[PF] Critique my essentially mundane Duelist

[GreatHackster]

So I got kinda bored playing my wizard in my current campaign, as I tend to do as picking spells all the time and looking up their effects and etc. is just not particularly exciting for me.  (I know, I'm weird).  Anyway, I talked it over with our DM and he's allowing me to "retire" the wizard for when we need him as a teleport/knowledge monkey, and bring in a new character to play.  What I wanted to do was make someone who's also highly intelligent but is pretty much totally mundane class-wise, yet still manages to be a badass with several tricks up his sleeve.

About the campaign: it's a jungle sandbox campaign, with a BBEG devil worshipping wizard who ruled an empire in the past and has come back to life in an as-yet unknown manner to rebuild his empire.  Enemies are a decent mix of mundane jungle denizens, monstrous and otherwise, with the heavy hitters in the BBEG's arsenal being mostly gishes with some infernal traits. 

The game is 25 point buy and relatively mid-op, I think; the DM makes sure not to play even casters as omniscient cheese monkeys, and is trying to enforce a scarce magic item setting (which translates to new characters coming in at half WBL + 5000).  The party, including the wizard I was playing, is:

• a Gnomish Summoner who mostly focuses on buffing his eidolon for many natural attacks and has some utility magic;
• a Halfling Cavalier built around charge damage, seems to be doing just fine on the massive damage front;
• a Halfling Rogue who's dual-wielding and is honestly having a lot of trouble hitting/getting sneak attacks, not sure of specific build;
• a Human Cleric of Abaddar with the Travel Domain who seems to focus mostly on summons/debuffs, the player hasn't played D&D-like games in years;
• and my current character, a Sylph Wizard (Wind Listener archetype) who's mostly been focusing on battlefield control and save-or-sucks; the lack of much downtime or magic items means he's mostly limited to the +2 spells known per level.

Now, replacing the Wizard is probably going to hurt the party at least a bit, because in addition to his spells he's also the resident Knowledge ... knower and this has helped on multiple occasions.  But the rest of the party is fine with me retiring him, and like I said, the wizard will still be around but "researching" and the like, so if we really need me to go back I can still do so.  What I wanted to do with the new character was make someone who can tank without having to spend anything on armor, who can help the Rogue get his sneak attacks and hit more easily, and who can tear foes apart with much martial derring-do.

Here's the build I have so far:

Praesul

(click to show/hide)

Male LG Tiefling Outsider (Native)
Fighter (Lore Warden) 5 / Monk (Maneuver Master) 2 / Duelist 4
Init +9, Senses Perception +18, Darkvision 60 ft

==DEFENSE==
AC 32, touch 30, flat-footed 16 (+1 armor, +1 nat, +7 Dex, +4 Monk AC, +9 dodge [+1 feat, +5 Crane Style, +3 Canny Defense])
HP 89 (9d10 + 2d8 + 11 + 5 [favored class Fighter])
Fort +10 Ref +16 (evasion) Will +10; +1 to saves vs. spells, SLAs & poison
Resist Fire 5
Defensive Abilities Canny Defense (+Int to dodge AC when wielding duelist weapon, up to duelist level), Monk AC Bonus (+Wis to AC), Evasion, Crane Style (-1 to hit/+5 dodge AC, deflect one melee attack per round, deflected melee attack provokes AoO), Parry (hold attack from full attack to parry w/ opposed attack roll), Grace (+2 Ref save), Enhanced Mobility (+8 dodge AC vs. AoOs provoked by movement), Combat Expertise (-4 to hit/+4 dodge AC, not factored in), Gloves of Dueling (do not drop weapon when stunned/panicked), Defensive Strategist (not flat-footed when unaware)

==OFFENSE==
Speed 30 ft/x4
Melee +1 Keen Chthonic Steel Scimitar, +20/+15 (1d6+15 [+11 vs. crit-immune]), 15-20/x2 (+2 to confirm)
Melee Unarmed Strike, +18/+13 (1d6+3), 20/x2
Special Attacks Flurry of Maneuvers (one extra maneuver/full attack at -2 penalty [+1 for monk level], may be maneuver that is normally standard action), Unarmed Strike, Stunning Fist 4/day DC 19, Weapon Training (Heavy Blades) +3 hit/dmg, Precise Strike +4 dmg, Combat Reflexes (8 AoOs/round), Power Attack -4 to hit/+8 dmg (+12 2h)

==STATISTICS==
Str 13 Dex 24 Con 12 Int 16 Wis 18 Cha 4
BAB +10, CMB +12 (+22 w/ weapon, +26 Trip, +26 Dirty Trick), CMD 43 (+47 vs. Trip, Dirty Trick, Disarm, Sunder, fumble effects)
Feats Combat Expertise, Crane Riposte, Crane Style, Crane Wing, Dervish Dance, Dodge, Greater Dirty Trick, Greater Trip, Improved Dirty Trick, Improved Trip, Improved Unarmed Strike, Martial Weapon Prof., Mobility, Power Attack, Stunning Fist, Weapon Finesse
Skills Acrobatics +21, Craft (weapons) +7, Disable Device +8, Escape Artist +21, Intimidate +1, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +7, Knowledge (engineering) +7, Knowledge (history) +7, Knowledge (local) +7, Knowledge (nature) +7, Knowledge (planes) +7, Linguistics +7, Perception +18, Perform (dance) +6, Profession (teacher) +8, Sense Motive +18, Spellcraft +10, Stealth +23, Survival +8
Special Qualities Scaled Skin (+1 nat AC, Resist Fire 5), Soul Seer (deathwatch at will), Sneaky (+2 Bluff/Stealth)
Traits Adopted (Dwarves), Glory of Old (+1 to saves vs. spells, SLAs & poisons), Defensive Strategist (not flat-footed when unaware)
Languages Common, Infernal, Dwarven, Draconic, Abyssal, Elven

