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Hi Moonheart, I'll try my best to help you with a build.

Spellstrike would rarely be used in your early levels but this will solve itself at lv8.

Suggested Trait: Magical Lineage(Shocking Grasp)

Highly Suggested feats: Steadfast Personality, Spell Penetration, Greater Spell Penetration, Spontaneous Metafocus, Intensified Spell, Empower Spell, Maximized Spell

Build Example: Dex > Cha > Cos > Wis > Str = Int

Eldritch Scion(1): Weapon Finesse
Eldritch Scion(2)
Eldritch Scion(3): [Magus Arcana] Familiar, Dervish Dance
Eldritch Scion(5): [Bonus Feat] Intensified Spell, Steadfast Personality
Eldritch Scion(6): [Magus Arcana] *
Eldritch Scion(7): Spontaneous Metafocus

*Prescient Attack if you want to build towards Maximized Spellstrike feat, Arcane Accuracy if you don't.

I would suggest you to use a Sansetsukon (2h weapon, 1d10 19-20/x2, blocking, disarm, monk) with a single style feat: Crane Style.

As for "doing well" I would suggest you a similar feat progression:

1) [Bonus Feat]Dodge, Crane Style
2) [Bonus Feat]Combat Reflexes
3) Power Attack
5) Dirty Fighting
Style Strike: Spin Kick
6) [Bonus Feat]Improved Trip
Ki Power: Barkskin
7) Greater Trip

This would allow you to protect your team while gaining AC, dealing high amounts of damage and granting them attacks of opportunity.

Combat Rhythm would be a valuable feat to offset attack penalties given by fighting defensively and power attack.

The best argument I can say in favor of a Str Magus is that it'll be a lot easier to change equipment, weapons and overall to be more flexible.

Of course for a class wich isn't suited for two-handed weapons there wouldn't be damage difference by going Dex and the benefits are clear but there are also downsides for making Str a dump stat. Personally I would 100% take the Bladebound archetype if I were to play a Dervish Dance Magus to avoid the risk of seeing my weapon of choice being shattered.

As for going all in with Shocking Grasp or having to use another spell it's up to the Magus' choice from target to target, from fight to fight.

Calculating the damage and DC of spells and planning your turn it's easy but sometimes it's best to also keep in mind what your party could need the most.

Would a Covetous Oracle of Intrigue (or of the Streets) fits the bill? Consider the Seeker archetype.

Did you ask your GM if it could allow you to have a Scimitar wich could be roleplayed as a Katana?

Last session I started playing a Half-Elf Hexcrafter with a 25 point buy and I must say that at level 1 a Bardiche served me better than any one handed weapon even if things will change once I'll gain an Enlarge Person permanency.

STR 16+2 / DEX 14 / CON 14 / INT 15 / WIS 12 / CHA 7

Traits: Bruising Intellect, Magical Lineage(Frostbite)

Feats:
(1) Combat Reflexes, Skill Focus(Perception)

Taking inspiration from the Hexcrafter guide I plan on getting Rime Spell, Power Attack, Cornugon Smash and Signature Skill(Intimidate) and my spells are mainly for utility/survival but if I make it to lv7 I'll get Monstrous Physique to turn into a Deathsnatcher.

Play the pig to eat the tiger: use a Hat of Disguise to look as annoying/vulnerable as possible, don't always stay in the middle of the group but "accidentally" go ahead sometimes, pair your acting with Stand Still feat, it'll be too late for enemies to get away from you.

IMO Enlightened Paladin and Warrior Poet 1 level dip aren't as frontloaded as Scaled Fist as their granted Cha to AC bonusses would scale with their levels.

But that were just as an alternative to Lunar mystery.

For a mounted build few dips are as good as Cavalier, you can get free feats, a trained mount and not having to take Ride penalty checks due to armor. That would be my pick.

I would say that stacking natural attacks on a class wich can get Form of the Beast (from lv7 and once per day, but the duration is 1 hour/level) could be seen as a waste but if it fits you character design than it's good enough to try.

For a mounted build you could want to get the Warsighted archetype to fill the gaps in your build.

For a Fighter-like Orace without animal companions you could get both a level of Scaled Fist Monk (Unchained) and the Warsighted archetype, to play as a Caster/Brawler.

If you were a Half-Elf with Battle mystery you could do very nice things with Paragon Surge into Extra Revelation to get Maneuver Mastery while having Weapon Mastery on a Sansetsukon but then it wouldn't have anything to do with your previous character concept.

You can use an Agile weapon with 13 STR to Power Attack while wielding a longsword in two hands but Precise Strike wouldn't work. At that point you would play similarly to a Shashbuckler(1)/Unchained Rogue.

Dragon Form (Sp) works like form of the dragon, Form of the Dragon duration is 1 min./level (1 minute for every caster level) but the caster level for this effect is equal to his effective sorcerer levels for his draconic bloodline, so you would read this as 1 minute of duration for every Draconic Bloodline level.

Blood of Dragons allows you to gain/add Draconic Bloodline levels to your character.

