Dex-based Heavy Armor Build with Draconic sub-theme

So, I have a character concept that I've used in other, more free-form, systems, and was wondering if I could do anything like it in Pathfinder.

The race of the character is a conglomeration of human, fey (shapechanger), and dragon, but looks human basically. He has wings as well, though can activate and deactivate them at will.

The class of the character is a little weird. He wears black plate mail (though I'd we willing to use Breastplate), and dual wields a katana and a more traditional sword (longsword, bastard sword, something like that). I would be willing to just use two of the same swords flavored differently so that feats like Weapon Focus could apply to both. He is also fairly sneaky, so I'm thinking dex-based build (would help with the TWF as well) maybe with Slashing Grace to help with damage. He was also a spellcaster, with the plate armor not causing any issues. His typical spells were fairly basic things like invisbility (to help with Stealth) or fireballs and such for crowd control. Haste wouldn't be bad either. So he's basically a gish, with a preference for the physical side and the magic side being mainly utility with some blasting.

I was thinking maybe Fighter with variant multiclass as a draconic sorcerer, even though that doesn't give me spellcasting. Also going to look into the Magus or maybe Dragon Disciple and/or Eldritch Knight.

Just looking for some suggestions to help get me a little more direction.

Ok, so here is the first issue:

- There are three arcane spellcasters in the game that can use heavy armor without a problem. Eldritch Knight is NOT one of them. They are: Magus, Steelblood archetype Bloodrager and Arcane Duelist archetype Bard.

- However, Magus CANNOT use two-weapon fighting effectively; and Bloodragers and Bards cannot TWF without compromising their spellcasting ability, because a free hand is needed to cast spells like fireball and son on.

Let's cross this bridge first.

Would you like to:

a) Nix TWF.

b) Nix the arcane spellcasting requirement.

c) Nix heavy plate.

Generally, TWFing and casting are incompatible as you need a free hand for somatic spell components. Slashing Grace is also incompatible with TWFing.

I would suggest taking a look at a Steelblood Draconic Bloodrager though, it gets you some spellcasting, your draconic flavor, and heavy armor casting, but its Strength-based not dex-based. Urban Draconic Bloodrager can be made dex-based, but you only get medium armor, and you run into the TWF and casting issue again.

Oh, if you are willing to use breastplate, this makes this...somewhat... easier. Because going high dex in heavy armor is...meh. So for breastplate, just grab the armor expert trait and pick any class that has light armor. With armor expert, you can grab a mithral breastplate with no problems at all. Fairly good for a dex build.

Hmm...you want to TWF with two one handed weapons...that is still troublesome, since that brings a -4 penalty instead of -2. Also, you can't use slashing grace with TWF.

You also want to focus on spells to some extent. Hmmm...

My general advise is to drop one of the swords and go magus. That should be able to over most of what you are looking for. Sorry to say it, but you are looking for something that goes in so many direction, it is hard to make a character that covers all of it.

And with the race thing- your GM just letting you have that, or are you planning to make a race? What?

Another workable solution is a mindblade magus if you are willing to go with a mithral breastplate. If you are a newer player, I would avoid this, because psychic spellcasting is a lot harder to play as a gish due to the defensive casting penalty, but you would get a mithrl breastplate, spellcasting (psychic not arcane, but still the magus list + some extra), VMC sorcerer for your draconic abilities, and the ability to TWF with spellcasting at level 7.

Mindblade is Psychic. I haven't recommended it yet because he specifically said Arcane.

If he answers my first post with an answer to whether he wants to keep the Arcane part over TWF, we can continue looking at Psychic/Divine casters... whereas if he wants to nix TWF, we can look at Magus, Bloodrager, etc.

Generally, TWFing and casting are incompatible as you need a free hand for somatic spell components.

Actually, it is possible to TWF as a regular spellcaster.

It is just not possible to do so with swords/daggers/etc.

If you want to TWF as a spellcaster, you want a cestus. It does not interfere with spellcasting (as compared to another similar weapon, the brass knuckles, which were released at the same general time).

I can make a tidy little dawnflower dervish bard build that boxes with this. Cause that archetype is way too good to be restricted to dervish dance- It shoots from the regular 'jack of allt rades' buffer bard to straight DPS class on par with Full BAB classes in terms of bonuses.

It has boosts on par with rage at level 1, and eventually gets twice the bonuses that rage gives you... and it is VERY friendly with 'lots of hits' styles like TWf and archery.

But generally speaking- if you want swords and spells, then yes, best to drop the TWF.

Ok, so here is the first issue:

- There are three arcane spellcasters in the game that can use heavy armor without a problem. Eldritch Knight is NOT one of them. They are: Magus, Steelblood archetype Bloodrager and Arcane Duelist archetype Bard.

