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I love being a sneaky, thiefy guy in an RPG, but Rogues have always been in a really weird spot in Baldur’s Gate 3. Thief and Assassin are two of the strongest three or four-level multiclass components in the game, but there’s basically been no reason to stick with them beyond that.
Thief’s extra bonus action and Assassin’s surprise round perks are transformative, but they don’t get much worth writing home about at higher levels. While Sneak Attack precipitously increases in power throughout the game, Rogues are just fundamentally hampered by being weapon damage-based characters that don’t receive Extra Attack. A full 12-level Rogue is always weaker than a multiclass Bard/Rogue, Fighter/Rogue, or Ranger/Rogue, and you really feel stifled not being able to attack as many times per round.
With Patch 8’s Swashbuckler subclass, Rogues finally have an alternative. A full 12-level Swashbuckler is not only seriously strong and Honour mode ready, they nail a unique class fantasy while being fun and engaging to play.
The biggest coup is the Swashbuckler’s Dirty Trick abilities at level four. All three have their uses, but Flick o’ the Wrist is the real heat: Potentially disarm an enemy without worrying about expending resources, and you crucially do full weapon damage in the process.
Swashbucklers don’t get Extra Attack proper, but they can instead make a full main-hand attack with a Bonus Action, making up the difference. What’s more, Swashbucklers get this not-quite-but-still-kinda Extra Attack a full level before Fighters et al. acquire the real thing, and in the dog days of early to mid Act 1, that’s a huge advantage.
Using your Bonus Actions on Dirty Tricks makes dual wielding less desirable for anything other than an offhand stat stick (like Crimson Mischief with Bloodthirst in the late game), but this does lend the Swashbuckler to using the fun, strong, class-appropriate Duellist’s Prerogative rapier.
Another strong strategy I’ve heard is grabbing the Great Weapon Master feat (+10 damage, -5 accuracy with two-handed weapons) and pairing it with the Phalar Aluve longsword, the only Finesse (and thus Swashbuckler-friendly) weapon in the game that can still be two-handed, activating the feat.
Going the distance with Rogue for a full 12 levels also means Sneak Attack can come alive in a way it just doesn’t with a quick dip: 6d6 extra damage per round for a 12-level Swash as opposed to 2d6 on a three-level jaunt. Swashbucklers’ Rakish Sneak Attack also lets them land them with no set-up—less important with the plentiful sources of advantage in the late game, but a real boon in Act 1.
Swashbucklers’ Charisma focus—it determines the saving throw difficulty on their Dirty Tricks—also lends them to taking one multiclass dip in particular, the Hexblade. This would still keep the Rogue center stage and grant access to the full gamut of their abilities and 6d6 Sneak Attack. A Swashbuckler 11 / Hexblade 1 just makes sense, consolidating weapon accuracy and damage under Charisma, and it also grants access to the OP Booming Blade cantrip.
After testing this out in Act 1 myself, I’d recommend starting as a Rogue and only grabbing Hexblade at level 5, so as to not delay those juicy Dirty Tricks. But even without a Hexblade’s rizz-based melee combat, a high-Dexterity, high-Charisma pure Swashbuckler promises to be an enjoyable, powerful way to play through Baldur’s Gate 3, nailing that RPG sweet spot of “fun to roleplay” and “feels really good in combat.” Larian finally liberated pure Rogue from being a self-imposed challenge of a character.
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Kurt Indovina
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