With no limits about level cap and with a Cha score this high Id say to take 2 levels of Sorcerer and to improve it with Dragon Disciple.

I think both Bloodrager and Sorcerer's Draconic Bloodline would scale from Blood of Dragons, many effects however wouldn't so I would make use of that to take all of the Bloodline Mutations on your Sorcerer's bloodline powers.

If Armor would become an issue I would suggest you to get a single level of Scaled Fist Monk (Unchained) instead of getting Arcane Armor feats and to get Mad Magic as soon as possible.

I'm a fan of intimidate build and you also have accesso to Draconic Malice wich is both strong and thematic, I would get Signature Skill (intimidate) and some other intimidate feats aswell.

It would for sure be a stronger option for non-full BAB classes wich wouldn't have to wait for lv5 to "getting sterted" with BAB+1 feats and for certain VMC such as Cavalier wich would allow players to get Chain Challenge right at lv7.

But these kind of things could already be achievable with retraining anyway, gaining class features earlier would surely be the best perk.

Would this be balanced? It can vary from combination to combination.

I can see these Bloodrager's class features very easy to trade:

Fast Movement
Uncanny Dodge
Blood Sanctuary
Improved Uncanny Dodge
Damage Reduction

Good Paladin class features other than Smite are Lay on Hands and Mercies, wich allows to abuse Furious Finish feat, Aura of Courage to get Fearless Aura feat and Divine Grace.

All these things can be earned with a 3 lv dip so I can see them easily allowed for the trade and getting a not-scaling Smite Evil wouldn't be out of question.

I think a great combination between raging classes and Ki user is 3 levels of Scaled Fist Monk (Unchained) and Arcane Bloodline Bloody-Knuckled Rowdy Bloodrager.

You get the chance to use your martial arts along with some spellcasting.

Sure, having to play a homebrew archetype would be cool but if I were the GM I would allow/suggest you to play a Paladin VMC Barbarian with the chance to get Lesser Celestial Blood, Celestial Blood and Greater Celestial Blood rage powers as regular feats instead of waiting to unlock the Rage Power feature at 11th level.

But If you have the GM's fiat then custumize all you want :)

I think that the VMC Oracle is very valuable if your focus would also be to heal your party as Celestial Totem + Life Link save lives, even if it would take a lot of time to overcome the 1st revelation scaling at character level – 6 (minimum 1) but this would require to rework too much.

Your build already have enough self sustain but if you have spare feats you could take the old good Skald's Vigor and Greater Skald's Vigor.

Keep in mind that while Stalwart and Improved Stalwart are very powerful skills but they would require players to play in a certain way and for them this wouldn't always be possible.

While using the total defense action, fighting defensively action, or Combat Expertise ...

You don't have to worry about being MAD, just get a good Cha and Str scores and attack with you Scimitar, defensively or with Combat Expertise if you want to benefit from Stalwert yourself.

If I had to play with the elite array I would put +2 into Str and play a Human Destined Bloodrager, a Barbarian/Sorcerer hybrid with this stats spread:

STR 15+2 / DEX 14 / CON 12 / INT 8 / WIS 10 / CHA 13
Stats progression: +1 Str 4th/12th/16th/20th levels, +1 Cha 8th level

lv1 feats: Toughness, Power Attack
lv3 feat: Furious Focus

And most probably at higher levels I would specialize into Intimidation with this combination in mind:

[feats] Dreadful Carnage, Signature Skill (intimidate)
[bloodline feat] Intimidating Prowess
[spell] Draconic Malice

I always wanted to try an Half-Orc Redeemer Paladin/Skald with Celestial Blood/Totem Rage Powers.

Scaled Fist Unchained Monk(1)/Virtuous Bravo Paladin(7)

Feats: (1) Weapon Focus (scimitar), (3) Dervish Dance, (5) Crusader's Flurry, (7) Improved Initiative

You'll have Smite Evil, Precision damage and Flurry of Blows with a 18-20 weapon.

As a speed bump to close in you can get a Mount.

No problem man :)

@zza ni
What you missed were that my post were answering Phoebus Alexandros question about the scaling part (now quoted here below) and while doing so making an example of a way to increase an "once per day" VMC feature, never saying things like you are trying to push into my mouth.

Follow on question: I suppose it’s too much to hope that the VMC Cavalier’s Challenge scales with level, so that they gain more uses every three levels beyond 3rd, right? I only ask because there’s some interesting variance across the various VMC classes with regard to the class features offered and the frequency available/duration.

It's not exactly as claiming that.. anyway, let's compare the differences then:

Cavalier's Challenge

Challenge (Ex): Once per day, a cavalier can challenge a foe to combat. As a swift action, the cavalier chooses one target within sight to challenge. The cavalier’s melee attacks deal extra damage whenever the attacks are made against the target of his challenge. This extra damage is equal to the cavalier’s level. The cavalier can use this ability once per day at 1st level, plus one additional time per day for every three levels beyond 1st, to a maximum of seven times per day at 19th level.