- However, Magus CANNOT use two-weapon fighting effectively; and Bloodragers and Bards cannot TWF without compromising their spellcasting ability, because a free hand is needed to cast spells like fireball and son on.

This is not so much of a problem for an Arcane Duelist once they reach 5th level.

Arcane Bond (Ex): At 5th level, an arcane duelist gains the arcane bond ability as a wizard, using a weapon as his bonded item, allowing him to cast any one addition spell that he knows once per day. He may not choose a familiar or other type of bonded item. He may use the hand holding his bonded weapon for somatic components. This ability replaces lore master.

Pick up Eschew Components and they will be able to cast nearly any Bard spell while holding two weapons in their hands. Even without Eschew Components there are lots of spells that work.

Oh, ultra neat. So Arcane Duelist is the front runner... here's a build...

Race Human

Alternate Racial Traits Dual Talent

Traits Whatever

Attributes at start, assuming 20 pt. buy S14+2 D16+2 C12 I10 W7 CH15

Feats

1. Weapon Focus (Shortsword)

3. Free choice

5. Two-Weapon Fighting (to coincide with Arcane Bond)

7. Double Slice

9. Improved Two-Weapon Fighting

11. Improved Critical

Big problem: Only gets Heavy Armor at 16th level, and Medium Armor at 10th level. Plus, no Dragon flavor, and no fireballs...

Thinking about it...you can accomplish a lot of what this build seeks if you go with elemental annhilator kineticist.

-It doesn't care if you are in heavy armor. Might still be silly to go with fullplate with such a dex based class (remember- that mithral breastplate thing is still an option though)
-you can make your blades look however you want (it is all cosmetic anyway)
-do TWF and magic based with an archery style
-if you take fire as your secondary element, then sure, you can still shoot big fire blasts later on (might have to wait until level 11 when you start getting more infusions before you can make it AoE though)

An earth/fire specialist can get some decent magma eruptions going on later on. And it would generally be fairly sturdy (since earth is stupid good with its invulnerable rager barbarian levels of DR...that can be boosted even further while also boosting your other attack abilities.

You can't do invisibility though (since the main option for that is aether utility talent, adn that is from utility talents that you lose witht that archetype. ). Otherwise, you can eventually over most of the build targets here.

I think the thing I'd most be willing to give up is the casting. I tend to prefer martial characters anyway (spellcasting is just a bunch of annoying book keeping and I hate having abilities that are limited to a certain number of times per day, like spells). That's why I was considering just Fighter with VMC Sorcerer. Fighter gives me armor training, which means a Dex-build in heavy armor is possible, lots of feats for TWF and other damage feats, there are ways to get bonuses to weapon groups (Heavy Blades) as opposed to just a single type of weapon so I can use two different styles of weapons without having to re-flavor one of them, and the weapon training would help make up for using two one-handed weapons.

The VMC sorcerer would eventually get me wings and some other fairly flavorful abilities at the cost of 5 feats (4 if you factor in getting a bonus feat in return from Draconic, like Improved Initiative or Toughness) which Fighters have plenty of anyway.

I might consider trying to fit the spellcasting in if I use this character in the gestalt campaign I'm in though.

Mithral heavy armor would also help since it counts as medium armor for purposes of classes that get no ASF in various types of armor.

The problem with VMC Sorcerer is that you are probably going to waste the claw attacks. Other than that, it sounds pretty solid.

I would probably give up on Dex-to-damage. There's little to gain from it, and a Fighter can get this:

Trained Grace (Ex): When the fighter uses Weapon Finesse to make a melee attack with a weapon, using his Dexterity modifier on attack rolls and his Strength modifier on damage rolls, he doubles his weapon training bonus on damage rolls. The fighter must have Weapon Finesse in order to choose this option.

Oh, ultra neat. So Arcane Duelist is the front runner... here's a build...

Race Human

Alternate Racial Traits Dual Talent

Traits Whatever

Attributes at start, assuming 20 pt. buy S14+2 D16+2 C12 I10 W7 CH15

Feats

1. Weapon Focus (Shortsword)

3. Free choice

5. Two-Weapon Fighting (to coincide with Arcane Bond)

7. Double Slice

9. Improved Two-Weapon Fighting

11. Improved Critical

Big problem: Only gets Heavy Armor at 16th level, and Medium Armor at 10th level. Plus, no Dragon flavor, and no fireballs...

The OP said he would be willing to go with a breastplate, and the Armor Expert trait would let him wear a mithril breastplate with no penalties as soon as he could afford it. And for a high DEX character there really isn't much point in heavy armor anyway.

I would get the dragon flavor by going into Dragon Disciple. A four level dip gets you +4 STR, 4 levels of d12 hit dice, +3 natural armor, a breath weapon, a bloodline feat, temporary claws and a bite attack, and one energy resistance of 5. It costs you a single level of spell progression and four levels delaying your Bardic abilities. It's not a terrible trade-off.