone will take tavern shanties, except for an additional point.

A different tack should be lower on the tree imo. Switch it with fast movement.

[PsychoBlonde]

The proposed single-weapon fighting feats just strike me as kind of weak and I find the fact that they just flat out won't work with (of course) some of the best weapons available precisely *because* those weapons are awesome to be kind of ********. To put this in perspective, two-weapon-fighting feats each grant you close to a flat 20% extra damage--these feats give you an average of 1 point of extra damage. That's pretty sad. Granted, these proposed single-weapon feats have the advantage that they don't have a stat requirement, but still.

I'd say, at minimum, decrease the BaB so if the feats are lackluster you at least get to take them EARLY instead of using your more-valuable high-level slots for them.

I still think it'd be better to have the feats grant 0.5[w] and some solid amount of doublestrike (8-15%) instead--this has the advantage that it will actually WORK with all types of weapons and not randomly exclude some due to the decision of the loot-programmer who created them to give them multiple base dice.

[HungarianRhapsody]

What you have proven here is that 1.5X STR bonus +5 damage on Power attack is grater then +3 Die step. You don't have to bring Glancing blows in for your Falchion to win out over the Rapier

4.5[2d4] + 74 = 96.4 avg per hit
4.5[1d12] + 57 = 86.25 avg per hit.

+3 Die Step vs +30% Glancing Damage is about equal in current game it is the other perk of THF that make THF better not the feat them selves.

No. Just stop. Spreading ruinously bad information is not helping anything.
+3 Die Steps is the equivalent to +3 damage (multiplied by whatever W multiplier you have).

+30% Glancing Damage includes your Strength bonus (and that ends up being 1.5x strength bonus because it's THF) and a wide variety of other bonuses in addition to the often large base damage of the weapon itself. And that's not even counting the many magical damages that are often included in Glancing Damage. That's *FAR* more than +3*W damage.

Cardtrick skewed the numbers in favor of SWF as much as possible and it still came out vastly inferior to THF. The *ONLY* good thing about the SWF feats as currently proposed is that Turbine won't accidentally make people think that SWF is viable and everyone will know to stay away from that weapon style.

[HungarianRhapsody]

In a game or in RL it dosent matter.

When compared buck nekid (no other forces applied) you actually think a OHW and a THW should come out equal? And following up on this non equality, you expect NOTHING exists in the other hand to help you or your build in some way that the THF can also magically gain?

It is way closer than it should be and that's what I said.

From a lore/flavor perspective, then OHW/Single Weapon Fighting should be significantly weaker than TWF and THF. But from a game balance perspective, if it is, then no one will use it. And if no one will use it, then why add it to the game?

[PsychoBlonde]

I would say based on the fact that everything in this game is so strength-centric, it might not even be bad to let them have full bonus from both str and dex.

Also, instead of balance as a requirement, which seems silly, make it both str and dex, but 2 points less than the corresponding THF/TWF ranks, (11, 13 and 15)

That ties in to a single 1H weapon getting both str and dex bonuses to damage.

Original Flavor Swashbuckler (which was a base class, not a prestige class) got this ability:


Insightful Strike (Ex): At 3rd level, a swashbuckler becomes able to place her finesse attacks where they deal greater damage. She applies her Intelligence bonus (if any) as a bonus on damage rolls (in addition to any Strength bonus she may have) with any light weapon, as well as any other weapon that can be used with Weapon Finesse, such as a rapier, whip, or spiked chain. Targets immune to sneak attacks or critical hits are immune to the swashbuckler's insightful strike. A swashbuckler cannot use this ability when wearing medium or heavy armor or when carrying a medium or heavy load.

Actually, including that encumbrance limitation as part of it might be an interesting touch. But, yes, strength AND dex/int/cha would make sense in the context of the original base class. It's not like the other fighting styles in the game where they're attempting to add more flexibility to an ALREADY good style without making it ridiculous. Single-weapon fighting currently has an enormous DISADVANTAGE compared to EVERY OTHER FIGHTING STYLE IN THE GAME. It needs some serious oomph to bring it up to speed.

[PsychoBlonde]

Here's a question--how about getting a somewhat modified version of this path as the third Fighter path? Kind of like how Eldritch Knight applies for both wizards and sorcerers. Personally I think this would be a very cool option for a Fighter, particularly a SINGLE-CLASSED fighter.

[Thar]

I want to clear this up; I was not trying to be in any way sarcastic in thanking you guys for many posts about the Single Weapon Fighting Feats. I see how that could have been interpreted that way, but that is in fact stuff we're interested in.



Nearly all of the feedback so far is useful. Sometimes we've still got ideas we're considering that we don't always run right out to you guys because we want to see the response to a simpler concept and also to not limit the discussion. There's been (at the least) suggestions relating to attack speed, doublestrike, critical profile, seeker bonuses, dodge, PRR, and other options for SWF. It's important to us to see what actually gets said by you guys (even if it's things we've thought of before), and to also see how strong and differing your collective thoughts and opinions are.

(We do in fact pay attention to who is posting, so you aren't pulling a fast one by posting the same ideas repeatedly. We read in enough detail to be able to say, "Oh, that's just Steelstar posting about making awesome raids again.")

Do the single weapon feats work with shields? if not what in the world was the intent to buff THF instead of sword and board.

[gurgar78]

The proposed single-weapon fighting feats just strike me as kind of weak and I find the fact that they just flat out won't work with (of course) some of the best weapons available precisely *because* those weapons are awesome to be kind of ********. To put this in perspective, two-weapon-fighting feats each grant you close to a flat 20% extra damage--these feats give you an average of 1 point of extra damage. That's pretty sad. Granted, these proposed single-weapon feats have the advantage that they don't have a stat requirement, but still.

I'd say, at minimum, decrease the BaB so if the feats are lackluster you at least get to take them EARLY instead of using your more-valuable high-level slots for them.

I still think it'd be better to have the feats grant 0.5[w] and some solid amount of doublestrike (8-15%) instead--this has the advantage that it will actually WORK with all types of weapons and not randomly exclude some due to the decision of the loot-programmer who created them to give them multiple base dice.

I do feel the need to point out, since it seems to be overlooked fairly often, that the SWF provide more than just +1 damage. It's +1 base damage, which means it's multiplied by whatever your weapon multiplier is. So, for instance, a Tier2 Thunderforged while Centered in GMoF will add 6 times the bonus, so +18 damage per swing with that weapon and ED/twist active.

It's still a little weak, but not as weak as a flat +3 damage.

Also, adding .5W would be weaker. +1.5W on a thunderforged Rapier is only an average of +10.5 damage. Far lower than the +18 I listed above.

[nibel]

Nice, but very minor. With say 300 sonic spellpower (not practical at all but sake of argument) its only 4d6 (14). Most lv24 arms are 2d10 (11), Glass Cannon is 2d8+2d10 (20), so that looks to be somewhat in the middle, except: 1) to combine with the stance, means no glancing blows, so youre losing 2d10 or whatever on glances to gain 4d6 on mains, somewhat even-ish, and 2) youre taking this in place of Dashing Scoundrel (+1-5 dmg/hit and 7% doublestrike).

Not a direct comparasion. You should be comparing:

1) +1-5 dmage, +7% doublestrike; versus
2) 1d6 spellpower-based damage per hit, plus you can use a runearm.

Eg, if you are using a Glass Cannon, it will be 2d8+2d10+1d6, not flat 1d6. If using a Tor runearm it is adding 15 elemental resistance. If using Toven, you get transform kinect energy. And so on.

Directly comparing, it makes sense that the clear off-hand benefit SHOULD be better than any of the other options, because you simply are losing a gear slot for an enhancement.

[thegreatneil]

Do the single weapon feats work with shields? if not what in the world was the intent to buff THF instead of sword and board.

2.Skirmisher: Passive: While Swashbuckling with a Buckler in your off hand, you gain 7% Dodge, and you may use a Buckler and still benefit from the Single Weapon Fighting line of feats.

[gurgar78]

2.Skirmisher: Passive: While Swashbuckling with a Buckler in your off hand, you gain 7% Dodge, and you may use a Buckler and still benefit from the Single Weapon Fighting line of feats.

If you've got the feats to spare, SM and ISM add 8% doublestrike and some PRR on their own. If you got ISB you could add an additional chance proc a bash as well. Skirmisher would be clearly superior to the 7% doublestrike and +1-5 damage.

That's quite a feat investment though and would really only be feasible for like a 12 Fig+ split with bard. I can think of some interesting combinations thought to make that fun.

Kensai/Skirmisher 1H + buckler sounds kinda fun, actually.

[Hilltrot]

Personally, I'd rather see a straight "+2" (stacking [with all other 'bonuses']) damage (to the total base damage), rather than "+2 sides". This would basically do the same thing, EXCEPT it would increase the minimum damage; e.g. a 1d8 weapon would now do 3-10 points damage (1d8 + 2) instead of 1-10 points (1d10). The maximum damage remains the same, just the minimum damage is increased. This should also bypass the 'technical' issues with weapons that have multiple base dice: 2d4 would do 4-10 damage (2d4 + 2), thus allowing the 'rare', special weapons to be used (which, IMO, they should be). Since you should not be mutiplying the added damage by the number of base dice (i.e. you would not be doing 2*[1d4 + 2] damage), I would think this might alleviate the balance concerns with using the multi-base dice weapons, too.

I would also think that it might also be easier to code, but what do I know?
;)

I don't think people understand this. . .

+2 sides means the ability is scalable. so when 5[W] weapons start appearing, that means an additional 5 points of damage. This is much better than +2 damage. with all three feats, this becomes +15 damage. Things like deadly weapons, and special abilities also build on this.

Now, I must admit this is not as awesome as TWF, which can effectively get double damage. I don't know . . . I was expecting at least one fortification piercing feat.

To me, it just seems bland. It's a gimme damage feat.

[nibel]

From a lore/flavor perspective, then OHW/Single Weapon Fighting should be significantly weaker than TWF and THF. But from a game balance perspective, if it is, then no one will use it. And if no one will use it, then why add it to the game?

Let's rethink why SWF style exists on the base material. Because I recall a lot of characters using a single weapon and no shield in PnP, and doing fine.

