Roguish Archetype: Swashbuckler 5e

Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

Shirtless and glistening in the sun, loose striped bandana adorned with a feather wrapped comfortably atop the mane of golden hair, the swashbuckler raises their rapier, smirk sliding onto their face. “Come at me then! Surely a hulking behemoth such as you can squash a lowly pirate like me!”

Swashbucklers are an entire mood. A vibe, if you will. They are charming, completely fictional pirates built on the archetype of the lovable scoundrel with too much charm for their own good. In theory, I adore this character type and want so badly to play one at the table. Unfortunately, the Swashbuckler roguish archetype doesn’t mechanically satisfy in the ways I need it to.

3rd Level: Fancy Footwork and Rakish Audacity

Fancy Footwork gives you a tool to freely dip in and out of melee combat that pairs particularly nicely with off-hand attacks and Extra Attack. Hypothetically, if I want to skirmish as a rogue, this is a great tool to enable that. I just need a reason to want to skirmish.

Rakish Audacity isn’t a good reason. Bonus to initiative is fine and all, and having another way to activate Sneak Attack is fine, but it doesn’t empower your rogue. At all.

Both these features enable Sneak Attack and skirmishing, but neither gives you a reason to fight like this. An archetype-less rogue is just as effective when attacking creatures with a shortbow from a safe distance using Steady Aim as a Swashbuckler is risking it all to dip in and out of a fight. Even a basic archetype-less rogue has tools to engage in this kind of combat, with Cunning Action providing you a bonus action disengage, and Sneak Attack encouraging mainly one attack a turn.

Beyond flair, beyond looks, why should a Swashbuckler rogue skirmish? Currently, there aren’t any good reasons to beyond the opportunity for an off-hand attack. Vanilla rogues can already do that, and have fine enough tools at navigating melee range they don’t need any of this.

9th Level: Panache

Panache is near and dear to my heart. I love “non-magical” charms like this, and desperately want more features to exist that use this kind of save. In play, it's a goading taunt that utilizes rogue’s Uncanny Dodge and Evasion defensive features pretty well in combat, and out of combat offers you an at-will kind of Charm Person.

I love Panache; it's an exceptional little utility boost for rogues in and out of combat. If only they started with this and I didn’t have to wait for nine levels to start doing the charming swashbuckler thing.

13th Level: Elegant Maneuver

Beyond being an out-of-combat at-will advantage to Acrobatics and Athletics checks, Elegant Maneuver seems to be aimed at helping you escape grapples… and that’s it. Turns out there just aren’t a ton of other kinds of Acrobatics or Athletics checks readily being made in combat when the bonus action matters most. It's fine and would pair great alongside a combat-enhancing feature. On its own, grappling is too niche a mechanic to devote an entire 13th-level feature towards, and I’m not making enough Acrobatics or Athletics checks on my rogue to otherwise really want this.

17th Level: Master Duelist

Master Duelist is so bland, and not even particularly powerful compared to thief’s capstone or 9th level spells. It turns a miss once per short or long rest into an attack with advantage. That’s fine, but when you consider the entire extra turn thief rogues get every combat, this is left feeling lackluster. It doesn’t even blend well with the rest of what Swashbuckler offers; it feels like an afterthought, and one I’m not excited to build towards.

All Together

Panache is doing what I want my Swashbuckler to do. It taunts, charms, and empowers rogues to have more to do in and out of combat. The remaining features give you a lot of ways to approach fights but don’t offer you payoffs for engaging in fights in these different ways. Sure, Fancy Footwork lets me engage in melee combat and run away for free, but why bother when a shortbow is about as effective? Getting an off-hand attack helps the consistency of Sneak Attack round to round, but with Disengage as an option sitting right there, I feel like spending an entire feature to do something every rogue already has no problem doing is not worth it. Steady Aim gives you advantage at will for just not moving, and every rogue has access to it.

Rakish Audacity is primarily a boost to initiative, with a new way to use Sneak Attack, but no payoff for using Sneak Attack this way. There isn’t any incentive for dueling until Panache, and even with Panache dueling in this way has little actual benefit beyond tunneling a single creature onto you instead of your allies.

Swashbuckler is a single 3rd level payoff away from me liking it. If you want to play a pirate, Arcane Trickster offers all kinds of charms and fears, and Find Familiar can even give you a parrot companion. It can be built to sell the fantasy way better than Swashbuckler currently can. If you just really want to play with Panache, which I get, this option can be entirely fine, just be aware that your features are empowering a fantasy, not improving your mechanics in basically any meaningful way.

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Rogue 5e