okay so i was looking in ye olde xanatars guide to everything and noticed something odd about the swashbuckler rouge:

you gain the panache feature at 9th level. you can use an action to do some combat affecting stuff but lets ignore that for now. You can also use an action to charm an target for one minute, making an charisma persuasion check to do so. Unlike spells like for instance charm person or friends, the target does not become hostile to you after the effect ends, realising that it has been affected by magic, and unlike features like harpy's song or the like, the target does not gain temporary immunity to the effect after an successful check unlike for example the charm action option of the dryad, meaning that i can spam the **** out of this abillity.

there is not even an particular restriction on the types of target i can affect, other than language barriers, meaning that an swashbuckling rouge with sufficiently high level can make the f in fiend stand for friend.

and worst of all, assuming you have an charisma score of 20 by the time you reach 11th level, and assuming you have proficiency and expertise in persuasion, it is more or less an DC 23 (or more) saving throw for your enemy. And insight is not even a common skill among mosters.

to make the most out of this ability, pick variant human and use point buy stats to gain an starting charisma score of 16 (15 plus an racial bonus of 1) and pick up linguist as your racial feat, picking languages with as little overlap as possible, and congratulations, at 11th level you should be the ultimate diplomat, able to make friends with anyone who does not already hate you with a burning passion.

Congratulations, you have won the game, please remember to apologize to your DM afterwards to avoid any long lasting grudges, and remember to actually role play you character as charismatic and positive

edit: i know that the charmed effect is not all that powerful by itself, but it is still free advantage on all social skill checks, and the definitions for "indiffrent" and "hostile" are actiually really simple. A creature is hostile if it is actively opposed to your goals, and indiffrent creatures will quote "might help or hinder the party, depending on what the creature sees as most beneficial", and that my friends is an quite vague definition.

this means that everyone who is not your enemy might be at least a little trusting of you, even if they probably will not risk their lives or reputation to help you, they might be able to give you a bit of information they might have overheard or be willing to introduce you to a friend or theirs, tell you of any recent troubles. They might not reveal their darkest secrets or necessarily aid you on your adventure, but this ability is still supremely useful. The actions needed to use these checks are presumably part of you speaking normally, and so there is more or less nothing suspicious about you doing it, or using the ability om the same target multiple times. With expertise and your proficiency bonus at that level, you should be able to get an pretty damm high bonus on charisma persuasion checks, and with expertise and reliable talent an npc needs to roll at least 23 on their opposed wisdom check, and you can do it ten times per minute. And if you succeed once, you are a bit more likely to succeed again since you have advantage on skill checks to interact socially with the target. Your charm is not very strong but damm near impossible to resist. 

For instance, an town guard captain might not fully trust adventurers for some reason, but still finds them to be vital to the continued wellbeing of society overall. Becuase of this attitude, he is probably not gonna belive a story about how the local nobles manor is secretly an gargantuan mimic who eats all who enter told by an squad of misfit adventurers, but with an sucessful use of this abillity he might at least be willing to listen to what you have to say before dismissing you. Might still think you are just crazy/delusional after you tell him, but might at least be able to listen.

let us take another example. An demon from the abyss has appeared, specifically the realm of the gnoll demon lord. Its only goal is to feed itself, and to do so it often kills humanoids and eats them. Is this creature hostile or indifferent to your swashbuckling rogue? on the one hand, its goals in the moment is for you to die, and one of your biggest goals in life is probably to not die, so in that way you are opposed. Yet the demon has no preference for the rogue in particular, so if the rogue say provides another food source, the demons immediate goals are indeed satisfied, and assuming your rogue for some reason knows abyssal and is able to speak with it, his incredible charisma means that he can make friends with an gosh darn demon, making sure that the demon does not attack him for at least one minute. The demon is not his slave, but the demon might consider his suggestions, even if it ultimately finds them pointless.

the only real limit to the charm effect is harming (or doing anything harmful like public slander within earshot of them, betraying them and threats of violence) the target of your charm or having your companions do any of those things, so as long as you are not an ******* arsehole to the target of your charm, your target will treat you with some amount of success.

of course, you can as an DM put in place more limits to this ability as you see fit, such as a limit of one attempt per creature per 24 hours or forcing the player to flatter the target or slightly change subjects whenever the ability is used, or otherwise making mechanical changes, but as written with the literal interpretations of the rules, the ability is rather powerful. Perhaps not OP or game breakingly powerful, it is after all gotten late in the game, but i feel its lack of limitations is a bit strange

Not really! It’s a nice feature, but you’re way overselling it.

 First, you can only use it that way on someone who is not hostile to you in the first place. If they’re hostile, all it does is make them have to fight only you. Which is nice but doesn’t help you if you’re trying to avoid the fight in the first place.

 The other thing is that it’s effect is low even on a non hostile creature. If a creature is already not hostile to you, you can make that creature regard you as a friendly acquaintance. That’s nice, but not really an instant win button for anything. They’re also charmed, which means they can’t attack you (not much of an effect, since they already weren’t hostile) and you get advantage on further charisma checks against them. That’s nice for sure, but also not particularly game breaking.

