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Cliffs;
Swashbuckler (Mouser) and the Vexing Dodger Rogue archetype have some juicy synergy. Underfoot Dodger slam-dunks the target's attacks on your allies and nets you basically guaranteed constant flanking as long as there's at least one other martial in your party and Limb Climber knocks a couple of points off their rolls to hit you AND keeps you firmly rooted onto them so you can keep full attacking with zero issues.
So that, the core of the build, is set. I'm just not certain where to take it from here.
My current iteration, planned til level 8, is set up as follows;
Stats:
Str: 9 (Knocked down to 7 by Reduce Person, this is to avoid an unlucky oneshot by the strength-drain types at higher levels. Original iteration was 7 > 5 until someone on Reddit suggested this)
Dex: 19 ( > 21 by RP)
Con: 14
Int: 10
Wis: 10
Cha: 13 (For Combat Expertise, Swash. lets you sub Cha for Int)
1: Swashbuckler (Mouser) - Combat Expertise
2: Rogue (Vexing Dodger) -
3: Rogue (Vexing Dodger) - Butterfly's Sting, Improved Dirty Trick (Free)
4: Rogue (Vexing Dodger) - Finesse Training: Kukri Dex > 22
5: Rogue (Vexing Dodger) - Combat Trick: Dirty Fighting, Two Weapon Fighting
6: Slayer (Bounty Hunter) -
7: Slayer (Bounty Hunter) - Greater Dirty Trick
8: Rogue (Vexing Dodger) ????
1 in SwashMouse gets us Underfoot Dodger, 4 in VexRogue gets us a combat trick, limb climber and Debilitating Injuries, 2 in SlayBount gets us free action dirty trick attempts in place of SA damage on every single sneak attack (which we will be getting nothing but thanks to the near-constant flanking from Underfoot Dodger)
There's tons of synergy as well. Debuffs would be had in spades (At level 8, thanks to class abilities and gear I'm too tired to type up, they'd be at a -4 to hit your allies and a -3 to hit you from you entering their square and climbing, flanking with any ally in any adjacent square, and then you'd get three attacks with a pair of +1 keen kukris resulting in at least one (hopefully) crit to pass along to your allies and 1-2 hits you'd turn into free action dirty trick attempts, which you'd use to blind the enemy and net them more negatives, a 50% miss chance for 1d4+1 rounds and crippled action economy as they'd need to use a standard action to remove the effect)
I just can't help but feel as if the build needs a little more focus. On paper, Dirty Tricks don't look good enough to be the sole focus of a build, so I threw in Butterfly's Sting to critfish with keen kukris...but I feel torn, like I should just focus on one or the other, or perhaps switch gears entirely.
The only thing set in stone, as I said, is the first two levels as this gives me a valid excuse to play a tiny character and those automatic debuffs are juicy.
It's honestly very tempting to just scrap all of this and make a DPR character using Risky Striker and the TWF feat line but I'd love some input and alternative ideas.
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I have basically this same character design on an Atomie NPC.
I put a lot of levels in to Vexing Dodger and other classes which boost sneak attack... then Limb Climber + Offensive Defense talent + Emboldening Strike talent to give penalty to hit you and bonuses to AC and all saves based on your number of sneak attack dice.
Combine with Sneaking Critical and Sneaking Precision feats and you can effectively add two more sneak attack dice and corresponding bonuses most rounds.
I went TWF to get lots of attacks, but you can achieve the same with archery or various 'force them to provoke lots of AoOs' builds. You want the attacks to be able to get multiple sneak attacks in to trigger the different benefits above... at which point adding the Hammer the Gap feat is also a good idea.
If a Kobold PC is an option the Swarm Fighter archetype for them also has some benefits for a build like this at higher levels (e.g. at 9th level ALL your attacks on a creature sharing your space get sneak attack).
Another good route is to take acrobatics and stealth options like the skill unlocks, Canny Tumble feat, Confounding Tumble Deed feat, Underfoot feat, Crowd Dodger trait, and Vexing Defender trait.
If you are small enough, Balm of Impish Grace and Manteau of the Mouse are nice items for such a build. Also, Slippers of Spider Climbing or something similar are great for keeping both your hands free while using Limb Climber.
If you want to turn the character a different way you could drop combat expertise & BS, move TWF and Dirty Fighting up in their places, then at 5th level get the Favored Terrain talent and Endurance. Neither's much use on their own but one's a prereq to enter the Horizon Walker PrC and the other is boosted nicely by the same. Horizon Walker is noted for its dimension door spell-like ability but it has a bunch of other useful tricks too.
Note that you'd want to switch that 13 from cha to wis. With dirty fighting you can meet all the remaining feat prereqs easily without needing any particular stat, and another use of dimension door (plus the usual benefits of wisdom) would be worth the shift.