I am going to start a new game. I was thinking of making a swashbuckler, but there aren't very good describtions about this class in the manual, just that it can't backstab. What armor can it wear? What weapons can it use? Is it a good fighter? I really need thieving skills since there aren't any good npc's with the thieving skills that I want.

By the way, what good is allignment anyway? If I am evil and go around with good npc's doing good deeds, what can happen??

hey, you'll be able to read the kit description while you are creating
your character, alignment has less affect on the game than reputation,
your alignment will only decide your starting reputation.
Just watch out your reputation, some npc's(edwin, korgan) will get really
angry with you if you reach rep 18+. And some evil and good aligned
npc's will not get along very well, you'll see if you have them together.