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I would consider the Staff Magus as a starting point.Bumping this as I'm looking for a Magus build that focuses on Trip and Disarm.
Anyone have a good build?
Try this post, or the thread in general
A level 11 human magus can qualify for Martial Versatility and then use dervish dance with any of the following:
Aldori dueling sword, bastard sword, chakram, double chicken saber, falcata, katana, khopesh, klar, longsword, nine-ring broadsword, scimitar, shotel, temple sword,and terbutje.
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A level 11 human magus can qualify for Martial Versatility and then use dervish dance with any of the following:
Aldori dueling sword, bastard sword, chakram, double chicken saber, falcata, katana, khopesh, klar, longsword, nine-ring broadsword, scimitar, shotel, temple sword,and terbutje.
Yes, but in PFS play he's already nearing the end of his career. Not to mention the wealth already invested in enchanting a weapon.
I would have loved to use a katana on my bladebound magus, but it just was not feasible to take any weapon save the scimitar and remain effective.
Something else to consider. Is it so bad to have a few dexterity based builds? The last table I sat at had four characters with an 18+ strength, two handed weapons and power attack.
A level 11 human magus can qualify for Martial Versatility and then use dervish dance with any of the following:
Aldori dueling sword, bastard sword, chakram, double chicken saber, falcata, katana, khopesh, klar, longsword, nine-ring broadsword, scimitar, shotel, temple sword,and terbutje.
Yes, but in PFS play he's already nearing the end of his career. Not to mention the wealth already invested in enchanting a weapon.
I would have loved to use a katana on my bladebound magus, but it just was not feasible to take any weapon save the scimitar and remain effective.
Something else to consider. Is it so bad to have a few dexterity based builds? The last table I sat at had four characters with an 18+ strength, two handed weapons and power attack.
I assure you that the magus was thoroughly playtested and found to be effective without the scimitar or Dervish Dance.
And there is. It's called weapon finesse and it works mostly fine.
I love dex builds in kingmaker atm i have a dex based sword and board paladin who while being far from optimal still gives the gm nightmares :) (and somewhat disturbiingly has the lowest charisma in the group at 14)
Kensai is probably my favorite magus for a dex build though i just had to make a new character for Serpent Skull after an unfortunate undead troll incident and went with a savage themed dex based magus using a reskined aldori dueling sword that he had enchanted himself.
Creative Director
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Can't stress enough how limiting DD to scimitar wielders was an obvious trap into shoe-horning characters in all looking the same... something we usually want to avoid when creating "our" character.
This wasn't the point of Dervish Dance at all. It was primarily to provide good rules support to explain why there are so many dervish dancing mobile scimitar-wielding no shield/weapon in off hand worshipers of Sarenrae in the game.
Now... on to what I think is the core of this problem... and it has little to do with Dervish Dance at all.
The nature of massively multiplayer RPG games, be they online like Warcraft or offline like Pathfinder Society, is that each "build" for a character is going to have one perceived "best" choice. This is REGARDLESS of what rules we provide. The only way this perceived "best" choice changes is if we add or subtract rules from the game, but then something else comes along.
If you want to build a character in a game who looks unique and has an unusual style, and your game of choice is a Massively Multiplayer game... you more or less have to come to peace with the fact that if your choice isn't in sync with the perceived best choice, your character will be perceived as being inferior.
It is, in fact, one of my biggest complaints about World of Warcraft—all the high level characters of any one class end up looking identical. Blizzard actually addressed this relatively recently (alas, about a month AFTER I lost interest in the game) and allows you to transmogrify (within some limits) your gear to look like any other piece of gear you own. It's a totally cosmetic change that doesn't alter the fundamental game stats of your gear, be it armor or weapon or whatever.
Pathfinder, alas, doesn't have that luxury, since the physical appearance of your character isn't something that exists as a fundamental aspect of the game play experience—this is one way video games have an advantage over tabletop games—the visuals. You can certainly call your scimitar a longsword and describe it as a straight-bladed weapon, but unlike a video game where the other players "see" your character's appearance and not so much his stats, in a tabletop game other players "see" your character's stats and not so much his appearance.
Okay. Lunch is over. Back to work for me!
Scimitar is the only option unless they are willing to deal with their offense suffering long enough for them to pick up an agile weapon at like halfway through their PFS career. which doesn't work with black blade builds.
the Magus is forever shoehorned into dervish dance unless we offered a prerequisite light Dex to damage feat with minimal restrictions.