Keeping a hand free means you don't have to drop your weapon to look/drink/use a potion, scroll, or wand.
Keeping a hand free means you can cast spells while still holding a weapon.
Keeping a hand free means you can grapple without dropping your weapon (although, if it is not a light weapon, you can't attack with it while grappling).
Keeping a hand free means you can interact with a ton of stuff on the terrain with more ways than "I hit it with my weapon": Puilling levers or carpets, throwing stones, grabbing dropped weapons, holding a rope, etc.
It is a lot cheaper to buy/craft a single weapon than two.


Now, only the last point is somewhat a reality in current DDO (cheaper to craft one TF/Alchemical/GS weapon than two). This means they have to cover for the other uses with more stuff on SWF. I think incomparables (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg8fVtKyYxY) (dodge, parry, tactics, defense in general...) is a better option than just tacking doublestrike and attack speed to match whatever TWF chain gives out, or the raw power of THF weapons.

[Grace_ana]

I do feel the need to point out, since it seems to be overlooked fairly often, that the SWF provide more than just +1 damage. It's +1 base damage, which means it's multiplied by whatever your weapon multiplier is. So, for instance, a Tier2 Thunderforged while Centered in GMoF will add 6 times the bonus, so +18 damage per swing with that weapon and ED/twist active.

It's still a little weak, but not as weak as a flat +3 damage..

Three feats for +18 damage at cap is major weaksauce. You can with zero investment get more than halfway there with lootgen.

[Ganak]

Thanks, really like the improvements!

[Hilltrot]

Math seams to indicate these are at least as good as THF feat.

GSWF with a 4.5[w] adds on average 13.5 damage per hit (4.5*3=13.5)
GTHF assuming an average damage of 100.25 (4.5[1d8] + 80) is 12.5 (1.5*.75*100.25 - 100.25 = 12.5)

You should consider adding a bonus to finesse able weapons such as [3/6/10]% bonus to alacrity or armor piercing to make up for the fact that Bastardsword and DAxe users can use both the THF and the SWF feat.

You do realize how many feats it will take for Bastard Sword to work. Not to mention that you're limited to one weapon. Not to mention that you're limited to one type of damage - slashing. You really don't need to discourage bastard sword use. . .

[Silverleafeon]

Feat Requirement: 7 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +11

I don't know a toon in the game, that cannot use ranks in balance.
I guess one has to consider it could be cross classed, which would require 2 + (0.5 x 10) = 11 character levels =< 11 bab requirement.

Stand up, or DIE...

[Grace_ana]

I think incomparables (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg8fVtKyYxY) (dodge, parry, tactics, defense in general...) is a better option than just tacking doublestrike and attack speed to match whatever TWF chain gives out, or the raw power of THF weapons.

There are a variety of ways, including feats, to get those defenses. Fighting style feats need to provide comparable damage to be used. What good is it if nothing can hit me if I can't kill anything?

[thegreatneil]

If you've got the feats to spare, SM and ISM add 8% doublestrike and some PRR on their own. If you got ISB you could add an additional chance proc a bash as well. Skirmisher would be clearly superior to the 7% doublestrike and +1-5 damage.

That's quite a feat investment though and would really only be feasible for like a 12 Fig+ split with bard. I can think of some interesting combinations thought to make that fun.

Kensai/Skirmisher 1H + buckler sounds kinda fun, actually.
I would do S&B btw.

SM, ISM and LSM is 20prr and 15% DS (two feats and a twist)
SHF doesn't seems to even come close to that.

More of the issue for me is an empty offhand.
Whats that in your off hand?

Not a stat item.
Not a spell casting item.
Not something I can use an augment in.
Nothing.

So SHF has to make "nothing" look REALLY good, or its just going to be skipped over.




I also want to ask again, WHY is this a defensive stance?
(Stalwart Defense and Sacred Defense are listed as defensive enhancements as well)
So I cant cast rage on myself, you know the bard spell.
So I cant use skaldic rage, a bard (warchanter) enhancement.
So I cant use primal scream or the main reason to use fury for that matter.

[gurgar78]

I also want to ask again, WHY is this a defensive stance?
(Stalwart Defense and Sacred Defense are listed as defensive enhancements as well)
So I cant cast rage on myself, you know the bard spell.
So I cant use skaldic rage, a bard (warchanter) enhancement.
So I cant use primal scream or the main reason to use fury for that matter.

Wondered that myself. I figured it was so there wouldn't be any issues with it stacking with other offensive stances.

Didn't think about all the stuff that it being a defensive stance would negate, like rage.

[Silkenwise]

This entire tree can be fixed with one simple addition:

Tier 5: Coupe De Grâce

Melee Hit: Critical Hit.
If this strike hits any Feared, Held, Sleeping, Incapacitated, Prone, Paralyzed, or Stunned enemy. You Slay It.
8 second cooldown, Fort vs. Perform DC to save. Save = you score a regular Critical Hit.

[gurgar78]

This entire tree can be fixed with one simple addition:

Tier 5: Coupe De Grâce

Melee Hit: If this strike hits any Feared, Held, Incapacitated, Prone, Paralyzed, or Stunned enemy. You Slay It.
8 second cooldown, Fort vs. Perform DC to save. Save = reduction to a Critical Hit.

Coup de grace?

Or Coupe Deville?

I mean, driving over monsters with a big ass Cadillac might also make for an impressive Tier 5 ability.

[HungarianRhapsody]

Let's rethink why SWF style exists on the base material. Because I recall a lot of characters using a single weapon and no shield in PnP, and doing fine.


Keeping a hand free means you don't have to drop your weapon to look/drink/use a potion, scroll, or wand.
Keeping a hand free means you can cast spells while still holding a weapon.
Keeping a hand free means you can grapple without dropping your weapon (although, if it is not a light weapon, you can't attack with it while grappling).
Keeping a hand free means you can interact with a ton of stuff on the terrain with more ways than "I hit it with my weapon": Puilling levers or carpets, throwing stones, grabbing dropped weapons, holding a rope, etc.
It is a lot cheaper to buy/craft a single weapon than two.


Now, only the last point is somewhat a reality in current DDO (cheaper to craft one TF/Alchemical/GS weapon than two). This means they have to cover for the other uses with more stuff on SWF. I think incomparables (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg8fVtKyYxY) (dodge, parry, tactics, defense in general...) is a better option than just tacking doublestrike and attack speed to match whatever TWF chain gives out, or the raw power of THF weapons.

I think that all of those are entirely valid reasons for using one weapon. And that last reason is why one of my characters is THF - I just don't want to invest in him. :)

And if bonus "other stuff" were added, I think that would be a better path than simply more DPS - because SWF isn't going to be allowed to do as much DPS as TWF and THF. And if it isn't going to do more DPS, then it absolutely needs to do something worthwhile that isn't DPS.

[gurgar78]

I think that all of those are entirely valid reasons for using one weapon. And that last reason is why one of my characters is THF - I just don't want to invest in him. :)

And if bonus "other stuff" were added, I think that would be a better path than simply more DPS - because SWF isn't going to be allowed to do as much DPS as TWF and THF. And if it isn't going to do more DPS, then it absolutely needs to do something worthwhile that isn't DPS.

This is DDO. What matters besides DPS? =P

[Cardoor]

Experience a relatively hard boss fight solo while swf. Preferably against a boss that regenerates HP.

If a dev working on this tree/swf feats has had that experience it will give me more confidence in the maffs.

Z for Zorro that boss if you would please.

[HungarianRhapsody]

This is DDO. What matters besides DPS? =P

In general that's true, but if you're not going to have DPS, then it would be nice to have something useless instead of having nothing at all in addition to not having DPS. :)

[gurgar78]

In general that's true, but if you're not going to have DPS, then it would be nice to have something useless instead of having nothing at all in addition to not having DPS. :)

Personally, I think SWF should be the "crit" fighting style and get its damage that way. Have each feat give +1 stacking threat range and +10% fort bypass.

THF - Double damage through increase str bonus, 50% glances, 75% of the time
TWF - Double damage due to 2x number of swings
SWF - Double damage through frequent critical hits

Hell, give it +2 threat range and +10% fort bypass per feat.

So a Kensai/Skirmisher with a rapier, full SWF feats and T5 kensai boost would have a crit range of ummm. 8-20 if I'm figuring that right. (18-20, IC 15-20, +2 per SWF feat, 9-20, Kensai T5 8-20)
So yeah... crit for x3 damage about 60% of the time. That's pretty close to double normal damage.

Edit: Also, One with the Blade (KEnsai Enhancement) should be changed to also allow the ability to swashbuckle with any shield.

[FlaviusMaximus]

Things I like:

Great job listening to the players and adding dex, charisma, and intelligence as damage options.

The cooldown and spell point cost for Insults is just about perfect. This is going to help caster Bards and will make Bard a strong splash option for tactical melees and close range casters, in my opinion.

It looks like the damage is getting closer to being viable with the addition of the single weapon fighting feats, especially when you consider combining those feats with +4/+4.5 (w) weapons. I'm still a bit concerned about the loss of weapon procs that comes with not having glancing blow procs or an offhand weapon, especially considering the substantial effects that come on Thunder Forge weapons. I believe added attack speed or doublestrike is still needed to pull the DPS up, but obviously not as much as was needed previously.

I'm impressed by a lot of the tree, as well as the changes thus far, and am excited to see what the next iteration is.

*side note - it may be time to dust off the old Balizardes.

[Oxarhamar]

How I would want to implement the SWF feats:

Single Weapon Fighting: while you have a 1H melee weapon in your main hand and no weapon in your offhand, you gain +5% Doublestrike. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%. You also gain the Deflect Melee feat. [Every time you are about to be struck with a melee attack and are not helpless, there is a 5% chance of parrying that attack, taking no damage. This effect can proc once every 6 seconds.] In addition, if your offhand is:

Empty: you gain +0.5[W] modifier to your main-hand weapon. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%.
Shield: You gain an additional +5% parrying chance to your Deflect Melee feat.
Orb or Runearm: +10 Universal Spellpower and +1% spell crit chance.


Improved Single Weapon Fighting (reqs BAB 6 & SWF): while you have a 1H melee weapon in your main hand and no weapon in your offhand, you gain +5% Doublestrike. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5% (stacks w/SWF bonus). Your Deflect Melee feat gains an additional +5% parrying chance and can now proc once every 4 seconds. In addition, if your offhand is:

Empty: you gain +0.5[W] modifier to your main-hand weapon. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%.
Shield: You gain an additional +5% parrying chance to your Deflect Melee feat.
Orb or Runearm: +10 Universal Spellpower and +1% spell crit chance.


