Seeking advice on Tengu character build

[Kotick]

Hello.

I've played a lot of D&D 3.5, but never actually played Pathfinder. This is to be my first PF character, and I've selected Tengu for my character race because they are unique to PF. Besides, I like crows. That said, I'm not sure how to set up this character. I dislike playing spell casters, and I've played too many rogues and barbarians so I'd like to avoid those. I'm leaning towards playing a fighter, but not married to the idea.

A Tengu fighter would have to be a Dex build. Also, I want to take advantage of the Tengu's automatic proficiency with exotic swords. Initially, I liked the Elven Curve Blade, but it is a two-handed weapon and it is my understanding that a Dex fighter needs to dual wield in order to be effective.

This leaves me in a quandary. Is there a better class that I'm not seeing? What sword(s) should I be giving this guy? Is there another Dex fighter build besides dual wielding that works? Any advice (that's not trying to convince me to play a different race or one of the pre-excluded classes) is appreciated.

[VoodistMonk]

Tengu's Swordtrained ability will probably get more mileage on a class lacking decent weapon proficiencies. Your average Fighter already has a grand assortment of weapons at their disposal. For example, I took advantage of said Swordtrained ability to use a Greatsword on a Tengu cRogue Scout.

An Elven Curve Blade's 18-20/×2 crit threat range could probably go well with the Weapon Master's Reliable Strike and Deadly Critical... Falcata's 19-20/×3 might actually be better, though.

[Kurald Galain]

Since this is your first character, I'm assuming you want a playable and effective character, and not necessarily a hyper-optimized character. Am I right?

In that case, I can tell you that it's entirely feasible to have a a Str-based tengu, or a dex fighter that doesn't dual-wield. Don't worry about it, you'll do totally fine. You don't need to be optimized to contribute and participate.

What exactly are you looking for, damage? Good defense? Mobility? Combat maneuvers? Good skills? All of the above?

For example, you could forego swords and use the tengu's natural claw/claw/bite routine. With a decent strength score that's pretty effective (and with a decent dex score and an Agile amulet of mighty fists that's also pretty effective).

[Kotick]

Thank you for your replies.

Voodist, I like what I'm reading about the Weapon Master archetype, and I hadn't read about it before. I had previously disregarded the Falcata since it doesn't work with weapon finesse. However, if an Str-based Tengu Fighter can be effective, the Falcata would be worth a second look.

Kurald, you guessed correctly. I'm not into power-gaming or hyper-optimization. For me, the most important thing is the character's personality. I'm one of those who has the character do what the character would do, regardless of whether it is what I (or a sane person) would do. As for the rest, damage, defenses, etc, I just want to make sure my character wouldn't be a burden on a party. However, it sounds like I may have been stressing over nothing.

[Mightypion]

Hello there! One of the resident friendly munchkins here.

On the surface, the Tengu gains Dex, wisdom, suffers a reduction in constitution, and can glide innately.
They also probably have the best innate proficiencies, with the option of trading the proficiencies in for not great but totally servicable natural attacks.

You could consider either a ranger or a Gunslinger. In either case, you will be predominantly a ranged attacker (making use of your great dex), benefit considerable from your wisdom (gunslinger get grit based from it, rangers get extra spells) and not worry all that much about sub par Con. Note that historically speaking, Samurais were mostly archers :).

If you want to melee, and want to be STR based, consider a Bloodrager. Perhaps your character was expelled from his tribe when it became clear that he had the taint of the Oni Within him? There are a lot of interesting options there, bloodline wise. Abyssal or Abberant both indirectly or directly increase your reach, and you can end up threatening a great amount of space using combat reflexes.

A very funny one is a warpriest! You can trade out your sword training to be proficient in 3 eastern weapons, and can pick Shurikens, and then go and replace then d2 damage dice to d6, scaling with further warpriest levels. Warpriest get a fair number of feats to make throwing build viable.

If you can give more input on what exactly you want to play (Frontline, caster, part caster etc., must use eastern weapons etc. ) I can give you an optimized build and then you can downscale from there if it is too cheesy for your tastes.

[Trokarr]

Tengus can also make pretty effective Hunters. There are a lot of builds/archetypes for hunters so you can usually find something to your liking. If u don’t want a pet there are at least 2 that don’t. The Feral Hunter has a lot of utility with the animal focus on yourself. Also wild shape is cool and the ability to summon natures ally for minutes per level is nice. Tho they are a spell caster u can just not put much into wisdom and ignore it for the most part. Planar focus feat also adds a lot of cool stuff to your animal focus ability too like adding fire damage to all your melee attacks.

[zza ni]

didn't see anyone mention this so i thought i'd do it.
if you keep the 'Swordtrained' ability you are also proficient with the split-blade sword a one handed sword that deal as much damage as a greatsword.

i had a ranger using 2 weapon fighting with 2 of these babies and it was awesome.
you'd need things to offset the -4 penalty for wielding 2 one handed weapons. (gm ruled that effortless lace work as intended and not RAW so that helped, as well as the Possessed hand feats)

[Trokarr]

Tengu natural weapon fighter builds are fun and can deal decent damage at lower levels but can fall behind later on. If u go that route you’ll need to find a way to either add more natural attacks (like with the alchemist tentacle discovery) or hit harder. You can get more attacks by combining your natural attacks with unarmed strikes made with the legs. Going two weapon fighting with kicks and adding your nat attacks as secondary is a decent way to keep up. Ways to hit harder for example warpriest sacred weapon scales up with level and can apply to any natural attack u have weapon focus in. Elementalist Shifter adds a bunch of elemental damage to your melee attacks so that’s another way to hit harder. Power attack for sure boosts their punch too, or piranha strike feat if u go finesse build. There’s quite a few ways to stack some extra damage on natural attacks so it’s not too difficult to keep competitive with manufactured weapon builds.