Agile Blade (Combat)
Prerequisites; Weapon Finesse, Base attack bonus +1
Benefit; when wielding a light melee weapon, you treat that light weapon as if it had the agile property for the purpose of calculating damage. all the restrictions of the agile property apply as normal.
Special; Classes with sneak attack +1d6 or more may ignore the base attack bonus requirement
Is there no strength based build for magus that works, why is dex "teh only way"
Dex-based builds have a much higher AC at lower levels than str-based builds, due to the Magus not getting medium armour until level 7, and heavy armour at level 13.
Other then at low levels AC is becomes largely meaningless, especially for the magus who has blur, displacement, mirror image, blink, etc.
Yes, but they don't get their first level 2 spell until level 4. That's three levels relying on a sub-standard AC, which doesn't play well with being a front-line class with a d8 hit dice.
Additionally, why would you take str over dex? Dex also supplies you with a better reflex save (magus's weak save), and better initiative. It also lets you use ranged weapons with some degree of accuracy.
The only reason why you'd go strength over dex is for more damage, except that is annulled by the fact that Dervish Dance lets you use dex for damage, and plays right into the Magus's fighting style (one-handed, high crit range, other hand free).
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I'm really bored with wielding a scimitar - it seems a lot of builds end up using them for the Dervish Dance feat.
Are there some viable (for PFS play) options to the scimitar for a melee focused magus? I'm planning on building a Tiefling magus (have the racial boon) and was probably going to stay as the standard tiefling (so +2 Dex and Int -2 Cha though I'm open to suggestions for of racial heritages that would work well). I am also thinking about some levels of Lore Warden for the many bonus feats and the melee focus (I want to be heavily melee based with spells used to augment my melee effectiveness)
I've only just started looking into this one, but the new Karpenia Dancer archetype (Varisia splat-book) provides an interesting alternative option.
You sacrifice some of the spell-casting ability, but there is some interesting possibilities with the bladed scarf (such as a class ability allowing it to be used for the Steal combat maneuver, and a Magus Arcana to give it 10ft reach..... :)
I've only just started to look at making one for PFS myself....
But you still use a scimitar. In fact, you have even less choice because the scimitar is the only one handed 18-20 crit weapon that you can wield either one or two handed and wielding two handed is something strength magi will want the option of.
If you're a Kensai, you can pick any weapon and go for either a Urumi, a Rhoka, a Katana, or a Cutlass, if you're playing a strength-based Magus and just care about crit-range.
Now... on to what I think is the core of this problem... and it has little to do with Dervish Dance at all.
The nature of massively multiplayer RPG games, be they online like Warcraft or offline like Pathfinder Society, is that each "build" for a character is going to have one perceived "best" choice. This is REGARDLESS of what rules we provide. The only way this perceived "best" choice changes is if we add or subtract rules from the game, but then something else comes along.
If you want to build a character in a game who looks unique and has an unusual style, and your game of choice is a Massively Multiplayer game... you more or less have to come to peace with the fact that if your choice isn't in sync with the perceived best choice, your character will be perceived as being inferior.
It is, in fact, one of my biggest complaints about World of Warcraft—all the high level characters of any one class end up looking identical. Blizzard actually addressed this relatively recently (alas, about a month AFTER I lost interest in the game) and allows you to transmogrify (within some limits) your gear to look like any other piece of gear you own. It's a totally cosmetic change that doesn't alter the fundamental game stats of your gear, be it armor or weapon or whatever.
Pathfinder, alas, doesn't have that luxury, since the physical appearance of your character isn't something that exists as a fundamental aspect of the game play experience—this is one way video games have an advantage over tabletop games—the visuals. You can certainly call your scimitar a longsword and describe it as a straight-bladed weapon, but unlike a video game where the other players "see" your character's appearance and not so much his stats, in a tabletop game other players "see" your character's stats and not so much his appearance.
Transmog was certainly a welcome and long belated addition to WoW, and I'm in a similar boat--too little time to enjoy it before the game wore my interest away. I agree it's not so simple to reskin things in tabletop games. For one thing, many of the weapons that have increased critical range have slashing curved blades, and this makes sense--curved blades have a better chance of connecting perpendicularly at the point of impact. It's not trivial to justify giving a slashing straight blade the same crit range as a weapon that was designed (in real life) to be better at it. Definitely not impossible, but not trivial.
