Alright, so I'm building an arcane duelist bard for a Legacy of Fire campaign, and I'm trying to figure out the best general direction t go with him.
The Arcane Duelist archetype seems to favor a heavy melee type, and so that is what I am building. The stats (with a 15 point buy) I'm planning on are:
STR 13
DEX 15
CON 12
INT 12
WIS 8
CHA 16
+1 HP from favored class, skill points in Bluff, Climb, Intimidate, Knowledge (Local), Knowledge (Nature), Perform (Oratory), and UMD.
I'm thinking the traits will be +1 Fort Save and +1 Know (nat.)
And for the level one feat... this is where I have a whole bunch of dilemmas.
Now, I don't know whether I should go for more strength and try to power attack my way to victory, or go for a weapon finesse style.
I've decided I don't want to go for Agile weapons (too expensive), or Dervish Dancer (too limited). Part of this is that I want to be able to occasionally use a composite shortbow, and I'm thinking power attack is a desirable option at some point. As well, the eventual armor upgrades will make the high Dex focus less powerful, and I don't want to dump strength and be useless until 3rd level anyway.
If I were less feat starved, this would be easier, but as it is I'm not really sure where to go with this character. I could try to get Elven Curve Blade proficiency and Focus on Dex and Power Attacking, or I could take the ARG cat pouncing feats and focus on charging down enemy casters.
Or I could make my melee prowess incidental, and focus more on performance and take Lingering Performance or Extra Performance.
What do you all think is the best direction to go?
Is this home brew? I was considering asking for a generic feat from my DM in the vein of dervish dance that would allow any currently finessable weapon to use dex for damage and then taking up the Rapier.
I think he might allow it, I am getting the use of my free hand back for say a buckler or parying dagger and in exchange I lose changing the damage type and finessing with a weapon that isnt designed to be..since I have no intention of going duelist I think it could work.
Again its a case of asking for a house rule...so this is non PFS only.
I'd rather do it without home brew.