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My playgroup is coming back to pathfinder and I’m planning on playing Tengu Eldritch Scoundrel Rogue (unchained) in an upcoming Carrion Crown AP. I’m wondering what the best fighting style is. I’m sure I’ll mostly be using my magic for skill monkey purposes but will be able to save a couple spell slots for combat buffs, especially as levels progress. I understand that my damage isn’t going to be optimal, but I’d like to be at least viable. Tengu receive a free bite attack and can further choose between proficiency with all swords/knives OR two claw attacks. There are three options (that I can see) which are available to me: natural attacks, elven curve blade, or TWF. As far as damage goes, are these roughly on par with each other, or does one outshine/ fall behind the rest? Has anyone run the numbers on these styles with the reduced sneak attack damage dice? Has anyone run the numbers on these styles with a secondary bite attack? I’m looking to the forum wisdom to guess which style is best.

I would prefer natural attacks or elven curve blade, unless TWF is far and away the best. If all styles are roughly equal, there are other things to consider:
Natural Attacks
Pros-
Free hands for casting
No mandatory feats that I’m aware of: this allows space to pick up extra rogue talents, accomplished sneak attacker, etc. to make up for the class features I’m trading away for spells. Effectively trading feats for 6th level spellcasting.
3 attacks at no BAB penalty (5 later on with helm of the mammoth lord and wyvern cloak): Works well with sneak attack; 3 attacks early and 5 attacks later at full BAB keeps up with the number of iteratives that have a chance to actually hit if you go TWF. Amulet of Mighty fists + no BAB penalty from TWF means Piranha Strike will be used a lot more too.
I get to be a crow man who claws zombies in gothic horror: CAW

Cons
Wyvern cloak takes the slot of the mandatory cloak. Offset by the +4 Will but losing 1 Will and 5 Fort hurts.
Dex to Damage: No dex to damage on Bite until 11th, then that’s it. An agile AoMF takes care of this but it feels bad buying it for only two attacks (gore and sting)

Elven Curve Blade

Pros:

Free action to take one hand off to cast: effectively have a free hand at all times
Not feat heavy
Best damage when you don’t get to full attack
Fewer attacks means shorter turns in combat (this belongs under Cons if overall damage is worse than the other options, but this option is hurt the least by the reduced sneak attack die progression.)

Cons:

Need Str 13 for Power Attack: I’m not delaying spell progression by dipping ranger

TWF

Pros

Drow razor looks like a great weapon
Weapon Focus and buff spells have the highest impact.

Cons
Feat heavy
No free hands

Does anyone have a rough idea or suggestion? Is there something I'm missing that makes one choice obviously better than the others?

Please cancel my adventure path subscription. I believe the final volume of Hell's Vengeance has already been shipped, but just in case, I will clarify that I would like it to ship before the subscription is cancelled.

Pathfinder is designed for an epic, high fantasy feel. I've been itching to play a low fantasy game and the 9th level casters do not fit in the world. Fortunately, they have 6th-level versions already. A Cleric character would take levels in Warpriest, Druid in Hunter, Wizard in Magus/Eldritch Scoundrel Rogue. This covers the major spell lists, but leaves the commonly used magic-blooded sorcerer trope with nothing but the spontaneous casting Magus archetype.

In making the Sorcerer a 6th-level casting class I've come up with the following:
3/4 BaB progression, d8 hp, 4+INT skills per level, good Will save
Spells known are equal to Bard spells known for each level
Bloodline feats are gained at 2,6,10,14,18
Bloodline bonus spells are gained at 3,5,8,11,14,17

I have yet to read through all the Bloodline powers to see if they need changing; for example in this system, the earliest access to the spell Fly is 10th level.

Notably, the class is missing a mechanic to increase it's chance to hit in combat. It's role is not to be a gish (the aforementioned magus archetype covers that) but a few more bonus feats may not be enough. Should I invent a mechanic before playtesting, or leave it be and make learning a few buff spells more or less mandatory? Perhaps with the d8 chassis, melee oriented bloodlines may see their intended use.

I think the name of the iconic ninja is Reiko, not Ameiko.

