Its up to you mate. Don't be afraid to get into melee. If you have a flanking buddy even more so.
1st: Point Blank Shot
3rd: Rapid Shot
5th: Precise Shot
7th: Deadly Aim
9th: Manyshot
11: Clustered Shots
Those are the niche feats. You won't be able to take manyshot or clustered shots till 9th anyway. The only thing human will really do for you is letcha work in Reckless Aim before 11th and getcha another skill point.
Consider grabbing a level of fighter and grabbing one of these.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/a-b/baldr ic-bane
Bane Baldric, chest slot item.
Get the level of fighter as your 7th level and you can grab Manyshot and Clustered Shots at once.
No problem. You'll get some things later but your BAB will be 1 higher and you'll qualify for those clutch feats sooner. Most games tend to not go to 20 so losing your capstone shouldn't be a big deal.
It shouldn't be too relevant depending on what spells you use but the Magical Knack trait will make up for the caster level loss and if you want to grab a 2nd level of fighter for another feat the option is open.
Travel rocks, perhaps Trickery for flavor reasons. For damage the destruction domain is solid.
but must first attune a light or one-handed melee weapon to the baldric
no baldric bane on ranged weapons
Sigh, read the item again please.
If your an Inquisitor you don't need to attune.
Inquisitions in general are suboptimal, but if you really like it feel free, don't let me stop you.
Take a look at the Rage Subdomain. If you pick up an Adaptive Bow (+1000gp enhancement) you can rage and add the damage to your shots. You also get ragepowers which rock.
As I look at it, Tactics is a very nice choice.
I would also recommend the Liberation domain. Freedom of Movement is very powerful.
I recommend taking a look at this guide here. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gFK_A8YV84hMUMXjxvCLFTnGO2GF7CMQiGIYyAQ 2kns/edit#
I built a melee oriented Inquisitor taking heed of it's words and he was quite the devastating combatant.
Also consider the Exploration subdomain of Travel. Very handing for dungeons or other places.
Also by grabbing the rage subdomain, you can get a Furious Courageous +2 melee weapon for when you need to get up close and personal. Your strength and con bonuses get increased by another +2 and its just a really nasty combo in general.
Feather Domain for the boost in perception and a animal companion
If your sold on the animal companion take a look at Boon Companion to have it be treated as your class level = effective druid level.
Darkvision is priceless for a scout.
If you really need more feats, I'd add ranger two into the mix, or zen archer monk.
Whats the logic for dipping Zen Archer? All I see you benefiting from it really is Wisdom to AC and you lose it if you wear armor (which is way better than +2 ac from your current wisdom). In order to really benefit from it you'd have to dip possibly 3 levels which is a bit harsh for Inquisitor progression.
You get access to flurry of blows but you can't use it with Rapid Shot or Manyshot which are some fairly staple feats for the ranged character. You do get a bonus feat but it also wont increase your BAB.
Personally I went with Erastil (favored weapon longbow) and the feather domain. With the preacher archetype, since most teamwork feats don't work for archery, The warning ability was incredibly useful. Sadly we didn;t have a healer so there were times I had to pull out the wands or cure in a emergency. Having the enemy reroll that crit was just too sweet
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Whats the logic for dipping Zen Archer? All I see you benefiting from it really is Wisdom to AC and you lose it if you wear armor (which is way better than +2 ac from your current wisdom). In order to really benefit from it you'd have to dip possibly 3 levels which is a bit harsh for Inquisitor progression.
You get access to flurry of blows but you can't use it with Rapid Shot or Manyshot which are some fairly staple feats for the ranged character. You do get a bonus feat but it also wont increase your BAB.
If he takes 2 levels of Zen Archer he gets:
- d8 HD
- +1 BAB
- +3 All Saves
- 8 skill points
- Proficiency with Bows
- 2 bonus Archery-type feats
- Improved Unarmed Strike for 1d6 (which means he is armed even if he is using his bow
- Perfect Strike (usable with bows)
- Weapon Focus
- Ability to Flurry with a bow and add Wisdom to his AC if he decides to not wear armor, or he can just take Rapid-Shot and wear his usual armor and shield and still get everything else
If he takes 2 levels of Fighter he gets:
- d10 HD
- +2 BAB
- +3 to Fort saves
- +1 to Will saves against fear
- 4 skill points
- Proficiency with all martial weapons
- Proficiency with Heavy Armor
- 2 bonus Combat Feats
Even taking Flurry and the Wisdom add to AC away you still end up with more feats, more skill points and better saves than going with a Fighter. A +1 BAB is about the only real thing worth noting the Fighter gets over the Zen Archer unless you wanted your Archer to run around in heavy armor for some reason, and even that isn't that great since the Zen Archer partially makes up for that by getting Weapon Focus for free.
