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I believe dervish dance, technically, still works for the dex-stacking magus but I wouldn't be surprised if that one got addressed in the near future too.
The easiest and most likely option to stay available is to invest in agile weapons or try to live without dex to damage. Magus damage with just spell combat is already pretty damn good.
To be clear, neither Slashing Grace nor Fencing Grace is compatible with Spell Combat. When you aren't using the spell combat during a round you could still get the damage bonus, but that does limit quite a bit. Yup would probably be better off with a different feat.
Dervish Dance is worded a little differently, so it still works.
The other option would to go with a Strength based Magus.
you can use those feats with a dex based magus, you will just have to decide if you want to do spell combat or have dex to damage on any given turn
In my current home game we have a player with a dervish dance magus who is using pre errata precise strike via arcane deed. This is allowing her to be a viable damage dealer. Our bloodrager does more damage while the magus has slightly better defenses.
Our game is rather system mastery heavy though so I can see why in a lower optimization game it would be something people would look askance on.
Now our arcanist makes us all look weak but that is a nine level caster for you.
In short dervish dance and agile are the only first party available ways to get Dex to damage on a Magus using spell combat.
Deadly agility works if you allow third party.
If they FAQ away dervish dance, the Magus goes away as a class.
The reasons for the wording for slashing and fencing grace is likely due to paranoia, since... well... people REALLY tried to game dervish dance. See the rules threads that try to argue that dervish dance applies to unarmed strikes.
They wanted to have it work for a particular style, and decided to stop being coy about it with the errata. Of course, they tried to play coy since people get a bit confused with the long list of 'no's. They had thought that just saying 'can't use a weapon in the off hand' would have covered it... and thus they made the mistake of underestimating theorycrafters.
If they FAQ away dervish dance, the Magus goes away as a class.
Hardly. Sure, slightly fragile with light armor, but they can still do perfectly fine str builds. Plus, there were other dex to damage options before dervish dance. Agile is still a thing, and perfectly workable for magus since it doesn't rely upon traditional TWF builds (the way that most dex builds went before swashbuckler- which needs you to pay for two weapons, and thus doubles the cost of agile).
Str builds also have the advantage that they can get in x1.5 damage, which can help keep their damage up without being desperate for spell combat (An arcane strike generally gets them to acceptable levels).
They eventually get the ability to use heavier armor, and anyone except wziards and monks can grab a mithral breastplate with the armor expert trait anyway. So they can do fine for AC.
My read of the forums indicates that the vast majority of Magus builds are dervish dancers. While your points are valid in that there are other legitimate builds, none are as powerful as the dervish dancer with shocking grasp and a keen scimitar (doubly so if the GM allows keen/improved critical to stack). The Magus will become an also ran, that's all I'm saying.
The magus is already lousy with everbody doing dex based high crit range weapons with shocky grasp.
That's all the class is 90% of the time I see it.
I'm actually glad they're closing off the dex to damage options because it might encourage more build diversity.
Yes, a low level magus will be a little worse off for AC since he wont have good dex to go with his light armor. But over time he gets access to medium and heavy armor. Proper use of spells like shield and mirror image can help negate these problems anyways, it's not the end of the world.
It's just not as good as the dex based magus build.
And thus there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth!
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I'm actually glad they're closing off the dex to damage options because it might encourage more build diversity.
You think fewer options leads to more build diversity?
It's a theory, I suppose. The reason every Magus uses a scimitar is because it's the only good option. If rapiers worked people would be happy to use them.
Right, if they change Dervish Dance you'll probably see magi "doing dex based high crit range weapons with shocky grasp." and just not dumping str keeping it a 10.
See, but Dervish Dance came out several years before slashing Grace. I feel their similarities mean that the difference in wording is mostly due to time difference. It does specify no weapon or shield in off hand, which I think was intended to stop it working with two weapon fighting and by extension spell combat.
Dervish Dance also only works with one specific weapon type... the scimitar. It was designed as a feat with heavy Qadiran and Sarenrae flavor.
I'm actually glad they're closing off the dex to damage options because it might encourage more build diversity.
You think fewer options leads to more build diversity?
It's a theory, I suppose. The reason every Magus uses a scimitar is because it's the only good option. If rapiers worked people would be happy to use them.
Fencing Grace worked for a time and some people made rapier magi. But ultimately The differences between slashing grace, fencing grace, and dervish dancer well all pretty minimal. A rapier was essentially the same as the scimitar.
Really, the things that could help diversify this class more than anything would be to open up the crit range on spells to be equal to the weapon (with a caveat that crits can't get granted, which would only be relevant to Butterfly Sting as far as I'm aware). This means different weapons could become attractive. Do you want to crit more often, or crit really damn hard with all those shocking grasp dice?
The other thing is to give the magus proficiency in medium armor as a base, and let it grow up to heavy armor. Then people wouldn't feel like they need to go all dex so much.
Anyways, at this point I just don't think there is anyway to convince people that anything other than a dex magus can be successful because that's all people see and all they want to build anymore. They've been shoehorned so badly that we're going to return to the Dervish Dancer only builds, until that gets patched.
