[PF] Optimizing a Sable Company Marine archer?

[deuxhero]

I'm curious on how one optimizes it, as it's one area I'm not too skilled with

One interesting thing is Noble Scion (Narikopolus)'s fluff requirement works with SCM's for +2 damage, though I'm not sure you have the feats.

As a mounted combatant on a mount with relatively low strength (15) and no natural boosts to it by level, sex is actually important (Female helps a LOT for staying underweight)

[veekie]

Looks like a standard flying squishy mounted archer setup to me though.
Archery Ranger with a shortbow, Rapid Shot->Manyshot. Deadly Aim for damage, Clustered shots for DR(though you don't need this early on, due to it being way easier to get around DR with careful arrow use than switching primary weapon in melee), Mounted Combat and Mounted Archery for obvious reasons.

After raising the mount's Int to 3 you can then get it to pick up Teamwork feats to react off. Not too many of those though. This for a particular character or general speculation?

[deuxhero]

Why short bow over composite longbow?

[veekie]

Longbow

At almost 5 feet in height, a longbow is made up of one solid piece of carefully curved wood.

Description: You need two hands to use a bow, regardless of its size. A longbow is too unwieldy to use while you are mounted. If you have a penalty for low Strength, apply it to damage rolls when you use a longbow. If you have a Strength bonus, you can apply it to damage rolls when you use a composite longbow (see below), but not when you use a regular longbow.

[deuxhero]

Why short bow over composite longbow?

You need at least two hands to use a bow, regardless of its size. You can use a composite longbow while mounted. All composite bows are made with a particular strength rating (that is, each requires a minimum Strength modifier to use with proficiency).

[StreamOfTheSky]

It STARTS size large?  Huh...

Well, being large it has 4x normal carrying capacity, and you can buff the str to 16 with the point at 4 HD (but I'd do Int first to open up any feat you want for it to take).  If it doesn't need the str to carry you, I would buff int, then dex, then str for its 4th, 8th, and 12th HD.

Basic setup for archer ranger otherwise.  Consider Mounted Combat and Trick Riding to help protect it.  You could do mounted combat style to get Trick Riding early, but I don't think that's worth giving up IPS at 6 and Point Blank Master at 10.

I would always try to get to ranger 6 ASAP, but you'll need boon companion anyway, so that means you could dip a level somewhere else and still not lose companion advancement.  Emissary Cavalier 1 will get you free Mounted Combat.  Sohei Monk lets you pick up any mounted combat feat w/o pre-reqs, so you could actually get Trick Riding at very low levels with a dip there.

[deuxhero]

Base strength alone comes pretty damn close to a medium load with even barebones equipment.

Average weight human female (135, average male is 35 more). As a 15 strength quadruped it has 264 pounds (304 at fifth level if you take Boon Companion and boost its strength by one) before it can't fly. 128/169 straight away has 40 pounds taken off for the (masterwork) saddle (88/129) 8 pounds for your clothing (80/121), 5 pounds for a Handy Haversack and 2 pounds for an efficient quiver (73/114), masterwork studded leather for you and it is 20+40 pounds (13/54) your (masterwork 14 strength composite) bow is 3 pounds (10/51) and you'll want a dagger and gauntlet (1 pound each to 8/49) so almost anything is going to put you over limit (calculating this shows me how D&D weighs things really crazy).

Boosting it by items would be the optimal choice,  1000 gold for Muleback Cords (boost capacity by 8 strength to 800 pounds) is the cheapest and greatest benefit, though just the above kit eats 5389 GP of your 6000 WBL at level 4, though it is affordable at 5 (though you have to drop making your bow magic or a ring of feather fall to do it) . How you stay airborne at level 4 without a "craftbitch" is a lot trickier however.

[veekie]

I don't suppose an animal variation of the Masterwork Backpack can be arranged, you don't need much of a threshold, though its still easiest to just use a Small race.

[deuxhero]

I fear meeting the DM who would let THAT pass.

Small race means you are sacrificing damage output, human benefits to save 1000 gold (as your companion is always large. You have plenty of options if you wanted a flying medium mount alreddy)

[StreamOfTheSky]

Be an Elf (far from ideal) or Half-Elf (not much worse than human) female instead?  Surely they weigh less, especially the elves.

EDIT: Elf is like 1lb more minimum, MUCH less weight maximum.  Half-Elf is several lbs heavier min., a bit (like 20 lbs) less on the max end, probably not much difference if rolling.

If your DM actually making you roll height and weight?  If you can pick, this wouldn't even be an issue...

[deuxhero]

This is all theoretical not for an actual game, though given there is actually a noticeable mechanical effect, I'd use average height/weight (Muleback Cords make weight irrelevent by level 6)

The human feat seems like a big deal given you are applying an alreddy feat starved build (archery) with something that needs even more feats.