I'll try ta help fren. I might type a lot but I'll try to focus on your suggested input first.
Firstly you never have to be any race, and what I mean by that is that everything's malleable besides starting stats and character background. Say you did start orc, right, you do have to be them up to like the first few steps to farm enemies, but then you go to Ivris or use dropped items and go to your chosen race. Spam eating root of man makes you human etc. Your character background, like soldier barbarian etc, stays in place but generally characters don't really react any way other than that's how you've always been when you make drastic changes. Going from orc to human has people treat you like you've always been a human, I mean, so just look at races, backgrounds and classes as starting stats nothing else. (changing classes takes a bit more money and time though but if you want a quirky unique build that's a definite option).
If you're stuck on what-to-play I'd recommend checking other people's builds until one calls to you (which you've done and are doing just listing) and also thinking of archetypes you like. As in, so you like tanks. if you've played league of legends, sion's one. or an armored conan. you think of that and can translate in game as guarded stance or shielded stance, rest
kill abilities, best 2h weapon you have, best armor you can find. you have generic s&b you say you don't want which'd be half defensive abilities with like a cleave or something, s&s. best armor. third option'd be like atugia, or a support tank, which i currently use and like a lot. example is
warrior, guarded stance to start, s%s equipment and heavy armor soon as possible, go after mirror stance (convocation of mirrors quest) soon as reasonable, keep that majority of game to tank and learn common and unique skills, shielded stance for bosses with no learnable skills or when have all. learn blessing as soon as possible, you use it first in combat and then with presence and some leadership armor, (which also happens to boost hp and naturally be tank armor respectively) your allies and summon are a bit fragile lawnmowers. then your choice of vanguard, war cry, or dominance. (generate high threat) stuff. if you play on auto don't take vanguard or anything like it, ai targets it as random so you will just chuck aggro at random party members. war cry vs dominance is mostly just preference but i like war cry for aoe and for cleanse/debuff. then your choice of summon, can get flame spirit or wolf early, and from there just get the more advanced stuff like by taking flame spirit to the hellhound temple or playing an aggressive beat in the temple of challenge and getting cassidy. ultimate is preference. you can take unbreakable or inspiration, insp is full party heal and defensive boost, unbreakable is
determination (don't die for a few turns).
i liked this build because with blessing yourself, you don't need a locked in party member with it for it, and with some leadership you buff tf out of everyone in one package. a tank stance and threat ability to keep attention, and the summon because 1. they're quite useful. later ones have pretty ridiculous ability sets like frost moth
2. if i remember correctly number of members reduces aoe damage, 3 with the summon circle there's a lot of rp potential and it's like having several new party members with (occasionally limited) personalities 4 because, imo, there's not many good encounter tank abilities. not so much as there's no choices or they're bad or balance issues, but because you get a lot out of summons, and tanks are a really good dedicated summoner. you can pop up an ability, summon, and your passives will let you continue your job while you "waste" a turn, compared to healers not using spirit veil or damage, or dps not damaging. much worse.
equipment is honestly really preference. that sounds kind of annoying if you want specific sets but there's a lot of good options. example is senninbari from kitsune den, its a second chance where you get killing damage negated once every rest and a shield. you can do stuff like see that trigger, know you're at a point any attack could kill you, then proc unbreakable, and before it runs out use a healing item or big heals, and possibly still have kaelirra tears if for some reason your healer is unavailable. but bountiful bag from evergreen is also good, just more boring boost to all heals received. it can do more than senninbari in some fights bit if you play on high difficulties it can take experience with fights and stats to know what you need. i like dawnsword because it's the only currently of it's kind to have defensive stats beside evade, and is also one handed, but guldring does have leadership so a trade off. mare's ring is good enough to mostly be a lock in, and leaves a slot open for defenses or stuff like money gain boosts. conq breastplate's pretty good lock in because it has threat gain and leadership, cloak of deeps for defense buffs, but could also take sunder protection if you know enemies have it and you can't face tank it. shield of absorptions main shield option right now, you really want a shield imo, but if you refuse i highly recommend the pain slut choker from vivianes shop to help counter crits. if you're in a area you know has extreme constant fire damage for example focus on defenses against it along with armor ward etc.
party wise i get off on playing full auto and listening to podcasts or stuff so i like outrider etheryn and honey azyrran. etheryn because she has a group heal (good with such a big party), lots of aoe, status effect damage boost+status effects, lots of story relevancy and possible story boosts. harrick is unfortunately going to step on your toes some but he can be useful if you need to do something else a turn or two. honey az because she has a base heal (really needed to sustain) and more aoe damage and less party target abilities than base cait. basically anyone works though as long as 1. nothing like vanguard, minimal target party member stuff (if you play auto or player only) 2 you really want someone with a heal-at-will, you don't want another tank, and you don't really want a dedicated healer because something like etheryns queen raiment steps on your toes, and you really don't want multiple party members not doing good damage. it also maximizes blessing if your party members all have some form of decent damage besides who uses it. ideally summon you want to have all damage abilities with or without bonus effects. lots of room to play around.
stat wise i recommend str, tough, presence. str because armor and sometimes for thwacking people. also for stuff like ailehs arm wrasslin handshake. toughness because hp good. presence because hp and partywide damage increase good. your evasion will be low or straight up negative so agility doesn't do much for you. this build, willpower doesn't really do anything for you. cunning don't. you can get bentos on demand from kiyoko to give you well fed and max willpower for a while though to get the willpower defenses, or get drinks if you want agility or cunning for a while. i recommend starting with +3 toughness (orc warrior barbarian) but anything works. presence would give you bit more leadership, str bit more armor. main thing is just leveling those 3. tough skin is bae make sure you take it.
other than that though you can do most anything you feel like, and unless you hate your starting stats, background, or choices there's nothing stopping you from changing your entire build late in the game, which also means you can experiment a lot. if you have enough free time a good options to just play through the game up to around the glacial rift after winter city, and just spam fights there and see what you enjoy and what works while grinding levels to see other stuff.
if you ever don't know what to do, a very easy way to have visuals of styles is to try different parties and watch them. like change to a dps or something and then make a party with different tanks and play with them a while, maybe you like atugia, maybe you like arona etc. look at their abilities and make your own version, either a straight copy or maybe you think they need more defenses or a better offensive ability. you can also make themed teams like winter knight brint, outrider etheryn and a main character with blessing and a at-will-heal, or kiyoko and pyro brienne and mc with blessing and/or grease n heal.
overall lots of replayability and options, if you're a hands on learner like me though i highly recommend just looking at party members and enemies, seeing what you like and think is cool and/or what works, and then copying and making your own alterations. builds on paper don't always translate in game, especially depending on whether you like farming a lot on full auto, or you want to just speedrun the game etc
hope it helps fren
