Dungeon Fantasy 1-2 -- Ranking of PC Templates Chosen by Your Players

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Stripe

As I understand it, the Swashbuckler is DF's top "DPS" template...?

They're about equal . . . barbarians get more raw ST and can – through ST, Arm ST, and Striking ST – top out above swashbucklers (effective ST 29 vs. ST 19). They also have power-ups like Focused Fury and Great Rage, which roughly match a swashbuckler's Weapon Master and eventual access to Power Blow (effective ST 39 with +2 per die vs. ST 38 with +2 per die). And while swashers tend to have fine swords, barbs tend to have huge swords, with comparable properties for less cash cost, provided you have the ST. At the very upper end, barbs are doing a bit more damage with their best tricks, and they do get access to Extra Attack, Weapon Bond, etc. The big difference is that barbs can do this with just about anything they pick up but run through a lot of FP doing it all, while swashers are generally one-weapon wonders but more efficient on FP. But to really match barbs for DPS, swashers need more than Extra Attack 3; they need huge levels of Power Blow to avoid extended periods of Concentrate.

On starting points, swashbucklers count on lots of well-aimed shots to soft spots to match barbarians. That's fine as far as it goes, but a risky strategy once slimes, things made of pure rock, etc. start showing up more often than guys in armor.

All told, it's an issue of player preference. I'd want one of each in a party, because they'd be about equal against middle-of-the-road enemies, and you'd have one great duelist for taking on mortals and one massive slugger for bashing down golems and undead dragons. That's actually how my campaigns generally looked, albeit with one "knight" somewhere in the middle who mixes ST with targeting and effectively pads fighting strength against middle-of-the-road foes.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Stripe

As I understand it, the Swashbuckler is DF's top "DPS" template...?

I suspect it's tied with Scout for raw DPS output - the Scout has more opportunities to attack and can attack and move effortlessly, so the Scouts total damage output is often higher simply because they have less interruptions, but Swashbucklers can beat them for raw volume of attacks per second, don't have to deal with Range penalties, and often can exploit swing-cutting damage (highest damage dice combined with most versatile and general-purpose damage type in the game).

On one paw well-prepared Scouts can carry a golf-bag of arrows of various sorts to exploit damage types and vulnerabilities, on the other paw Swashbucklers never run out of ammunition.

[Rasputin]

I've seen, in a few short games:

Druid
Cleric
Swashbuckler
Knight
Scout
Thief

The guys with whom I play are thoroughly daunted by the GURPS spell system for whatever reason, so they avoid wizards. Swashbuckler is definitely the preferred template for direct melee smackdown; nobody would even consider a barbarian, maybe because they know I'd make the Inconvenient Size, well, inconvenient.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Kromm

They're about equal . . . barbarians get more raw ST and can – through ST, Arm ST, and Striking ST – top out above swashbucklers (effective ST 29 vs. ST 19). They also have power-ups like Focused Fury and Great Rage, which roughly match a swashbuckler's Weapon Master and eventual access to Power Blow (effective ST 39 with +2 per die vs. ST 38 with +2 per die). And while swashers tend to have fine swords, barbs tend to have huge swords, with comparable properties for less cash cost, provided you have the ST. At the very upper end, barbs are doing a bit more damage with their best tricks, and they do get access to Extra Attack, Weapon Bond, etc. The big difference is that barbs can do this with just about anything they pick up but run through a lot of FP doing it all, while swashers are generally one-weapon wonders but more efficient on FP.

Raw damage dice for the barbarian are heavily penalized by their (generally) lower skill levels - the swashbuckler can exploit hit locations for damage multipliers (or Deceptive Attacks to reduce rate of defense and increase hit rate), Barbarians often can't.

Of course Barbarians can sometimes power through light weapons, and if you're playing with shield damage they can also smash shields to flinders. There's a lot to be said for destroying your enemies defenses instead of bypassing them.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Raw damage dice for the barbarian are heavily penalized by their (generally) lower skill levels

Barbarians can enter play with skill 17 and +1 for Weapon Bond, so I'm not sure "heavily" applies. They're not as skilled, but do note:

Originally Posted by Bruno

the swashbuckler can exploit hit locations for damage multipliers (or Deceptive Attacks to reduce rate of defense and increase hit rate), Barbarians often can't.

