Despite being a much-desired option, the game is currently lacking a magus archetype that focuses on ranged combat (cough, myrmidarch, cough). Since ranged combat is one of the strongest combat styles in the game, maintaining the balance is a tricky thing. Please let me know what you think about my attempt to create a viable option (especially if you can come up with a rewrite for arcane pool that makes thrown weapons useful)!
The spell harrier blends magical abilities with martial skill in ranged combat.
Arcane Pool: At 5th level, the spell harrier can expend points from his arcane pool to add any of the following weapon properties to his weapon: distance, flaming, flaming burst, frost, icy burst, returning, seeking, shock, shocking burst, or speed. This ability alters the magus' normal arcane pool feature, but is otherwise identical to that class feature.
Spell Shot (Ex): At 1st level, a spell harrier learns to cast spells and wield his ranged weapons at the same time. This functions much like the Rapid-Shot feat, but the extra attack is a spell that is being cast. To use this ability, the spell harrier must wield one or more ranged weapons in one or both of his hands. As a full-round action, he can make all of his attacks with his ranged weapon(s) at a –2 penalty and can also cast any spell from the magus spell list with a casting time of 1 standard action that requires a ranged touch attack (any attack roll made as part of this spell also takes this penalty). The spell harrier must have the necessary material components in his possession, but he does not have to provide any somatic components normally required by the spell. This replaces spell combat, medium armor, and heavy armor.
Distant Spell (Su): At 2nd level, whenever a spell harrier casts a spell with a range of “touch” from the magus spell list, he can deliver the spell as a ranged touch attack with a range of “close”, as if it were modified by the Reach Spell metamagic feat (without increasing the spell's level). The spell harrier may choose to spend one point from his arcane pool to increase the spell's range to “medium” or two points to increase the spell's range to “long”. This replaces spellstrike.
Improved Spell Shot (Ex): At 8th level, when the spell harrier uses the spell shot ability, he gains a +4 dodge bonus on AC against attacks of opportunity until the end of his turn. This replaces improved spell combat.
Greater Spell Shot (Ex): At 14th level, when the spell harrier uses the spell shot ability, he does not provoke attacks of opportunity for making a ranged attack while threatened. This replaces greater spell combat.
Harrying Shot (Ex): At 16th level, whenever an opponent within 60 feet of the spell harrier successfully casts a spell, the spell harrier can make a ranged attack against that opponent as an immediate action after the spell is completed. This attack cannot disrupt the spell. This replaces counterstrike.
True Spell Harrier (Su): At 20th level, the spell harrier becomes a master of spells and combat. Whenever he uses his spell shot ability, he does not need to make a concentration check to cast the spell defensively. Whenever the spell harrier uses spell shot and his spell targets the same creature as his ranged attacks, he can choose to either increase the DC to resist the spell by +2, grant himself a +2 circumstance bonus on any checks made to overcome spell resistance, or grant himself a +2 circumstance bonus on all attack rolls made against the target during his turn. This replaces true magus.
Magus Arcana: The following magus arcana is available to the spell harrier:
Accurate Shot (Ex): The spell harrier can expend 2 points from his arcane pool as a swift action to resolve all of his ranged weapon attacks until the end of his turn as ranged touch attacks. The spell harrier must be at least 9th level before selecting this arcana.
I like that you address the balance issue with ranged combat. Like you said, simply a ranged spell combat would be insanely overpowered. Having to make melee full-attacks while casting in melee combat to take advantage of the action economy benefit balanced spell combat. A ranged spell combat essentially removes all of downsides. I think you accomplished a very acceptable trade off by restricting spell shot to only ranged touch attack spells.
However, I am rather sad you replaced spellstrike with a free Reach Spell. I really love the flavor of channeling a spell through a ranged weapon, even if the ranged weapon did not confer any benefit beside allowing you to use your weapon bonuses on the attack roll or do weapon damage in addition to the spell. For this reason, I likely shy away from this archetype. In addition, Reach Spell is such an obvious choice for this archetype that I feel it's not necessary to give it away for free. It might make a good arcana.