Magic Items Belt of Incredible Dexterity +4, Brawling Bracers of Armor +1 (+2 to unarmed atk/dmg), Cloak of Resistance +1, Gloves of Dueling, Headband of Inspired Wisdom +2, Quick Runner's Shirt (extra move action 1/day)

Basically, he's always fighting defensively and deflects/ripostes from 1 melee attack per round with Crane Style, he Dirty Tricks people while full attacking so that they're blind or sickened against the rest of his attack, he Trips to get a free AoO for everyone adjacent and make them easier to hit, he can save an attack to parry and next level use duelist's riposte to protect himself or someone next to him, he's pretty damn hard to hit touch-wise and not too shabby normal AC-wise, and can do a respectable amount of damage with Precise Strike and Power Attack.  He'll also be flushing out opponents' AoOs so that other party members don't have to worry about them (with his awesome +8 vs AoOs) and occasionally using Stunning Fist to REALLY ruin someone's day.

To anyone who looks at the build and comes away with these two problems: 1, my DM ruled that I can Dirty Trick with the scimitar so long as I can fluff it in a way that makes sense, and 2, my DM let me use the Fighter's bonus feat retraining to retrain out light armor proficiency for Power Attack.  He seems to be a fan of my build.  He also ruled that, if I hold an attack to use the Duelist's parry, I can block Magic Missiles, since Chthonic Steel absorbs them when it's used as armor; so there's that.

So, now that I've gotten through that overly long introduction, what I'm looking for is any problems with the build, any areas that I've neglected or calculations I've done wrong, as well as suggestions for future options and/or magic items.  I'm looking at getting Boots of Haste ASAP as well as some form of flight so I'm not reliant on the casters for it, and as for build I might take two levels of Monk after my 5th level of Duelist in order to get a Ki Pool, before coming back to finish Duelist.  Thanks in advance!

[Power]

You don't need Power Attack. Piranha Strike will do the same for your build, only it requires weapon finesse instead of 13 strength. You'll need to wield a light weapon, and your unarmed strike counts. If you get the agile property on your unarmed attacks (Amulet of Mighty Fists +1 (4000 gold) is enough to make your fists agile), you can pick up a lot of damage while dumping strength. If so, consider taking a drawback so you can take the Muscle of the Society trait (+2 strength for carrying capacity and some str checks).

You might also want to consider picking up the Osyluth Guile feat. It requires 8 ranks of Bluff and Dodge, and when you are fighting defensively, you may add your Charisma bonus as a dodge bonus to your AC vs one opponent's melee attacks. Since you're going Crane Style, you will always be fighting defensively, so you might as well boost your AC some more by adding all of your mental stats to your AC. If you're going down this route, you should drop a Fighter level for a Paladin level so you can get +2 fort & will saves, Smite Evil, and detect evil. You might want to consider dropping another fighter/duelist level for the 2nd Paladin level, so you can add charisma to all your saves, lay on hands and get another +1 fort/will. Then you might as well downgrade the Belt of Incredible Dexterity to +2 and replace your Headband of Inspired Wisdom +2 for Headband of Mental Superiority +2.

Also, if you do the above, you might want to consider changing your race into Aasimar or even Merfolk (+2 dex/con/cha, +2 natural armor, trip immunity, but your land speed is 15, but you can just ride, use a Seafoam Shawl, take the Fleet feat, and/or get some movement speed buff from your friends). The best race to play would be the Drow Noble bestiary race (+4 dex, +2 cha/wis/int, -2 con, 11+(character level) spell resistance, darkvision 120 feet, +2 racial to perception checks, immunity vs sleep effects, +2 racial saves vs enchantment effects, poison use, light blindness, has the following SLAs at will: dancing lights, deeper darkness, faerie fire, feather fall, and levitate, has detect magic as a constant spell-like ability, has the following SLAs as 1/day: divine favor, dispel magic, and suggestion), but the GM might not approve. Then again, you are playing a martial character with zero spellcasting ability.

If you're not going to use Charisma, you should change race to Svirfneblin (+2 dex/wis, -2 str, -4 cha, low light vision, darkvision 120 feet, SR 11+(Char lvl), +2 Dodge to AC, small size, +2 to stealth (+4 underground), +2 to all saving throws, stonecunning, constant nondetection, the following SLAs 1/day: blindness/deafness, blur, disguise self). Also, if you're not using charisma, you should drop the level of Fighter for 1 level of Urban Barbarian so you get +1 attack and +1 AC when adjacent 2 or more enemies, +2 fortitude save, movement not impeded by crowds, controlled rage (+4 Dex (or Con or Str), no penalty to AC, can still use int/dex/cha skills while raging, but also gets no bonus to will saves and you still can't use concentration). You'll want to pick up 1 level of Urban Barbarian even if you are going with Charisma. If you're going two points deep into Urban Barbarian for Uncanny Dodge and rage powers, you should probably drop the Defensive Strategist trait.

Also, not sure if you realize this, but the Defensive Strategist trait requires you to worship Torag.

The Brawling property actually says it can only be applied to light armor, so technically it cannot be applied to Bracers of Armor (and is completely useless for Monks). Ask your DM if he'll approve it.