For an upcoming Kingmaker game I'm considering a worshiper of Abadar, and I'd like to kill bandits and enforce the law with his favored weapon, the Light Crossbow. I have a little leeway because I'm DMing book 1 and my character will be a DMPC, so I'm not too concerned with my performance in combat levels 1-4. I've completely given up on making a crossbow paladin work, so now I'm looking at Gunslinger (Bolt Ace) 5/ Sentinel (Inner Sea Gods) 10. This will be an RP heavy game, so I'd prefer not to dump Int or Cha, and I've found that once I reached a certain level with my Swashbuckler in another campaign, 10 Str isn't enough to carry everything you need, even with a Haversack, so I'd prefer not to dump Str either. Creation rules are 25 point buy, one combat trait, one trait from elsewhere, and our group hasn't used any 3rd party or 3.5 material whenever we've played so no guarantee of being able to use that.

So far I have:
Str: 12
Dex: 19 total (+2 Human)
Con: 13
Int: 12
Wis: 14
Cha: 10
Get 20 dex at 4th, 14 Con at 8th, and Dex the rest of the way.

Feats-
1st: Point Blank Shot
Human: Precise Shot
3rd: Rapid Reload
Gunslinger Bonus 4th: Weapon Focus: Light Crossbow
5th: Diefic Obedience (+4 saving throws vs. spells and effects made by creatures with a chaotic alignment)
7th: Deadly Aim
Sentinel Bonus 7th: Rapid Shot
9th: Clustered Shots ?
11th: Signature Deed: Sharp Shoot
Sentinel Bonus 12th: Improved Precise Shot ?
13th:

The plan is to have my character's damage "turn on" at 5th when I become a PC with Bolt Ace giving Dex to damage, and 7th is really where I get up to par. By 9th I should have at least a +1 Holy weapon, and at 10th I'll be able to treat any weapon I wield as being Axiomatic, getting through a lot of DR, so would Clustered Shots be worth taking? At 11th I'll be hitting everything within 80 feet against touch AC as long as I have a grit point thanks to Signature Deed; would I be able to retrain Precise Shot into something like Weapon Specialization, Improved Critical, or Iron Will and get away with the penalty to hit of 4?

This is what I look like at 11th so far:

Javert
Human Gunslinger (Bolt Ace) 5/ Sentinel 6
LN Medium humanoid (human)
Init +10; Senses Perception +16
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Defense
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AC 21, touch 17, flat-footed 14 (+4 armor, +6 Dex, +1 Dodge)
hp 82ish (11d10+27) 22 Con, 5 Favored Class
Fort +14, Ref +14, Will +9 (+3 Base, +2 Wisdom, +2 Resistance, +2 Trait)
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Offense
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Speed 30 ft.

Ranged +1 Light Crossbow +18/+18/+13 (1d8+17/ 17-20×3)
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Statistics
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Str 12, Dex 23, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 10
Base Atk +11; CMB +2; CMD 15
Feats Point-Blank Shot, Improved Critical, Rapid Reload, Weapon Focus (+1 hit), Diefic Obedience, Deadly Aim (-3, +6), Rapid Shot (-2, extra attack ona full attack), Clustered Shots, Signature Deed: Sharp Shoot
Traits: +2 Will, -1Cha-based skill check with Brevic nobility; some other trait

Gear: Mithral Chain Shirt, Cloak of Resistance +2, +1 Light Crossbow
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Special Abilities
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2 Grit Points, Gunslinger Initiative (+2), Nimble +1, Sharp Shoot (passive) Resolve crossbow attacks against Touch, Vigilant Loading (Don't provoke AoO's while loading a crossbow), Crossbow Training (add Dex to damage and increase critical multiplier with Light Crossbow), Symbolic Weapon +3 (+3 to hit and damage with diety's favored weapon), Divine Quickness (+2 Initiative while wielding favored weapon), Aligned Strike (treat favored weapon as Axiomatic), Stalwart (+2 to resist Divine spells), Obedience (+4 to saves vs spells and effects created by a creature with a chaotic alignment), Lawful Bulwark (shield of faith 3/day, shield other 2/day, or archon's aura 1/day), Unflagging Ally (1/day, summon a zelekut inevitable for 1 minute per HD
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I haven't planned out my gear yet so I added a bare minimum just to look at the stat block. Unfortunately Manyshot and Bracers of Archery only work for bows. I'm looking for advice for magic items, my questions about feats earlier, or is this not good enough to where I should abandon this altogether?