Tank Mage build or class.

[BloodOnTheWind]

Im trying to make a character that can use bows and spells at a variety of ranges and still be tank material. Constitution based casting would be great, but i've found nothing so far. So a mid range blaster/archer with decent armor, con and hit dice.

I was considering writing a class based around the idea of a tattooed shaman that would get some ranger/druid like nature based skills and abilities, an animal companion, natural armor (probably con mod as a nat armor bonus when unarmored), charisma based casting, and a small but functional repertoire of elemental, and plant/animal spells. maybe even a rage. but i want it to be properly balanced.
the tatooes would be like shamanic totems that would grant extra benefits and abilities based on the animal.


Any help toward either an optimized build along these lines or a well written tattooed shaman like class would be greatly appreciated. incorporating pathfinder 3.5 features is o.k. too. you guys are geniuses, lets see what you can come up with. and...GO!

[eggynack]

You should consider just running it as a druid. Druids can invest heavily in constitution, and put up some killer practical defenses. The actual archery part isn't there natively, but you can pull that off with the grasslands environmental weapons list (Dragon Magazine #331. 87). You can even get rage with druidic avenger (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#druidVariantDruidicAve nger) if you want, though I wouldn't recommend it.

Alternatively, thinking about it further, I think what you might want here is a barbarian into runescarred berserker (UE, 31). It's a class that does the whole tattooed casting thing, barbarians have some of that nature feel, and you obviously get rage. Maybe add in fist of the forest (CC, 80) to get that whole nature thing, along with the constitution bonus to AC you want. It fits a lot of your flavor, though it won't get as much blasting, general nature stuff, or the animal companion. It's definitely close though, so take a look.

[Engorde]

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races/other-races/featured-races/arg-orc/scarred-witch-doctor-witch-orc

Has CON based casting and natural armor bonus.

[Karl Aegis]

I don't get it. Bog standard Wizard has all the qualities you mentioned and can cast hoard gullet for all your storage needs. You don't really need a build dedicated around being a storage space. Just buy an item for it.

[DMVerdandi]

You could do most of this with a druid as Eggynack said.
Use elf for elven weapon familiarity to get short and longbow. Or pick up the otherworldly feat to get proficiency in all martial weapons and all armor.

Pick up a monk's belt for wiz to ac
Zen archery for wiz to hit with ranged attacks
And if you want more HP, use spells that grant it (Bear's endurance for example). Simply buffing your Wiz will give you more bonus spells to do so.

As far as the tattoos go, you can simply fluff it so that each druid has a tattoo that connects them to nature, and that is how they gain spells.

You could do that, or Refluff the spirit shaman class, take the wild cohort feat, and possibly the Lost Traditions feat for charisma, but wisdom has better support for bonuses to other things.