Shattered Kingdoms

I think a few minor changes to taunt will make it a more robust and useful skill and will represent an improvement to the swashbuckler class. I think the check to see if a taunt is successful or not seems good; it works at about the frequency it should, generally speaking. The tweak should occur in the specifics of the effects. I propose the following effects be applied to the victim of a successful taunt:

• A penalty to concentration (not intelligence so that +INT gear can't offset it);
• A penalty to spell casting, singing, and chords (the chance to successfully cast a spell, sing, or use a chord is reduced);
• A penalty to accuracy;
• A penalty to dodge;
• A penalty to rescue/tumble;
• Inability to flee/recall;
• Bonus to weapon damage.

This will retain the in-game flavor of what a taunt is supposed to do and will improve its usefulness in combat so that it is a good option against all types of opponents, be they spell users, melee fighters or otherwise. A penalty to accuracy is synergistic with the swashbuckler's finesse and parrying abilities and will allow those to be more effective against taunted melee opponents. The reduced dodge and increased damage for the opponent simulate the IC effects of someone dropping his guard and swinging wildly at his foe. These, and the penalties to concentration and spell casting are borrowed from effects like berserk and frenzy, which are similar, but in the case of berserk and frenzy the person under the effects retains more self-control than the taunted person. It's this difference that leads to the victim of a taunt being less accurate and being unable to escape even if his demise is imminent. Furthermore, in his fit of rage at the swashbuckler the victim is also less aware of his own allies and, as such, will have a harder time rescuing them or using them for cover.

In all cases, the degree and duration of these effects should be based on the swashbuckler's charisma and should only remain in effect as long as the swashbuckler is in the same room as his victim.* It should work on the fast-effects system with a timer duration such that a charismatic swashbuckler could potentially have a foe taunted for an entire 6-7 round battle. Because it will not be a held effect but a fast-effect instead, a swashbuckler could potentially taunt multiple opponents over the course of a battle, or could reset the taunt timer with a new successful taunt on a previous target (at the risk of ruining the effect altogether if the opponent resisted the effects). Finally, any single blow that causes a 'that really did hurt' level of damage has a chance of snapping the victim out of his rage.


*If you wanted to make things more interesting, you could have the victim's wisdom also play a role in the timer. An uncharismatic swashbuckler taunting a very wise opponent may not be able to have much effect or keep him taunted for long, but a charismatic swashbuckler taunting an unwise opponent could really ruin someone's day.

Or how about we just re-vamp the entire Swashbuckler class instead of putting all that work into a single skill. Or better yet why not just delete the class, it really fits no roll now a days anyways.

Riposte doesn't land as much as I'd like. If it did, I'd imagine that would put swashbucklers on par with the other melee classes.
I'm not opposed to taunt, but kind of opposed to the idea of taunting multiple people and sitting back row while warrior classes sit up front and take out an entire group that cannot flee.

Dwarven swash would be amazing to roleplay.

This post seems oddly self-serving, since you have stated on multiple occasions that your next character will be a swashbuckler. As I have argued previously, the only change taunt needs is to lower both peak and current intelligence.

Swashbucklers and taunt is fine. They need something else other than taunt.

This. Especially since you can now enchant for stats, taunt can be mitigated way too easily.

It shouldn't operate off of intelligence at all. It should affect concentration. Position changes like rest/sleep affect concentration directly, so presumably the mechanic exists for taunt to do the same. I think that's a lot cleaner than having it mess with intelligence. The other changes are sensible as well. For instance, changing it to the fast-effects system so that it can't be held means you don't end up with strange outcomes such as a swashbuckler holding taunt on someone after he has left the room; in fact, it won't be holdable/releasable at all and will expire quickly enough. I consider it a bug that you can hold taunt on someone that isn't even in your room. It also makes the effect end faster for swashbucklers with low charisma, which should also be the case. High charisma should be a factor in this aspect of taunt as well as the magnitude of the penalties it gives.

The part about dodge and accuracy just plain makes sense. It also makes the skill more robust, allowing it to be effective as an impairment against a wide variety of classes. As has been pointed out, as things stand now, taunt is actually a buff for enemy melee opponents, which is effectively a class buff to mercenaries and barbarians. Do they need that? I don't think so. I don't mind keeping the damage bonus, but why an accuracy bonus? Why not a dodge penalty? Berserk has a dodge penalty; why not taunt? I don't think any other melee or adventuring class has any skill that buffs the victim when used against him in an offensive capacity. Dirt kick, trip, bash, hamstring, you name it... they all impair the opponent in one way or another. Why not taunt?

I don't really think it needs any kind of an overall buff. If it gets changed to where it can't be held, then the average duration will likely end up being shorter. If changes are made to give an accuracy penalty, then the concentration penalty can be mitigated so that, overall, the skill remains roughly as powerful as it is now, only more robust in that it is useful against a wider variety of opponents.

Someone mentioned riposte. Let me say that I don't think riposte needs to be improved. If you were to give an accuracy penalty from taunt it would indirectly improve riposte because the swashbucklers who manage to taunt their foes would parry more attacks.

I disagree, except perhaps access to a couple of other weapon types. Staff would make sense, for instance. A lot of historical two-weapon styles have involved jo sticks or variants thereof, and the staff weapon group isn't particularly strong on SK so it wouldn't be much of a buff (if at all). Jo and bo could be finesse weapons. It would be in keeping with the flavor of SK for swashbucklers to use them. Other people have mentioned whips. I have no real opinion on that; I wouldn't care either way if swashbucklers got whips.

I think adding skills is unnecessary when a simple tweak to the class's marquee ability to make it more generically useful and synergistic with the rest of the class's skill set would get the job done. As it is now, it is bugged and inelegant and doesn't work particularly well with the rest of the swashbuckler's skill set and their most viable tactics. It doesn't seem internally consistent with other SK skills, and it is too narrowly focused as a debuff just against casters while at the same time buffing non-casters.

Wut?