Yuku free message boards

Rogues on their lonesome are pretty burly when it comes to melee. (In a friend's Castle Maure mini-series, I tried making all combinations of Ranger, Barbarian and Fighter with Rogue, before deciding that the single-class Rogue was pretty awesome. A decent CON offset the lack of a big hit die, and the BAB's worked out pretty close to the same. Plus the Rogue Special Talents were tempting enough to keep me focused in the class.)

I'm not a hundred-percent on this, but my group has always treated the Rapier as pretty much the one weapon you can Finesse and Power Attack with. So with a high DEX and a decent BAB, PA is one way for you to do a little more damage (although Sneak Attack is nice too).

With Rogue, I went short sword and shield, Wpn Finesse, Expertise and Imp Feint. With good armor, a Barkskin from the party Druid and all my BAB put into Expertise and Active Defense, I had about a 43 AC at 10th level. With that I was pretty comfortable tumbling into the second row of baddies to get flanking with the party Paladin, or standing next to him and using Imp Feint and taking a single attack. (Since I didn't have a Fighter BAB and was prone to putting points into AC, my secondary attacks were no great loss). With Sneak Attack, my damage stayed pretty much even with the Paladin (the tank).

I played a Ranger/Scout in a friend's game, going the TWF route to either Two-Weapon Pounce or Dual Strike. It's been awhile since I looked at that character, and the game ended right when I was getting to which ever of those I had settled on, so I can't really comment on the effectiveness. The only thing that really was working for me as a Scout was buffing with Reduce Person. I lost a point of damage to STR and a die for weapon size (d6 to d4), and got a +2 to hit and to AC (one for size, one for the DEX increase), and since most of my damage was from skirmish, losing the damage wasn't that big a deal. For a Wpn Finesser, being little works pretty good. (In addition to the mechanical bonuses, it also made it easier for the party Warlock to Fly me over the battle and drop me behind enemy lines, so I could Skirmish my way back to the front.

I think the Rogue-Fighter variant would be more useful if you could trade Sneak Attack for Feats interchangeably, although I guess at that point you might as well go Rogue and take some Fighter levels to get the Fort and HD bonus.

My fear with the Rogue-Fighter variant is that it isn't going to do much damage. It's a good way to go if you want a Feat-heavy Rogue build, but unless you're putting a lot of points into STR (which is pretty pointless if want to go the Wpn Fin route), it doesn't seem like it would be very effective. ("Effective" in this case meaning the ability to end lives, which I will go ahead and say is neither the end-all-be-all of character design nor even really required to make a fun character to play, but it's still a common yardstick.)

Going that route, if Disable Device and Search are the only skills that are important to the character, one could go Fighter and take Cosmopolitan (from FR, if that source is allowed) as a Feat to make either one of those in class. (I've toyed with the idea of making a Fighter who takes his Fighter feats for combat and his regular Feats in Cosmo and skill points-- the Feat in CAd that gives you 5 points and can be taken multiple times-- to be a well-rounded human being.)

But being a Swashbuckler usually means a lot of acrobatic jumping around, so that points to a class with a lot of skill points and a good list to choose from, and that points towards Rogue or Scout. Since we're already looking at Wpn Finesse and INT will likely be a key ability (since it adds to Dis Dev and Search), Swashbuckler looks like a good option too. I'd be inclined to go at least 3 levels in Swash (for the Insightful Strike ability, to add INT to damage), and then either Rogue or Scout. My preferences for Rogue aside, I would agree Scout makes a better choice for a swashbucklery-type, since the extra damage is based more on movement than stealth, and swashies are more about big gestures than quietly slipping a dagger into someone's side. I'd put the best stats in DEX, INT and CHA (and take Force of Personality to bolster the Will Saves), since most of your skills will key off of those, and then go with whatever chain of feats you like. I lean towards the Expertise route over Spring Attack, trusting the skill points in Tumble vs AoO's.


If you went human and took Fighter as your favored class, you could take two levels in Fighter and then keep Swash and Scout even to avoid the multiclassing penalties. That gives you two more feats to play with, if you're looking at a feat heavy build. Otherwise, I'd take Scout as the favored class, go Fighter 2/Swash 3/Scout X, and if I wasn't feat-starved, I probably wouldn't even bother with Fighter.

Edit: I apologize for adding this so late in the day, but I'm housesitting for a friend and it took me this long to figure out how to work the computer. With Swashbuckler and a decent INT, it also makes a PrC like Duelist (if that's the one I'm thinking of, with Unfettered Defense) an attractive choice.