Swashbucklery/Fencer type character

[Thalion]

I'm looking forward to getting the game this weekend.

 

I'm more interested in the RP aspect so am not concerned with having a min-maxed character.  Rather, I'm looking to see if a concept is at least viable.

 

What I'd like to play is a swashbucklery fencer type character who is charismatic/diplomatic.  During combat situations, I'm not necessarily interested in having him be high DPS or a tanking machine.  If all he does is lock down a single foe for the combat while the rest of the party deals with everything else, I'm pretty fine with that.

 

My first thought was to go with rogue, but fighter would be fine as well. Paladin is okay as well.  Heck, I'm willing to consider just about anything as long as it's a melee non-caster.

 

Ideally, runs around in light armor (but this isn't a requirement) and must wield one handed weapons (no shield).  Has to be an elf.

 

Again, I'm not concerned with him being min-maxed... I'm planning on running on normal or even easy (heck, I'm not proud).  I just want something viable that's not going to get squished every time.

[Matt516]

Anything reasonable is viable if you play it right - even on Hard, really.

 

Fighter will get you some nice choices between offensive/defensive models, as well as a weapon specialization (that gives damage - separate from the one everyone gets that gives accuracy). I imagine you'll want to use rapiers, maybe with a breastplate or padded armor for the true fencer look. Top it off with a tricorn hat.

 

Chanter would also be an option for you - they have quite high accuracy and deflection, with the ability to passively buff the party while they fight and occasionally summon stuff.

 

Rogue would also work. So much damage.

 

For RP and combat, you'll probably want to pump DEX and PER or RES (for intuitive and/or charismatic dialogue options). Could also pump INT for dialogue options, but I don't think that'd get you much in combat with a fighter.

 

Have fun!

Edited April 9, 2015 by Matt516

[ShadowTiger]

There is a nice cavalier hat and also a tricorn hat you can get early on (no bonuses, but look cool). Good luck!

 

I would suggest paladin just because clerics and paladins get extra dialogue options nobody else does based on their religion.

Edited April 9, 2015 by ShadowTiger

[Moira]

Rogue would give the benefit of Sneak Attacks, which work when an enemy is flanked or otherwise hindered (no stealth needed). You'll definitely want to pair your swashbuckler with a good tanky friend (the first NPC companion you can pick up will do wonderfully) and attack enemies from the side while they have their eyes on the tank. This enables you to wear light armor - maybe only clothes, that can be enchanted to have some Damage Resistance. Très chic! Maybe throw in a pistol as the other weapon, open with a blast and then rush to melee with the tank.

 

If you wish to face your opponents directly, you'll need to do some tanking yourself; boost stats that give Deflection in character creation. Paladins and Chanters can be built as great tanks although such builds often involve heavy armor.

[mazeltov]

One way to do a build like this would be to focus on steady damage output with a Sabre. But that might not be defensive enough for a classical fencer type.

 

Another way to do it would be to develop a Deflection Fighter or Paladin and use Measured Restraint, a unique rapier enchanted with absurd accuracy bonuses and the ability to lock down an extra target in combat. Darcozzi Paladin would probably be best because as you pick more swashbucklery Clever/Passionate dialogue choices, that unlocks even more of those types of dialogues in addition to making the Paladin ever tankier through a class ability. Panache = power. Aside from reputations, Resolve and Perception are the most important conversation stats, and they also happen to be the key tanking stats as well. It aaaaall comes together.

 

Measured Restraint location:

 

level 2 of the Endless Paths, under the player stronghold

 

[AncientToaster]

Paladin would probably be the best class for this build. It just fits better in the lore, and I think the abilities and auras would work well here.

 

Plus I think wearing a duelists hat and some plate armor would look boss. 

[Thalion]

What is a "deflection" fighter?  Is that a specific type of build?

[gkathellar]

(no shield).

 

Amusingly, the word "swashbuckler" comes from young noblemen who would wander around town looking for fights, banging their swords against (swashing) their bucklers.

 

I hope you can appreciate the irony in that.

[KDubya]

What is a "deflection" fighter?  Is that a specific type of build?

 

A deflection fighter would be a fighter that has a high per and res and uses defender/wary defender to keep deflection high. Does not necessarily use a shield.

 

Here is a level 7 pale elf swashbuckler I whipped up. He has Noble focus and spec (for rapier, also gets mace for penetrating DR), defender and wary defender (modal ability that gets you +15 deflection, +10 all saves, +2 engagements at the cost of 0.8 attack speed), one armed style (converts 30% of grazes to hits), armored grace ( for -16% armor penalty) and disciplined barrage (for 10 seconds of +10 accuracy for burst damage, could go knockdown instead).

 

His armor penalty with padded is only 4%, his 19 dex gets him +27% action speed, defender slows it by 0.8 so all together it'd be about +3% attack speed wearing padded armor while running defender mode.

