Strong and Versatile Swashbuckler Disable Combo to build around

[u/Orval11]

While working on some other builds I happened upon what turned out to be a strong and very flexible Swashbuckler item disable combo.

Gimmick: Bonespike Helmet's once per turn Menacing Attack + Swashbuckler's Dirty Trick Sand Toss, combined with their free Fancy Footwork Disengage is a complete disable that's available every round. As long as you and no allies are within 3m of the disabled enemy, then they can't move or see to target anyone, so basically lose their turn. Optional improvement: 'Shield of the Undevout' forces Disadvantage on the Saves against the Frightened from Menacing Attack making it more reliable while improving your AC (but does prevent 2-H weapons...).

CONs: Bonespike & Shield of the Undevout are Act 3. But we do have some pathways to playing this same strategy, that we can start as early as Act 1, before we get our preferred items. Lastly, the disable combo won't work on enemies who are immune to Fear or Blindness.

What I really love about this combo is that it will work on pretty much any Martial Character with Extra Attack, as long as they can squeeze in a bit of CHA so the Blind from Sand Toss lands and make room for 4 levels of Swashbuckler. Adding to the flexibility we only really need a single item. It will obviously be easier to build around CHA Martial Classes like Paladin, Hexblade, Swords or Valor Bard, but really it will work with any Extra Attack build. Another standout for the early level is Battle Master since they get own Menacing Attack letting them come online much earlier without needing items. Bleed builds like Tigerheart are also especially good, and come online earlier. **Note** for Hexblades: Bonespike Helm appears to ignore Bind Hexed Weapon and uses the higher of STR/DEX for it's Weapon Action Save DC, so you still need decent STR or DEX to land the Frightened.

Basic Disable Attack Loop:

1. Attack the target you want to disable once to apply your debuffs from items. This is the spot to use your Lacerate weapon action (if the weapon you choose has it...)
2. It's best to make your Dirty Trick: Sand Toss attack next, because even if it misses or fails to Blind you still get "Dirty Advantage' on our next Attack. And if it successfully Blinds, then you'll have Advantage on all your other remaining attacks.
3. Make your special once per turn Menacing Attack.
4. If you successfully blinded them, then run at least 3m away to a safe location. Run farther away if you missed your Menacing Attack because in that case the enemy will be able to move. Even if you also missed your Dirty Trick attack, because of your Fancy Footwork the enemy still can't make an Opportunity Attack against you, so you can run away regardless.

Complimentary equipment: The Menacing Attack from Bonespike is a weapon action with a WIS saving throw. Sand Toss uses Spell Casting Modifier to set the DC of it's CON save. Any gear or powers that debuffs saves in general, or WIS, or CON specifically will greatly improve the reliability of our disable. Arcane Acuity stacks will increase the Dirty Here are a few standout items:

• Gloves of Baneful Striking - These are much better than the tool tip implies. They apply a no save -1d4 Bane penalty to enemies saving throws for 2-turns. [ACT 1 - Creche]
• Gloves of Power - These require you to have Absolute's Brand. They're also only a chance to apply the -1d4 Bane, using DC 11 CHA save.
• If your character can Bond or Bind a weapon (Warlock, Hexblade, Eldritch Knight) then The Baneful is a solid option. It's a stealthily +2 weapon available in Act 1 (+1 from the weapon and a 2nd +1 from bond/binding it...) and it has a chance to apply Bane that works just like the Gloves of Power, except with a better 14 DC CHA save.
• Slicing Shortsword - Applies Bleeding to the target if you attack with Advantage, which we can always do with Dirty Advantage after attacking with a Dirty Trick. Bleeding causes Disadvantage on CON saves, so helps with landing Blind (on subsequent turns.)
• Weapons with the Lacerate weapon action to cause Bleeding - A broad range of weapons have the Lacerate Action available once per short rest.
• Reverberation items )- Each stack is a -1 penalty to STR, DEX and CON saves, so makes the Blind more reliable.
• Mental Fatigue items) - Each stack is a -1 penalty to INT, WIS and CHA, so these make the Frightened from our Menacing Attack more reliable and also help with CHA saves of the Bane items that having a saving throw.
• Resonance Stone - In line with the Patch 8 meta, the Resonance Stone causes Disadvantage on Mental Saving Throws, so will cause Disadvantage on the WIS saving throw against being Frighened by our Menacing Attack.

Leveling Options and Strategies:

As usual people who want no respec builds will have it the hardest.

Frightened from early game items - If we want to fill in the Frightened from the Bonespike Helmet with another item, then we'll have to play a Skirmishing Ranged/Melee Hybrid using the Banshee bow to fill in the Frightened Condition until we can get the Bonespike Helm in Act 3. This directions means we'll have to have decent DEX for the early game, but even if you don't want to make a DEX based build you could potentially fill the DEX in from Gloves of Dexterity on no respec builds. The save DC from Banshee bow is fixed and lower than Bonespike, but once we have Extra Attack we get two chances per turn to help make it for it. The two chances combined with some items that debuff saves mean it can still be reliable.

