Starting a new campaign with my friends at level 8, looking to play a magus type character.
other party members are a sylvan sorcerer, a rogue, and a paladin who will mostly heal and tank. DPS is pretty important to me (sorc is more control and pally wont do a lot of damage) but otherwise I think I can play whatever.
my stats are rolled, 17, 15, 14, 11, 11, 9
was thinking
str 17 (to 19 with racial half elf) +1 level up
dex 11
con 14
int 15 +1 from level up
wis 11
cha 9
I'm pretty set that I don't want to be a dervish magus, I like the str build a lot better.
From there, there are a few options im considering.
I'd really like to use one of the archetypes as a few of them seem interesting to me. Unfortunately other than bladebound a lot of them give up the major class features (especially spell recall)
Myrmidarch for example I'd like to use but I cant justify losing spell recall for the ranges spellstrike that I dont even want to use... would really like weapon and armor training from it, and the earlier access to fighter feats.
I'm interested in cabalist, but I realized I wouldnt be able to metamagic with spell combat due to the longer cast times. I won't be able to afford spontaneous metafocus for shocking grasp either, due to my low cha.
I'm tempted to do the cabalist with dragon bloodline and do some dragon disciple dips. It seems to be DD would actually be worth it on a magus who can also use armor and already has bloodline bonuses that stack with DD. I'd need to figure out the metamagic thing though
I think most of all I'm having trouble judging whats important with this class. How big an impairment is it to lose spell recall, or to not be able to intensify shocking grasp?
I could go myrmidarch and bladebound and just not care about arcana and AP points so much, be more of a fighter who can buff himself while he full attacks. Then i'd pick up arcane strike since I'd never be using my swift actions other than to initially buff my weapon.
Or I could go cabalist and stack up some natural armor and be a spontaneous caster (but is spontaneous casting needed with spell recall?)
or I could just go straight magus and get a huge Arcane pool and just constantly recall intensified shocking grasps. Seems to be the recommended way to use a magus anyway. I'm just not super impressed with most of the arcana options for some reason.
any advice to help me narrow my focus a bit?