Greater Single Weapon Fighting (reqs BAB 11, SWF, and ISWF): while you have a 1H melee weapon in your main hand and no weapon in your offhand, you gain +5% Doublestrike. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5% (stacks w/ISWF bonus). Your Deflect Melee feat gains an additional +5% parrying chance and can now proc once every 2 seconds. In addition, if your offhand is:

Empty: you gain +0.5[W] modifier and Vorpal property to your main-hand weapon. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%.
Shield: You gain an additional +5% parrying chance to your Deflect Melee feat. You also gain the Counterattack ability: if you successfully parry a melee attack, you have a 5% chance of making an immediate counterattack on your attacker with a -5 to-hit penalty.
Orb or Runearm: +10 Universal Spellpower and +1% spell crit chance. You also gain a 5% Enhancement discount to the Spell Point cost of all your spells. [Does not stack with other Enhancement discounts such as Amauntor's Blessing.]


So if you have GSWF, then your bonuses based on your offhand are:



Empty: +15% doublestrike, -30% Fortification w/Precision, 15% Deflect Melee chance, +1.5[W], Vorpal
Shield: +15% doublestrike, -15% Fortification w/Precision, 30% Deflect Melee chance, Counterattack
Orb or Runearm: +15% doublestrike, -15% Fortification w/Precision, 15% Deflect Melee chance, +30 Universal Spellpower, +3% spell crit chance, -5% SP cost to all spells


I tried to include something interesting in GSWF for each offhand option. I made the numbers up; I'm sure it would take plenty of testing to decide if they should be tweaked higher or lower. I did NOT want it to depend on what armor you wear; and I wanted to keep it compatible with S&B. I also wanted it to be setup so your bonuses change based on what's in your offhand; i.e., keep it empty when you're trying to max out your melee DPS, swap in a shield if you need to fight defensively for a while, swap in an orb if you need a caster boost.

Swashbuckling has stricter restrictions than SWF, such as light armor and Finessable weapons, but adds extra bonuses, which seems reasonable. A conventional S&B toon could benefit from SWF (for doublestrike & defensive bonuses), THF (glancing blows), and Shield Mastery (doublestrike & PRR) if they can afford that many feats. While a battlecaster might want SWF for Deflect Melee + caster bonuses.

Why are orbs and Runearms lumped into one guess the melee article is out of luck here

[Nightmanis]

No.

Then we need to come up with other bonuses than just adding doublestrike.

I like Unbongwah's idea of giving more armour piercing, but remember at cap any character can get 35%/20%/15%/10% (Dragon's edge/Black dragon Flawless, Flawless no upgrades, basic), Grim Precision 15%, and the Precision feat 25%. Because this has become such a mainstream thing, it's entirely likely that most of us are capable of running around with at least 20%. While it does work well for them due to it being their only source of this a Rogue would gain the full benefit of, assuming how Ung suggested and a great gear setup would already have an 85% fort bypass rate. Adding any more is becoming absurd.

Adding doublestrike isn't a solution, it's a bandaid.

Adding armour piercing isn't a solution, it's a bandaid.

I like the direction the dev's went by increasing the actual hit die of the weapon. Regarding even how they described it, it's obvious this bonus increases in a much more preferred way by adding extra [W] to the weapon. So by this logic, we could have a good start at combining a few suggestions. I'll make this easy by just grabbing quotes from the OP and Ung, and adding a few other bits.


Single Weapon Fighting: while you have a 1H melee weapon in your main hand and no weapon in your offhand, you gain +5% Doublestrike. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%. You also gain the Deflect Melee feat. [Every time you are about to be struck with a melee attack and are not helpless, there is a 5% chance of parrying that attack, taking no damage. This effect can proc once every 6 seconds.] In addition, if your offhand is:

Empty: you gain +0.5[W] modifier to your main-hand weapon. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%.
Shield: You gain an additional +5% parrying chance to your Deflect Melee feat.
Orb or Runearm: +10 Universal Spellpower and +1% spell crit chance.



Single Weapon Fighting
While Single-Weapon Fighting, your weapon die gains an additional +2 sides.

Single Weapon Fighting: Requires fighting with a single one-handed melee weapon, and wielding only an orb, runearm, or nothing in your offhand.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d10 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (Example: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 2 ranks of Balance

Ok. Let's start with these 2.

I like the idea of only the prestige allowing the use of a buckler. This makes it so you can't get the full benefit of the Shield feats for even more doublestrike while also having the godlike saves of a paladin. A buckler outright eliminates monk for centering issues, so that's of no consequence. I see this as balance, though I'm sure plenty will disagree.

I also like this Deflect melee idea, though maybe even granting a 1% max dodge cap while SWF would be nice as well.

I would also like to see a +5% stacking attack speed bonus if wielding nothing in the offhand. So now we are combining speed and agility, both of which a fencer/swashbuckler would use to their advantage. This also justifies the ranks in balance for more lore reasons.


Improved Single Weapon Fighting (reqs BAB 6 & SWF): while you have a 1H melee weapon in your main hand and no weapon in your offhand, you gain +5% Doublestrike. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5% (stacks w/SWF bonus). Your Deflect Melee feat gains an additional +5% parrying chance and can now proc once every 4 seconds. In addition, if your offhand is:

Empty: you gain +0.5[W] modifier to your main-hand weapon. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%.
Shield: You gain an additional +5% parrying chance to your Deflect Melee feat. We really should just call this parry.
Orb or Runearm: +10 Universal Spellpower and +1% spell crit chance.



Improved Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Single Weapon Fighting increases to +4 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d12 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 4 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +6

Now that we're a bit higher into the levels, we're still seeing some interesting bits. The Weapon base hit die is now improving greatly and we've also added a whole [+1] to your main hand weapon. This is nice because now we are maximizing the benefits of what the devs have put into place while also adding simple bonuses to capitalize.

Maybe add another 5% attack speed bonus? The doublestrike bonus could be neglected on this tier also because by now we have not only gotten enough AP to potentially get the Action boost. I do think though that this would be the last of the bonuses to attack speed unless we are still extremely far behind the curve of dps.


Greater Single Weapon Fighting (reqs BAB 11, SWF, and ISWF): while you have a 1H melee weapon in your main hand and no weapon in your offhand, you gain +5% Doublestrike. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5% (stacks w/ISWF bonus). Your Deflect Melee feat gains an additional +5% parrying chance and can now proc once every 2 seconds. In addition, if your offhand is:

Empty: you gain +0.5[W] modifier and Vorpal property to your main-hand weapon. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%.
Shield: You gain an additional +5% parrying chance to your Deflect Melee feat. You also gain the Counterattack ability: if you successfully parry a melee attack, you have a 5% chance of making an immediate counterattack on your attacker with a -5 to-hit penalty.
Orb or Runearm: +10 Universal Spellpower and +1% spell crit chance. You also gain a 5% Enhancement discount to the Spell Point cost of all your spells. [Does not stack with other Enhancement discounts such as Amauntor's Blessing.]



Greater Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Improved Single Weapon Fighting increases to +6 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d14 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 7 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +11

I really like the counterattack option. Maybe instead of tying it to the parry ability simply make it a guard of sorts. Whether hit or missed by melee or ranged within 3 meters, 5% chance of a counter attack using your mainhand weapon with +1[w]. If no weapon is in the offhand, 15% armour piercing.




Couple quick notes. Anything I marked in red I am suggesting being omitted for balance issues. Rune arms in particular I believe you should need Bard levels for, as it is granted in the Swashbuckler tree in it's current incarnation.

You'll notice I didn't mark of the doublestrike bonuses in red. This is because without an ability such as Block and Cut it's going to be hard to break 80% doublestrike. I understand this is a large number, but remember there is no benefit above 100%. While yes it is possible to find benefit of armour piercing above 100%, that is few and far between. Plus if this happens monsters will be balanced against such builds which will proxy nerf other builds who do not have all that.

[unbongwah]

Why are orbs and Runearms lumped into one guess the melee article is out of luck here
The Spellpower bonuses should apply to RA charged blasts as well as spells. Plus I didn't have a better idea. :o What would you suggest instead?

[Nightmanis]

Edit: Also, One with the Blade (KEnsai Enhancement) should be changed to also allow the ability to swashbuckle with any shield.

Only if it only worked with the bard ability.

Remember. Celestia counts as both a Short sword for IC feats, and a Bastard Sword when one handed with the THF feats. While I admit that that is a completely unreasonable amount of feats to burn, I will say that it will happen if implemented.

[Silkenwise]

Coup de grace?

Or Coupe Deville?

I mean, driving over monsters with a big ass Cadillac might also make for an impressive Tier 5 ability.

That's very true.

But Dungeons & Dragons already has a coup de grace mechanic that does exactly what I described in paper & dice rules.

I'm not so sure what the stat block for a '64 Caddy would be, or how much damage it would do on a charge attack.

[Nightmanis]

That's very true.

But Dungeons & Dragons already has a coup de grace mechanic that does exactly what I described in paper & dice rules.

I'm not so sure what the stat block for a '64 Caddy would be, or how much damage it would do on a charge attack.

I'm now having images of a Halfling in the green Lucky Hat plowing through ogres in a Convertible Cadillac, then getting out and pimp slapping an elf girl.

We need this in the game. We need this badly.

[Cyr]

Single Weapon Fighting means no throwing weapons...so no dex to damage still in tree for throwers and no costly three feat line for more damage.

So still throwers will be completely worthless in this tree and all the stuff which says 'throwers' will just be a noob trap.

Oh and for those looking at the new feats...

* +2 sides means +1 more average base damage per +1 weapon dice you have and one more from the base...that is really not very impressive at all. You need an extra dice to even make this feat a +2 damage which is pretty which is really not impressive damage at all since you are giving up offhand attacks for this or the use of a shield...I just can not see how you could ever think this would break even on a build without also having this goofy prestige class in the mix and then you are talking bard levels instead of dps levels...really poor overall. Really only build I could see using this would require arty and bard together for the rune arm use and I am not exactly going to be expecting the arty/bard/one weapon combo to be the uber build ever.

So they are not the worse feats I have seen in DDO, but they are pretty dang bad.

[Silkenwise]

I'm now having images of a Halfling in the green Lucky Hat plowing through ogres in a Convertible Cadillac, then getting out and pimp slapping an elf girl.

We need this in the game. We need this badly.