On "best" choices. WoW is attempting to buck this trend. I'll assume you're too busy/uninterested to avidly read the Pandaria beta forums. The short of it is classes are getting really beefy specs that contain every ability they really need, while getting a small number of talents that can greatly customize certain things they might want. In theory, this will eliminate or at least reduce cookie cutter builds. It's moderately successful, since they have been largely resistant to cookie cutter builds for months of beta, while in previous expansions the "best" builds were mathed out within hours of releasing talent info.
I'm interested in how that type of idea could be translated to the tabletop. I suspect it would involve the sacrificing of certain sacred cows, most notably (or maybe only?) the idea that some classes should be better damage dealers than others in combat for flavor reasons. If all classes were of approximately equal combat effectiveness more or less out of the box (within 5% is hard to achieve with dice, but I think around 10% is attainable), I think a lot of customization options might open up that do not currently exist. For instance, rogues wouldn't have to bend over backwards to be subpar melee; they could take their "spec" and then focus their feats on whatever they wanted (instead of being taxed 4-10 feats for being a TWF DEX build).
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Scimitar is the only option unless they are willing to deal with their offense suffering long enough for them to pick up an agile weapon at like halfway through their PFS career. which doesn't work with black blade builds.
You don't get it any sooner, but you can do an Aldori Dex kensai build with a one-level dip in the PrC to get Dex to damage in a black blade compatible fashion.
And everybody using Dervish Dance has it.
I assure you that the magus was thoroughly playtested and found to be effective without the scimitar or Dervish Dance.And there is. It's called weapon finesse and it works mostly fine.
Not everybody.
My magus had a 1 level dip into dawnflower dervish to get DD without weapon finesse.Might not be optimised but it's a way to get DD without prerequisites.
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Not everybody.
My magus had a 1 level dip into dawnflower dervish to get DD without weapon finesse.
Might not be optimised but it's a way to get DD without prerequisites.
Does the Dawnflower ignore the requirements for DD? It's on their suggested feat list but I don't see anything granting it as a bonus feat.
The dawnflower dervish bard gets it as bonus feat at 1st level.
Dervish Dance (Ex)
A Dawnflower dervish gains the Dervish Dance feat as a bonus feat.This ability replaces bardic knowledge.
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This wasn't the point of Dervish Dance at all. It was primarily to provide good rules support to explain why there are so many dervish dancing mobile scimitar-wielding no shield/weapon in off hand worshipers of Sarenrae in the game.
Now... on to what I think is the core of this problem... and it has little to do with Dervish Dance at all.
It's not even a matter of "I want to look different than the next character", it's that the magus already pretty much has to keep himself to 18-20 weapons if he wishes to be able to his job properly, and DD gets in top of this, basically screwing anyone who doesn't get the exact same martial build by providing the character with a much requested feature adding to his damage, when it could have been made available to a large variety of builds instead.
Because of this feat and it's prerequisites, your average dex-based 5th level magus is always the exact same as another, and this is something I did not find in any other class - if the Pathfinder RPG rules system itself is awesome at something, it's versatility.Since the scimitar remains one of the best weapons in the game, especially for a magus, I suppose that a feat providing bonuses as long as you wield no shield/weapon in your off-hand may very well have been made so you can apply it's effects to a greater variety of weapons : In any way, Sarenrae worshipers would still use a scimitar, and other characters would often wield one since it is that efficient. It would easily explain But at least, I could wield a whip, a rapier, a katana, an aldori sword... without feeling too much gimped damage-wise. (While the last books did marvels to increasing diversity in weapons, something I'd love to see in a future edition is flat bonuses or specific advantages for all weapons, even the 20x2 simple ones ; but no feat focusing exclusively on giving advantages with a specific weapon when it could instead be a versatile option, Weapon Focus style - Aldori and Scimitar are major offenders in this field.)
Cherry on the cake, requiring a feat tax that does not even apply to your weapon before the next feat you take just feels wrong, even if flavorful. You are almost better wielding another weapon at 1st level then switch at 2nd. Something like the following :
Weapon Finesse (Combat)
You are trained in using your agility in melee combat, as opposed to brute strength.
Benefit: Choose a type of one-handed weapon you are proficient with. When wielding a weapon of this type, a light weapon, elven curve blade, rapier, whip, or spiked chain made for a creature of your size category, you may use your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength modifier on attack rolls. If you carry a shield, its armor check penalty applies to your attack rolls.
Special: Natural weapons are considered light weapons.
OR
Combat trait : Velvet Glove
You are trained in wielding a specific blade with an uncanny agility, using intricate but instinctive momentums to hurt your foes ; followers of sarenrae typically choose the scimitar as their weapon of predilection.
