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I have too many ideas for Pathfinder Society characters. I should stop clogging the boards with my ideas.
Anyway, I see that there are several Japanese-inspired characters in Pathfinder, the Samurai, the Ninja, two Geisha bard builds, the Yokai hunter (Yokai is the Japanese word for ghost/evil spirit), the winter witch (probably based off of the Yuki Onna, a Japanese children's story), even the shaman could be built as a Shinto priest pretty easily. However, there is a lot fewer builds for Chinese-inspired characters.
I was thinking of making one of these Chinese-inspired character for PFS, a Wudang swordmaster. The character would use a Chinese straight-sword (a Jian) and would be running around with a Queue (long chinese braid) and doing some serious kung-fu stuff. As far as the Jian, the closest thing I can think of is a Dueling sword.
I am trying to find my options to basically get this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXIJv1NoXmo
Idea 1) The most obvious choice is monk, but I couldn't find a way to get any of my monk powers (like flurry of blows and such) to work with non-monk weapons.
Pros: Super Kung-Fu action, Ki could let me jump like crazy, do all the crazy wall-running stuff with the right feats.
Cons: Using weapons over your hands is sub-optimal once you get up there in higher levels. To truly make the character concept come alive, I'd need to dish out 8k for a +1 agile temple sword or something, and that's a ways off. Plus a temple sword doesn't much resemble a Jian.
Idea 2) I could make a fighter with the Andori Dueling Sword to emulate the Jian, and then make a swordlord.
Pros: Lots of feats for things like Slashing Grace and Dueling Mastery, unabashed master of hitting thing with sword.
Cons: Very little Kung-Fu action. Walking around in plate mail kinda ruins the whole monk-ish thing.
Idea 3) Swashbuckler
Pros: You can duplicate lots of Kung-Fu action with deeds. Eventually get level to damage (which is SICK!)
Cons: Being a cocky SOB with Pinache is not exactly the serine monk master that the Wudang portrays. Restricted to using the Rapier (pretty much) which isn't a terribly good analogy for a jian. Not all the Kung-fu gets represented.
Idea 4) Kensei Magus
Pros: Can start out proficient with the Dueling sword, and use it well. Can eventually get slashing grace. Can duplicate Kung-Fu ness with skills
Cons: Casting spells to get Kung-Fu ness doesn't seem like a very Wudang thing.
Clearly, there is no one PERFECT way to go about it, but I was wondering what people thought. Any special thoughts on how to make a Wudang swordmaster? Any and all thoughts on how to make this character is open, I'm all ears!
I was hoping for a Wisdom-based swashbuckler to pull this character archetype off, but haven't seen one in a PFS-approved source yet. Maybe there's one in ACG Origins?
I think that's generally going to be your best bet. You could also consider the kensai magus with the swashbuckling arcana in the ACG.
There is a monk archetype that gets a lot of swashbukler stuff, the kata master. A monk with one level of kata master and the rest as swashbuckler gets to flurry and has his full BAB when flurrying, and gets twice his Charisma as a panache pool.
The only option I know of to use a non-monk weapon as a monk weapon is with the Crusader's Flurry feat, which requires a cleric PC.
You could also use the temple sword, which is already a monk weapon. A kata master monk/swashbuckler would fit the concept pretty well, and not need a terribly good Charisma (though it'd be better with a Wisdom-based archetype, of course). The kata master lets you use all monk weapons as swashbuckler weapons, so you don't need Slashing Grace.
You could do a Sohei monk archetype. The sohei can take weapon training at 6th level, then he can flurry with any weapon he has training in.
SteelDraco mentioned Crusader's Flurry: you'd have to flurry with your deity's favored weapon, too. Iomedae uses a long sword, and Ragathiel uses a bastard sword, but that's probably as close as you'll get.