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Have you listened to the Gamer's Guide to Pathfinder podcast about skinning?

I would suggest you take a barbarian, skin the "rage" as Yoma-mode, and then take a masterwork greatsword and breastplate. Then, talk to your GM about auto-resolving minor acrobatics checks that fit the character's fight style (small wall-running to attack, jumping to strike, etc.) For stats, prioritize strength, keep charisma at about 12 maximum, and then max out intimidate. There are a lot of things you could do, but I would think that, to get the basic concept, this would work rather well.

What do you think, Pathfinder Community?

Thanks for the advice, everyone. I really appreciate the help. So, dump CHA but pump STR, that seems really good. And be very careful with the knife-throwing, in which case I might as well just dump the whole throwing thing and go for two-handed melee.

Again, thank you for everyone's help so far. I'm really grateful, but I doubt my group will be very soon. MWAHAHA!!! :)

Hey, everyone! So, I was recently listening to the Gamer's Guide to Pathfinder podcast and I got this idea from them of a knife master/vivisectionist build to use as an antagonist in my campaign. So, the idea behind the character is a dangerous assassin who uses alchemy-based-steampunk-tech (think Full Metal Alchemist, and this is a skin job, BTW) as his mutagen and sneaks around getting sneak attacks with all sorts of poisoned daggers, creeping up on the PC's and their friends with deadly silence and striking with lethal precision. This character is supposed to make the party very, very afraid.

So, here is the build I have so far:

Race: Elf

Stats (25 point buy)

STR: 10
DEX: 18
CON: 10
INT: 18
WIS: 13
CHA: 12

LVL 1 (Knife Master 1): Two Weapon Fighting
LVL 2 (Knife Master 2): Fast Stealth for Rogue Talent
LVL 3 (Knife Master 2/Vivisectionist 1): Point Blank Shot
LVL 4 (Knife Master 2/Vivisectionist 2): Concentrate Poison for Discovery, increase DEX to 19
LVL 5 (Knife Master 2/Vivisectionist 3): Quick Draw
LVL 6 (Knife Master 2/Vivisectionist 4): Extend Potion for Discovery
LVL 7 (Knife Master 2/Vivisectionist 5): Far Shot
LVL 8 (Knife Master 2/Vivisectionist 6): Increase DEX to 20, Sticky Poison for discovery

SKILS: The skills that must be maxed out are as follows: Stealth, Acrobatics, Craft (Alchemy), and Perception. Others skills to consider are Intimidate (for interrogations) and Knowledge Nature. Sleight of hand is a great option as well as use magic device, but the character does not need to know the Heal skill as Vivi3 replaces it with Knowledge Nature.

The strategy would be to sneak around with multiple daggers and throw them at his targets from afar. By the time the above build is complete, he will be attacking with the following stats (assuming no enchantment or masterwork weapons or mutagen bonuses)

THROW TWO DAGGERS:
+9/+9 to hit at a 19-20/x2 with 2x (1d4 + 4d8 + 0) at 10 ft, and -1/-1 for every 10 ft after. The average damage, assuming both hit, is 41. This is also not including the addition of poisons, which this character would constantly use. With mutagens focusing towards dexterity, this character would be looking at a +11/+11 to hit if taking the dexterity mutagen, or an average damage increase of 2 per dagger if going the strength route.

So, any advice for a highly trained and terrifying killer with this concept?

Please note that this is a far from optimal build, and I am aware that bombs are way more powerful ,but I felt that this character could be very fun to roleplay as a villain. What are your thoughts? (P.S. please do not leave bomb-lobber comments as I will be posting about a build for that later on)

If you go fighter then 16, 14, 14, 14, 12, 8 is a good stat distribution. That would give you 6 skill per level.

Take The traits Defender of the society for more AC and Carefully hiddend for more will save. Take toughness so you do not suffer for spending your point into skill.

Interesting, Nicos. Thanks for your help!

Fighter is more feats - allowing you more options .

Like more manuvers and such. Also more consistent DPR.
Samurai - more mount, more endurance , and burst DPR.

Thanks Blender. Another question that I got to ask you: how good is the fighter out of combat (I'm sure we all know just how bad fighters are at that, but I'm thinking of going human fighter with the favored class bonus in skill ranks (4+ int modifier per level isn't bad). To be honest, I just don't want to be useless when the fighting ends. It is no fun for a party.

So, my group got together last night and started to make their characters for our friend's campaign. So far we have:

A cleric - will be using his spells to both tank and smash face when needed. But he probably will enjoy more smashing. Probably. Or being a jerk with the tanking. That is also likely.

A Ninja - a stealthy, thief-y bugger with a katana and throwing daggers. A striker, really.

A bard - a newer player who will be taking up a controller/support position in the party. Also, a party face out of combat.

Myself - samurai or fighter for a tank and striker role

One guy who didn't show up yet - I don't believe he will be focusing on melee, as his last character was a bard-wizard.

So, I was wondering, for a melee character that is not useless out of combat but can both tank and deal damage in combat, would a samurai or a fighter more likely fit the role and how?