Speaking of arcana, I'm not fond of Accurate Shot. It's obvious you modeled this after Accurate Strike, but it's far more powerful. It basically lets the magus be a better gunslinger for one round. The main reason Accurate Strike existed was to allow the magus to negate the trade off in using spellstrike over normal melee touch attacks since the former adds weapon damage to spell damage at the cost of targeting regular AC. This isn't really something that applies to spell shot.
The other abilities fit and I think you got something decent here overall. I'm one of many that was disappointed Ranged Tactics Toolbox didn't have a ranged magus archetype.
Thanks for your detailed critique.
While I admit that spellstrike is a very iconic feature for a gish class, I consider it to be a poorly executed option, for two reasons.
First, I have a problem with abilities and features that rely on critical hits in general, because they foster weapon monocultures. Sure, nobody is forcing you to build a scimitar-wielding magus (or rapier-wielding swashbuckler, respectively), but the mechanical benefits of big threat ranges are obvious to everyone and sometimes they are even elementary to certain builds (if a player takes critical feats, he can't be blamed for wanting to use them as often as possible, and the same is true for a magus, to whom spellstrike offers strong incentives to exploit the critical mechanic). I'm very anti-simulationist in this regard - I want to have many useful options, I want to be able to use water balloons effectively! I'd probably have less problems with a class feature that increased the critical threat range of spells (or weapons, respectively) regardless of specific weapon properties.
Now, if I am to adapt spellstrike to ranged combat, the impact of different critical threat ranges won't be as big as with melee weapons, but instead, range will be an issue. With bows being vastly superior in this regard (actually, in almost every regard), I face the same problem of weapon monocultures.
Second, with the way spellstrike and spell combat interact, the magus gains an additional weapon attack (as if using two-weapon-fighting) but only if he casts a spell. I consider that to be a very poor design choice. Aside from the fact that it doesn't make a lot of sense, it has led many players to use the arcane mark cantrip as a way to effectively 'flurry' each round. That might be considered an exploit, but it shows the underlying problem (basically spell combat and spellstrike are one big class feature that is separated into two parts, but in a way that the individual parts don't fit together very well).
My decision to build in Reach Spell as a class feature is primarily motivated by the lack of appropiate spells (spells that are resolved as a ranged touch attack) at higher levels and lack of versatility at lower levels. A quick analysis of the magus spell list gives us:
0 acid splash, disrupt undead, ray of frost
1 ray of enfeeblement
2 acid arrow, scorching ray
3 flame arrow, force hook charge, ray of exhaustion
4 -
5 -
6 disintegrate
Forcing the magus to use metamagic feats (which increase the spell's level) simply so he can use his primary class feature seems overly punishing, in my opinion. Tying range to arcane pool point investment also makes this feature independent from weapon properties, which is important to me.
Considering the arcana, you could be right. Unfortunately, I don't have any reliable playtest data on how the magus performs at higher levels, but I assumed that the penalty from spell combat, 3/4 BAB-progression and the fact that the enhancement bonus from arcane pool is capped at +5 make it hard for the magus to hit reliably (compared to other martial characters). Unless you are fighting a dragon or similar monster, arcane accuracy is probably preferable to accurate strike (it gives a considerable bonus to hit and costs only 1 pool point per round), but on the other hand, accurate strike would certainly allow the magus to use Deadly Aim reliably against high-AC-targets, which is a considerable boon. If I keep it, I should probably add a limit to range.
To me, denying character concepts simply because many magi players lack imagination doesn't make much sense to me.
Arcane mark spellstrike is not an exploit. Paizo's design team repeatedly said that's intentional. Yeah, it's silly, but I blame the fact that the design team feels too paranoid to add new cantrips.
I played a high level magus and used a non-conventional build that bestowed a lot of penalities to my attacks. I hit fairly reliably at higher levels. Arcane accuracy proved effective against high AC targets.