RFC: I will make changes as @Josh provides more insight.
This depends more or less entirely on how awesome your DM is. Style feats are fantastic for the Ranger, but they tend to come at levels later than when you could normally pick up the feats by yourself. If your DM is cool with it, take the feats early, and then switch them out for other feats at later levels as you 'qualify' for them.
Here's a brief table for how I would go with them: # = level, C = class, F = feat from odd level
- 1F: Weapon Focus
- 1R: Two-Weapon Fighting ( you have three feats, I assume you are human )
- 2C: Dual Slice
- 3F: Quick Draw
- 5F: Blind-fight* / Improved Critical ( Scimitar )*
- 6C: Improved TWF
- 7F: Two-Weapon Rend
- 9F: Dodge*
- 10C: Greater TWF
- 11F: Improved blind fight*
- 13F: Hammer The Gap*
- 14C: Two Weapon Rend ( replacing the other ) - Outflank* ( animal companion)
- 15F: Greater Blind fight*
- 17F: Precise Strike* (animal Companion )
- 18C: Quick Draw ( replacing the other )*
- 19F:
As you can see, you end up with a lot of extra feats to play around with (all of the starred ones ). If you choose effective Favored Enemies and Favored Terrains, you will gain great benefit from them as well. I would only take the Blind-Fight tree if you think you will fight in many encounters involving concealment. Improved critical if you don't want to worry about enchanting the sword or getting scabbards of keen edge.
Items: you'll probably want to tailor these a bit better to whichever campaign you're in. There are a couple of 'standard' items that pretty much everyone picks up as they go: Belt of stat +6 for physical trait bonuses, Headband of stat +6 for mental trait bonuses, ring ( or shield ) of Shield, etc. As you play you'll figure out what sort of item's you'll need.
Attack Routine
Dual-wielding two bastard swords with Two-Weapon Fighting and Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Bastard Swords) causes you to take a −4 penalty for wielding two one-handed weapons. If you were to wield a one-handed weapon in one hand and a light weapon in the other, you’d have only a −2 penalty.
In addition to these penalties, you have BAB +7/+2 (that is, two attacks, one at +7 and the other at +2), and a +4 Strength modifier. As a Fighter, you have Weapon Training, which is a +1 to attack and damage as long as you use weapons from the chosen group (which is another problem because you have to pick between Heavy Blades and Light Blades).
So as it currently stands (with the −4 penalty), your attack routine is this:
Dual-wielding Bastard Swords, Heavy Blade Weapon Training
Bastard Sword +8, 1d10+5 (10.5)
other Bastard Sword +8, 1d10+3 (8.5)
Bastard Sword +3, 1d10+5 (10.5)
If you had a bastard sword and a short sword, you’d instead have a −2 penalty, like so, but you’ll only get Heavy Blade Weapon Training on the Bastard Sword attacks
Bastard Sword and Short Sword, Heavy Blade Weapon Training
Bastard Sword +10, 1d10+5 (10.5)
Short Sword +9, 1d6+2 (5.5)
Bastard Sword +5, 1d10+5 (10.5)
You lose an average of 2 damage on the second attack, but you are far more likely to hit with all three attacks.
If you swapped the Bastard Sword for a Longsword, saving yourself a feat, you would have
Longsword and Short Sword (+1 feat), Heavy Blade Weapon Training
Longsword +10, 1d8+5 (10.5)
Short Sword +9, 1d6+2 (5.5)
Longsword +5, 1d8+5 (10.5)
On average, you lose 1 damage from each of your first and third attacks (2 damage less total), but you have another feat which may be able to give you more damage than that. A really simple example is to switch to purely Short Swords, and take Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization with them. This also allows the Light Blade Weapon Training to get the bonuses on all of the attacks.
