I'm working on an NPC for my party, a river captain who kind of fits the swashbuckling style. He's actually going to be a sort of smuggler and spy for the PFS and a recurring character who partakes in the occaisional adventure as well. I plan for him to level apace with the characters, starting from about 4th level and reappearing from time to time until 12th level.
I've never really made this sort of character before, but it seems to follow that a Lore Warden/Duelist would be the way to go. Light weapons, little to no armor and more skills than your typical fighter... Messing around with feats, I've decided to go this route and I was hoping for any insight or advice from those of you whom have run sea-faring adventures.
Feats
1st level Lorewarden - Weapon Expertise, Dodge, Mobility
2nd level Lorewarden - Weapon Focus: Rapier, Combat Expertise
3rd level Loewarden - Improved Trip
4th level Lore Warden - Spring Attack (retrain Weapon Focus to Whirlwind Attack)
1st level Duelist - Agile Maneuvers
2nd level Duelist
3rd level Duelist - Lunge
4th level Duelist - Combat Reflexes
5th level Duelist - Greater Trip
5th level Lorewarden
6th level Lorewarden - Tripping Strike, Dazing Assault
7th level Lore Warden
This isn't really about optimizing as much as capturing the theme of the character while keeping him effective as an occaisional ally in and out of combat as well as a plot device to keep things moving along. I was torn between allowing his signature move to be trip or disarm, but trip seemed as if it would be more useful more often.
Well, it depends. For instance, against a bow wielding centaur, the centaur has a +2 bonus vs trip for each leg he has more than two, so a total of +4 just from having 4 legs. But he doesn't get such bonuses to his CMD vs disarm.
Leaping aboard a ship and disarming the enemy seems a pretty iconic tactic of the romanticized swashbuckler.
However, most creatures that have a really high CMD vs trip, use natural weapons which can't be disarmed.
I would suggest you picking up Pirhanna Strike and consider making his Rapier with the Agile property. Pirhanna Strike is the Dex version of Power Attack, and the Agile property lets you use Dex to determine your damage instead of Str.
While disarm is often much more devastating when it works, trip is much more broadly applicable. There's not a whole lot of things that can be disarmed but not tripped, and a big chunk of that list is good-aligned outsiders (which often have weapons, but which also often fly.)
For an NPC that you presumably don't want to steal the spotlight, I'd go with trip. Trip does a good job setting up your friends; disarm, teched out, is a save-or-suck combat maneuver against appropriate targets. On the other hand, if the party has several ranged-weapon users or ray casters, the tripping might sometimes do more harm than good, and I might go back to disarm.