I don't like the cunning strike. Especially the poison.
Poisons are something I purchase/craft and use on my blades, NOT a "give up a sneak attack die" thing.
Now it either nerfs my ability to use sneak attack AND poison, or gets rid of the use of poisons and neither makes me happy.
Withdraw is pretty damned close to some of the features of my favorite subclass, Swashbuckler, and the dance bard infringes on the 'bucker as well, with the only real differences being that swashbucker's evasion skills aren't shared with party members, and Initiative is dex plus charisma instead of AC (which the bard's AC is a much better boost, and so are the shared evasions. The only drawback is that it has to use unarmed strikes. Now of course bards and rogues have different CLASS (not subclass) features, but the subclasses themselves are way too damned similar for comfort).
The bard/rogue has always been bad (Rogues get about half the expertise, and no innate spellcasting all for the sake of the sneak attack die, which, isn't the worst, but damn it, the bard needs some nerfing or at least to stop stealing the rogue's cool).
Oh yeah, the panache for swashbuckler is a straight up nerf of the subclass, as are the dashing strikes.
In fact using sneak attack dice as spell slots (which basically it's doing) just kills the class. Especially since you really don't get much in the way of extra attacks, you's still squishy as hell, and your "evasion" is a farce compared to the damned bard and monk and most other classes.
Also, What the hell is "vex" mastery going to do if you only have one attack action your turn.... Like the rogue does... You know, the class that uses the finesse weapons the most....
._.
They did not think this out at all...
It’s funny that I hated the old Panache so much I just multi classed into Fighter. I knew I wasn’t going to to 11th level so for me there was no point being a Rogue after getting my second ASI. The new version doesn’t consume your action. Also you can still use your action to poison your blades. Also if I’m remembering correctly there is a feat that lets you apply poisons as a bonus action in UA so if that makes it into the book you can stop giving up an action to add poison.
I don't like the cunning strike. Especially the poison.
Poisons are something I purchase/craft and use on my blades, NOT a "give up a sneak attack die" thing.
Now it either nerfs my ability to use sneak attack AND poison, or gets rid of the use of poisons and neither makes me happy.
Withdraw is pretty damned close to some of the features of my favorite subclass, Swashbuckler, and the dance bard infringes on the 'bucker as well, with the only real differences being that swashbucker's evasion skills aren't shared with party members, and Initiative is dex plus charisma instead of AC (which the bard's AC is a much better boost, and so are the shared evasions. The only drawback is that it has to use unarmed strikes. Now of course bards and rogues have different CLASS (not subclass) features, but the subclasses themselves are way too damned similar for comfort).
The bard/rogue has always been bad (Rogues get about half the expertise, and no innate spellcasting all for the sake of the sneak attack die, which, isn't the worst, but damn it, the bard needs some nerfing or at least to stop stealing the rogue's cool).
Oh yeah, the panache for swashbuckler is a straight up nerf of the subclass, as are the dashing strikes.
In fact using sneak attack dice as spell slots (which basically it's doing) just kills the class. Especially since you really don't get much in the way of extra attacks, you's still squishy as hell, and your "evasion" is a farce compared to the damned bard and monk and most other classes.
Also, What the hell is "vex" mastery going to do if you only have one attack action your turn.... Like the rogue does... You know, the class that uses the finesse weapons the most....
._.
They did not think this out at all...
The change to panache is mostly positive - before it took an action to attempt, now it is part of a sneak attack and costs 1-3 dice, depending on what you are trying to do. Losing 1-3 d6 is better than losing ALL damage for the turn, IMO. The only downside is that you MUST hit something in order to try. The loss of the out of combat Charm effect hurts a little, but I doubt this edition was going to use an opposed skill check in place of a saving throw for anything. This is something that can hopefully be added back in via commentary.
Vex mastery works until the end of your NEXT turn, so even a character with only one attack per round can benefit from it, even if they aren't using a dagger in the off hand for the Nick property to grant a second attack on the same action (not a lot of damage, but really there for the purpose of having a second chance to land a sneak attack).
And Dashing Strikes replaces the ability to use cunning action to make Athletics/Acrobatics checks at advantage - I can see the benefit with Athletics due to having a low Str score, but by this time Reliable Talent is in play, so any roll of less than 10 becomes a 10, then modifiers are applied from there. Your minimum roll for Acrobatics is going to be a 20, presuming you haven't invested an expertise choice into it, which would make your minimum roll a 25.
It’s funny that I hated the old Panache so much I just multi classed into Fighter. I knew I wasn’t going to to 11th level so for me there was no point being a Rogue after getting my second ASI. The new version doesn’t consume your action.
Also you can still use your action to poison your blades. Also if I’m remembering correctly there is a feat that lets you apply poisons as a bonus action in UA so if that makes it into the book you can stop giving up an action to add poison.
The change to panache is mostly positive - before it took an action to attempt, now it is part of a sneak attack and costs 1-3 dice, depending on what you are trying to do. Losing 1-3 d6 is better than losing ALL damage for the turn, IMO. The only downside is that you MUST hit something in order to try. The loss of the out of combat Charm effect hurts a little, but I doubt this edition was going to use an opposed skill check in place of a saving throw for anything. This is something that can hopefully be added back in via commentary.
Vex mastery works until the end of your NEXT turn, so even a character with only one attack per round can benefit from it, even if they aren't using a dagger in the off hand for the Nick property to grant a second attack on the same action (not a lot of damage, but really there for the purpose of having a second chance to land a sneak attack).
And Dashing Strikes replaces the ability to use cunning action to make Athletics/Acrobatics checks at advantage - I can see the benefit with Athletics due to having a low Str score, but by this time Reliable Talent is in play, so any roll of less than 10 becomes a 10, then modifiers are applied from there. Your minimum roll for Acrobatics is going to be a 20, presuming you haven't invested an expertise choice into it, which would make your minimum roll a 25.