 

With a single fine rapier he has a 75 accuracy which should get a lot of crits and interrupts. He has a 76 deflection while running defender mode.

 

His might is only 10 so will depend a lot on getting crits to boost his damage. The int is dumped to 3 to pay for all the rest, this only reduces the duration of disciplined barrage or knockdown, a fair trade off in my opinion.

[ErlKing]

I suggest paladin with Darcozzi Paladini order, because of passionate/clever is right on spot for that type of character you looking for. Paladins in PoE are not casters (not priest+figter thing), though they have some buffs, but that one is inspiration themed. You can build your paladin as you want - tank, damager (not really good one, but still), half-tank.

[Thalion]

Thanks for all the suggestions!

 

Pity you can't leech abilities from other classes.  A fighter or paladin that could use the rogue riposte ability would have been perfect!

[Moira]

I got inspired to try a swashbuckler myself (thanks OP!). I tested out both paladin and rogue but am having more fun with the latter so far. Sneak Attack allows rapier to make significant damage, and dual wielding light blades makes attacking satisfyingly fast.

 

What kind of character did you end up making, Thalion?

[Thalion]

I ended going with rogue as well.  At normal difficulty, I don't think it really mattered.  I went high resolve and perception to pump up his deflection as much as possible.  I also have Eder and a custom paladin to do most of the tanking.

 

With the Grieving Mother always providing a flanking bonus, I can pretty safely just go one on one with a target ,especially with a priest to provide healing just in case.

 

I've gone with a single handed rapier and my second set is with a pistol, which is what I open up battles with.  I shoot once, let my tanks engage and then charge anyone that's kind of hanging around

 

Honestly though, with combat moving as quickly as it does, it's pretty hard to actually get the feel that my character is in a swashbucklery type duel.  There's just so much going on.

 

Still, it's been pretty fun so far.

[Crucis]

Some thoughts on this concept. 

 

1. A Swashbuckler type of character could use a saber as easily as a rapier.  Also, I could see such a character using a dagger in his off-hand, though unfortunately there are no daggers that I know of that give any sort of defensive bonus, which is one reason why I envision swashbucklers carrying an off-hand dagger in the first place... to use as a defensive "weapon" rather than offensively.  In the context of PoE, it'd have to be a hatchet, or nothing at all.

 

1a.  I'd suggest taking Saber over Rapier so that you could most efficiently use the Weapon Focus Ruffian talent, which includes both Saber and Pistol (as well as blunderbuss).  A saber and pistol seem like a perfect match for a swashbuckler.

 

2. I think that one could play a swashbuckler character as a Fighter class, as long as you made certain to make the most of the defensive talents available to the fighter class to enhance his deflection save as much as possible.

 

For talents (fighter-specific or otherwise), I'd suggest Defender, Wary Defender, Weapon Focus Ruffian (for sabers and pistols), perhaps Weapon Mastery Ruffian. Possibly One Handed Weapon Style.   Basically any talent that will enhance the character's deflection defense.

 

3. Obviously, plenty of points in PER and RES would be good for the base deflection save.  And some INT would be good for the PC's chance for diplomatic/INT-based dialog options.  A few points in Might would seem useful so that the PC wasn't too anemic offensively.  And a good DEX would be good for the attack speed if the PC was going to run around in light armor.   Of course, this sort of build seems rather stat intensive with few places to save stat points.

 

4. While the OP stated that he wanted to play the character as an elf, I think that the build could be done with many different races.  Culturally though, it'd seem like the Deadfire Archipelago would be the region to come from, since it sounds the more likely place to breed swashbucklers, at least to me, though I suppose that Ruratai is also a possibility, particularly for Aumaua PC's. 

 

I think that if one wasn't too, too hung up on sticking to the stereotype, I could also see a swashy wearing something like a breastplate, though probably nothing heavier.  OTOH, I could also see enchanting regular "clothes" to be a form of uber-light armor, if one wanted to go to an extreme in the other direction.

 

 

This sort of build seems possible.  I don't know how viable it'd be, though it probably could work. I'm half-tempted to try it out myself.  About the only glitch I see is this question.  Why would a swashbuckler character have been in that caravan in the intro in the first place? 

[KDubya]

Some thoughts on this concept. 

 

1...snip...

 

This sort of build seems possible.  I don't know how viable it'd be, though it probably could work. I'm half-tempted to try it out myself.  About the only glitch I see is this question.  Why would a swashbuckler character have been in that caravan in the intro in the first place? 

 

The reasoning for being in the caravan could be as simple as fleeing the law. I think it is Deadfire Archipelago that has a Raider background. You could be a pirate "AARGH" 

 

I agree with the ruffian group, pistols, blunderbuss, stilettos and sabres sounds like both a good roleplaying choice and a good game mechanics choice.