Preacher makes lots of sense for Archer Inquisitors. (not that they were unviable without that, but it's nice)
The warning thing is a bit goofy given how Paizo has rule "you are your own ally" :-), but still a solid ability.
I've nearly finished getting ready an Archer Inquisitor PC myself for PFS, although I actually went with Zen Monk for the first level (only).
Scavion asked what's the logic? OK...
If you want to go in 3 levels you can get the WIS to Ranged Attacks, and Point Blank Master.
(which otherwise require Weapon Spec, i.e. a pure Inquisitor couldn't qualify for, you'd need 4 Fighter levels)
The only thing to realize with that build is in order for WIS to Ranged worthwhile, your point-buy has to be built around it...
If you put point-buy into DEX so as to have a positive modifier, you lose that investment as far as Ranged Attacks are concerned,
because they don't stack, you just use WIS instead of DEX come 3rd level in Zen Monk.
Of course WIS and DEX do stack for AC when you're not wearing any armor, but that doesn't help your Ranged Attacks.
To make the most of WIS to Ranged, you are going to put points into WIS and STR, with only minimal amount of DEX.
This let you have the same Ranged Attack + STR (damage) as somebody who put everything into DEX+STR and neglected WIS,
OR lets you have MORE Ranged Attack + STR compared to somebody to felt obligated to still put a decent amount into WIS.
(which is a good idea for Will Saves, and if you are a WIS based caster.)
You do eventually need 13 DEX for Deadly Aim (Ranged Power Attack),
but an Ioun Stone on top 11 DEX suffices there, and 11 DEX starting is a very minimal investment.
So... great, you will have equal Ranged Attack and Damage as any other Archer build (stat-wise)
AND apply that WIS to Will Saves and your own Spells. What's not to like?
Well, you no longer have any DEX bonus to AC, your WIS should be very high, but you can't wear armor if you want to benefit from the WIS.
If you do wear Armor, you won't have much if any DEX bonus to augment it.
If you are a pure Zen Archer you will also get further scaling AC bonuses, but not if you m-class to Inquisitor.
Your Initiative would also suck compared to other archery builds, but Inquisitors can usually get Cunning Initiative WIS to Init,
and that's not that big a deal anyways, you're not a God Wizard after all, and it's not worse than any non-DEX build.
The killer for me is in order to make the point buy 'pay off' (rather than have superfluous DEX and WIS bonuses which don't stack for Ranged)
you will need to start with jacked WIS and STR and low DEX, which means for the first two levels
your archery will simply be horribly ineffective, no way around it. For the first two levels,
you will be better off just fighting in melee using STR for attack and damage.
Personally I find that problematic just on flavor levels, when I want to play an archer character I want to play an archer character,
but besides that, nearly all of your class abilities (and Feats) should be going to archery,
so you will basically be a 3/4 BAB melee combatant with minimal class features relevant to melee combat. Ouch.
You basically just have your single level 1 feat free to apply to anything, perhaps Stunning Fist with STR to-hit might be workable, especially with a +2 STR+WIS race. Humans also get another Bonus Feat, but if you're trying to be a Ranged Combatant from Level 3, putting Feats into melee is just a side-show (especially since with Point Blank Master, Ranged practically becomes Melee when you need it to), yet you realistically need to do so to survive or not be a drag on the party.
When you do go further into Zen Monk you get even more Bonus Feats, Weapon Focus at 2nd, Point Blank Master at 3rd,
but I don't think Bonus Weapon Focus is really worth delaying Inquisitor on it's own,
and the Level 3 build is really only worthwhile if you are going for the +WIS/STR, -DEX build I explained.
But just 1 level of Zen Monk get you a horde of Bonus Feats,
which is great because archery likes lots of Feats and Inquisitors don't get any (Bonus).
With Ranged Flurry, it's basically the benefit of Rapid Shot with equivalent of BAB+1 for that level...
(Flurry eventually scales more in a pure Zen Archer, but not if you only dip)
Without needing to invest in PBS to qualify for Rapid Fire. You also get Perfect Strike for Archery which is nice,
and your choice of Zen Archer Bonus Feats, Precise Shot being a nice one.
Also you're getting Improved UAS, +2 to all Saves, and 4 skills (just 1 less than Inq, and maybe a few more Class Skills).
A downside of even the Level 1 Zen Archer dip as well as Level 3 dips (it matters less to pure Zen Archers whose Flurry scales ala 2WF)
is that although Flurry resembles Rapid Fire, it actually isn't, and you're barred from using Rapid Fire OR Multishot...
Multishot being rather nice when using Bane for example.
But IMHO, Multishot is just one more Feat on top off all the archery feats, and Inquisitor isn't getting any Bonus Feats.
(note: you could temporarily if you grab the War Domain with on the fly Combat Feat, but it's still not quite the same)
I think that even without Multishot a Zen1/InquisitorX can be doing very great, Perfect Strike upping their accuracy even more,
and between all their buffs/spells they can be doing just fine in the damage department.