Oh man, this even fits into the Single Weapon Fighting discussion.
There is an Enhancement to do an open-hand slap with your empty off-hand. Just load a scepter into your main-hand slot, and pimp your way to victory!

[unbongwah]

I like Unbongwah's idea of giving more armour piercing, but remember at cap any character can get 35%/20%/15%/10% (Dragon's edge/Black dragon Flawless, Flawless no upgrades, basic), Grim Precision 15%, and the Precision feat 25%. Because this has become such a mainstream thing, it's entirely likely that most of us are capable of running around with at least 20%. While it does work well for them due to it being their only source of this a Rogue would gain the full benefit of, assuming how Ung suggested and a great gear setup would already have an 85% fort bypass rate.
Are there any mobs with >100% Fort? If not, perhaps there ought to be. Alternatively, provide a bonus if your Fortification bypass exceeds the target's Fortification, like the difference between the two is the % extra dmg you do on crits. [E.g., if you have 60% Fortification bypass and your target has 50% Fortification, you do +10% crit dmg to that target.]

I like the direction the dev's went by increasing the actual hit die of the weapon. Regarding even how they described it, it's obvious this bonus increases in a much more preferred way by adding extra [W] to the weapon.
The problem, as Cardtrick pointed out (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/441556-Swashbuckler-Update-amp-Single-Weapon-Fighting-Feats?p=5323686&viewfull=1#post5323686), is you need a lot of +[W] modifiers on top of the SWF feats in order to come anywhere near closing the gap with 2H weapons w/out THF feats, never mind with glancing blows. Although I think you're right that increasing the dmg die by d2 is a bigger boost to dmg than +0.5[W] increments, at least when you get to epic weapons which have 3[W] or 4[W] profiles.

I like the idea of only the prestige allowing the use of a buckler. This makes it so you can't get the full benefit of the Shield feats for even more doublestrike while also having the godlike saves of a paladin.
I prefer the idea of SWF feats having synergies with any "single 1H weapon" build, which can then be enhanced thru other feats and the Swashbuckler PrE. [Ideally other PrEs will also gain bonuses to SWF, but one bridge at a time.] My proposal would make my S&B builds even more feat-starved, but adds extra DPS & defensive options. And since Swashbuckler req's Finessable weapons (which don't get glancing blows) and bucklers (which precludes a lot of the better named shields, unfortunately), you'd have to decide early on if you're going the Swashbuckling route or augmenting a regular S&B tank w/SWF.

I also like this Deflect melee idea, though maybe even granting a 1% max dodge cap while SWF would be nice as well.
There are more than enough ways of boosting Dodge just like there are more than enough ways of boosting Fortification bypass. Deflect Melee would provide something unique to SWF which distinguishes it from the other combat styles. I envision it as being somewhere between TWF and S&B (both offensively and defensively), with added emphasis on Fortification reduction.

I would also like to see a +5% stacking attack speed bonus if wielding nothing in the offhand.
I considered that too, but was worried that providing inherent speed bonuses might mess things up. Since we're just theory-crafting rules, though, it's as good an idea as any. :)

I really like the counterattack option. Maybe instead of tying it to the parry ability simply make it a guard of sorts. Whether hit or missed by melee or ranged within 3 meters, 5% chance of a counter attack using your mainhand weapon with +1[w]. If no weapon is in the offhand, 15% armour piercing.
I thought about that, but I like the idea of it being tied to parrying, since that's how to works in actual fencing. I would've called it a Riposte, except Turbine's already using that word for gear. Oh wait, they also have Counterattack in the Stalwart tree, don't they? Hmmm...

[TheGuyYouKnow]

why do they do this? they could have been decent feats with unique bonuses and given swashbucker nice synergys, there were many suggestions and so many posts about what was wrong with the tree.

thf - 50% aoe
twf - 80% off hand
swf - 3 damage NOT EVEN CLOSE

[Silverleafeon]

Any thoughts about changing the numbers here?


Single Weapon Fighting
While Single-Weapon Fighting, your weapon die gains an additional +2+1 sides.

Improved Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Single Weapon Fighting increases to +4+? sides.

Greater Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Improved Single Weapon Fighting increases to +6+? sides.

[Silkenwise]

Then we need to come up with other bonuses than just adding doublestrike.

Adding doublestrike isn't a solution, it's a bandaid.

Adding armour piercing isn't a solution, it's a bandaid.


I agree with all of these points.

I'll reiterate my point made earlier that including Coupe De Grâce as a tier 5 attack to cap off the Prestige tree would be a GREAT alternative solution.

It's a mechanic taken STRAIGHT from the paper & dice game, it makes Perfect sense for a melee accuracy character type, and Bard's are the crowd control beasts of the game, but right now just tinkling off a tune and lulling the monsters to sleep for a few minutes is completely useless as a fighting option. Add Coupe De Grace to single-weapon swashbuckling bards!

It's a Critical Hit, so undead, oozes, and a host of other monsters won't be instantly slain with it (balanced!) But monsters who can be critted, can be prepped, and then slain. Give it an automatic kill, with Fort save against Perform to reduce it to a standard Crit, a medium cooldown timer, and have it work like the paper and dice version. Stunned, Incapacitated, Sleeping, Fascinated, Held, etc. effect to immobilize the monster opens it up for the kill.

[ufo2013]

This entire tree can be fixed with one simple addition:

Tier 5: Coupe De Grâce

Melee Hit: Critical Hit.
If this strike hits any Feared, Held, Sleeping, Incapacitated, Prone, Paralyzed, or Stunned enemy. You Slay It.
8 second cooldown, Fort vs. Perform DC to save. Save = you score a regular Critical Hit.

Nice idea there, with a little balancing tweak.

Tier 5: coup de grace

Melee Attack: Requires Precision stance active. Makes a normal melee attack. If this strike hits a Feared, Held, Sleeping, Incapacitated, Prone, Paralyzed, or Stunned enemy, you slay it.
30/20/10 second cooldown, Fort vs. Death (10+character level) DC to save. Save (or hit non helpless enemy) = normal attack. Does not work on red named.[/QUOTE]

[Deathdefy]

I confess to not having followed Swashbuckler's development particularly vigilantly and it seems like it's in pretty late stage, so I'm unsure if this feedback is just too tardy, but whatever.


- SWF feats seem meta-gamey. 'How can I get the greatest multiple of [W]?' doesn't seem like the most enjoyable aesthetic. It also limits weapon selection a lot - (read "Thunderforged or bust").

- I like someone else's idea for a net attack speed increase. I remember Tempest being nerfed because that's problematic, but maybe that problem is resolved somehow, so if so, 5/10/15 or better 10/20/30 would be 'okay'.


Here's my idea:

The single most defining thing about one-handed sword fighting is 'Parrying'. On that basis, could SWF / Swashbuckler give - this is probably a huge ask but still:

1) - the chance to parry an attack based on SWF feats / Dex / Str / BAB / defensive stance vs. the attack roll in combination with the lower of the enemy's STR and DEX?

This means you'd basically never parry EE Raid things, but hopefully could in other EEs? e.g. in EEGH, low giant Dex gives hope for parrying, but you'd likely never parry an EE Shadar-Kai assassin? It's hard without seeing stats, but something like that.

If catering vs monster stats due to scaling insanity is just too difficult, you could always make chance to parry a flat percentage that ignores the opponent and simply doesn't work on purples (and/or reds).


2) - a chance to deliver a riposte that is actually an attack by the character rather than some set number like 6d6?

e.g. Enemy attacks and would score a hit, Parry check succeeds = no damage, Riposte check succeeds = make an attack, attack roll succeeds - you have hit the enemy.

Maybe give Parries to the SWF line (making it essentially defensive unless you're a swashbuckler), and Ripostes to the Swashbuckler PRE (making it an aggressive line).


I'd remove the minimal gains to attack the SWF gives right now outright.

Not capping the number of Ripostes that can be performed could make up the damage in a way that makes sense to me. Or, do cap them via number of cores by per 3 seconds. i.e. 3 core abilities = upto 3 ripostes per 3 seconds. Personally, I'd leave it uncapped - limited only by the number of times enemies attack the character since Furyshot, Blitz and Shiradi exist.

So the place the style would hold is:
THF - big damage via massive numbers
TWF - big damage via # of attacks
Sword and Board - best defence, especially vs 1 big bad.
SWF - decent (but shaky since you still get clobbered when your parry fails) defence, decent (but great in certain circumstances like when being swarmed by many weaker opponents) attack


EDIT: It appears Unbongwah has already suggested something similar from reading the thread. I'll leave this here regardless as I'm sure there are differences between our ideas.

[ufo2013]

Single Weapon Fighting
While Single-Weapon Fighting, your weapon die gains an additional +2 sides.

Single Weapon Fighting: Requires fighting with a single one-handed melee weapon, and wielding only an orb, runearm, or nothing in your offhand.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d10 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (Example: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 2 ranks of Balance


Improved Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Single Weapon Fighting increases to +4 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d12 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 4 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +6


Greater Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Improved Single Weapon Fighting increases to +6 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d14 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 7 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +11




So if you have these feats and use a 2d4 weapon, you wasted 3 feats? If this is technically confusing/limiting, it is probably a bad idea to begin with.

[unbongwah]

- I like someone else's idea for a net attack speed increase. I remember Tempest being nerfed because that's problematic, but maybe that problem is resolved somehow, so if so, 5/10/15 or better 10/20/30 would be 'okay'.
When Turbine replaced TWF extra atks with offhand procs and replaced the various atk speed bonuses with doublestrike bonuses, the rationale given was...fixing lag, I think? Which is why I'm wary of adding atk speed bonuses back in, if it was really such a big deal, although hopefully lag today isn't as bad as it was a few years ago (faster server HW, more bandwidth, etc.).

[Scrabbler]

Hi! We're presenting some updates for Swashbuckler, and our current ideas for Single-Weapon Fighting Feats.
What's good about Swashbuckler? Gives Bards some appropriate protection in the form of Dodge, running speed, Reflex, Uncanny Dodge, and Slippery Mind.


Allows pure class Bards to get Evasion. (But at too high level)


Gives Bards a Charisma melee damage option. (But without Charisma attack, very questionable).


Attempts to make it reasonable to fight with a single light weapon. (But COMPLETELY fails)


What's bad about Swashbuckler? SWF costs too many feats.
SWF requires too much Balance skill.
SWF's benefit is too small.
SWF's benefit doesn't multiply with most damage sources, so it doesn't scale.
SWF has no defensive benefit.
SWF's benefit applies to some glancing weapons (which might prevent buffing it for regular weapons)


Use of generic Rapiers is relatively discouraged.
Use of non-Rapier named weapons are often encouraged.
Use of Longsword/Scimitar not supported.


