For PFS? No clue. If you could use the Guided weapon property, they're not bad, as they give the +wis and everyone likes +dex. I have a Master of Many Styles Monk / Inquisitor 3 / some other class(es) X / Duelist build that uses a Crane Wing, guided weapon, Fury's Fall, and Tandem Trip w/ Solo Tactics from Inquisitor to do tanking and tripping. Tengu is a decent race for that.
Archer Inquisitor is probably the best fit out of the stuff you can make in PFS, but archer inquisitor is a trap choice...
Swordtrained seemed really awesome when Tengu first came out.
Then APG gave Half-Elves the Ancestral Arms option and...it lost a lot of its luster. "Why eat a -2 Con to get free Exotic Weapon Proficiency (EWP) when I can get EWP without having to suffer it?"
I played a tengu ranger and he was pretty good at being the glass cannon. We were doing kingmaker and we came across a few poisons and diseases though. I played him as though he constantly had the sniffles.
Mystic Past Life lets you raid ANY spell list of the same kind (arcane/divine) for extra spells known. Allowing you to alternatively cherry pick powerful options unique to a class's list or get MASSIVE level reductions by exploiting summoner, ranger, and paladin (and bard and inquisitor to a lesser extent) spell lists. How would you wizard (via bard) or cleric (via Inquisitor) like the 9th level Overwhelming Presence spell as a 6th level spell available at level 11?
You get something like 5 or 6 such additions to your list.
They seem like they would make good archers, especially with some divine spellcasting thrown in, like rangers or inquisitors, or other Wisdom-based abilities, like monk. And they could switch-hit with their sword training. It's been my experience that archers don't take as much damage as melee combatants, and can still dish out a lot of damage per round.
Um no mention of the Gunslinger?
We've got a Tengu Gunslinger (pistolero) playing through Rise of the Runelords ('classic' 3.5 version) who just reached level 12.
The player built the idea around the character Tuco from tG,tB,&tU - borderline crazy, paranoid, and narcissistic...
The tengu abilities lend themselves well to a mobile/skirmisher ranged fighter, but the PC is admittedly fragile (CON of +1), so relies on acrobatics and using terrain.
Swordtrained seemed really awesome when Tengu first came out.
Then APG gave Half-Elves the Ancestral Arms option and...it lost a lot of its luster. "Why eat a -2 Con to get free Exotic Weapon Proficiency (EWP) when I can get EWP without having to suffer it?"
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Because Ancestral Arms grants proficiency with a single exotic weapon. Tengu get proficiency with every sword-like exotic weapon, which amounts to the following:
bastard sword, double walking stick katana, elven curved blade, falcata, katana, khopesh, pata, rhoka sword, sawtooth sabre, seven-branched sword, shotel, swordbreaker dagger, temple sword, two-blade sword, and wakizashi.
Those are only the exotic proficiencies you get, and that's not even including the weapons that are up for debate (such as the no-dachi, which is essentially a sword blade mounted on a 4-foot pole).
Swordtrained is still incredibly powerful, especially in the hands of a fighter-type character that gets bonuses to using weapons from a specific weapon group (almost all of those weapons are either light blades or heavily blades).
I know the penalty to Con is nasty but there is a neat trick with one of the alternate traits. The claws trait replaces sword training but it not only gives you claws it counts as IUS for any feat that needs it as a requirement. Hello grapple druid.
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For the basics, the that bonuses seem to lend themselves to Wisdom-based spellcasters, and the Dex bonus means you'd be good with a bow. Swordtrained could let you be an alchemist swinging around an exotic sword at level 1, or have a ranger/archer/similar who can swing a sword as well as fire a bow (justifying Weapon Finesse, if you're unsure about it).
I also recently thought of making a PFS tengu, but I ended up doing some back-story driving on that one:
Kyras "Daremo" Kic, an unarmed Fighter with Talon Training instead of Swordtrained. He can still carry around an exotic weapon or two, but can leap forward with punches, claw swipes and pecks. I foolishly decided to give him the Panther Style, mainly from the archetype of the over-enthusiastic otaku: he joined the Lantern Lodge because he wants to go to Minkai (even though his family emigrated to Absalom from somewhere else), he wants to be the greatest Pathfinder ever, he wants to collect dolls of improbably buxom catfolk, and so on. Of course he'd want opponents to try to attack him instead of his companions.
...My biggest worries for him are both dying to a lucky crit and other players who don't like manga getting annoyed even if I tone him down for them.
I forgot Gunslinger because I try to pretend it doesn't exist. I guess Tengu make decent gunslingers.
And no... a PC only needs one exotic weapon prof. Having a ton is nice and all...but you aren't really rewarded for switching it up. Indeed, the weapon focus type feats and astronomical costs of a magic weapon push you pretty hard into specializing into one weapon.
SuperUberGeek: That's a good idea, actually! Helps qualify for Style feats, I assume? Hello, wildshaped druid w/ Crane Style!
Tengu are outstanding Rouges. I played one in a variant Kingmaker where the entire party was some form of evil. Chuko was his name, and he eventually joined the Red Mantis and was able to do some serious damage, be the party face, and translator, all at the same time. The reason he did a lot of his damage was the feats that Red Mantis Assassin allows/forces/gives.
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I once played alongside a Tengu Maneuver Master monk. He seemed awesome until we encountered shadows. His CON penalty didn't matter - they got him with fatal STR damage.
But really, the character's untimely death was not related to his race, just bad luck in running into the wrong sort of enemy. WIS and DEX are important for the monk; if you're lucky the two statistics' contributions to AC means you don't get hit as often, so the CON penalty hurts less.
One thing of note is, while Swordtrained is amazing, Tengu are also the only race that can have 3 natural weapons at level 1 by swapping out Swordtrained for 2 Claws. This really opens the door for Ninjas and Rogues.
See above. Equip spiked armor, get four hits at level 1. Craaaaaaazy sneak attack. Add ninja ki for yet another hit. Smile.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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See above. Equip spiked armor, get four hits at level 1. Craaaaaaazy sneak attack. Add ninja ki for yet another hit. Smile.
If you add a manufactured weapon attack, all your natural attacks eat a -5 penalty due to becoming secondary.
Anyway, add a dip in Maneuver Master Monk and you can start your full-attack with a Dirty Trick to blind them (without even trading out one of your normal attacks). If successful, congratulations: the rest of your attacks are sneak attacks.
I was about to play a Tengu Rogue who used an ECB, but the GM moved out of state for a new job, so he's been shelved.
They would make good Rangers though. The combination of Dex and Wis is nice for Rangers, you probably aren't going to have a super high damage output, as you have to shore up your Con instead of raising your Str, but you'll hit plenty and have good skill bonuses. I'd see this as working well in a party with a couple of melee minded characters already, who's job is to thin out large groups of opponents and provide out of combat support with skills.
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The -2 constitution is essentially offset by taking Resilent(or some other trait) and Toughness. In exchange for 'needing' to get a trait and a feat you get a natural attack plus some other proficiencies or natural attacks. Tengu don't excel at everything but -2 to con isn't the death sentence people are making it out to be.