 

The single weapon style is pretty lackluster in what it brings, but on PotD where monster deflection is much higher the graze>hit mechanic might start to shine.

[Exoduss]

Ruffian Build : Island Aumaua , Quick Switch , Arms Bearer ,  3 Blunderbuss , 2x Sabre - rest depends on your class :D 

 

Edit : Duelist Hat i think is the Musketeer type of hat that suits the build ! 

Edited April 18, 2015 by Exoduss

[Crucis]

 

Some thoughts on this concept. 

 

1...snip...

 

This sort of build seems possible.  I don't know how viable it'd be, though it probably could work. I'm half-tempted to try it out myself.  About the only glitch I see is this question.  Why would a swashbuckler character have been in that caravan in the intro in the first place? 

 

The reasoning for being in the caravan could be as simple as fleeing the law. I think it is Deadfire Archipelago that has a Raider background. You could be a pirate "AARGH" 

 

I agree with the ruffian group, pistols, blunderbuss, stilettos and sabres sounds like both a good roleplaying choice and a good game mechanics choice.

 

The single weapon style is pretty lackluster in what it brings, but on PotD where monster deflection is much higher the graze>hit mechanic might start to shine.

 

 

I actually created a swashbuckler, though I'll probably only play it when I want to take a break from my cipher which is a lot further along (though still in act 1).

 

My swashbuckler is a female pale elf fighter named Nya, from the Deadfire Archipelago with a Raider background.  I promise that I didn't read your post before making her.  We just ended up thinking along the same lines.  I didn't even know there was a raider background, but it was perfect for what I was looking for.

 

For what it's worth, I chose Pale Elf for a number of minor reasons.  First, I just wanted to try something different.  Secondly, I wanted to use that Female Pale Elf pic.  Third, when one uses a normal Elf, it's hard to not want to take advantage of their innate talent for ranged weapons.  But a Pale Elf doesn't have that ranged weapon affinity, so it's easier to be willing to play a Pale Elf in melee without having this nagging little voice in the back of my head saying "Use a bow!  You know you want to!  All real elves use bows!  Elf up and grab a bow!"

 

I haven't gotten her out of the initial dungeon yet, and, IIRC, it'll be a while before she can get a pistol or blunderbuss, so she'll just have to settle for a box or xbow.  Probably xbow because I'm having her act as more of a melee fighter with the xbow being an opening shot.  (As an aside, I find that the highest damage ranged weapons are great for front line fighters who only intend to fire a single shot before charging into melee.  Not that it's any great revelation.  It just makes sense.  Bows are better for dedicated archers who intend to stay back and pew-pew-pew the enemy.)

 

As for single weapon style, look at it this way.  If you go single 1H weapon, you get an accuracy bump for simply wielding the 1H weapon without anything on the off hand. And when you then combine that with the 1H weapon style, you have an increased chance of getting stronger hits.  Come to think of it ... if you have a high base acc to start and you add in the single handed weapon wielding, you may not see all that many grazes (maybe?).  And if that's true, then 1H weapon style's converting grazes to hits begins to look less valuable.  Might have been better if it converted some natural grazes into hits and some natural hits into crits.

 

In truth, I'm not nearly as committed to only using a single weapon as the OP of this thread, and could see going with dual wielding.  Dual wielding a saber and dagger/stiletto would be perfect, except that to get any defensive bonus from the off-hand weapon, it really needs to be a hatchet which seems a smidge non-swashy.

 

Back to single weapon style.... I was just thinking about the 1H style vs weapon/shield style.  I realize that it's almost certain that the devs didn't want the styles to have the same benefits.  Makes sense.  Then it occurred to me that maybe having the weapon and shield style give a shield defl bonus may have been the wrong thing to do.  Maybe it should have given an acc bonus to offset the penalty you take for using a shield in the first place.  And then give the single weapon style a defl bonus instead of the current benefit, on the theory that the single weapon style teaches one not how to use the single weapon more offensively, but how to use it more DEFENSIVELY, as in how to parry your enemy's attacks better and so on.  Just a thought.

 

 

 

 

 

[KDubya]

The Resolution sabre comes with 20% graze to hit, with single weapon it'd go to 50%graze to hit conversion., it also has an increased crit multiplier which would greatly benefit from the increased crit rate that single wielding will get due to the +12 accuracy. Seems it was custom made for a single wielder.

 

In a bad situation where your accuracy was 50 points less than the monster's deflection (due to deflection or being debuffed/blinded):

 

Normal guy

0-65 miss

65-100 graze

 

one hand weapon

0-53 miss

53-88 graze

89-100 hit

 

one hand weapon with one hand style

0-53 miss

54-76 graze

77-100 hit

 

The one handed style would increase your hit rate from 12% to 23% compared to single wield without the style and any other attacker will at best get a graze. The higher the difficulty level the better the one handed style looks to get.