(PF) Optimising a DEX-Based Warrior

[Enix18]

I've got a bit of an interesting situation. Up until last night I was playing a Warblade in our group's D&D 3.5 campaign and serving as the primary melee character for the party. It was a decently optimized character without anything really cheesy going on, and he was a blast to play, but because of certain events in the game I've decided to retire him temporarily for a sort of time-skip where he goes off and trains on his own.

In the interim I need to roll up a new character, and I decided I should go a different route than the purely STR-based fighter. Thus, a DEX-based warrior, which would have been an easy enough concept to put together had we not decided to make the move over to Pathfinder.

Now I'm really not sure how I can manage to make this character work. At level 5 my original character was putting out anywhere from 25 to 50 damage a round on average, and the more I look at the options available to me in Pathfinder the more I think that it's just not possible for me to do nearly as much. I wanted to avoid being a dedicated sneak attacker, since I still want to fill the role of front-line melee guy to some extent, but I'm just not sure where else I can squeeze some decent damage out off.

TL;DR: Help me build an effective DEX-based warrior in Pathfinder. Anything from builds to simple PrC/class ability/feat suggestions would be appreciated!

[Dusk Eclipse]

I think the normal way to go is use the Dervish Dance feat + an Agile weapon; but I am not sure and I don't know PF that well.

[Hylas]

I think the normal way to go is use the Dervish Dance feat + an Agile weapon; but I am not sure and I don't know PF that well.

This is what I was going to suggest.

The problem with a high damage DEX-based fighter is that you're spending a bunch of feats to do what you can with STR for free. Want to hit with DEX? Feat. Want to do damage with DEX? Feat and specific damage. Want to do more than just 1*DEX damage? Weapon enchant. So right off the bat you're looking at 2 feats and a weapon enchant to do 1d6+(2*DEX) damage.

That said, you're looking at:
Weapon Finesse
Dervish Dance
Agile Weapon Enchant

So at level 6 with 22 DEX you're looking at 1d6+13 damage. Power attack will bring it up to 1d6+17.

I was playing around with a DEX-based character on a pad of paper and came up with a kensai bladebound magus that uses traits to make shocking grasp a level 0 spell. He was made using a linear point-buy though so 18 DEX and INT weren't a problem.

Yeah, I'm kind of at a loss myself when it comes to Dex-only.

[StreamOfTheSky]

It's much harder in PF.

Best route is to be a Dawnflower Dervish Bard. This gives you dex to hit and damage (with the scimitar), right from level 1, and trades normal inspire courage for a self-only version at double the bonus. You would then build for the Crane Wing feat to make the empty hand actually pay dividends. Level 10+, take discordant voice feat to add another d6 sonic damage on all your attacks (as well as allies').

As long as you pump dex apporpriately, you can do respectable attack and damage numbers with this, AND have bard spellcasting.

[jmelesky]

The problem with a high damage DEX-based fighter is that you're spending a bunch of feats to do what you can with STR for free. Want to hit with DEX? Feat. Want to do damage with DEX? Feat and specific damage. Want to do more than just 1*DEX damage? Weapon enchant. So right off the bat you're looking at 2 feats and a weapon enchant to do 1d6+(2*DEX) damage.

To be fair, the feat and the enchantment are redundant. Dervish Dance (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/dervish-dance-combat) gives you Dex to damage, but only for scimitars, and only while empty-handed. The agile enchantment (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-weapons/magic-weapon-special-abilities/agile) gives you Dex to damage for any finesse-able weapon.

Since both replace Str to damage (rather than adding to it), you can't stack them, either.

That said, you can skip Power Attack (and thus not worry about buying up to 13 Strength), and instead get Piranha Strike (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/piranha-strike-combat), which is designed for finesse-able weapons.

It costs more, in feats and money, yes, but it's possible to do. And, if you skip Dervish Dance and get agile weapons instead, it works well for a TWFer, since you need the Dex anyway.

[Blyte]

flowing monk 1
kensai magus x

(possibly dipping further to flowing monk 2)

this will net you, dex+wis+int to ac, and evasion if you go 2 monk.

will also eventually make you almost as good as a crit build fighter, when you get far enough into kensai.

and kensai also gets you some good initiative bonuses.

use a wakazashi or a rapier

sample build
Feats:
1 Weapon Finesse
1 hum Combat Reflexes
1 mag1 Weapon Focus (Rapier)
2 mnk1 Improved Trip
3 mag2 Agile Manuevers
5 mag4 Vicious Stomp
6 mag5 Scorpion Style
...
eventually take critical focus, improved critical, critical feats, intensify spell.

force the melee to engage you by hitting them with scorpion style, then make them pay for attacking you by tripping them and hitting them.

[grarrrg]

1 Weapon Finesse
1 hum Combat Reflexes
1 mag1 Weapon Focus (Rapier)
2 mnk1 Improved Trip
3 mag2 Agile Manuevers
5 mag4 Vicious Stomp
6 mag5 Scorpion Style

You missed Fury's Fall (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/fury-s-fall-combat). It let's you add your DEX to Trip attempts.
With a Finesse weapon, this means you get DEX _TWICE_ on Trips.

[Blyte]

That and "heirloom weapon" would make you trippy mctripperstein.

[StreamOfTheSky]

As long as you didn't fight anything to big...

Str-based tripper can rely on enlarge person or polymorphing into a huge creature to extend his catalogue of "dudes I can trip", a dex-tripper can't do that w/o hurting his trip check by a bunch.