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I've been contemplating a new character - a Kitsune Samurai, to be specific, and since Kitsune take a Strength penalty, I'm considering taking Weapon Finesse, which I've just discovered to my momentary horror SEVERELY penalizes shield-use.
Bah! Fine! Samurai shouldn't be using shields anyway, I suppose. However, I don't want to bother with two-weapon fighting either for this character.
Fighting einhander with a wakizashi is easy enough, BUT I'm wondering what other uses I could put such a character's off-hand to; if there's a two-handed weapon that can be Finessed, I could go with that, too - the spiked chain is what's specified, but that thing requires Exotic Proficiency, AND needs more feats to really be worth it!
I'm hoping not to have to spend too many feat slots to do whatever, as I have other things in mind on that front (I intend to make good use of Kitsune Charisma!).
The best use of your off-hand is not to use it. Slashing Grace will work with the waribashi, but only if your off hand is not being used for anything else. It does have a prerequisite of weapon focus, but that is all.
You can use a buckler without occupying your off hand, so a buckler and waribashi does work.
Not that this is exactly the place, but Dex builds have it good enough, don't use a shield and even vs the full shield focus fighter, you will have a better AC just from only having to invest in your dex and getting equivalent feats that are actually useful to progressing other things.
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The best use of your off-hand is not to use it. Slashing Grace will work with the waribashi, but only if your off hand is not being used for anything else. It does have a prerequisite of weapon focus, but that is all.
You can use a buckler without occupying your off hand, so a buckler and waribashi does work.
Uhhhhh...why would I want to use cheap chopsticks???
That is what I get for using autocorrect and not checking.
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I second the suggestion of warrior poet archetype.
You don’t have to spend a ton of extra feats. You get Weapon Finesse as a class feature and can use it with some two-handed weapons. You don’t need to deal with all the Dex-to-damage feats. Use finesse (Dex) to hit and Strength for damage and at 4th level Graceful Strike makes up for your relatively low strength damage bonus. You do want a Strength of at least 13 so you can take power attack (2-handing for +3 damage).
You get to take advantage of the Kitsune’s high charisma as a bonus to AC, which partially offsets the lack of armor and shield.
The warrior poet charisma to AC is also optional. You still have light armor proficiency and could use that instead. Though since you’re a kitsune, the charisma to AC is extra tempting.
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I second the suggestion of warrior poet archetype.I have Organized Play in mind, so that's a non-starter.
All the strong damage-dealing, solely Dex-based, two-handed finessable builds are (deliberately) not PFS legal, so that’s probably not the best path to go down. So here are a few suggestions:
1) Go ahead and use a shield. The Finesse penalty isn’t terrible, and disappears completely once you have a darkwood or mithral shield (which you should be able to buy after just one PFS scenario). Light weapon with the typical piranha strike, agile weapon.
2) Be a reach tripping build (with Agile Maneuvers). You do have to build specifically for this, and it is feat intensive, but once you get Greater Trip you control the battlefield and deal damage.
3) Two-Weapon Fighting. (Though as you say it is feat-intensive.)
The Estoc is a one handed exotic finessable weapon that can also be used with 2 hands.
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The issue with 2-handed finessable weapons (in addition to the required Exotic Weapon Proficiency feat) is that you still need a moderate amount of strength to deal decent damage. If you don't have 13 strength (for Power Attack) you might as well use a light weapon.
The agile weapon property lets you use dex for damage instead of strength and can be placed on any finessable weapon. But Piranha Strike - the Power Attack equivalent for Dex based characters - only works with light weapons.
That's not necessarily a deal-breaker. I have myself played a dex-to-attack with strength-to-damage character. That character was very balanced and had no stat higher than 14 before race modifiers. But a lot of people would prefer more optimized stats and want a lower strength if they are focusing on Dex.
Another thing you could do with your off hand is aquire a natural weapon attack. Kitsune already have a bite attack if you add a claw through a level dip or from a feat then you would have a pair of finessable secondary attacks to add to your attack routine. Not saying this is the best option just AN option. An agile amulet of mighty fists would at least do dex to damage.
13 STR for a DEX based character is actually a good idea. A character with 10 STR has a light load of 33 lbs. It does not take much gear to put you over that limit. A starting martial character will have trouble staying under that limit. A chain shirt weighs 25 lbs, a rapier is 2 lbs, a dagger is 1 lbs., an empty backpack is 2lbs, a bedroll is another 5 lbs. That puts the character at a medium load. That is without a ranged weapon or any other gear including waterskin or rations. Dropping the armor to studded leather will reduce the total weight to 30 lbs, but again that is without any other gear.
Special materials can reduce some of this and things like handy haversacks also help, but that still costs gold and may not always be available. If the character dumps STR it gets even worse. There was a post not too long ago where the poster was playing a ratfolk alchemist and had dumped his STR and could not even carry his alchemist kit and formula book without being encumbered.
13 STR for a DEX based character is actually a good idea. A character with 10 STR has a light load of 33 lbs. It does not take much gear to put you over that limit. A starting martial character will have trouble staying under that limit. A chain shirt weighs 25 lbs, a rapier is 2 lbs, a dagger is 1 lbs., an empty backpack is 2lbs, a bedroll is another 5 lbs. That puts the character at a medium load. That is without a ranged weapon or any other gear including waterskin or rations. Dropping the armor to studded leather will reduce the total weight to 30 lbs, but again that is without any other gear.
This is precisely why anyone who wears armor and/or carries any appreciable amount of gear shouldn't dump Str. When I was starting PFS, I wondered why Merisiel (the iconic rogue) had 14 Str when she was a finesse build, but then I added up the weight of all her gear, and pretty much every bit of that 14 Str was essential.
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The question that needs to be asked is: What are you actually looking for, OP? You want to play a Kitsune Samurai, but that is awfully specific without any actual specifics as to what you want from the character.
Do you just want to be a fox wielding 'Japanese steel'?
Is this just a combination that tickles your fancy?
Did you lose a bet???
Typically, the easiest effective Dexterity builds are:
Unchained Rogues (who get sneak attack immediately and 'Dex to Dmg' at level 3)
Human Swashbucklers (who get Weapon Finesse for free and have two feats at creation to get 'Dex to Dmg')
Inspired Blade Swashbucklers (who get Weapon Finesse and Weapon Focus with the Rapier for free and can spend their starting feat on 'Dex to Dmg')
Dawnflower Dervish Bard (who get 'Dex to Dmg' with the Scimitar immediately)
Human Fighter (who get three feats at creation to get 'Dex to Dmg')
All of the 'not-human only' options seem like they would work great with a Kitsune (maybe even as just a 'starting dip' for inspired Blade or Dawnflower Dervish), but that isn't worth much if they aren't what you want to play...