Best small race for melee?

I'm a fan of the small-guy-that-kicks-ass-in-melee trope. Unfortunately, with the prevalence of penalties to physical ability scores for small races, it always feels like a self-nerf trying to make it work. What's the best way to pull it off?

(Comic for illustrative purposes.)

Treeborn Gathlain...

Flight. No Str penalty.

Fey Resistance adds scaling DR/cold iron.

There is no "best." You can be a small aasimar with a strength bonus, pretty good for a barbarian, but the same attribute spread is very medium for an unchained rogue. Meanwhile a halfling unchained rogue / Swashbuckler can do a lot but typically won't be impressive as a melee barbarian.

I had great success with a halfling hunter. Went Dervish Dance for dex to damage, then used my teamwork feats to get AoOs and flanking bonuses. Every time I crit, my animal companion got an AoO. Then I would get an AoO from Paired Opportunists. And vice versa. With my Keen Scimitar, I crit a lot.

Angel-Blooded Halflingborn Aasimar or Demon/Qlippoth/Onispawn halflingborn Tiefling are convenient options for Small +Str races. With the right roll, wielding a large 2-handed weapon as a Small Tiefling can be reasonably effective.

There is no "best." You can be a small aasimar with a strength bonus, pretty good for a barbarian, but the same attribute spread is very medium for an unchained rogue. Meanwhile a halfling unchained rogue / Swashbuckler can do a lot but typically won't be impressive as a melee barbarian.

UnChained Rogue/Swashbuckler...? Like a Vexing Mouser? You will probably want to be a Grippli for a racial Climb speed. Crazy effective at what they do... by the time you have Distracting Climber and the Hamstring Deed, you are a lockdown/debuff artist with Dirty Tricks and Debilitating Injury... all up in their business.

Halflings with Resourceful qualify for Shikigami Style... can kind of make up for being Small with virtual size increases.

Gathlains can get Body Thorns, which count as Armor Spikes when unarmored... great for a number of builds.

The Kobold Swarm Fighter archetype stacks with the Dervish of Dawn archetype, and really comes alive with 4 levels of Scout UnRogue taken between 3 and 6.

A lot of the Small races have interesting archetypes that can be quite effective if put together right. Half the fun about being half the size is making up for those penalties.

I've had good success with a Halfling Dawnflower Dervish Bard. Being small is an advantage for the Dawnflower Dervish (+1 to hit and AC for -1 to damage).

Well, IMO there are basically two approaches to Small melee martials: Either try to work around their weaknesses (such as picking a race without Str penalty) or embrace their unique strengths.

Halfling basically forces you into the Dex corner (Str is barely an option), but got some helpful options of the course of years. Risky Striker is awesome when it works, Cautious Fighter boosts your decent AC further and the Intrepid Volunteer trait turns a maneuver Dex based. I'd totally exchange sure-footed for medium base speed (fleet of foot). A +1 on all saves never hurts, though. While other Small races work better for certain missions, I find halfling melee martials good enough for general purpose.

Dex corner often means dual-wield, but this actually fits Small's reduced weapon damage dice. A greatsword reduced to 1d8 is a loss, a dagger downgraded to 1d3 is barely a difference. Just make sure you get enough damage from other sources, and you are fine. The first few levels opponents tend to go down quickly anyway.

Lately, I am dabbling into the idea of Small elven melee martials. Reduce Person is relatively easy to get (can be made permanent on the long run), and then you are at +4 Dex, a speed of 30 (or 35), with some decent racial weapons. The high AC should compensate the Con penalty. While goblin gets +4 Dex and speed of 30, too, well, it's a goblin...

Meh, my favorite small race build just happens to be a Halfling Barbarian (Titan Mauler) / Fighter (Viking) who used an Earthbreaker and buckler before Thunder and Fang was popular. I spit in the face of the strength penalty and still made it my main stat (Strength was 15 and Dex was 16 at character creation, after racial adjustments). It didn't matter once I hit level four and really didnt matter whenever I chose to go into a rage.

Feats were all over the place. Definitely had Risky Striker and Cautious Fighter, but also picked up Two-weapon fighting and Big Game Hunter. Used a halfling sling staff (melee club) and a spiked gauntlet for non-rage fighting and pulled out the earthbreaker when I got serious.

I had a concept build for a Kobold that sorta worked. Kobolds in Pathfinder get No love at all. Goblins get pretty good stats over them. -4 Str painful. +2 Dex doesn't offset that even. Then to make them really unloved -2 to Con. It's like Pazio hates the little guys. But they are an entertaining race.
So the concept build requires a few levels and a lot of multiclassing. Barbarian for the rage str bonus. It's a Moral bonus. Alchemist Rage chemist for the increased str. Adds +6 to Str. Now you are at +8 when raging and using Mutagen. For the final class Occultist. Get Weapon implement use it to get another +2 to Str. That stays +2 all day long. So now the str loss of 4 is now only 2. Or use the implement to offset the con hit. So in normal combat the little bugger is not a melee combat hog. But raging and mutagen changes that. Lets say you don't improve his strength you keep at starting of ten now it's six. Use rage and mutagen and it goes up to 14. Not bad for a little weakling. Now the advantages of all three classes. Most Barbarian archtypes are pretty nice. Rage Chemist for alchemist. for strength or take a standard still doing pretty good. Spells provided give him boosts including defensive. Occultist gives him two spells worth taking Shield and Leadblade. Leadblade increases weapon damage which stancks with Enlarge Person spell.
I haven't played this concept and I actually do want to.

