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So I already made a thread about this guy in the General Discussion forum, though through extensive revisions, I've determined it really needs to be reviewed.
My build is a level 1 ranger of the Guide archetype, made for an upcoming PFS game. I designed him to use a light crossbow, and to be mildly good at skills as well as combat, and other ranger things. Personally, I'm for fluff over crunch, but I just wanted to see if this character concept could be useful for it's made for.
Before we get into the build, I just wanted to say that I understand the build is a bit odd for a Dwarven ranger, but to me it fits the concept of the character. His back story is that he was raised in a prominent household in the Taldor faction, leaving at adulthood in attempt to slate his strong wanderlust. Eventually, he found work as a guide through the dangerous jungles of Garund. In all, the concept is supposed to match the stereotype of an old English explorer. Now, onto the build.
STR 8
DEX 17
CON 14
INT 13
WIS 14
CHA 10
I intend to increase the dex to 18 at fourth level, and int at eighth level.
Since making the crossbow viable is so feat heavy, feats will be mostly what you'd expect. Deadly Aim at first level, Rapid Reload for my Combat Style Feat, and Crossbow Mastery at 6. Other than that, the point blank shot to focused shot chain seems like a decent option.
Traits are mostly fluff, Jungle Guide and Courageous.
So, does this seem like at least a decent build? I know it's not going to be the best at anything it does, but I just need to know if there is anything I really need to change, or if there are any other options that may be interesting.
I don't see the backstory as good reason for having an 8 strength as living in the wilds should make one stout. An 8 is incredibly weak with a damage penalty in hand to hand, very bad at grappling (happens in the jungle), penalty to climbing and swimming, and you can barely carry anything (at least for fluff if you are not bothering with encumbrance).
The bonus feats for your crossbow style allow you to skip prereqs when taking them so I don't know why you want a 13 intelligence. Rangers have plenty of skill points and I don't think bumping it to a 14 later gives you retroactive skill points but could be wrong. A 12 would give as many skill points and languages.
You could drop the 17 to a 16 and your intelligence to a 12. Use your 4th and 8th level bumps for dexterity and get the same dexterity result at 8th you would at 4th. That would give 4 points to bump strength up to a 12.
As is, the character might not only not be the best at anything but also actually be bad at things he should be good at (outdoorsy things.
Other ideas:
traits
weathered emissary (ultimate campaign) gives linguistics and survival bonus +!
tribesman (I pulled it of d20pfsrd so the name may be changed, it is from inner sea primer) is a regional trait that gives a +1 bonus to one of climb, survival, or swim.
jungle walker (inner sea primer) might be better than jungle guide
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The 8 in strength makes sense as he'd been pampered the majority of his life. He didn't grow up in the jungle, he grew up in a rich household.
As far as the strength affecting combat, I already accounted for the penalties to grappling and such. As a dwarf, he doesn't take penalties for encumbrance, and as a crossbow-using ranger that will be taking point-blank shot and all the associated feats, he should never be using a weapon that accounts for that penalty, and will preferably be out of the thick of combat.
I appreciate what you're saying, though, since perhaps that penalty may have more implications than I accounted for. I also very much like the traits you posted, so thank you for the input.
If you have taken things into account and are ok with it then that is OK but it is not correct to say dwarves do not take penalties for encumbrance. Rather, they do not suffer penalties due to speed.
Dwarves:
Base Speed: (Slow and Steady) Dwarves have a base speed of 20 feet, but their speed is never modified by armor or encumbrance.
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Strength Score Light Load Medium Load Heavy Load
8....................26 lbs. or less 27–53 lbs. 54–80 lbs.
80 is the top of heavy load and above that is overloaded...
Lifting and Dragging: A character can lift as much as his maximum load over his head. A character's maximum load is the highest amount of weight listed for a character's Strength in the heavy load column of Table: Carrying Capacity.
A character can lift as much as double his maximum load off the ground, but he or she can only stagger around with it. While overloaded in this way, the character loses any Dexterity bonus to AC and can move only 5 feet per round (as a full-round action).
So, if you go over 80 and up to 160, you will lose your dexterity bonus to AC due to being overloaded. Your speed may not be modified but this is not speed. 80 pounds of gear is not very much.
Does PFS use encumbrance?
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I did take the overloading into account, actually. I'm planning for him to travel light. To be honest, I'm not sure if they do. This is my first PFS game, and one of my first pathfinder games in general. I'll play around with it a little, probably drop the int to 12 and the dex to 16 to bring the strength back up to 10. I really do appreciate the help!