I think your misconception is that you’re ascribing the “charmed” condition way more power than it has. 

That idea is predicated on the same logic a lot of folks use for the Charm Person spell, which is "Charm Person is literal brain control."

That logic is super faulty.

Look at the wording of the Panache feature.  It says "the target is charmed by you for one minute.  While charmed, the creature regards you as a friendly acquaintance."  

"Charmed" simply means the creature can't voluntarily attack you or target you with a detrimental spell, and you have advantage on Charisma checks made to "socially interact" with the charmed critter.  The spell details the level of control you have over the target, which is to say none.  The creature regards you as a friendly acquaintance.  Would you fight to the death for a friendly acquaintance?  Would you compromise your job?  Would you commit a crime, or kill your close friends/colleagues?

Nah.  A friendly acquaintance would be doing pretty good to get you to do much more than buy them a cup of coffee.  

The feature also states "The creature must be able to hear you, and the two of you must share a language", after saying that 'your charm becomes extraordinarily beguiling'.  This is not a magical effect; this is you sweet-talking the guy and trying to make a good impression.  You're Captain jack-ing the target; it's entirely within the DM's prerogative to assign increasing penalties to "spamming the **** out of it", as continuing to chat up the target after he's seen through your bullshit once is not likely to improve your odds.

The ability is definitely powerful when used well, but it's neither a cheat code nor a win button.  The key for a DM is knowing the limits of any given charm effect, and to stop treating Charm Person like Dominate Person.  Those are two extremely different spells, and Panache is a whole lot closer to Charm than to Dominate.

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

That idea is predicated on the same logic a lot of folks use for the Charm Person spell, which is "Charm Person is literal brain control."

That logic is super faulty.

Look at the wording of the Panache feature.  It says "the target is charmed by you for one minute.  While charmed, the creature regards you as a friendly acquaintance."  

"Charmed" simply means the creature can't voluntarily attack you or target you with a detrimental spell, and you have advantage on Charisma checks made to "socially interact" with the charmed critter.  The spell details the level of control you have over the target, which is to say none.  The creature regards you as a friendly acquaintance.  Would you fight to the death for a friendly acquaintance?  Would you compromise your job?  Would you commit a crime, or kill your close friends/colleagues?

Nah.  A friendly acquaintance would be doing pretty good to get you to do much more than buy them a cup of coffee.  

The feature also states "The creature must be able to hear you, and the two of you must share a language", after saying that 'your charm becomes extraordinarily beguiling'.  This is not a magical effect; this is you sweet-talking the guy and trying to make a good impression.  You're Captain jack-ing the target; it's entirely within the DM's prerogative to assign increasing penalties to "spamming the **** out of it", as continuing to chat up the target after he's seen through your bullshit once is not likely to improve your odds.

The ability is definitely powerful when used well, but it's neither a cheat code nor a win button.  The key for a DM is knowing the limits of any given charm effect, and to stop treating Charm Person like Dominate Person.  Those are two extremely different spells, and Panache is a whole lot closer to Charm than to Dominate.

 That gives you 1 minute, outside combat, with your friendly acquaintance, with advantage, to become best friends like Will Ferrell and John Reiley.

it says friendly acquaintance, it doesn’t have to stop there... but you do have a time limit of 1 minute.

to clarify, i have indeed read the conditions in combat section in the players handbook and know that it is not THAT powerful, but you still get free advantage on "all checks to interact socially with the target" presumably not advantage on performance but advantage on persuasion, deception and maybe even insight, and i do get what this feature is meant to represent, that charming, swashbuckling rouge who can seduce his way outa jail but leaves as soon as things get harsh, but i still find it a little strange how few restrictions they put on this ability compared to similar (perhaps more potent) charm effects

one minute between uses, as long as you use your action each turn, even while they are already effected, you can maintain the effect more or less indefenetly if the target is not all too good at wisdom (insight) checks and they do not roll three nat 20ies in a row

yes, i know that the charmed condition and having somebody be your friendly acquaintance is far different from having direct control of a creature, and i never claimed it did. What i was trying to say is that compared to similar effects, the 9th level panache ability is far harder for an target to avoid, since you can repeat it every turn with no cool down and succeeding on an charisma persuasion check opposed by an targets wisdom insight check is far more likely than an target failing an wisdom saving throw. The save DC for an spell equals 8 + your proficiency bonus + relevant ability score. The number to beat with your insight check against an swashbuckler rogue equals number rolled + twice your proficiency bonus + charisma mod. Assuming you have 11 levels of rogue, the number you roll can never be less than then so that is 10 (or higher) + double proficiency + charisma mod.

look at my post again. I am not complaining about the power of the ability, only how hard it is to resist, because really the condition itself, while useful, is not all that strong. 

yeah the charmed condition itself is not that strong,  but the feature has far less limitations that similar effects, for instance:

-after making an successful insight check, the target gains no temporary immunity to the feature, unlike the charm effects of many monsters

-the number the target has to roll to overcome the effect is your charisma persuasion check. Assuming expertise in persuasion, the target will on average have to roll higher than if they where making an saving throw against a spell or similar effect. At eleventh level and higher, the lowest possible number the target of your panache feature must roll over with their insight check equals 10 + twice your proficiency bonus + your charisma score, something that is typicallly higer than a spellcaster of the same level whose spell DC is 8 + their proficiency bonus + relevant ability score

-there is no limit to how many times you can use the ability between rest, unlike many similar features and unlike many spellcasters.