. . . that assumes foes that bother to defend, and that have soft spots. Once you're into "All-Out-Attacking, DR 10, Homogenous stone golem" territory, the balance shifts. About all a swasher's higher skill accomplishes there is some Rapid Strikes that give extra chances to chisel off a few HP.

My vision of DF definitely has hit locations and overcoming enemy defenses dropping in importance as the points go up. After 50-100 points, most foes are going to be closer to the crazy golem I mentioned than to rival swashbucklers with soft bits and high defenses. In my own fantasy campaigns that inspired DF, warriors needed around 5d damage just to make table stakes, and high skill was mostly valuable for offsetting penalties for footing, darkness, etc., which tended to be less bothersome to traditional outdoorsy barbarian types with Night Vision, Sure-Footed, and the like.

[thalassogen]

1. Wizard (3)
2. Knight (2)
3. Barbarian, Cleric, Druid, Holy Warrior, Martial Artist, Scout, Swashbuckler, Thief (1 ea.)
4. Bard (0)

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by RyanW

Why is that? I'm curious because some of my favorite characters of past campaigns have been thieves (profession, not template, as I've never played DF).

I think a lot of it is my fault, since I don't put in enough traps and locks. But even so, the Scout handles the sneaky trap-finder roll nearly as well as the Thief and the wizard will steal niche to open locks unless pushed away. So the out-of-combat role tends to get stolen, and the in-combat role is backstab once and then be a weak swashbuckler.

So after a few sessions, it seems like the thief players are just a little dissatisfied, and feel like they would be happier either as a Scout or a Swashbuckler or something.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Barbarians can enter play with skill 17 and +1 for Weapon Bond, so I'm not sure "heavily" applies. They're not as skilled, but do note:

And if the swashbuckler pushes for skill he goes into the 20s - but true nonetheless.

Originally Posted by Kromm

. . . that assumes foes that bother to defend, and that have soft spots. Once you're into "All-Out-Attacking, DR 10, Homogenous stone golem" territory, the balance shifts. About all a swasher's higher skill accomplishes there is some Rapid Strikes that give extra chances to chisel off a few HP.

My perspective on this may be coloured by only really encountering one enemy like that while playing both of my barbarians - and while yes, my (Berserking) Barbarian soloed the stone golem while everyone else tackled the siege beast, it was a case of "Barbarian and Golem did equally horrible things to each other, and the Golem rolled badly on a HT check first."

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

I think a lot of it is my fault, since I don't put in enough traps and locks. But even so, the Scout handles the sneaky trap-finder roll nearly as well as the Thief and the wizard will steal niche to open locks unless pushed away. So the out-of-combat role tends to get stolen, and the in-combat role is backstab once and then be a weak swashbuckler.

So after a few sessions, it seems like the thief players are just a little dissatisfied, and feel like they would be happier either as a Scout or a Swashbuckler or something.

Okay, that makes sense. The campaigns I played thieves in (non-DF, remember) tended to lack easy magical alternatives. Either no magic, no PC magic, or magic so costly/slow that it was primarily used for things mundane skills couldn't do. Plus, some of the groups I've played with would otherwise tend toward having an all-fighter party. One GM had to learn "the other half" of the system when I played a character with significant non-combat abilities.

[simply Nathan]

No experience with DF outside of reading the rules, but my experience with the genre (usually played in a heavily house-ruled d20) as a whole gives roughly these results:

Barbarian - 1
Bard - 2
Cleric - 8
Druid - 0
Holy Warrior/Paladin - 6
Knight/Fighter - 12
Martial Artist/Monk - 2
Scout/Ranger - 4
Swashbuckler - 0
Thief/Rogue - 2
Wizard/Sorcerer - 3

I only played the wizard one time because I was allowed to take healing spells (this being GURPS). Now that I look at it, I'm surprised there were as many wizards and rogues as there were, instead of more fighters. Paladins and Rangers are what I played most, so that I could fight quite well and still heal a little, but every game we had a Cleric except when we did GURPS and I played a wizard with heals.