Primary stance conflicts with wand/scroll.


Lack of Charisma to hit.


Too many Swashbuckler effects depend on Swashbuckler mode, even ones not tied to weapon attacks.
Swashbuckler tree isn't good enough for TWF builds.


En Point can turn out to weaken a natural crit roll.
Arcane Marauder is just weak and has little reason to exist.
Dodge as a bonus for holding a Buckler makes less sense than PPR, and is weaker because you might hit Dodge cap.
Sonic damage isn't much in a "Swashbuckler" style, although it matches with Bard spells.
Throwing enhancements without the possibility of Monk levels are hopeless.
Running speed stacks with Barb (creating a risk of Bard/Bard multiclass being too fast).


Precision feat is not a prereq for Cleave and Overwhelming Critical. (So enhancements depending on Precision are weaker)


Suggested plan to revamp Swashbuckler tree:
Initially give up on a Single Weapon focus; that's too ambitious and too big a change from how melee already works.

Start with the assumption that the character is a TWF melee build. Reserve 3 icons on the left for Single-Weapon specific things, and design it to be a pretty good combat tree even without using them. Some enhancements would apply only to mainhand, meaning they give SWF a bigger boost than TWF. After that, add 3 icons that allow SWF to have about half the offense of TWF and half the defense of Monk splash.

Change SWF from 3 feats for damage to one feat for damage, attack speed, and AC.

[Silkenwise]

Nice idea there, with a little balancing tweak.

Tier 5: coup de grace

Melee Attack: Requires Precision stance active. Makes a normal melee attack. If this strike hits a Feared, Held, Sleeping, Incapacitated, Prone, Paralyzed, or Stunned enemy, you slay it.
30/20/10 second cooldown, Fort vs. Death (10+character level) DC to save. Save (or hit non helpless enemy) = normal attack. Does not work on red named.

Good tweak on the 3 tiered cooldowns!
I'd ideally like to see a cooldown timer in-line with Finger of Death. A pure 20 single-sword bard should be coupe-de-grâcing helpless enemies as quickly as a pure 20 necromancer is slaying them with his main spell.

The Precision stance idea was something I'm unsure of mechanistically,... I don't know if having the Swashbuckler stance active will de-active other stances like Precision. I also really like the idea of Precision as a prerequisite to landing the killing blow, but if that negates the Swashbuckler stance within it's signature Prestige tree, that's problematic.

The game already has a Helpless mechanic, as well, so implementing this as a Melee critical hit would be a piece of cake!
I'd love to see the enhancement capstone for pure 20 Bards add Fascinate to the list of Helpless effects, to further improve pure classing.
Getting Evasion is pretty sweet, but it's something splashing two levels will get just as easily. Coupe De Grâce killing a fascinated monster would give Bards some much needed lift.

[bbqzor]

Not a direct comparasion. You should be comparing:
1) +1-5 dmage, +7% doublestrike; versus
2) 1d6 spellpower-based damage per hit, plus you can use a runearm.
Eg, if you are using a Glass Cannon, it will be 2d8+2d10+1d6, not flat 1d6. If using a Tor runearm it is adding 15 elemental resistance. If using Toven, you get transform kinect energy. And so on.
Directly comparing, it makes sense that the clear off-hand benefit SHOULD be better than any of the other options, because you simply are losing a gear slot for an enhancement.

Yes, I covered those details in other posts. My intent with that one was to show that if the lower tier of stances allowed rune arm use, the upper tier shouldnt be inferior to the prerequisite. In other words, if "Swashbuckling Style I" adds 2d8+2d10, "Swashbuckling Style II" should be roughly similar. Not vastly inferior (which at 1d6 it is). In order to get that 1d6 using swashbuckling stance, you lose the 2d8+2d10 on glances from traditional rune arm melee... right now its more of a 50/50 trade off at best kind of thing than a linearly increasing progression.

In other words, using that "Style" line, tier 2 is worse than tier 1, and even taking both of them you are better off with a different style option all together. Until they add a rune arm which is huge sonic power with an effect thats useful even at low charge/class levels (since a mostly bard character will generally lack many of the artificer enhancements and progressions to runearms), its simply a flavor option and not a mechanically useful option. Id like to see it be both. Which is why Ive suggested (in several places) that bsword/daxe be added to stance permissions (not the crit profile mods, just stance use), and that the d6 be raised to d10. Taken together, that starts to compare with the +1-5/7% choice.

Hopefully thats a clearer way of stating things.

[HungarianRhapsody]

nice idea there, with a little balancing tweak.

Tier 5: Coup de grace

melee attack: Requires precision stance active. Makes a normal melee attack. If this strike hits a feared, held, sleeping, incapacitated, prone, paralyzed, or stunned enemy, you slay it.
30/20/10 second cooldown, fort vs. Death (10+character level) dc to save. Save (or hit non helpless enemy) = normal attack. Does not work on red named after the first post u-22 hotfix.

ftfy. ;)

[nibel]

When Turbine replaced TWF extra atks with offhand procs and replaced the various atk speed bonuses with doublestrike bonuses, the rationale given was...fixing lag, I think?

Yes and no.

You see, back in time, TWF had specific attacks that procced the off-hand attack (IIRC, the first and fourth, like THF glancing blows. ITWF and GTWF gave extra attacks on the chain), but the physics engine did check for positioning at every proc twice. With tempest, that gave even more extra attacks on top of that, it had to check physical positioning of the monster two or three times per swing.

The system we have now check positioning once, and then roll the off-hand and doublestrike chances on a percent value. If they proc, the to-hit roll and damage are dealt without checking positioning again. This allegedly cut off a lot of load from the positioning system compared to before (I don't know, I haven't seen the code).

So, speed was not the problem. It was the game asking the servers "is any mob in melee range for this attack" three times more than today.

[Scrabbler]

I had two previous comments about how the Swashbuckler tree strangely discourages Rapiers, and here's another:
Did you notice that tier 5 Exploit Weaknesses and tier 2 En Point favor Light Pick over other weapons? (Remember that Bards have a spell for Pick proficiency)

Which would you prefer: a 75% chance for +1x damage, or a 70% chance for +2x damage? And each time he hits, a guy with a Rapier (or other allowed weapon) has a 65% chance of +1 Exploit Weakness stack (worth +2x), while someone with a Pick has a 75% chance of +1 stack (worth +3x).

Suggested adjustment: Change those things to not involve critical hits. En Point would give a 60% chance the attack does 2x damage, while Exploit Weakness gives each attack a 5% chance for 2x to 3x damage, which accumulates until it triggers.

PS. Blow By Blow favors Pick as well.

[Cardtrick]

So, speed was not the problem. It was the game asking the servers "is any mob in melee range for this attack" three times more than today.

What you say is true, but we were also told that attack speed increases themselves (especially the old tempest capstone) were problematic. And it does make sense, if you accept the reasonable proposition that it is resource intensive for the server to check whether an attack is a hit. The faster you attack, the more times the server has to check for a hit. A 15% increase in attack speed does mean 1.15 times as many hit checks -- that's nowhere near as bad as 3 times as many hit checks, but it may be enough to be noticeable.

Then again, we already have monk unarmed attack speed, acrobat staff attack speed, haste/alacrity, haste boost, etc., and they're not bringing the servers down. Would a moderate attack speed boost for a few SWF users really have an impact? I would guess no.

[Silverleafeon]

What would happen to all this if Epic Greensteels were say 5w someday?

Good, bad?

[Silverleafeon]

So if you have these feats and use a 2d4 weapon, you wasted 3 feats? If this is technically confusing/limiting, it is probably a bad idea to begin with.

I think they plan to go thru and change thus weapons eventually.

[Scrabbler]

What would happen to all this if Epic Greensteels were say 5w someday?

Good, bad?
Neutral. TWF and THF builds would gain an appropriate amount from those items, and SWF feats would still be mistakes.

So the GSWF bonus goes up by +5 damage compared to an existing thunder alloy weapon (15 total provided by GSWF)... that's still meaningless compared to all the other damage TWF puts out with a higher swing rate.

[Silverleafeon]

why do they do this? they could have been decent feats with unique bonuses and given swashbucker nice synergys, there were many suggestions and so many posts about what was wrong with the tree.

thf - 50% aoe
twf - 80% off hand
swf - 3 damage NOT EVEN CLOSE

So we are going to need much bigger numbers in the swf?

Since twf = 4(1d6)+7 plus strength times .80 bonuses??


I would question the need for a whole line here?

Why just one feat instead of 3?

Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Improved Single Weapon Fighting increases to +12 sides.


Would that make things closer?
After all, bards cannot afford feats as well?

Or maybe it should be +12, +24, + 36??

[Nascoe]

How I would want to implement the SWF feats:

Single Weapon Fighting: while you have a 1H melee weapon in your main hand and no weapon in your offhand, you gain +5% Doublestrike. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%. You also gain the Deflect Melee feat. [Every time you are about to be struck with a melee attack and are not helpless, there is a 5% chance of parrying that attack, taking no damage. This effect can proc once every 6 seconds.] In addition, if your offhand is:

Empty: you gain +0.5[W] modifier to your main-hand weapon. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%.
Shield: You gain an additional +5% parrying chance to your Deflect Melee feat.
Orb or Runearm: +10 Universal Spellpower and +1% spell crit chance.


Improved Single Weapon Fighting (reqs BAB 6 & SWF): while you have a 1H melee weapon in your main hand and no weapon in your offhand, you gain +5% Doublestrike. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5% (stacks w/SWF bonus). Your Deflect Melee feat gains an additional +5% parrying chance and can now proc once every 4 seconds. In addition, if your offhand is:

Empty: you gain +0.5[W] modifier to your main-hand weapon. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%.
Shield: You gain an additional +5% parrying chance to your Deflect Melee feat.
Orb or Runearm: +10 Universal Spellpower and +1% spell crit chance.


