Shattered Kingdoms

The way I understand it, swashbucklers are both weak in pk but also boring to play, my idea addresses both parts.

So, at say journeyman, swashbucklers can learn weapon styles, these will be in a seperate form than skills, like songs are for bards.
Once learned, the swashbuckler gains a new weapon style, may be dependant on race or (the way I picture it) starting kingdom.
Each kingdom will have several of these and one will be learned at random (like specific songs are learned for bards), swashbucklers can then, lets say at mentor, teach each the other various styles (again like bards teach each other the other songs).

Each style will have its own mastery progress (starting from say... average when learned), will improve as long as the swashbuckler is using the proper weapons, and once mastered will give the swashbuckler a unique buff but only while using the proper weapons.

Some weapon style ideas and their benefits just off the top of my head, names and weapons mentioned may be stupid but bear with me, its just to give some ideas.

Zhenshi
-Zhensh Samurai style, main hand katana, off hand wakizashi or another katana. Once mastered the swashie gains a bonus to his peak strength and/or charisma.
-Desert nomad, main hand scimitar, off hand curved dagger or another scimitar. Bonus can be a bonus to peak con and fortitude saves. (May require the use of a turban too, hehe)
-Garazul pirate style, maybe cutlasses and daggers, bonus to taunt of some sort.

Ayamao
-Bladedancer style, main hand longsword or falchion, off hand another falchion or some dagger of a sort. Once mastered the swashbuckler gains a large bonus to his accuracy and ignores part of their enemy's armor.
-Speed of the fay style, a combination of epees/rapiers. When mastered the swashbuckler gains lightning reflexes, gaining a large bonus to his reflex saves and peak dex and making it very hard to bash.

Taslamar
-City Watchman style, main hand longsword or broadsword, off hand short sword. Veteran of many battles the watchman gains a large speed bonus with his favourite blades.
-Duelist style, main hand rapier/epee, off hand some sort of dagger. The duelist gains a bonus to disarm and is very hard to disarm himself.

Teron
-Shadow Blade style, main hand straight dagger, off hand another dagger. Maybe bonuses to dirt kick and trip?

Empire could have something with khopesh or gladius, I could go on but you get the idea.

Could be very complex to implement and would further encourage people holding more weapons than they should but would put the class out of it's stale state.

Discuss

It really would be nice to have a none RP reason to be a Swash.

Maybe add a little more to that list...

Feel free to add your own ideas to the list.

Add stances. Different stances have certain benefits/drawbacks. Each stance also has a counter stance that negates its effects. Swash on Swash battles will be a battle of stance swapping to kick the other swash out of a stance to get the upper hand.

Smoochy's ideas normally involve a lot of cream and butter..

They're delicious, but also very bad for your health~♫

I just want to see swashes not get owned in the front row. That's all. Think of what a real swashbuckler should be like - Syrio Forel in GoT - so fast and quick that he's able to dodge and block and parry and riposte every single attack, and do it from any position. Their light armor should be an advantage in the front row, not a disadvantage. But since every other class in SK is just as good at dodge as they are, and can be as fast as a swashbuckler is with certain weapon types, there's really no difference except that other front row classes get shield block and heavy armor and get just as many attacks with their giant weapons, or even more attacks than a swash with their light and fast weapons.

I didn't think a swash was "boring" but I did think it was wimpy and weak and had much room for improvement.

Still, I don't think swashbucklers are on the list of priorities either way

Sure beats their current high level ability

Grand Master - Delete; Delete (mastered)

At least you can train it early

First step to fixing stuff is identifying the problem.

Swashies are a melee class so lets see what their strengths and weak esses are.

Weaknesses:
Light armor
Front row only.
No weapon versatility.
Require two good weapons to fight effectively instead of just one.
No bash
Weak to the new massive weapons i assume.

Strengths:
Taunt.
...thats all i got. Im not really listing riposte as my last swashie rarely did it. I deleted him after i got killed for the nth time by charmed pets, barbarians and everything else that i didnt have the element of surprise on.

Used to be swashies were cool when they were near impossible to hit if equipped well, but still the class is so vulnerable and prone to every tactic that keeping one equipped for over a week becomes a statistical improbability, unless you hide under a rock.

While on the subject on balance, remind me why barbs can wear heavy armor again?

Sorry for bad spelling, iphone typing sux.

Riposte is worthless. Yay, you get an extra attack after you've been cleaved in half by a great-axe or by a person who's already getting 5 attacks in anyway with weapon/haste.

Havent played in a swash in a while. As far as DPS and tanking goes, Merc>Swash.
I think they need an extra defensive ability to let them hang in the front row.
Perhaps something called evasion which gives a bonus to dodge and gives reflex save immunity. Hell give em dance.. or at least retreat so they can safely leave after taking an inevitable a ss beating.