[DF] Swashbucklers... but with whips!

[Tymathee]

Originally Posted by edk926

Zorro uses whips, and he very much fits the swashbuckler mold, so we have a ready example of what the character may look like in combat. Whip-cracking is used in the real world for herding livestock. There's also cracking competitions. As far as scaring people, I suppose it could be intimidating enough warrant a bonus to Intimidation rolls. I'm not sure how parrying would work with a whip, but you can, at least cinematically, use the whip to pull weapons right out of a foe's hand. This is a good concept, although you might want a few points in a secondary weapon.

I recall watching Antonio Banderas' Zorro with fondness. Another classic example of a whip user would be DC's Catwoman. Indiana Jones does some cool stuff with his whip. There's also the members of the Belmont Clan from the Castlevania video game series. I've sprinkled in a fair amount of pop culture inspiration in Adeline's concept. She's just as much as a tribute to what she's derived from as she is a original character.

The Campaigns book outlines the special gimmicks of the whip; improved skill at disarming foes and entangling them. At some point she'll want to buy up ST for those Quick Contests to ensnare foes better. She should also make good use of targeted attacks to the hand to force foes to either win a Will check or drop their weapon. Other characters should be quick to realize that they should capitalize on her ability to hinder or even incapacitate foes to their advantage. Choke them, bring them to their knees... with enough improvement she'll be pretty useful in combat.

With improved damage and more accessible attacks and parrying, it makes it more appealing to go all in with the whip (at the metagame level, for better or for worse GURPS rewards you for committing to a single weapon; it is forgivable here as it is her entire schtick). It somewhat even warrants going without a legitimate long ranged option... almost. Up to Reach 4 is fantastic for a melee weapon at least. That Shatterproof enchantment comes in handy here, giving it indestructability (and the GM ought to adhere to the spirit of Signature Gear). It won't get cut to pieces any time soon, at least until the magic fails (unlike the other qualities of the gear this ought to unquestionably remain susceptible to no-mana zones and anti-enchantment magic). So parrying becomes a legitimate option.

Fiend Slayer can be a deadly weapon, you just have to play to the strengths of the whip's gimmicks and be mindful of what character advancement options to take to ensure Adeline's one-trick pony schtick continues to stay relevant for the dungeon crawling experience. Cinematically, whips have a great deal of utility for the Swashbuckler in the DF's class profession template sense. If I were the GM, I'd permit use of the whip to grab onto convenient points to swing from (utilizing the rules outlined in DF's Dungeons book); Adeline might want to invest into levels of Serendipity to have those at-will. It could cleverly be used to snatch items from afar... in some sense, it doubles as a (better?) ten-foot pole which makes that Shatterproof enchantment such a future-proofing investment. Whatever cinematic cool whip tricks the GM finds plausible for DF's cinematic faux-realism should likely be allowed (Varyon even gave some stellar examples of clever whip implementation!).

Couldn't hurt to invest one or two points in Knife. Ideally they don't even get close enough for that to come into play though. She'll have the initiative won often enough if the GM wants those points in Blinding Strike to matter, so she'll crack that whip at you from four yards away and hopefully have you disarmed and defenseless for another swift comrade to come swinging in with a big axe!