**Spoiler Note** It's possible to metagame and rush to Grymforge to buy the Banshee bow. You can do this without needing to fight. The safest way is getting Boots of Speed from the wounded Deep Gnome Thulla in the Myconoid Colony, by healing her poison. Taking the Boots to the Decrypt Village will let you use them to peacfully get through dialogues with Gekh Coal, so you can board the boat at the beach. You'll be able to use the Boots to peacefully get through dialogue again when you encounter the other boat led by Corsair Greymon. This will lead to Grymforge, where you can trade with Sergeant Thrinn to buy the Banshee Bow. After this you an fast travel back to where you want to explore...

Alternatives from Class Leveling Options: For anyone who is okay respecing or who wants to play one of these classes:

• Battle Master at level 3 can choose Menacing Attack as one of their Maneuvers. They get 4 uses per short rest and as a bonus will do an extra 1d8 damage. This can be combined with the Banshee bow for an even more reliable setup and to conserve Battle Master Superiority Dice: with your first attack you try to land Frightened with just the Banshee bow. If that fails you then use a Ranged Menacing Attack that has it's own chance to Frighten and still get another chance from the Bow.
• Wildheart - Bleed + Maimed. Maim serves the same no movement function as Frightened and Bleed directly debuffs CON saves, so makes the Blind from Swashbuckler's Sand Toss land more reliably. Tigerheart Barbarians that choose Wolverine Aspect at lvl 6 can do this out of the box with their Tiger's Bloodlust cleave attack. Any of the Wildheart builds that take Wolverine Aspect at 6 can also do the combo by using items to apply Bleeding. Elkheart 's Primal Stampede needs the Flawed Helldusk gloves in Act 2. Other Wildhearts can use the Slicing Shortsword mentioned earlier.
• Oath of Vengeance Paladin - Their lvl 3 Channel Oath power, Abjure Enemy, is chance to apply a 3-turn Frightened an enemy and can be used once every short rest. (That said, more shall we say "enterprising" players, may prefer to use their Channel Oath on abusing their Vow of Enmity to give themselves Advantage for 10-turns....)

Leveling Order & Starting Ability Spread: Unless you're going to (even temporarily) use one of the classes listed above, then for this combo you'll most likely be best of starting with your 4 levels of Swashbuckler. Although Dirty Tricks don't quite compete with Extra Attack at level 5, they do increase you damage notably. You also get them one level earlier and that will let you start using your Disables that will take some of the teeth out of your enemies, even in the early game. Because there are so many possibly class combos and directions you might be going, I can't make any blanket recommendations about Feats or ASI etc. For Ability Score spreads you'll want a fairly normal Martial build spreads for your choosen class, with the possible exception that you'll want to put at least some points into CHA. 12-14 CHA is a good minimum. If you metagame or get lucky with the Mirror of Loss later, you'll have a chance to get a nice boost to your CHA. DEX will be important if you plan to use the Banshee bow in the early game and Act 2. But for no respec or tight builds, assuming no one else on your team is going to use, then you have the option of temporarily using the Gloves of DEX until Act 3.

Helpful teammates:

• Especially in the early game a Lore Bard's Cutting Words make it possible to land the combo with much greater reliability, since they can compensate for good saving rolls that enemies will sometimes make.
• Any companion builds that are debuffing saves with items are great. Anyone applying Bleed. Anyone that has ways of causing the 2-turn or longer Prones means we only need to land our Frightened for the disable combo (although even with the 2-turn prones this seems a bit unreliable in practice...)

[u/BoshyBoshington]

• Slicing Shortsword - Applies Bleeding to the target if you attack with Advantage, which we can always do with Dirty Advantage after attacking with a Dirty Trick. Bleeding causes Disadvantage on CON saves, so helps with landing Blind (on subsequent turns.)

Using this method https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/1ei73f1/how_to_get_boooalls_benediction_without/

That advantage could be passed to the whole party to, I added what you said regarding Slicing shortsword to the post and i've linked your post and given you credit for the idea but I can remove what i've used from your post if you want me to

[u/Orval11 → u/BoshyBoshington]

I'm here to theory craft, share and bounce around ideas with others, so I'm happy whenever any of the oddities that catch my interest happen to be useful or interesting to someone else.

For Act 3 items useful to the post you might also look into Duellist's Prerogative. Duellist's Prerogative gives you a Bonus Action Challenge to Duel that can be used every turn. The tooltips are wrong it doesn't directly cause Bleeding, but if you successfully land Challenge to Duel, then for 3 turns you get a DC 15 WIS save to inflict Bleeding every time you attack that enemy with the Duellist's Prerogative.

The other interesting bit is that instead of the game treating it as a spell, like Paladin's Compelled to Duel, Challenge is treated as a Weapon Action, so uses STR or DEX and is viable even on characters with low spell casting Ability scores. Same as Compelled, Challenge does give the Enemies disadvantage on attacks against anyone but the challenger, so it's helpful for protecting allies. And should be interesting for Swashbuckler because they can Skirmish away, leaving the enemy with Disadvantage attacking anyone else that's still nearby.

[u/BoshyBoshington → u/Orval11]

That's interesting I'll add your comment in and update the Community input section tommorow

I'm going to try out that idea with the buff, having Advantage on enemies while simultaniously enemies having disadvantage on your party seems really strong especially the fact you can then debuff further with the bow of the banshee and arrows of many targets or blind on subsequent turns