While everyone else was… doing whatever it is they do, the Swashbuckler studied the blade. This is the template for people who like precision, speed and elegance in their fighting style, but unlike the Martial Artist prefer to bring an actual sword to a swordfight.

The two templates share some of the same ethics, you could say. They emphasize the role of skill attained through countless hours of practice, and how that lets you transcend mortal limits. The Swashbuckler is less mystical about it, though, and its abilities are not tied to a specific power source or a set of rituals. After all, some of the most iconic swashbucklers of fiction live a life filled with booze and partying without losing any of their edge.

Base Stats

Swashbucklers start out with ST 11, DX 15, IQ 10, HT 13. They don’t modify any secondary stats, but their natural speed is already at 7.

Advantages

We get quite a bit to start with! Combat Reflexes, one level of Enhanced Parry with a specific weapon skill, Luck, Weapon Bond, and Weapon Master (One Weapon).

We already saw a lot of those, and it’s notable that the swashbuckler starts out with Combat Reflexes, Luck, and Weapon Master. Enhanced Parry and Weapon Bond are easy picks for someone who intends to focus on one specific weapon from the start, boosting defense rolls and general skill level for a relatively cheap price.

The table of discretionary advantages lets you choose 60 points worth and has the usual stat boosts, some social advantages and a lot of combat advantages oriented towards being really fast. They also let you expand Weapon Master to “Two Weapons”, “All Fencing Weapons”, or “All Swords”, though you mostly don’t need this unless the GM is really merciless about taking PC weapons away.

Disadvantages

The Swashbuckler shares a lot of disadvantage choices with the Bard, as the two often take inspiration from the same sources. Both could fit easily in the setting of the Three Musketeers or Cyrano de Bergerac.

The main difference here is a set of choices that indicate your Swashbuckler’s motivation for becoming so good with a sword. Do they follow the Gentleman’s Code of Honor and thus are always ready to avenge an insult? Do they have an obsession with becoming the world’s best swordfighter?

Have they taken a personal vow related to how they fight? That last one can be anything from the relatively harmless “I will only use my weapon of choice” to the more serious “I will never refuse a challenge to combat” or the nearly suicidal “I will never wear armor”. If you take that last one, be sure to boost your Parry and Dodge!

Skills

The offered melee skill packages are all the classic fencer loadouts. You either wield a single one-handed sword, or you can complement it with an off-hand dagger, cloak, or shield by spreading your points a little thinner. The sword will usually be a fencing weapon, but it doesn’t have to be.

You could also take the “one sword” package and the Ambidexterity advantage to wield two of them if your swashbuckler is more Miyamoto Musashi than Zorro. In any case you also get the Fast-Draw skills for the weapons you chose.

Your fixed skill list includes basic unarmed combat, throwing, and some social and mobility skills. The list of optional skills has the usual “delver lore” ones and lets you go deeper into mobility or socialization. Or perhaps you could take a more unusual backup weapon like a whip or lasso.

Special Swashbuckler Traits

Swashbucklers can improve Basic Speed by four levels over its base value, instead of just two. They also get access to a bunch of exclusive advantages, all of which are on their discretionary list.

  • Armor Familiarity (1 point/level): Fencing skills depend on mobility, and take penalties to attack and parry equal to your encumbrance level. Each level of this advantage lets you ignore one level of that penalty, which means you can wear heavier armor.

  • Daredevil (15 points): When you take a real and unecessary risk while attempting something, you get a +1 to all related success rolls, and may reroll critical failures, taking the second result instead. This is a mixed blessing, because it also incentivizes you to take those stupid risks for the bonus. The example in the book is calling out a challenge to the sleeping dragon instead of sneaking around it. Not the best idea in the world but hey, you’ll get a +1 to all rolls in that fight!

  • Enhanced Time Sense (45 points): You’re so fast you can see the world in bullet time. You always go before everyone else in combat, and you’re too fast to trigger delayed actions from people who don’t have this trait. If someone else in the fight has this trait, you figure out initiative order amongst yourselves, but you both still act before everyone who doesn’t have the trait.

    This is an upgrade to Combat Reflexes, and includes its benefits. You pay only the 30-point difference to get it if you already have Combat Reflexes.

  • Every One’s a Critical (15 points): You have an expanded critical range for your attack rolls, and if you don’t like the result rolled on the critical hits table you can reroll it and take the second result.

  • Great Void (10 points): When you retreat in combat, you can step an extra yard away from your foe. The defense bonus for retreating remains the same, but you can cover more ground.

  • Rapier Wit (5 points): This works exactly like the Bard’s Song of Humiliation, but it’s not magic and you don’t need to sing. You can use the highest of Intimidation or IQ for it, instead of Singing.

  • Springing Attack (10 points): If you can Concentrate for a turn to brace yourself, your next attack will do more damage, and you can spend 1 FP to take an extra step during the attack, either advancing 2 yards or stepping forward and then retreating.

Customization

Swashbucklers are all about being very good with one weapon or a pair of related weapons. Therefore, weapon choice is probably one of your most important decisions when making one. It’s sure to be a sword, and for a lot of characters it’s going to be a fencing weapon. Those are super expensive, so you want to use your quirk points to get the best sword you can.

Armor is usually a secondary consideration, as you don’t want to get too much and suffer encumbrance penalties when fighting. That concern goes away if you happen to take a non-fencing sword or if you get Armor Familiarity.

Speaking of that, your possible choice of advantages is extremely broad. A lot of them are about fighting better, but you’re already so good to start with you could instead branch into being the party’s backup socialite with Charisma and a positive Appearance. And once you get tired of improving your sword skills to new and more ridiculous heights, you have enough DX to become a good understudy to the Thief, or even “multiclass” into that archetype if your GM lets you.

The “This Ain’t D&D Section”

The simple fact of the Swashbuckler being here is already a big difference! The archetype doesn’t feature on any core book for any edition of D&D, though it’s often present in supplements. Often the Rogue class ends up taking many aspects of it in core books, in more recent D&D editions.

Stylistically, the two games are very similar here, since they draw from many of the same sources. DFRPG’s more granular melee combat rules again come in handy, as you can differentiate a Knight and a Swashbuckler very easily without having to introduce new abstract concepts like Pathfinder’s “Panache” rules.

Swashbucklers are incentivized to use their very high skill and relatively low strength to seek out and exploit enemy weak points, so this is the profession you take if you want to be a sassy git with a rapier and replicate the effects of “new-school” Sneak Attack.