Shattered Kingdoms

Agreed. Seems like it goes from one extreme to the other.

Why bother? I've already tested it on my hellion and got [REDACTED] all for shield block and parrying against massive weapons on defensive to boot, swashbucklers aren't going to fare much better, lose the extra defense of shields, and will likely have their arms cut off in a few swings. The only saving grace for right now is that there are really no mercs specialised in massive weaponry. I do know of a barb with a greatsword though, so maybe he'll produce something of killing a swashbuckler hilariously fast.

I'm working on it.

Take crossbow away and give them guns as well. Guns like the blunderbuss and other crappy weaponry that was used when guns first came into being.

Arrr! How about the flintlock glock? (Been waiting to use Capt. Dan as a reference...)

Swashies weren't /horrible/ before. But it took a GREAT swashie(player) who was fully prepped to be competitive with run of the mill mercs/barbs.

But I can't see how this change did anything other than hurt them A LOT. A swashie depends on parrying everything.

A barb/merc with a greatsword could already [REDACTED] a swashbuckler up, because it was so accurate. And now it's even HARDER TO PARRY.

Not to mention swashies can't use any of the massive weapons except possibly bastard sword. And I think the only 1-h bastard sword is dark aura zappy.

Nico, Veret, Faedra, Elynthen(I think that was mitch's). All did okay. An equally prepped merc/barb probably would've torn them apart though. Taunt is fine the way it is. It can be used to kill people who normally wouldn't die. If taunt ignored stat mods, it'd be broken. Human taunt gets like minus 8-10 or something to INT. That'd rape everything. And since devices take concentration to use now, one taunt, and every caster in the game is done.

I approve of you correctly ordering the swashbucklers there. Nico first, then the riff raff after, well done.

The amount of intelligence decreased by taunt would have to be adjusted downward, if it were to lower both current and max. I am confident Dulrik could tweak it until he found a sweet spot for it.

I agree, the primary use of taunt should be to lower a caster's intelligence. However, this still doesn't help them in the melee game.

I think kick should be modified, made an exclusive class feature of the swashbuckler, and there should be something else that helps them deal with massive weaponry, like a skill that allows them to keep their opponent off-balance if they have a massive weapon, and thus reduces their attack speed, and accuracy.

I have an idea that would work like specialization for mercenaries for swashbucklers. I had an older idea that [ran into numerous technical difficulties], but here goes.

Kick probably shouldn't be touched - centaurs then have no viability. I propose to give swashies a 'near' and 'far' stance (to complement their aggressive/neutral/defensive stance).

Near stance:

A swashbuckler will focus on closing in the space between them and their opponent, reducing their chance of parrying incoming blows, but giving them a bonus to trip their opponent, disarm them and otherwise throw them off balance. If the weapons the swashbuckler are using are inappropriate for this stance (presumably, shorter weapons such as sai and wakizashi would be best), they will suffer penalties to their attack speed, and to parrying.

A stance change or a mid-battle ping would show, "You see [character] getting closer to you."

Far stance:

A swashbuckler will use their agility to focus on keeping their opponent at a distance, greatly increasing their chance of parrying incoming blows but making them less able to trip their opponent or throw them off balance. If the weapons the swashbuckler are using are inappropriate for this stance (presumably, longer weapons such as rapiers would be best), they will suffer penalties to their attack accuracy.

A stance change or a mid-battle ping would show, "You see [character] distancing him/herself from you."

The ideas behind these would be to further extend the effectiveness of moods aggressive and defensive with a swashbuckler with specific penalties and buffs based on the exact stance. Based on some light testing (and I mean very light), we determined that swashbucklers have become more of a melee DPR class than a defensive machine. I think that the defensive swashbuckler should still be viable even after the massive weapon change.