Character Creation/ Applications

[rdknight]

I'm going to say no on the Unchained book.  I don't know Pathfinder like I know 3.5, so I prefer not to mix in optional rules.

Don't worry too much about overlapping classes.  Just make sure your asses aren't hanging in the breeze.  

I'm pretty new to Pathfinder so I may be wrong, but according to what I'm reading the Martial Artist is just an archetype of the Monk. It takes the regular Monk class and replaces all of its Ki powers ( like abundant step and still mind) and replaces them with more martial abilities. The only one I fancy is the "exploit weakness" ability and well the ability to take fighter feats. Seemed more Kung fu to me. I found the archetype to be much simpler than the brawler. On paper at least.

Yeah, Martial artist is an archetype that removes the alignment restriction on monk and changes some other things around. Monk is a class that has lots of build and archetype options with huge variation from really good to really bad. It's not an easy class to build well and I've never tried one for that reason. There are some helpful guides that can make it much easier. Here's a page compiling Pathfinder guides. You can find several for Monk there. 

http://zenithgames.blogspot.com/2012/11/...uides.html

If you don't have much experience with pathfinder you'd be better off staying away from Brawler. It's a good Monk-like class with d10 HD, full BAB, and light armor. But the Martial Flexibility class ability requires you to know your way around the combat feats well, and there are a lot of them. Not a class for someone's first Pathfinder martial character.