My group has been showing off their finalized builds for our Kingmaker campaign (Summoner, Kineticist and Hunter), while I'm over here being indecisive as heck about what I should be doing. We rolled our stats, and everyone else got really lucky except for me, with my highest base stat being a 15 compared to multiple 16's and 17's, so I'm really unsure about how best to proceed without dragging the team down.
My character concept was a Lunar Oracle that tends towards more savage and wild displays of power, so I figured a melee casting build would be the best way to bring that to life. I've settled on three races that feel like they could give me the stuff I need: human (for the sweet extra feat), half-orc (for the Sacred Tattoo/Fate's Favored combo), and pitborn tiefling (for the boost to both Str and Cha). In the eyes of more experienced players, which of these 3 might help me out more in the long run, or at least help me not suck lol?
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Nagaji is the first thing to come to mind. Of your picks, Pitborn Tiefling is similar.
With such relatively low stats, you would be better off with a support build. A bard could do this while filling other holes your party seems to have. Trying to use aggressive tactics isn't going to serve you very well.
Normally I'd recommend a summoner when in your situation, but you already have one in the party plus another pet class character. A synthesist summoner might not be too redundant, assuming that's not what the other summoner is playing.
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What alignment are you planning on playing? If you are playing an evil character and will be fighting a lot of good opponents trading out the tieflings fiendish sorcery and spell like ability for smite good once a day could be very useful. Your other alternative would be to trade them for Soul Seer and be able to use death watch at will. Prehensile Tail is not really that useful and is the only other alternative for fiendish sorcery, but it would allow you to take Claw or Maw if you are going for a natural weapon build. An extra attack is always useful especially at low level.
Tiefling also gives you 5 points of cold, electricity and fire resistance and a +2 to disable device and perception. Disable device is trained only so will probably not come up, but a +2 perception is always good. You can take the Unscathed trait to get an extra +2 points on each resistance for a total of 7 points. Going Tiefling also opens up the feat Armor of the pit for a +2 natural armor bonus.
The big downside of a pitborn tiefling is the penalty to INT. That is going to limit your out of combat ability a bit. The good news is that Oracles do get 4 skill points per level and you can put your favored class bonus into skills to bring that back up to 4 points per level. The other drawback for the tiefling is you cannot use your favored class bonus to gain extra spells known like the other two races.
Going Human is going to give you an extra feat at 1st level, but due to not having a +1 BAB you will not qualify for a lot of combat feats. Depending on what your build is that may not be an issue. Human will give you an extra skill point and if you put your favored class bonus into skills you will be getting 6 per level so will have pretty decent out of combat ability. The drawback for human is no Darkvision. Human also gives you the option of trading away your extra feat and extra skill point per level for a +2 in two abilities.
Half Orc allows you to get a +2 luck bonus to saves which is very good. It also gives you proficiency with some decent weapons that a lunar oracle does not get. Like the tiefling you will also have darkvision which is always useful. The Half orc also gets a +2 to intimidate, but Intimidate is not a class skill so that may not be all that useful. The half orc does not really have that any significant drawback.
If you want the +2 bonus to STR and CHA you actually have two ways to achieve that. Going tiefling gives you more useful abilities especially if you are going for an evil character, but has more drawbacks. Human gives you more options including gaining the +2 to both STR and CHA, but not much else. Either human or half orc can be a better caster due to the extra spells known from favored class bonus. Half orc gives you better saves and a decent weapon with no real drawbacks.
What alignment are you planning on playing? If you are playing an evil character and will be fighting a lot of good opponents trading out the tieflings fiendish sorcery and spell like ability for smite good once a day could be very useful. Your other alternative would be to trade them for Soul Seer and be able to use death watch at will. Prehensile Tail is not really that useful and is the only other alternative for fiendish sorcery, but it would allow you to take Claw or Maw if you are going for a natural weapon build. An extra attack is always useful especially at low level.
Tiefling also gives you 5 points of cold, electricity and fire resistance and a +2 to disable device and perception. Disable device is trained only so will probably not come up, but a +2 perception is always good. You can take the Unscathed trait to get an extra +2 points on each resistance for a total of 7 points. Going Tiefling also opens up the feat Armor of the pit for a +2 natural armor bonus.
The big downside of a pitborn tiefling is the penalty to INT. That is going to limit your out of combat ability a bit. The good news is that Oracles do get 4 skill points per level and you can put your favored class bonus into skills to bring that back up to 4 points per level. The other drawback for the tiefling is you cannot use your favored class bonus to gain extra spells known like the other two races.
Going Human is going to give you an extra feat at 1st level, but due to not having a +1 BAB you will not qualify for a lot of combat feats. Depending on what your build is that may not be an issue. Human will give you an extra skill point and if you put your favored class bonus into skills you will be getting 6 per level so will have pretty decent out of combat ability. The drawback for human is no Darkvision. Human also gives you the option of trading away your extra feat and extra skill point per level for a +2 in two abilities.
Half Orc allows you to get a +2 luck bonus to saves which is very good....
Thank you very much for the pros and cons of each race.
The GM has asked us to play good-aligned characters, with my planned alignment being Chaotic Good. The general idea I was wanting to go for was inspired by Bastards of Golarion, with a character that has a good heart and a desire to help people, but whose nature and powers end up leaving people feeling generally distrustful or afraid of them.
As for build, I was wanting to go with a natural-attacker/buffer as I've seen that recommended for the Lunar Mystery on the Oracle guides, and I'm too much of an uncreative noob to try and figure out a different build layout. I'm open to anything, though.
If you are going for a natural weapon build I would go for the tiefling and take the claw and maw alternative racial trait. Take the wofscared face curse to get a bite. This will give you two claws and a bite attack that don’t have a limited duration. The bite will also scale up as you level up and you can take improve natural weapon for the claws. Taking gift or claw and horn will allow you to add a gore attack for short periods of time. Take the soul seer alternative racial trait. Being able to tell if something is undead or wounded can be useful.
I would take Prophetic Armor revelation as your first revelation and ignore DEX for the most part. Primal Companion will give you and animal companion to further boost your characters combat ability.