Dual-wielding Short Swords, Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization (−1 feat), Light Blade Weapon Training
Short Sword A +11, 1d6+7 (10.5)
Short Sword B +11, 1d6+5 (8.5)
Short Sword A +6, 1d6+7 (10.5)
Note that this version has the highest attack bonuses and the same damage potential as the two bastard swords. Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization are not exactly high-power feats, but they’re better here than Exotic Weapon Proficiency in the Bastard Sword. (to be fair, I used two feats to do it, but Weapon Focus in Bastard Swords doesn’t really help much since either you’re taking huge penalties for using two or you’re only getting the bonus on two out of three attacks)
Alternatively, you could consider Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, either with Exotic Weapon Proficiency in Bastard Swords:
Bastard Sword and Short Sword, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting (−1 feat), Heavy Blade Weapon Training
Bastard Sword +10, 1d10+5 (10.5)
Short Sword +9, 1d6+2 (5.5)
Bastard Sword +5, 1d10+5 (10.5)
Short Sword +4, 1d6+2 (5.5)
Or with Weapon Focus (Short Sword)
Dual-wielding Short Swords, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting and Weapon Focus, Light Blade Weapon Training
Short Sword A +11, 1d6+5 (8.5)
Short Sword B +11, 1d6+3 (6.5)
Short Sword A +6, 1d6+5 (8.5)
Short Sword B +6, 1d6+3 (6.5)
Note that in the second case, you average 2 damage less on half your attacks, but have +1 on all attacks.
There are still better things you could probably do, these are just some simple, Core feat choices that you should consider without changing your existing feats too much.
Combat Maneuver Bonus/Defense
CMB = BAB + Str + size_bonus + misc
You don’t have a size bonus if you’re Medium (like Humans generally are), so ignore that. The Fighter’s Weapon Training also gives you a +1 as long as you’re using the right weapon, so +1 for that. Your BAB is +7 and your Strength modifier is +2, so your CMB is +10.
CMD = BAB + Str + Dex + size_bonus + misc
Again, size and misc don’t come into play. Weapon Training only helps against Disarm or Sunder, so I won’t include in the general number. So you have +7 + 2 + 2 = +11.
Best Answer
You cannot benefit from two shields at once. They both provide Shield bonuses to AC, which do not stack with one another. Moveover, as you note, those bonuses become void the moment you actually attack: rather than give a bonus to AC, the bucklers start giving you penalties to attack.
Your attack routine therefore looks like this:
When not attacking, your AC is 10 + Armor + 3 (Dex) + 1 (Shield).
A +1 attack bonus is very bad, even at level 1. Do not expect to reliably hit much of anything with that attack bonus; a typical low-AC target is still looking at AC 14 or so. You’d only have a 64% chance to hit even once against that target. Meanwhile the barbarian’s looking at around a +7 attack bonus, for a 70% chance to hit, for a whole lot more damage. Your odds of hitting with both attacks, 16%, is so low that you might as well not even have Two-Weapon Fighting.
That said, you really do not need to take these penalties to play the character you want to play.
Armor in Pathfinder is fairly heavily abstracted; one type of armor can actually cover quite a lot of fairly-different sets of protective gear, all of which is simply abstracted into a single armor bonus, a single armor check penalty, a single maximum Dexterity bonus to AC, a single weight, a single cost, and so on. Thus, while one person’s chain shirt might be literally that, a shirt made from chain links, I see no reason why you couldn’t describe yours differently: lighter protection on the body, perhaps, but heavier arm bracers, used to deflect blows.
Thus, your description becomes just that: description. There is no need to fall into 3.x’s “you need the feat [item] for that” fallacy. Simply describe your character the way you wish to describe him or her, and use the items that most effectively represent that description mechanically.
I cannot vouch for how nit-picky your PFS DM will be on this, however. Some DMs are incredibly nit-picky about completely unnecessary things, and in PFS they have some institutional backing for that. I personally dislike the PFS immensely, largely for this reason. Normally, I’d say if a DM gave you a hard time about this, that is a DM you’re better off not playing with, but here you may not find one who will. Ultimately, you may not be able to effectively make the character you want to make, at least no without taking absolutely pointless penalties (as with the paired bucklers).