Greater Single Weapon Fighting (reqs BAB 11, SWF, and ISWF): while you have a 1H melee weapon in your main hand and no weapon in your offhand, you gain +5% Doublestrike. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5% (stacks w/ISWF bonus). Your Deflect Melee feat gains an additional +5% parrying chance and can now proc once every 2 seconds. In addition, if your offhand is:

Empty: you gain +0.5[W] modifier and Vorpal property to your main-hand weapon. If Precision is active, you reduce your target's fortification by an additional 5%.
Shield: You gain an additional +5% parrying chance to your Deflect Melee feat. You also gain the Counterattack ability: if you successfully parry a melee attack, you have a 5% chance of making an immediate counterattack on your attacker with a -5 to-hit penalty.
Orb or Runearm: +10 Universal Spellpower and +1% spell crit chance. You also gain a 5% Enhancement discount to the Spell Point cost of all your spells. [Does not stack with other Enhancement discounts such as Amauntor's Blessing.]


So if you have GSWF, then your bonuses based on your offhand are:



Empty: +15% doublestrike, -30% Fortification w/Precision, 15% Deflect Melee chance, +1.5[W], Vorpal
Shield: +15% doublestrike, -15% Fortification w/Precision, 30% Deflect Melee chance, Counterattack
Orb or Runearm: +15% doublestrike, -15% Fortification w/Precision, 15% Deflect Melee chance, +30 Universal Spellpower, +3% spell crit chance, -5% SP cost to all spells


I tried to include something interesting in GSWF for each offhand option. I made the numbers up; I'm sure it would take plenty of testing to decide if they should be tweaked higher or lower. I did NOT want it to depend on what armor you wear; and I wanted to keep it compatible with S&B. I also wanted it to be setup so your bonuses change based on what's in your offhand; i.e., keep it empty when you're trying to max out your melee DPS, swap in a shield if you need to fight defensively for a while, swap in an orb if you need a caster boost.

Swashbuckling has stricter restrictions than SWF, such as light armor and Finessable weapons, but adds extra bonuses, which seems reasonable. A conventional S&B toon could benefit from SWF (for doublestrike & defensive bonuses), THF (glancing blows), and Shield Mastery (doublestrike & PRR) if they can afford that many feats. While a battlecaster might want SWF for Deflect Melee + caster bonuses.

Yes, this is the kind of way to go that I think these feats should take. Make them useful for fighting with 1 hand, and give different benefits depending on what you do with you off hand (nothing, orb, rune-arm or even a shield). It should be a feat that low on feat classes can take for a solid base in fighting, or you can get deeper in (taking 2-3 feats and/or combine with THF for 1 and a half weapons or with shield feats for better S&B).

[Scrabbler]

Orb or Runearm: +15% doublestrike, -15% Fortification w/Precision, 15% Deflect Melee chance, +30 Universal Spellpower, +3% spell crit chance, -5% SP cost to all spells
Aside from problems with the concept of a SWF feat line, it looks very weird to attach large spellcasting bonuses to a melee feat. Quite a lot of Wizard players would be happy to spend 3 feats for 30 spow, 3% crit, and 5% efficiency. Then on top they get a 15% chance to prevent a melee hit!

Most bizarrely of all, that Wizard who trained GSWF to improve spell damage has also accidentally learned how to Vorpalize monsters simply by slipping one item back into his pocket... wacky. (Normally it takes a lot of Rogue, Fighter, or Monk levels to learn a Vorpal ability)

[Battery]

Single Weapon Fighting: Requires fighting with a single one-handed melee weapon, and wielding only an orb, runearm, or nothing in your offhand.

coming late to this thread and this may be a dumb question but why no bucklers? isn't that traditionally a swashbuckler thing?

[Silken-Akira]

thanks to put the revision of the tree and the feat line.

But what a letdown the featline is.
SHW are all about speed,staying flexible and so being able to dodge/parry a lot, finding the weak spots and wearing the opponent down when you are opposed to against a 2-hander. You don't see feel this at all in these feats.
also you choose to give it only some extra damage but so that it is no match for the other styles (some math shows us that this is even true when you use those weapons without feats....)
also this style has more potential when it complements something else. so I would even suggest to not it a 3 part chain but pour it in 1 feat with a scaling factor and leave room open for other new feats that build on this in different direction .Something for the S&B, something for the combination of SWF and Precision (Precision is very much in need of something to build anyway), and maybe one that adds some interesting debuffs. Making it more interesting for a lot of paths.

As for the improved tree, like it a lot more already.
Things I still don't like here are:
-En Pointe: Lose the SP cost (and even than I wouldn't take it but others might maybe)
- stats to Dam but not to hit ? especially for CHA and INT I would expect this
-the second tier of the swashbuckling style: it all looks promising in the first part and then you break it down with a 1 sec stun/knockdown/low gain on spellpower/ no interesting gain in a runearm because you need heavy artificier to make that one interesting anyway + on top of that a save in combination with spellpoint cost. --> it all needs something that makes it more interesting. more spellpowe or some extra crit chances. the runearm needs by a free prof in tier 1 of Swashbuckling and gets now a way to scale to something like half of the levels.
As for the 1sec +spellcost + save, you need to lose the spallcost or the save or prolong the duration. but something needs to happen there.
-Thread the needle : good on itself but still Precision not being part of some strong feat combinations still doesn't feel right to make people push to this as a prereq.

Finally something for the tree I can't get out of my mind. the pants down clicky: reducing the attack/move speed a lot as also the to hit and AC for a certain period (with cooldown and a save linked to perform)

I know that this reply is just a simplified stand of what many said before, still think it is important we voice it.

[Scrabbler]

coming late to this thread and this may be a dumb question but why no bucklers? isn't that traditionally a swashbuckler thing?
For one thing, the meaning of "swashbuckler" has really moved far away from using shields. But anyway, the ability to use Buckler items in conjunction with that feat is granted by a tier 3 enhancement in the Swashbuckler tree. (Although you might not want to train that one, because it removes 7% doublestrike; a bonus stronger than GSWF itself)

[ufo2013]

The Precision stance idea was something I'm unsure of mechanistically,... I don't know if having the Swashbuckler stance active will de-active other stances like Precision. I also really like the idea of Precision as a prerequisite to landing the killing blow, but if that negates the Swashbuckler stance within it's signature Prestige tree, that's problematic.


Not a problem since dev posted:

Tier Five

Thread the Needle: While Swashbuckling, +5 Attack Damage while the Precision feat is active.

[Khatzhas]

I actually wouldn't mind seeing some effect on a SWF style as part of the base Precision feat, without requiring additional SWF feats. In a similar fashion to the way that power attack doubles its value when used with a two-handed weapon.
Nothing excessive. Perhaps just an additional 10%-15% fortitude bypass.

[Delacroix21]

First off let me preface that I am writing this from a cruise ship of the Italian coast and it's costing me a dollar a minute, so obviously I am invested in this.


Second, I like the changes you made. It shows that you listened to the community (except about the slap in the face cooldown/duration)


But I must agree that the SWF feats are nothing but terrible, and I wouldn't even take them if I made a SWF toon (which would be purely for rp at this point). While I like unbongwahs suggestions, I believe they will be too difficult for the Devs to code and suggest easier changes.


As I have said before, let's look at baseline SWF allready in DDO (ie Druids)=
Druids get a bonus 30% attack speed with no feats
Druids get 3 feats for a total of 18% doublestrike


This is with no pres, eds, etc. this is baseline SWF, as no one considers Druids to be OP dps. The swfs feats proposed don't even come close to matching that, and are just plain awful.


Each combat style has a flavor and style, and yet you have given none to SWF.
TWF gives allot of hits (a lot of weapon procs etc)
THF gives aoe and heavy hits/crits
SWF gives= ?


You stated you wanted to make SWF focused on crits, and I believe that is a good goal. The 3 feats should provide attack speed, and increased crit range, and fort bypass. Then not only is it viable but it also has a unique flavor and style. Also these feats need to be auto grants to this pre as bards can't spare the feats.

[Bart_D]

[SWF feats]At low levels, the first of these gives +1 damage. At mid heroic levels, two of these give +3 damage. At high heroic levels, all three give +4.5 damage. At early epic levels +6 damage. At the very highest levels, certain weapons will get +15 damage from these feats.

These numbers look really really small to me.
- The base TWF feat gives 40% offhand proc chance which is more damage than all three SWF feats.
- Equipping a THF weapon will be more damage than all three SWF feats, just from higher strength multiplier and base glancing blows. [Cardtrick's comparison greatly favors the SWF and should in no way be used to argue that the numbers are close]

Additionally, as others have said, these feats have no style. It could be hitting really fast, hitting very precisely (though this would make sense as part of Precision), critting a lot, parrying, dodging, ripostes, or something else. But it should really have something other than hitting a little bit harder.

[silinteresting]

so far nice but i would like to know what epic feats are being
designed to accompany the single weapon fighting feat line?

your friend sil :)

ps, i have read all pages in this thread but if i missed it please
point to said page thankyou.

[Coyopa]

Single Weapon Fighting
While Single-Weapon Fighting, your weapon die gains an additional +2 sides.

Single Weapon Fighting: Requires fighting with a single one-handed melee weapon, and wielding only an orb, runearm, or nothing in your offhand.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d10 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (Example: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 2 ranks of Balance


Improved Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Single Weapon Fighting increases to +4 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d12 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 4 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +6


Greater Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Improved Single Weapon Fighting increases to +6 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d14 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 7 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +11

LOL! These feats are so horribly bad that there really is no way to properly state how bad they really are.

First, spend a feat to get just +1 damage? So, three feats for a meagre +3 damage? You are joking, right?

Second, what happened to unlinking feats and enhancements? Where did that plan go? Why is this chain of feats tied to a prestige? And even more to the point, why is it tied to only ONE prestige?

Third, why do you think anyone - ANYONE - is going to waste three feats on these when they are playing an otherwise already feat-starved class? If you made these auto-grants for bards, at least then the player is not completely gimping their character to get +3 damage. As far as I am concerned, if you take even the first of these feats, you are gimping your character for +1 damage. Are you sure you guys actually play the game? And you're sure you play the same game we play? Because from where I am sitting, the answer to one of those questions is "no".

Finally, you pair these feats up with the wastage that is the Swashbuckler prestige in its current form and it is still more confirmation for me that you have no intent of making the bard anything other than a total flavor class. You've been given so many good ideas in so many threads over such a long period of time that it is just incredible to me that you have managed to come up with such a completely underwhelming set of ideas. You should just shelve this entire thing and stop wasting developer time on this. I am sure someone at Turbine cares about bards, but either they are not working on this project or they lack an understanding of what is wrong with bards.