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My read of the forums indicates that the vast majority of Magus builds are dervish dancers. While your points are valid in that there are other legitimate builds, none are as powerful as the dervish dancer with shocking grasp and a keen scimitar (doubly so if the GM allows keen/improved critical to stack). The Magus will become an also ran, that's all I'm saying.
A word of advice- these forums are a TERRIBLE sample set.
We are people that hang out on the rules forum of a table top game for fun (rather than going out and finding tables, or pbp). I think we are kind of skewed towards the kind of behavior that leads to rules lawyers, theorycrafters, and munchkins.
We are not the 'average' player. We bash our heads against the wall trying to find the sharpest combinations (or the combinations we believe to be the sharpest). We love exploring the rules.
And yes, that is a 'we'. I readily acknowledge my own faults and foibles.
Dervish Dance works with Spell Combat. If it were written today, it wouldn't. The only reason it hasn't been nerfed is that it's in a Golarion book, not a Pathfinder book.
Dervish Dance works with Spell Combat. If it were written today, it wouldn't. The only reason it hasn't been nerfed is that it's in a Golarion book, not a Pathfinder book.
That'll last until it gets reprinted, I guess.
Shame too, I like Dex characters and hate the Agile enhancement.
You can still use a Magus with Fencing grace. You'll get Dex to damage any round in which you don't use spell combat. If you take an archetype where spell combat gets reduced in some way, like the Eldritch Scion (which is a reduction in power, but lots of people just hate prepared spellcasting), it can be pretty useful.
You can do this with slashing grace too, but you have to make sure to use a weapon that is otherwise finessable, such as a light slashing weapon or an aldori sword, or you'll lose dex to both attack and damage when you do spell combat.
You can still use a Magus with Fencing grace. You'll get Dex to damage any round in which you don't use spell combat. If you take an archetype where spell combat gets reduced in some way, like the Eldritch Scion (which is a reduction in power, but lots of people just hate prepared spellcasting), it can be pretty useful.
You can do this with slashing grace too, but you have to make sure to use a weapon that is otherwise finessable, such as a light slashing weapon or an aldori sword, or you'll lose dex to both attack and damage when you do spell combat.
Although, in the same circumstance, a str magus could go 2 handed and get x1.5 str and power attack. So there is that.
I don't usually see dex builds as being about damage (other than maybe slight advantage in early point buy since you don't have to invest in str). It is more about having a nice general utility stat that gets boosted when you boost your melee stat. IE- AC, saves, some skills, initiative.
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A regular Magus can wear mithral full plate at level 7 without any issues if they pick up the proficiency, so it's hardly a disastrous liability to be strength-based. I'm not sure where the idea came from that the Magus is doomed to wear light armor forever.
Strength-based also can make better use of polymorph - particularly using Monstrous Physique 1 to turn into a gargoyle for +2 STR, +2 natural armor, fly, and extra natural attacks. Gaining a bite, a gore and one claw along with the usual sword attacks is brutal stuff when using Frostbite, and flying around with mithral plate and a natural armor bonus is pretty damn 'heavy cavalry'.
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Dervish Dance works with Spell Combat. If it were written today, it wouldn't. The only reason it hasn't been nerfed is that it's in a Golarion book, not a Pathfinder book.
That is bad logic, as they will reprint it at some point. When they do so, your character will be different as a result. Why use a feature you know will change on you at some point?
Could always do Mindblade. Since its a Psychic caster they won't be using their offhand to cast.
Use Still Spell will also eliminate the need for the offhand I think. I am not a major magus player (mine uses a Whip combined with a True Strike and Wand Wielder for Maneuver shenanigans.)
Unfortunately Spell Combat specifically requires a free hand, regardless of the requirements of actually casting the spell.
That's a lot of maybes to just write something off wholesale.I don't like rebuilding due to a change. So I avoid things that I think could change.
Given Paizo's fondness for issuing sweeping errata with little to no warning, that makes it rather hard to build anything.
A word of advice- these forums are a TERRIBLE sample set.
We are people that hang out on the rules forum of a table top game for fun (rather than going out and finding tables, or pbp). I think we are kind of skewed towards the kind of behavior that leads to rules lawyers, theorycrafters, and munchkins.
We are not the 'average' player. We bash our heads against the wall trying to find the sharpest combinations (or the combinations we believe to be the sharpest). We love exploring the rules.
And yes, that is a 'we'. I readily acknowledge my own faults and foibles.
Hehe, you do have a valid point. This is why I'm here, because I'm still runnig my games with training wheels attached, and the most extreme rules lawyering is actually a benefit to understanding RAW and RAI, and dealing with them at my own table.
My Magus is a DEX build, btw. Well, the one I used the last time I was a player (about a year ago) is. Since we (my group is large, nearly 15 of us in total) houserule keen/improved critical stack, a DEX build dervish dancer is really the best way to go.
From a style standpoint, I don't like heavy armor. Even my fighter concepts tend toward using DEX for AC. Plus, with Celestial Armor available... :)