Benefit: Choose a type of one-handed slashing weapon you are proficient with. As long as your other hand is free and you do not wield a shield, you may wield this weapon in one hand with the Weapon Finesse feat. The weapon must be made for a creature of your size category.
AND
Finesse Mastery (Combat)
Prerequisites: Dexterity 13, Weapon Finesse, Perform (dance) 2 ranks
Benefit: Choose one type of weapon you are proficient with (scimitar, longsword, dagger...). When wielding this weapon in one hand and using your Dexterity modifier to attack rolls (as per the Weapon Finesse feat), as long as your other hand is free and you do not wield a shield, you may add your Dexterity modifier instead of your strength modifier to damage rolls. The weapon must be made for a creature of your size category.
A bit off-topic, but was the possibility to milk more spell damage out of a crit with high-crit/low-range-and-damage weapons (pick, axe...) considered during development for the magus, or was it quickly scraped as unbalanced ? Something like +50% per multiplier point, so 100% (2x) on 2x weapons, 150% on x3, up to +200% damage with a pick instead of x4 ? I didn't check the numbers but it's a shame the only competitives weapons are the 18-20 x2 kind.
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The scimitar problem isn't...a problem in the class, but rather in the playerbase's fanatical need to be 'different'.
Somehow people have decided that the mechanics of their character needs to express their 'individuality' otherwise their character is not interesting.
-James
Other James said it better, but their are a number of factors, one is the groups behaviour to belittle and criticize someones build if it is not optimal, as if not doing the maximum potential damage some how makes your contribution less important. My wife used to get po all the time when people would criticize her WoW build as sub-optitmal, because she just wanted to play the game she enjoyed the way she wanted to play it, and she felt she was being told she was having fun the wrong way. The same is no less true here on the forms, their is a great thread on whip specialization where their are lots of "fun" builds, and every few posts someone comes in and tells the thread that whips are suboptimal go get a pole arm, or a dervish magus etc.
Boiled down to its basics, there are dozens of threads that start "I have a fun idea for a character I would like to role play, amusing background, comparison to pop culture, or fusion of the two: IE I want to play a ranger who is like Chewbacca so he needs to be good with a crossbow, shaggy like a carpet, and be specialized in the disarm combat manoeuvre. can you guys help me with a viable build." Threads like these aren't looking to turn into math threads (their are plenty of those) but they do, and in the end most of the "great characters I would like to play" turn into criticism and rancour, bleeding the original posters enthusiasm. The key word that everyone misses or misinterprets is viable, it doesn't mean the OMGWTFBBQ best in the world, it means, playable, and capable of making a contribution to the party
Another factor is as you've suggested the individual players need to be different, but that is almost two factors unto itself, my need to be different and novel, and my need for you to not "copy me." So the players who do enjoy the math, and the min/maxing, which is an equally valid way to have fun, get all critical when they see their character reflected in others.
In both cases much of the problem seems to be a clash of how people interpret rule 0, and a good helping of John Gabriel's Greater Internet [redacted] Theorem
[edited for spelling and this acknowledgement that it is a wall of text better placed in a thread on rants]
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I think I am going to have to agree with Galnörag, I was going to post on something similar to this in the Guide to the Magus thread, but I'll add it here.
I feel that there are two ways to optimize, one puts the optimization first. When that happens you end up with things like the Dervish Dancer build. The second way puts something else first and the optimization second. Sometimes this is a role-playing aspect, sometimes it is something the player likes; my favorite weapon is a mace, so I want to play a mace wielding Magus (not true for me, just an example).
This second route is where I feel the forums do sometimes stall out. When people want to optimize as a secondary priority they are often told to change or suck. I doubt these comments of mine will change anyone, but if you are reading this, think it over. Someone is coming to you online looking for help, they admit they need YOUR help, help them make their character the best they can. Help them!
Honestly this is how I tend to play. The group I game with has some insanely good min/max players. It forced others in the group to change just to keep up. I like to make my characters off a theme first, but once I have that theme I'll min/max it out to the end, but never at the expense of the theme. So I'm building a Magus right now, he will be Int based not Dex and wield a staff with the StaffMaster archetype. He won't deal the most damage, but I'll bet he is viable.
On that note: to the original poster, a 1 or 3 level dip into Knife Master Rogue could be fun. It would be a finesse dex build, get you some sneak attack damage, better skills, evasion, reflex save, etc. No it wouldn't be the "best" build for damage, but it does offer other things and would probably be viable.