[Coyopa]

First off let me preface that I am writing this from a cruise ship of the Italian coast and it's costing me a dollar a minute, so obviously I am invested in this.


Second, I like the changes you made. It shows that you listened to the community (except about the slap in the face cooldown/duration)


But I must agree that the SWF feats are nothing but terrible, and I wouldn't even take them if I made a SWF toon (which would be purely for rp at this point). While I like unbongwahs suggestions, I believe they will be too difficult for the Devs to code and suggest easier changes.


As I have said before, let's look at baseline SWF allready in DDO (ie Druids)=
Druids get a bonus 30% attack speed with no feats
Druids get 3 feats for a total of 18% doublestrike


This is with no pres, eds, etc. this is baseline SWF, as no one considers Druids to be OP dps. The swfs feats proposed don't even come close to matching that, and are just plain awful.


Each combat style has a flavor and style, and yet you have given none to SWF.
TWF gives allot of hits (a lot of weapon procs etc)
THF gives aoe and heavy hits/crits
SWF gives= ?


You stated you wanted to make SWF focused on crits, and I believe that is a good goal. The 3 feats should provide attack speed, and increased crit range, and fort bypass. Then not only is it viable but it also has a unique flavor and style. Also these feats need to be auto grants to this pre as bards can't spare the feats.

These are good ideas. Developers should take heed of this post.

[BigErkyKid]

I don't know if this is possible, but I would like to see the internal calculations the devs are doing.

It is very obvious that right now 1h fighters (shielders mainly) are far behind damage wise. A good way of seeing whether these feats are good would be to take a base character, spec it TWF , THF and 1HF with all the feats.

Then compute the different DPS outcomes. Adjust as needed with the crucial variables - crit range, crit multipleir and +W. I agree that current 1H feats are just horrible. But maybe it is me not doing the numbers right, so as opposed to leaving us guessing, the devs should post their own computations, streamlined if you wish, to show what they have in mind.

Right now, I simply do not understand how they can think this is a good boost and that it scales well with level.

[unbongwah]

Quite a lot of Wizard players would be happy to spend 3 feats for 30 spow, 3% crit, and 5% efficiency. Then on top they get a 15% chance to prevent a melee hit!
That may well be. TBH, I don't know why Turbine incorporated orbs into Swashbuckler, but I was trying to build on that. Like I said, the numbers will probably need tweaking. :)

Most bizarrely of all, that Wizard who trained GSWF to improve spell damage has also accidentally learned how to Vorpalize monsters simply by slipping one item back into his pocket... wacky. (Normally it takes a lot of Rogue, Fighter, or Monk levels to learn a Vorpal ability)
Since the nerf to Vorpal, I don't consider it particularly powerful anymore, since more often than not the 100 dmg procs, not the instakill, and it doesn't scale up with levels, though it does do extra dmg to helpless targets. Three feats to gain an ability you can find on lootgen weapons? If anything, I was worried people would complain it was too weak!

[SirShen]

Single Weapon Fighting
While Single-Weapon Fighting, your weapon die gains an additional +2 sides.

Single Weapon Fighting: Requires fighting with a single one-handed melee weapon, and wielding only an orb, runearm, or nothing in your offhand.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d10 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (Example: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 2 ranks of Balance


Improved Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Single Weapon Fighting increases to +4 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d12 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 4 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +6


Greater Single Weapon Fighting
Your bonus for Improved Single Weapon Fighting increases to +6 sides.

For instance, a 1d8 weapon instead deals 1d14 damage. This only functions for weapons with a single base weapon die (aka: This wouldn't function for weapons that do 2d4 base damage.)

Feat Requirement: 7 ranks of Balance, Base Attack Bonus +11



Am i missing something? you want us to use weapons that are level 9 and under for the SWF feats to work, you are having a laugh. I wont be using these feats at all they are useless.

[Nédime]

As always when it comes to bards I have the disturbing feeling that character balance is taken far more seriously than with any other class.
I mean, allow ppl to use antique greataxe while centered - that's okay. Furyshot ? nothing game-breaking. Nerve venom & double rainbow on magic missile ? Who would even want to think it's OP ? But STOP adding a couple more dmg one a one handed weapon for a bard PrE (at the cost of 3 (yes THREE) feats and we all know that bards aren't feat starved I mean, wel , yeah, they are) WAIT we have to watch this carefully okay so we'll increase the dies but not for weapons that do more than one die.

Okay we'll give you a stun but no more than 1 seconds (ie when the animation is over the mob is no longer stunned - not even sure one would be able to place a single attack that would benefit from the stunned condition).

Oh stop whining we'll give you evasion, but at level 20.

Come on devs I know you try to watch for game balance but I can assure you than the danger doesn't come from bards. Even if it was the case, I personnally believe they'd deserve some OP-ness lol after all those years wasted in SP songs and fascinates that no one ever cared about.

***

Okay I needed to begin with some negativity ...

Now to be more constructive.

1. I really love the overall idea. Some more Yarr and touché to the combat style is a good addition.

2. I aggree with the consensus which states that the SWF line is underwhelming and needs some rework. Maybe, as it has been stated, a drastic change in philosophy ? (doublestrike, armor piercing, improved crits, dodge or even some kind of combination of all these ... ?)
Maybe either the number of feats could be decreased and/or have at least first one granted for bard level ** ?

3. The tier 5 needs something powerful, please. At least once give us somehting that wouldn't be flavor only. I reallly like the "coup de grâce" idea. (for instance magical backlash, assassinate, slayer arrow and a good death are tier 5 abilities)


As a general idea, thanks for having taken into consideration some of the things that have been said in first thread, and for keeping this a discussion where players have a word.

[Dendrix]

The SWF Feats as presented are very underpowered. Each SWF feat gives on average +1 damage to a weapon. That's far too little. As presented I can see no character of mine that would ever choose these over TWF/THF feats. There is a "hidden penalty" in all of the SWF feats of an equipment slot - you are required to have your off hand free. That is a massive penalty, you lose all the melee effects from that hand such as seeker or shield AC, HP, fort etc. That is a really really big penalty.

Don't allow SWF feats to work with 2handed weapons. It's a level of complexity and balance that is not necessary neither THF or TWF feats affect other fighting fighting styles.


For the SWF feats to justify their existance they should provide similar benefits to existing feats. Unless they are good enough to choose over other feats then players simply won't choose them and any development time spent on them is wasted.

The best feat comparison for a SWF feat is is with a TWF feat IMO.

Each TWF feat gives +20% to the damage of an offhanded weapon - they increase the chance for an offhanded attack by 20%. They give 20% of the weapon damage, plus all the effects on the weapon (weapon procs etc) as well as all the class, feat and enhancement bonus you hav with that weapon.

A SWF feat should increase the total damage done by the weapon by 20%, including all the the effects/feats/enhancement/etc on the weapon. Work out the total damage done and rolled, calculate 20% and then add that as extra bane damage to the weapon.

Normally you would offhand a light weapon with slightly less damage than a "normal" rather than a "normal" weapon unless you have oversized weapon fighting, it's arguable that the penalty fo giving up your offhand equipment slot of much greater than the cost of buying oversized weapon fighting. On that basis 20% damage of primary weapon seems very restrained.

Every time you look at the damage done by SWF ask yourself, why would I choose SWF feat over using a dagger and a TWF fear?
Any SWF feat that gives less than 20% of the total weapon damage is less effective than a TWF feat and will not be chosen.

[Free2Pay]

Please move Slap in the Face to Tier One.

[Scrabbler]

Am i missing something? you want us to use weapons that are level 9 and under for the SWF feats to work, you are having a laugh. I wont be using these feats at all they are useless.
You're missing that the limit to one die is only for the second number, not the first number.
Anything that is 1[1d8], 2[1d4], 2.5[1d6] etc will work, which includes most usual high-level one-hand weapons. What won't work is 1[2d4], 2[2d6], 2.5[2d12] etc, and those things are extremely rare.

It's not actually logically consistent for them to limit it that way, but it doesn't matter because those feats are excessively weak anyhow.

[unbongwah]

Am i missing something? you want us to use weapons that are level 9 and under for the SWF feats to work, you are having a laugh. I wont be using these feats at all they are useless.
You are missing something. :) The issue is the SWF feats wouldn't work with weapons with more than 1 die roll base dmg; e.g., Agony (http://ddowiki.com/page/Agony,_the_Knife_in_the_Dark) b/c base weapon dmg is 2d4. However, the +[W] modifiers aren't an issue; e.g., with full SWF line, Balizarde (http://ddowiki.com/page/Balizarde) would go from 2.5[1d8] to 2.5[1d14], IIUC. Vargo stated somewhere else that Turbine would probably revise the base weapon die of some 1H weapons to make them "SWF-compatible;" e.g., Agony would probably go from 2d4 to 1d8.

It's still a pretty weaksauce feat line, IMHO, but it's not quite as useless as you fear. :)

[Free2Pay]

Do Bard get SWF feats for free? I can't imagine anyone will want to invest in these anyway so please give them to Bards.

[Scrabbler]

Every time you look at the damage done by SWF ask yourself, why would I choose SWF feat over using a dagger and a TWF fear?
Any SWF feat that gives less than 20% of the total weapon damage is less effective than a TWF feat and will not be chosen.
And any SWF feat that gives 20% of the total weapon damage is at least as effective as a TWF feat, making it very overpowered.

The devs have put themselves in a dilemma: If the SWF chain is much weaker than TWF, people won't use the new SWF thing. But if SWF is about as strong as TWF, then that is horribly unfair to all TWF players, who are going through the effort of collecting twice the weapons for no benefit.

There are two ways to get past that problem: The hard way: Come up with a whole new role for SWF that is less damaging than TWF, but has other interesting advantages to make it just as good. Judging by the poor balance of other parts of the game, the odds are against such a tricky achievement.
The easy way: Give up on the goal of SWF having "similar power and scope to Two-Weapon Fighting". Accept that SWF will simply be weaker than TWF, and make up for it by lowering the number of feats, reducing prerequisites, and allowing bigger benefits from Swashbuckler enhancements. (Following that, they'd also have to reduce the number of Swash enhancements that strictly conflict with TWF/THF)

[Caprice]

I had two previous comments about how the Swashbuckler tree strangely discourages Rapiers, and here's another:
Did you notice that tier 5 Exploit Weaknesses and tier 2 En Point favor Light Pick over other weapons? (Remember that Bards have a spell for Pick proficiency)
Yes, light picks are going to get some perks here over other weapon choices. However there are also no named Light Picks in the game at all. I would much rather be using a Balizarde/Celestia with improved base damage & crit profiles and 4-5 bonuses each over a ML 23 lootgen light pick with just 2 effects. Similarly while leveling there are literally dozens of nice named rapiers or shortswords available with extra damage, crit, or effects. You can make GS/Alchemical/TF light picks and those will be great, but otherwise your options are quite limited and if you are TRing you won't find them nearly as useful in other lives.

