What would I play, PF1e edition

I added a new tag; WHAT WOULD I PLAY? where I noodle for a post about potential character concepts that I'd like to play. These aren't necessarily for any specific campaigns, I just look at character concepts in rulesets that I'm familiar with and have characters that I think are potentially interesting concepts that I'd like to play, if I get a chance. I'll probably do two per, but I don't know how often I'll come back to this series.

Many of these concepts are ones that could be readily adapted to other rulesets, but I'm looking specifically today at some classes and archetypes in Pathfinder 1e that I'd like to play. Both of these would, most likely, be human males. Pathfinder 1e is, of course, very similar to D&D 3.5. I actually think either of these two character concepts that I'm looking at today could be used in 3.5 as is, just adjusting for the slightly consolidated skill list for Pathfinder 1e vs 3.5 (Listen and Spot combined into Perception, Move Silently and Hide consolidated into Stealth, Jump, Tumble and Balance combined into Acrobatics, etc.) Of course, I'd otherwise see them as perfect characters for a PF1e adventure path character, and if I could find adaptions, I'd love to see these in 5e, with the archetypes maybe converted into subclasses. I don't understand 5e as well as I do 3e and Pathfinder 1e, so I'll leave that to someone else, however...

Concept #1: Brawler. I've kind of tried to like the concept of the monk, but I simply don't, really. It's too mystical with too much supernatural crap. I really want a more "western", non-supernatural alternative rather than a character who feels like he belongs in a Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat game. The Brawler class does this quite well. I actually don't think I'd even want an archetype, although if I change my mind and use one, the Snakebite Striker is the one that I'd use, most likely. Using the Shield Champion as a kind of fantasy Captain America might be interesting. The Strangler would be an interesting one for a smaller group, especially if I can use him as a kind of murderer of sorts, although just as a UFC fighter who puts people into sleeper holds would be boring. And I don't know how often I'd be interested in playing a murderer. Maybe some kind of hit man of sorts? I dunno. The concept of the Strangler archetype isn't terrible and it kind of interests me, but I'm not sure where I'd use it.

I don't like Wayne Reynolds "Rhonda Roussey with short hair" illustration, but if it were a guy, it'd be perfect. The mixed martial arts headgear kind of thing that she has is kind of cool, though. Although it feels weird because in the fiction that characters like this are based on, we rarely see this kind of thing.

I used ChatGPT to generate a "Gaulish martial artist" and removed the tattoos, and got this image. It might be an interesting place to start. Although using metal MMA headgear might be interesting too.

It's interesting to me that this was done as a hybrid class between monk and fighter, but without much of the supernatural weirdness. Freeport did the same thing with their 3.5 and Pathfinder stuff. The Survivalist is another good western, non-supernatural fist-fighter, and in the Pathfinder version it's converted to an archetype rather than a new class. But I'd rather just use the Brawler class. Like I said, maybe with one of the archetypes mentioned, but if not, the base class as is looks interesting enough to me already.

Concept #2: I've always been a huge fan of alt.rangers, and the Slayer is a hybrid class that's like a ranger with some rogue-like abilities added too. It may be my current favorite alt.ranger, and trust me, I've played around with a lot of them! (The wildlander from the Midnight campaign setting was my previous go-to.) I like the slayer, again, as is, but the sniper is my preferred archetype if I pick one. Curiously, although I prefer more "jock" characters, and magic and supernatural abilities often are not my thing at all, the Stygian Slayer archetype is kind of a creepy alternative. Curiously, with some of these archetypes, the "ranger-ness" of the slayer is reduced. Without Track and a lot of wilderness kind of activity, is it even really a ranger, or just some kind of skirmisher? Ah, well; I'm on record as saying that I think the ranger is really more of a skirmisher than a "ranger" in most cases anyway, or at least that's how most people play them. 

I'm well and frequently on record as not being very interested in magic-using classes or spellcasters. But I also find the fighter to be, generally, too bland for my tastes. There's probably some archetypes in the Pathfinder 1e rules that make it workable for me, but I haven't looked in a long time, and I prefer these two hybrid base classes instead, if I were to actually make and play a Pathfinder 1e character anytime soon. 

I say all of that as I'm currently playing a 5e fire genasi sorcerer in my Tyranny of Dragons campaign, of course. There's always exceptions, I guess. Plus, we already had a rogue, a barbarian, a cleric, and a ranger in that campaign, so some kind of arcane magic seemed like what was needed when I joined. But again, martial with a twist non-magical "jock" characters are kind of my go-to.

Now, I realize that neither of these two concepts; the brawler or the slayer, is a character concept in the traditional sense. It's a mechanics concept, i.e., what mechanics would I be interested in playing. I'd still need to come up with a character concept to back up the mechanics. But that's often how I like to build; either do the two in parallel, or come up with a mechanical concept that looks fun, and work from there on what exactly the character is like.

I'm also not a fan of over-developing backstories. I prefer brief and broad character concepts, and then I work on what the actual character is like in play. Think of characters like James Bond, for instance. He doesn't need backstory, and in fact, is probably a worse character if you try to saddle him with one. Conan too. Even Wolverine. Marvel were very reluctant to issue the Origin series back in the early 00s precisely because he was their most popular character (perhaps after Spider-man) and they were very worried that a backstory would actually make him less interesting rather than more. In the end, Origin was a success, but ultimately, it wasn't needed and I wonder if the character would have been better off if it hadn't been done.