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So, my playgroup has just started book 3 of Ironfang Invasion, i've already lost two characters, and my current character- an arcanist, has nearly died twice. So, now i'm ruminating a fourth character for the untimely event that my arcanist dies.
I'm thinking attempting a Shifter character, and playing off it as a feral child/wild man/survivalist- or just taking a few levels of Feral Child Druid, or Wild Child Brawler- or both, the gm said he'd count both classes towards the progression of my companion.
Stat-wise, at 8th lvl- no gear:
19[+1/+1] Str, 14 Dex, 15[+2] Con, 7 Int, 15 Wis, 7 Cha
Haven't really thought of what i want this character to do, especially since if i plan on roleplaying this character as a genuine feral child- i won't be useful in any social interactions. Sense Motive is the only way for me to understand what the other PCs want me to do.
Build advice/directions is welcome.
So, to start off discussion, get the 'meta' out of the way: A tiger or raptor(Deinonychus) focused shifter with shifter's rush is usually the prime melee build- many natural attacks, pounce, and the ability to change as a free action during your charge. Tiger tends to be stronger, but the raptor's medium build makes it more convenient to use.
You could also potentially go for a single big attack build. The later addition of a flurry via errata allowed you to get iteratives with a single natural weapon... which is usually a downgrade for natural attack builds, but it can be decent if you have a single natural attack (which means 1.5x str/power attack; basically, you hit like a 2 hander).
As a secondary aspect, something that flies is preferred, for obvious reasons. I tend to like bats since they get blindsense and they can do a single attack build as I just mentioned.
...honestly, I don't like the base class much. I tend to prefer the elementalist shifter instead. Mostly because of the large amount of varied elemental attacks it can get (similar numbers to a cavalier's challenge; by level 8, you can get acid and electric to cover pretty much any monster you meet. Of course, as a result, you would have to abandon shifting (leaving it as a minor utility thing for movement). The arhcetype is nice... but an elemental style knight would be outside of the original flavor you asked for. Mostly throwing this out there as a potential character #5.
A shifter with the adaptive shifter archetype could fit your concept, and I think works better than the base shifter. You might want to use a spear or such weapon and some other natural attack rather than relying on pure natural attacks with the adaptive shifter archetype.