Besides, isn't it nice that every now and then a new option opens up in the game rather than everyone gravitating to exactly the same weapon choices? I agree that "light pick" isn't really the expected "flavor" for swashbuckling, but personally I would enjoy seeing Dwarven pick-based dirges showing up more frequently.

[SirShen]

You're missing that the limit to one die is only for the second number, not the first number.
Anything that is 1[1d8], 2[1d4], 2.5[1d6] etc will work, which includes most usual high-level one-hand weapons. What won't work is 1[2d4], 2[2d6], 2.5[2d12] etc, and those things are extremely rare.

It's not actually logically consistent for them to limit it that way, but it doesn't matter because those feats are excessively weak anyhow.


You are missing something. :) The issue is the SWF feats wouldn't work with weapons with more than 1 die roll base dmg; e.g., Agony (http://ddowiki.com/page/Agony,_the_Knife_in_the_Dark) b/c base weapon dmg is 2d4. However, the +[W] modifiers aren't an issue; e.g., with full SWF line, Balizarde (http://ddowiki.com/page/Balizarde) would go from 2.5[1d8] to 2.5[1d14], IIUC. Vargo stated somewhere else that Turbine would probably revise the base weapon die of some 1H weapons to make them "SWF-compatible;" e.g., Agony would probably go from 2d4 to 1d8.

It's still a pretty weaksauce feat line, IMHO, but it's not quite as useless as you fear. :)

Thank u so much for explaining, yes not as bad as i feared but still not that great.

[Coyopa]

Oh, while we are working on bards, can we FINALLY have the anthem effect on the Blasting Chime and other items fixed? Unless and until that is fixed, my bard would be stuck using just the epic Elyd Edge. It's possible she might still be stuck using only that because of the spellpower bonuses it gives, but if it is the only thing in the game with working anthem, then I know she'll be stuck with it.

[Steelstar]

Am i missing something? you want us to use weapons that are level 9 and under for the SWF feats to work, you are having a laugh.

That's not what's meant in the original post. A weapon with more than one Weapon Die Multiplier, such as the base Alchemical Dwarven Waraxe 2[1d10] would work fine.

The few that wouldn't are items with more than one base Weapon Die, like the Axe of Famine, which is [2d8].

Our current list of weapons that wouldn't work under those rules is:
Agony, Knife in the Dark
Axe of Famine
Braisingstar
Zephyr (Heroic Only)
Shining Crescents
Obsidian Dagger
Axe of the Unseen Blow
Xoriat Forged Blade
Tharkuul's Bane
Coronation
Phosphor
Twinblade
Sheridan's Ruin
Sheridan's Wrack

If you're aware of any others, please let us know.

[Teh_Troll]

So . . . did this terrible idea get any better in the last 12 pages?

[SirShen]

That's not what's meant in the original post. A weapon with more than one Weapon Die Multiplier, such as the base Alchemical Dwarven Waraxe 2[1d10] would work fine.

The few that wouldn't are items with more than one base Weapon Die, like the Axe of Famine, which is [2d8].

Our current list of weapons that wouldn't work under those rules is:
Agony, Knife in the Dark
Axe of Famine
Braisingstar
Zephyr (Heroic Only)
Shining Crescents
Obsidian Dagger
Axe of the Unseen Blow
Xoriat Forged Blade
Tharkuul's Bane
Coronation
Phosphor
Twinblade
Sheridan's Ruin
Sheridan's Wrack

If you're aware of any others, please let us know.

Thank You Steelstar.

[der_kluge]

Why on Earth does the swashbuckler not get evasion until level 20?? Sorry, but if I played a Swashbuckler, I'm still splashing 2 rogue levels right up front. No way am I slogging through 2/3rds of the game without evasion.

Not useful.

[DagazUlf]

So . . . did this terrible idea get any better in the last 12 pages?

Nope. Still stinks like that roadkill you pass on your way to work/school/ice cream parlor.

[Caprice]

So . . . did this terrible idea get any better in the last 12 pages?
Any better? Technically yes, because in the original post Vargouille omitted the Sonic spellpower scaling on Resonant Arms and Tune Arm/Music Box and after this was pointed out it was corrected (per Steelstar (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/441556-Swashbuckler-Update-amp-Single-Weapon-Fighting-Feats?p=5323658&viewfull=1#post5323658)). So that is an improvement over the 12 pages. You should decide for yourself if that is enough better to make a difference. ;-)

[merridyan]

Why on Earth does the swashbuckler not get evasion until level 20?? Sorry, but if I played a Swashbuckler, I'm still splashing 2 rogue levels right up front. No way am I slogging through 2/3rds of the game without evasion.

Not useful.

Really? Evasion is required for heroic now? I haven't played heroic in a few months, did it get harder or something?

[Coyopa]

That's not what's meant in the original post. A weapon with more than one Weapon Die Multiplier, such as the base Alchemical Dwarven Waraxe 2[1d10] would work fine.

The few that wouldn't are items with more than one base Weapon Die, like the Axe of Famine, which is [2d8].

Our current list of weapons that wouldn't work under those rules is:
Agony, Knife in the Dark
Axe of Famine
Braisingstar
Zephyr (Heroic Only)
Shining Crescents
Obsidian Dagger
Axe of the Unseen Blow
Xoriat Forged Blade
Tharkuul's Bane
Coronation
Phosphor
Twinblade
Sheridan's Ruin
Sheridan's Wrack

If you're aware of any others, please let us know.

The fact remains the SWF feats are terrible as currently designed. Even once you improve these feats, they need to be auto-granted to bards. This will still force bards to make meaningful choices and will not make bards over-powered or unbalanced. Rather, it will just give them worthwhile choices.

[Vargouille]

Some clarifications, answers, thoughts, and disappointments:

* We're not about to hand out runearm proficiency in a Bard enhancement tree. Runearms and Orbs have some support for cross class and different build strategies so they can hopefully add to the number of viable builds. You are not supposed to be able to replace 'being an Artificer' with a few Action Points.
* Bastard Swords are not for Swashbuckling. These are weapons that have plenty of support already. We realize some players would like to take current characters and just start Swasbuckling, but we'd much rather make some other builds options (more) viable. Put another way, we'd rather shore up builds that are lacking than keep pushing the stronger builds, and we're pretty sure most players support this.


Don't allow SWF feats to work with 2handed weapons. It's a level of complexity and balance that is not necessary neither THF or TWF feats affect other fighting fighting styles.
This is certainly up for discussion. We'd have to figure out what it would mean to 'not allow it'. We could just put anti-requisites on THF, TWF, and SWF (which kills a few builds that could theoretically want to switch between them), or we could turn them into exclusive stances, or maybe something else. We'd have to spend some time investigating the possibilities.


so far nice but i would like to know what epic feats are being
designed to accompany the single weapon fighting feat line?

We're intentionally focusing on the main (heroic) feats right now and trying not to overly distract the conversation, but we are already considering what an Epic Single Weapon Fighting feat might look like.


I know that this reply is just a simplified stand of what many said before, still think it is important we voice it.

We love to hear many voices. It's useful and fine to chime in with agreement on specific points that others may have. Thanks for chiming in.


Coupe De Grâce

It's an interesting idea, still up for consideration.


I think incomparables (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg8fVtKyYxY) (dodge, parry, tactics, defense in general...) is a better option than just tacking doublestrike and attack speed to match whatever TWF chain gives out, or the raw power of THF weapons.

There are definitely some good design reasons for this, and we're still considering this as a possibility (as previously mentioned).


Directly comparing, it makes sense that the clear off-hand benefit SHOULD be better than any of the other options, because you simply are losing a gear slot for an enhancement.

This is completely correct. Being able to wear an item that increases in power as you level is a significant boost.


Do the single weapon feats work with shields? if not what in the world was the intent to buff THF instead of sword and board.

As mentioned in the original post, SWF doesn't work with shields (except for the Swashbuckler exception for Bucklers, in the Swashbuckler tree), and we have some longer range plans to address shield and throwing builds.


I don't think anyone will take tavern shanties, except for an additional point.

We're pretty sure some bards are going to be happy to have more songs. Some of these players might be Spellsingers or Warchanters, of course.


A different tack should be lower on the tree imo. Switch it with fast movement.

We're quite happy asking for at least three bard levels for these three abilities, and to not front-load this key feature, instead putting the scaling ability earlier in the tree.


Since Vargouille's response didn't outright tell us not to do math :), I figured I'd give it a try. This whole post is about the SWF feats, not the Swashbuckler enhancement tree.

Great post, some good thoughts.

[Ebondevil]

I would just like to throw out there, the idea that Swashbuckler would, I believe, probably make a lot more sense as a Human PrE (also available to Half Elves), rather than a Bard one (just need to strip out a couple of Bard centric things).

Edit To Clarify:
This couild be done by removing/Replacing Tavern Shanties, and Removing the Spellpoint requirements from Insults.

[Havok.cry]

Here is my take on what the SWF feats should be like:
I don't think they should be pure DPS boosters. There I said it. A single longsword matching the power of two longswords or a greatsword is a ridiculous idea in my opinion. So I would make them more defensive rather than offensive, with some function that adds DPS with defense. Also I would have them work with shields. S&B could use the love.

Single Weapon Fighting: Any qualifying weapon that you wield gains riposte X, where X scales based on character level
Improved Single Weapon Fighting: Add your BaB as a miss chance that stacks with dodge, displacement, and incorporeal.
Greater Single Weapon Fighting: Any time you are missed you deal damage to the attacker as if you had hit them with the qualifying weapon. This may only occur once, but is reset when you make an attack.

Maybe the numbers would need to be altered, but that is basically what I would like to see from it.

[DemonStorm333]

ok so I looked at it and the major of the tree is usless for a bard with anything but a finessable weapon. unless im wrong and someone plz tell me if I am swashbuckler is only useful to a bard withought a finessable weapon if they want cha to hit an dmg withought taking pdk

o0o and the fast movement