IDK folks, I get demoralized in all these "best build" type threads. For one, I'm not nearly knowledgeable to know what combo of Feats, archetypes and level dips is going to produce the perfect numbers. For another though, I just don't seem to have the same definition of "best" that most do.

I've said it a million times before but I'll repeat it here: I just use the Monster Creation rules for the numbers to shoot for on my melee builds. At level 1, I need to beat a CR 1 foe so I'm looking to hit an avg AC of 12 more than half the time and deliver at least 3.75 damage on a successful hit.

I mean, I can take a 3/4 BAB halfling with a Slingstaff and Point Blank Shot, coupled with a Dex and Str both of 13 or better, and have those numbers met.

By level 6 I need to be hitting an avg AC of 19 for 17.5 damage. Level 10, 24 AC for 32.5. And so on.

Any time I can build so my numbers exceed these, I think I'm doing really well and staying ahead of the curve.

Anyway, the point is I don't know if this character or my other kobold or grippili or mite or ratfolk builds that I've put together as a GM are the "best" in melee, but they're usually not too bad. If I turned them from NPCs to PCs with a 20 point buy and PC level gear, I'd likely be beating that Monster Creation curve again. I'll take that as a win.

Vanara with the "change size" trait is pretty cool. +Dex,wis -chr, climb speed, prehensile tail. You aren't actually small, but you can be small if you want. I'd say this is my favorite way to be a small character.

Goblin is hard to beat though, +4 dex, +8 stealth, darkvision, access to some interesting feats, if you can disguise yourself and ignore your strength, it's a really solid choice.

Goblins for the awesome combo of Scout Rogue + Roll with it.
With finesse and a sneak on a charge, every time you close, you roll with it vs enemy retaliation, bounce away, then charge as your only action next round. Get a wand of Longstrider, and boots of the cat so you can fly UP when truck and land back at the enemies feet.
Super easy to build and leaves a ton of room to build onto.

Helpful Halflings with the Underfoot alternative racial feature get a +1 Dodge bonus against larger opponents.

Disciple of the Pike Cavalier gets a scaling Dodge bonus against larger enemies from Bigger They Are.

Dodge bonuses stack.

Order of the Dragon would be my go-to for this, because Aid Allies, Strategy, and Act as One are all awesome.

Halflings make very good Mousers, especially once you can get Reduce Person made permanent.

Kitsune are good as well with fox shape, getting size Tiny and +6 Dex from level 1.

My wife's first PFS character was a halfling underfoot adept monk. Numi didn't do much damage until much later in her career, but the trip schtick worked very nicely at all levels to set up AoO's from the heavy hitting martials in the party. Combine that with a very high AC and speed, she could move around the battle field with near-impunity to provide flanking, threaten casters, etc.

By the time she was finally able to learn Greater Trip, she had worked out a few ways to make up for her lower base damage dice, such as a merciful vicious amulet of mighty fists.

A wayang magus is a natural fit, with wayang spellhunter being a match on flavour and their stat modifiers being ideal.

Making a hard to kill build once, the wyrwood worked pretty well.

The FCB of Halfling Medium is 1/3 per level to Seance bonus. For Champion that's 1/3 damage with any non-spell.
Toss in Risky Striker and Power Attack/Piranha Strike and you are looking at loads of static damage.

Maybe some two weapon fighting with daggers, Pharasma deific obedience, river rat trait, and spirit focus(champion) to start.

I'm assuming they would be a DEX-based character rather than STR? I know there's a feat that allows you to ad DEX instead of STR for attack bonus, but is there a similar one for the damage bonus?

I'm assuming they would be a DEX-based character rather than STR? I know there's a feat that allows you to ad DEX instead of STR for attack bonus, but is there a similar one for the damage bonus?

Fencing/Slashing/Starry Grace does Dex-to-DMG... Two Weapon Grace does it for TWF...

I'm assuming they would be a DEX-based character rather than STR? I know there's a feat that allows you to ad DEX instead of STR for attack bonus, but is there a similar one for the damage bonus?

Any of the feats named ____ grace and also dervish dance do this. Rapiers, starknives and light and one-handed slashing weapons are covered, especially scimitars. Doing so with two-weapon fighting requires a further feat, two-weapon grace.

There are other tricks (class abilities or magic items) for this too.

Tiefling or Aasimar can get you +2 strength on a small race, the damage dice will be slightly lower, but weapon dice are only a small part of damage and you'll be more accurate.

It's much better than dex to damage as you can use a two handed weapon without having to be an unchained rogue (not the worst class sure, but I'd rather be a warpriest, bloodrager etc. any day)

Tiefling or Aasimar can get you +2 strength on a small race

I always forget about the non-human option for tieflings and aasimar. Hadn't even considered it as a fix for this issue.

As a GM, I think removing racial ability modifiers as a whole is a much better option. It makes so many races, so much more appealing.

This all is highly subjective...

Goblins get a freaking +4 Dex, making UnChained Rogue an immediate viable option in combat... starting at level 1 with accuracy to spare... +4 Dex and +1 size...

My aforementioned Treeborn Gathlain suffers no Strength penatly, even as a small race, and brings Flyby Attack to the table as early as level 1... Titan Fighter with Flyby Attack, Power Attack, Furious Focus, Improved Bullrush, Rhino Charge, Vital Strike, Gorum's Swordmanship...

The real question is, with a +1 size bonus to accuracy built in by default... how are you possibly screwing this up? Being small is easy...

Even a Kobold can easily go all-in on Charisma with Starknives and be a viable Flying Blade Swashbuckler... A KOBOLD... Desna's Shooting Star, Quickdraw, Point Blank Shot... done by level 5 with a Blinkback Belt... free to pursue Startoss Style at your convenience...