So that seems like a perfectly do-able 1 level dip to me. If you're inclined to do so, it really is appealing to do so at your very first level because you can have pseudo-Rapid Fire Flurry and Precise Shot right off the bat, along with Perfect Strike and all the other benefits. You will be basically as good or better than any other Archer build, especially if you build to favor DEX>STR>WIS, which is kind of the default build there. From that point, you go Inquisitor and you already have the basic Feats/Abilities to do quite well at archery.
Dipping in Fighter is another way to help get archery quickly up to speed, but having to actually get PBS, Rapid Fire, AND Precise Shot isn't even do-able at level 1 unless you're a Human, so that either require a 2 level dip or you will need to wait until 3rd level to get just that level of functionality (albeit later you can get Multishot). If you do go further into Fighter you get more Bonus Feats, and you can pick up Weapon Spec at Fighter 4 which is the pre-req to Point Blank Master, but that is delaying Inquisitor progression even more. If you're solely intereted in combat, that can work fine (especially for Humans), but it's a big delay if you're also interested in spells/domain abilities. Even with a 1 or 2 level dip, the difference vs. Zen Archer Flurry is that you are fully compatable with Manyshot, albeit that is one more Feat.
SO...
That's why I decided to just take a 1 level dip in Zen Monk to start off.
Although normally you might emphasize DEX, secondarily STR for damage and WIS for spells,
in my specific build I'm forgoing STR to just go for DEX and WIS (I get a Racial bonus to both with Garuda-blood Aaasimar, starting with 18DEX/16WIS and 14 STR only dumping CHA to 8 since my Inquisitor Archetype lets me use WIS for social skills I want),
which is a bit unusual, but the high WIS works for me with a Sub-Domain (Charm:Love) with scaling DCs using WIS
which I can further augment along with all my spells with Spell Bane (+2 DC vs. Bane target)
and I'm also planning to get Stunning Fist (and Mantis Style) for one more control option in melee,
especially since I won't have Point Blank Master, which I'm OK with skipping because I don't feel like negating every downide is necessary,
I actually prefer the nuance of each combat style staying distinct, and just don't feel it's necessary to go that route.
My first level Feat is honestly wide open, and will likely be either PBS for +1att/dmg within 30' or Arcane Strike for +1 damage(later scaling) as Swift Action, or possibly just Weapon Finesse for the sole purpose of making Stunning Fist more succesful when I later get it.
I feel like that is a major advantage of this build approach, I literally have no worries on Feats even from Level 1 with a non-Human, so I am free to put them wherever I want.
NG Garuda-Aasimar: Scion of Humanity (Dtang), Deathless Spirit, True Speaker?
Initiative +4 Perception +3 (Darkvision 60')
STR 14 DEX 16+2=18 CON 12 INT 10 WIS 14+2=16 CHA 8
ZenArcher1/Inquisitor(Infiltrator, Preacher)X of Nalinivati (N Naga deity, Love Subdomain)
Fort +3 Reflex +6 Will +5
Deathless Spirit: +2 vs. Necro/Death/Negative/EnergyDrain; Acupuncturist: +2 vs. Poison
HP 9 (Deathless Spirit: Negative Resist 5, no HP loss from negative levels)
AC 17 unarmored (20 BreastPlate (0 ACP Agile Mitrhil) w/ Buckler) CMD 19
SLA: See Invisibility 1/day
Traits: Innocent (Bluff, Blood of Angels), Acupuncturist (Poison, Dragon Empires)
Bonus Feats: Imp IUS, Perfect Strike, Precise Shot
Feats: Arcane Strike/PBS????
->Weapon Focus(Longbow)/Weapon Finesse/Stunning Fist/Mantis Style/Spell Bane?(UC)/Deadly Aim?
->Deep Sight/Expanded Arcana/Great Fortitude?/Expanded/Extra Bane/etc?
Languages: Dtang, Tien, Celestial, Common(Taldane)
Skills: 4 (->Inquisitor 6+FC?)
Linguistics: +6 Draconic/Dtang (Truespeaker)
-Acrobatics: +10! (Garuda-Kin Skilled)
Swim: +6
Climb: +6
Fly: +6 (Garuda-Kin Skilled)
-Perception!: +3
-Sense Motive!: +5 (Truespeaker)
-Bluff (Innocent: Use Friendly DC when convincing of lie)
-Diplomacy: -1
Know(Nature/Religion/Arcane?)
Heal?: +3
Sleight of Hand?: +4
Spellcraft:
Stealth: +4
Escape Artist: +4
Survival: +3
Gear
Longbow
MW Arrows (30)
MW Bludgeoning Arrows (30)
Daggers?
CLW Potion
Pet Snake