What would be the best combination of a PFS legal character that can self buff (arcane or divine) and then wade into combat to punch things and still do decent damage? Many thanks.
Warpriest of some deity with Unarmed Strike as their favored weapon. Since the Sacred Fist nerf you're better off using a vanilla Warpriest if you want to go Unarmed, unless the idea of going unarmored really appeals to you.
what is the 'sacred fist nerf'?
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How much do you want to self buff, and what kind of spells are you looking for? Because if all you want is first level spells that don't scale, then dipping one level will work. I played a Qinggong Monk 10/Empyreal Sorcerer 1 through PFS, merely to see how a (somewhat) regular monk would fare with pummeling style. It actually worked fairly well, was able to buff AC into the unhittable range most of the time, and damage was okay, unless he was also fighting something with incredible AC. Combined with the ability to activate higher level scrolls with a check, he got some real utility out of combat too. With all that said though, even if you went partially monk, I would still suggest either UnMonk, or things like zen archer or sohei.
And that's not to say that's even remotely the "best" build. A sacred fist warpriest, or molthuni arsenal chaplain will have much more spellcasting ability, though will be reliant on swift action divine favors to keep up with full BAB characters in the accuracy department. Bloodragers can be quite good, especially blood conduit bloodragers who will get you improved unarmed strike, and a number of combat maneuver feats as bonus feats.
Or, if you only need to be able to activate wands, and don't really care too much about spells, blood conduit bloodrager 1/mutation warrior x is a really good combo with the +8 to str, ability to do things like fly, activate wands of shield, and gain advanced weapon training to turn 1d3 damage into warpriest sacred weapon damage.
Play an Esoteric magus if you want to use arcane.
One of my players is building a lone u armed warrior based in the Fist of the Northern Star using a Synthesist and some reskinning of the skills. For example, claws are fists and kcks, and Rend is a kind of "inner explosion" when he hits 2 or more "Vital poibts" with his "claws".