Ancestry and Backgrounds

Okay, here me out....

For standard Ancestries: 18 STR, 12 DEX, 14 CON, 10 INT, 10 WIS, 14 CHA.

Human is a simple option but Natural Ambition is a little underwhelming.

Magus

Is Sparkling Targe better than Twisting Tree?

Items

Dedications

Champion Dedication

Ragathiel (General of Vengeance)

We're here for the Champion Dedication. We spent most of our Ancestry and Background ability increases to make sure we could do this. We'll have the option of wearing heavy armor from level 2-10 before switching back to medium armor (and by that time, our DEX has increased to 16+).

We get some skills (Religion and Intimidation), I guess?

Champion's Reaction might feel redundant with Attack of Opportunity but it puts enemies in a spot where they can't get away from us and they can't attack our allies without getting hit -- as long as we stand behind an ally, there isn't much an enemy can do to avoid one of the two reactions. There's a potential feat tax we might run into where we need to use an Advanced Devotion to pick up Ranged Reprisal to allow us to step into range.

From there, we can pick up a mount through Divine Ally, Desperate Prayer for an emergency Focus Point, Healing Touch for Lay on Hands (if you've made it to level 6+ without Lay on Hands, you're probably okay), or Champion Resiliency for some added toughness. This dedication is deep.

Divine Ally (Shield) should stack with the Sparkling Targe hardness buff, so you can end up with a +5 to the Hardness of the shield.

Cleric Dedication

Similar to Champion Dedication but we get access to Divine Spellcasting with the Dedication instead of Heavy Armor and doesn't force us into a Strength build.

Skysage Dedication

Divination spells and access to Moonbeam, a Focus spell similar to Fire Ray, instead of having to commit to Champion or Cleric to get it.

Cantrips: Guidance, Detect Magic?

Shadowcaster Dedication

More Focus points...

Shadow Blast is potentially interesting once we hit level 9 but it's kind of dead if we don't want to mess around with a Familiar.

Witch Dedication

More Focus points, access to other spell books

Wizard Dedication

We can get a Focus point here and upgrade our familiar through the archetype instead of our Class Feats.

Blessed One

Get your focus points quickly (and access to Lay on Hands).