Just curious what you guys think of how the best way to use this archetype. Should you make use of the net proficiency and use those feats (maybe even go mounted build and do some crazy drag stuff with mount), or just focus on dirty tricks (or somehow some sort of combination?). I'm leaving this intentionally vague
Well...considering the fact that you can do multiple conditions in the same round with bounty hunter through dirty tricks, that seems fairly powerful.
Particularly when you take dirty trick master at level 11. That allows you to increase the severity of a condition with a second dirty trick... and one of the severe conditions is nauseated (can't take standard actions). Since the prerequisite Greater Dirty trick makes it take a standard action to remove conditions... you basically cripple an enemy for 1d4 rounds with no real way for them to react.
Overall, dirty trick is one of the best maneuvers since there are always options, and it has FANTASTIC feat support.
You might fit a net feat or two onto a build...but the better net feat (net trickery) is...a feat to do do what bounty hunter does anyway (exchange an attack for a dirty trick- net is restricted to only blinding though; some trip stuff too, but still...). Overall, net feats require you to have a lot of maneuver feats to pull off, and you might not find room in between dirty trick feats.
Although, while bounty hunter is great, it never catches my imagination like the eldritch guardian fighter for dirty trick builds- getting a familiar with all your important feats just plain doubles your action economy for maneuvers.
I had a bounty hunter slayer gladiator build that I ran for a bit. The idea was to get off a dirty trick on every attack and get performance combat triggers out the wazoo. It was pretty fun.
My personal favorite is exploiting Wizard VMC with it.
Since you use a VMC, you lose your 3rd, 7th, 11th, 15th and 19th level feats. No biggie.
As a Human, you get Combat Expertise and Improved Dirty trick at 1st level.
4th level, use your style feat (2H) for Power Attack.
5th level, Iron Will.
6th level - Combat Trick for Greater Dirty Trick and your FCB Slayer Talent for 2nd Combat Style feat for Furious Focus.
8th level, your choice. Weapon Training?
9th level - Surprise Maneuver.
13th level - Dirty Trick Master
(The goal here is to use your first and second attacks to "hamper" and stack two Dirty Tricks simultaneously, triggering Surprise Maneuver for bonus CMB and Dirty Trick Master for harsher conditions.)
At 3rd level, you get a familiar. Put the Figment and Sage archetypes on it. Now your familiar can do Knowledge checks for you and since it's a Figment, you can send it to scout (and get killed in the process) without fear. Works well for someone who is looking for a target.
At 7th level, take the Divination (Foresight) school and you get:
Prescience (Su): At the beginning of your turn, you may, as a free action, roll a single d20. At any point before your next turn, you may use the result of this roll as the result of any d20 roll you are required to make. If you do not use the d20 result before your next turn, it is lost. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Intelligence modifier.
Forewarned: You can always act in the surprise round even if you fail to make a Perception roll to notice a foe, but you are still considered flat-footed until you take an action. In addition, you receive a bonus on initiative checks equal to 1/2 your wizard level (minimum +1). At 20th level, anytime you roll initiative, assume the roll resulted in a natural 20.
Both are pretty nice. I love Prescience to "store" a good roll so you can land a fat CMB check to dirty trick.
At 11th level, you get a Cantrip at-will. My favorites are: Detect Magic for using Spellcraft; Touch of Fatigue (DC = 1/2 slayer level + int mod +10), since it gives -2 to CMD and prevents enemies from raging; or Mending to fix broken weapons.
15th level is the big payload... you get Knowledge is Power as an Arcane Discovery, granting a bonus to CMB equal to your Intelligence. Assuming 18 INT (14 at creation and +4 headband), that's +4 CMB. Nothing to scoff at.
So at level 15th, whenever you use a dirty trick against a flat-footed or flanked target, you get +5 from ignoring 5 sneak attack dice (from archetype), +5 from Surprise Maneuvers, and a stable +4 from Imp. and Greater Dirty Trick and +INT from Knowledge is Power.
That's some hefty CMB right there. Assuming 15 BAB plus, uh, let's say, 24 STR and 18 INT? That's 40 CMB. That's success on a dirty trick against a Tor Linnorm (CR 21 monster) on a 10 and it only gets better as you level.