Hmm… the math is not super great for a ranged fighter.
Not sure I can handle leveling up casting again.
I’m just going to make a melee fighter.
yeah the ranged fighter gets better to hit but not a lot better damage, you have to roll in ranger or archer archetypes and add in eldritch archer (kinda tosses the action economy out the window when adding magic though)
so 2 weeks off after the TPK Hydra fights on 12/18 … Yay, Spoon can help me make a new character LOL.
You know what, I think I am going to go with a ranged fighter after all. The damage is not as great as melee but I find it thematically appealing and I’ve been wanting to try out an archery based character for a while.
I can carry a shortsword as a backup weapon which will also give me access to slashing damage when needed. At 8th level I can take mobile shot stance with the intent of filling more of a skirmisher role - I suspect we will be pretty skirmish heavy for this campaign - which might not be a bad thing when fighting clunky hell knights 
Since we are getting a free archetype, I will pickup Rogue which will give me even better skirmishing ability - possibly a damage bump on the first round of combat and more skills.
would you be going for a focus on the thievery skill?
I was looking at taking rogue with the free archetype and going with trap finder (disable master level traps) and eventually taking thievery to master (trap finder then allows disarming legendary traps, if that is even needed?).
I was toying around in Pathbuilder and at lvl 20 with no magic items (just a couple different guns to see the bonuses and armor) I was looking at legendary stealth for hiding/reloading in one action, master thievery, master acrobatics (take cover/hit the dirt then kip up to get up faster) and either master or legendary medicine (I just have not figured out all the skill feats… or general feats for that matter). Mostly just playing around to see when I would want to take different feats and the requirements for them.
On a different note, @Binasii may be playing a sorcerer. she doesn’t want to be a prepared caster and she likes to set things on fire, so we were looking at the Phoenix bloodline. Now that I think about that though, it may not be a good idea since devils tend to be immune to fire. >.<
so maybe an Angelic or Psychopomp bloodline would be a bit better.
IMNSHO:
Arcane
Occult
…
…
Primal
… x20 or so
Divine
would you be going for a focus on the thievery skill?
I hadn’t planned on anything beyond trained.
I’m thinking - Acrobatics, Stealth, and either Deception or Performance will be my 3 major skills.
If you’re going ranged fighter and you guys are doing the free archetypes I would also suggest Eldritch Archer.
I agree, it brings a lot to ranged fighter, similar utility to starlit span magus but better in some ways and you get to keep the fighter’s lead in BAB.
It wouldn’t help with skirmishing much, but it may work out to a higher dpr at range? I am not sure about that though.
I see y’all’s point about Eldritch archer. Charisma as the casting stat would be nice. I feel like the archery feats from it kind of work against the archery feats in the fighter class though. I could see it working as a non-free archetype.
Maybe I should drop the idea of a ranged fighter and go with either my original idea of a Tian melee fighter or a Nidalese thief racket rogue.
I suppose this will be an unpopular opinion but I have to admit I’m not really a fan of the free archetype rule 
hmm, ok.
I like it because it isn’t a full blown multiclass or gestalt character, but I still get more customization out of the character than just a standard character. It doesn’t feel like I get a lot of ‘power’ out of the archetype but I get more versatility added to my pure class.
I haven’t looked very hard, but is it even possible to multiclass outside of the multiclass dedications?
I can understand not liking because of the abundance of options, it can be overwhelming. I just came from a in person group before covid that I had played with for years that only did gestalt characters for D&D/PF1 or we did more complex systems (d100 stuff mostly).
Nope.
There’s a dual-class/gestalt optional rule from the GMG though.
Yeah, I agree with you from a logical perspective those are really, really nice things. So overall the free archetype is nice to have. There are some cases where I think it fits extremely well. Like the class archetypes - Runelord in particular. (I realize it’s not a great archetype but I love the lore and flavor around the Runelords). But for most character concepts I have it’s less clear to me what to pick which sends my analysis paralysis to 11.
Hmm… I’m liking a dex based weapons monk all of a sudden. Somewhat inspired by Tenten of Naruto.
I have not watched much Naruto. Does she use scrolls? The images I see of her shows a bo and a scroll (rather large one). Monk with Magus archetype looks like it could be fun.
TBH, neither have I. I just discovered the character from browsing Pinterest and thought she looked cool. From what I can tell most of the characters use magic to some extent or another. Tenten is apparently a weapons generalist. In some pictures she is shown wielding a sword. Unfortunately the only sword monks get access to is the Temple Sword which based on the flavor text sounds kind of “dokel” (to borrow a word commonly spoken in @Rando’s family - the meaning is pretty much exactly the way the word sounds).
I tried to figure out a way to get access to a wakizashi but I don’t think there’s any way to access it and get the monk trait.
This weapon sounds pretty cool, and a little OP - I wants: Wind and Fire Wheel - Weapons (Base) - Equipment - Archives of Nethys: Pathfinder 2nd Edition Database
Yup, Magus would be a cool archetype to have. I’m not sure if I could swing the INT requirement or not though 
I forgot how much of a PITA it can be to get access to advanced weapons.
It looks like there are two ways for a monk to get proficiency with a Wind and Fire Wheel:
Way #1:
- Be a Versatile Human
- At level 1:
a. take the Weapon Proficiency General Feat to get Trained in Martial Weapons
b. take the Unconventional Weaponry Ancestry Feat - Either:
a: take a fighter dedication and the Advanced Weapon Training feat at level 12 to get Expert and above proficiency
or b: take the Unconventional Expertise ancestry feat at level 13 to get Expert and above proficiency
This weapon is probably not very practical for a monk for most of their career.
So I think this is another one of those cases where “The fighter makes a better X than X”:
- Be a human, half-elf, half-orc, or versatile ancestry with human ancestry.
- At first level take the Unconventional Weaponry ancestry feat
- Profit
So what I’ve learned about playing g zircon is….
- flurry of blows is a lot of fun. And when you get the +1 hand wraps can hit nice and hard.
- the “Stance” ability give you the ability to alter the type of damage you deal which can be really handy if you expect to face a diverse set of mobs
- with access to Ki spells, you can mix and match melee and spell casting. Not sure how that compares with the magus,
It seems like there are a lot of spread between character types, but the monk seems very versatile and, given a free archetype, you can do a lot of mixing and matching to build what you want.
Overall, once enjoyed it, and if the swashbuckler doesn’t make sense in our party makeup, I’d consider playin another monk when we launch hells rebels.