-i can target them with the effect while they are still under the effect, letting you extend the effect. While you can do that with any feature in general, but it is particularly useful for this class

-the effect can be done while you are talking, making it more useful for social interaction.

-it is not magical, and so cannot be counter spelled or suppressed by anti-magic measures. It is simply a few kind words and a bit of flattery

yes, i will admit that this particular charm effect is far less potent than the ones i am comparing it to, as it has an far lower duration of only one minute, and it only makes the target consider you an friendly acquaintance,  meaning that your victims will hold you in far lower esteem than a spell caster who casts charm person on them. And why does everyone seem to think i neglected to read appendix A of the players handbook? 

Yeah the title of this post is honestly a little misleading, i AM overselling it a bit, the effect itself is not all that potent, and will by no means break the game, but it will be very useful. Especially if you go by the definition of hostile as provided in the dungeon masters guide where an creature is only hostile to you if your goals actively contradict each other or are otherwise opposed

This feels like a table-by-table situation, but it does run into the quantification problem of role playing games generally and DND specifically.

Some DMs, when confronted with a player asking about an impossible task (“what is the DC to jump over that house?”) simple say “that is impossible” and move on.  Strictly speaking the rules want there to be a DC for that check- it is a magical setting, supernatural boosts to jumping exist, and with the right series of bonuses (and restriction removing magical effects) maybe a player can reach the DC 50 (or whatever) necessary for a human to bound over a building? So “that’s impossible” probably isn’t the best storytelling answer, and it’s probably not the one best supported by the rules.

This leads to the question of “how powerful is charm?” (or at the very least how powerful is having a sympathetic mark that you also have advantage over)

In modern day terms I would trust, say, my social security code to very few people.  I certainly wouldn’t trust it to a mere “friendly acquaintance” (the equivalent in my mind to a friendly coworker).  But I probably WOULD give that information to a friendly coworker whom I also believed needed the information for payroll and was authorized and trusted with that kind of information.

This is where the quantification issue comes up.  Once I’ve ingratiated myself to someone and their defenses are down, what is the DC of the Deception check- the DC to get the guard to let me walk out of prison because “this is all a big misunderstanding”, or the DC to convince the nobleman that “I’m very familiar with treasure vault security and I could totally give you some pointers if you’d just unlock it for me“, or ”Hey are you secretly the BBEG?” (assuming charm impacts insight). Or whatever.  The benefit to this effect seems to be that you start on third base of a con- the Mark starts out ready to believe you really are from the bank and needs your password to stop fraudulent charges, or is vastly more likely to believe you are a Nigerian prince since they don’t start out distrusting you.

It may not be brain control, but when used in conjunction with other skills (most notably deception but also insight or persuasion, it forces the DM into the unenviable position of either saying “It’s impossible!  No DC for you because this will derail my plot train!” or to set a DC that properly accounts for the new relationship, and be prepared for a PC with expertise and advantage to roll well.  

As a DM in these situations I remind myself that while neither I nor my player may (in real life) be professional con artists and inveterate, impeccable liars, my player’s character may be.  I don’t know what wink and a nod and string of words and misdirected attention might convince someone of something which, in the objective light of day, sounds ridiculous, but my player’s character might.  So I think if someone’s defenses are magically/superpowered-ly lowered to lose the innate distrust of a stranger, then magically/super powered-ly altered to make them more receptive (in the form of advantage on social rolls), there’s probably an achievable DC for even the most outrageous deceptions, persuasions, etc. 

Every table and every DM is different and many games don’t have a ton of social interactions for it to come up in.  That said, the ability to endlessly charm someone that you are talking with, as there is never a cool down, limit on use, or immunity conferred by a successfully opposed role written into the power (as it really is “you are just one charming roguish figure when your lips are moving”) is certainly a powerful social tool that is worthy of a moment’s reflection for a DM preparing social challenges for PCs.

Over powered?  Possibly situationally.  I would have a talk with the player about reasonable interpretations of what the ability is if it got out of hand.

DnD left its gritty survivalist medieval simulation roots long ago. Since 3e, it shifted firmly into the realm of fantasy.

And really, this is what 5e is all about: fantasy.

So why does a subclass called Swashbuckler has an at-will charm? Simple. It the fantasy of the dashing rogue, the Zorro, the three musketeers. It just wouldn't be complete without a devastating charm that makes people do things they regret later. This feature is meant to be used shamelessly. It's balanced by the fact that you can't magically turn an enemy into a friend, while you can certainly turn a friend into an enemy.