Challenging a foe requires much of the cavalier’s concentration. The cavalier takes a –2 penalty to his Armor Class, except against attacks made by the target of his challenge.

The challenge remains in effect until the target is dead or unconscious or until the combat ends. Each cavalier’s challenge also includes another effect which is listed in the section describing the cavalier’s order.

VMC Cavalier's Challenge

Challenge: At 3rd level, he gains the ability to issue a challenge as a cavalier of his character level – 2 once per day. He adds the appropriate order adjustment to his challenge based on the order he selected.

"As a calavier of his level-2" is the scaling part while the usage is just "once per day" as it lacks the scaling part "plus one additional time per day for every three levels beyond 1st, to a maximum of seven times per day at 19th level".

If this wouldn't be the case the "once per day" part would have no reason to be added to the VMC feature as the scaling would have included daily usages too.

The VMC challenge's scaling part is just for damage, the feature says that it's just once per day.

A way to gain more usage of "once per day" awarded by VMC could only be possible if there would be a feature saying something like the Champion of Irori PRC's Smite Chaos (gains an additional use of his paladin’s smite evil ability) for a VMC Paladin.

I second the Virtuous Bravo, a Paladin of Sarenrae with a Monk (Unchained) Scaled Fist dip.

Weapon Focus (scimitar), Dervish Dance and later Crusader's Flurry and Crane Style. If you need ranged options you can also get Quick Draw to throw Daggers wich would still get Precise Strike precision's damage.

while Master of Many Styles gets you off the hook for the prerequisites for the starting feat of each Style Feat chain, it doesn't get you off the hook for the prerequisites for the later feats, so you still need Wisdom 23 and 14 ranks of Knowledge (Religion) to get Deadhand Master.

..You are right. Now that you pointed that out I had learnt to read that Archetype properly (/facepalm)

This is how I read the Paired Opportunist/Combat Patrol/Stand Still situation. Please, correct me if I'm wrong:

Benefit: Whenever you are adjacent to an ally who also has this feat, you receive a +4 circumstance bonus on attacks of opportunity against creatures that you both threaten.

Enemies that provoke attacks of opportunity from your ally also provoke attacks of opportunity from you so long as you threaten them (even if the situation or an ability would normally deny you the attack of opportunity).

This does not allow you to take more than one attack of opportunity against a creature for a given action.

Benefit: As a full-round action, you may set up a combat patrol, increasing your threatened area by 5 feet for every 5 points of your base attack bonus.

Until the beginning of your next turn, you may make attacks of opportunity against any opponent in this threatened area that provokes attacks of opportunity.

You may move as part of these attacks, provided your total movement before your next turn does not exceed your speed. Any movement you make provokes attacks of opportunity as normal.

Benefit: When a foe provokes an attack of opportunity due to moving through your adjacent squares, you can make a combat maneuver check as your attack of opportunity. If successful, the enemy cannot move for the rest of his turn.

An enemy can still take the rest of his action, but cannot move. This feat also applies to any creature that attempts to move from a square that is adjacent to you if such movement provokes an attack of opportunity.

If two allies are both threatening the same creature and are adjacent to each other then an adjacent foe moving through adjacent squares will make proc Stand Still from AllyA and Paired Opportunist from AllyB.

If a foe provokes an attack of opportunity while being in the Combat Patrol's threatened area the patrolling creature would be able to move as a part of the attack, if by doing so both AllyA and AllyB would still both threaten the same creature and be adjacent to each other it'll proc Paired Opportunist from the ally wich isn't patrolling.

Foe (moving trough adacent squares) > AllyA (Stand Still) > AllyB (Paired Opportunists)
Foe (provoking any attack of opportunity) > AllyB (Combat Patrol) > AllyA (Paired Opporunists)

An action would make Paired Opportunist proc against an enemy just once though.

@UnArcaneElection yes, the Master of Many Styles wouldn't speed up things as it's a dip you are forced to take at lv5 to make possible to grab Deadhand Master, it'll just allow the Magus to use a feat wich would normally be available to lv14 characters and without having 23 Wis, nonetheless.

I give you that Esoteric isn't the best Magus Archetype but wich class/archetype would let you get a decent, early Ki Pool wich would scale as you level while not being a monk?

An unarmed Magus build, 15 Wis required:

Esoteric Magus(4)/Master of Many Styles Monk(1)

Get an Arcane Pool wich counts as ki pool for the purposes of meeting feat and ability requirements on top of being able to use points from arcane pool and ki pool interchangeably at lv 4.

Grabs Deadhand Initiate with a regular feat and Deadhand Master at lv 5 with MoMS, ready to be fused with your favored style.

If I would start at lv6 with a build like yours in mind I wouldn't go straight for two styles at once but would stick to the Crane Style at first.

A second level of Monk could grant Evasion and another bonus feat, I would use a regular feat to get dodge and a regular feat to get the first Crane Style feat and the Master of Many Styles bonus feats to get the other ones.

1 1-Staff Maus: Dodge, Quarterstaff Master
2 2-Staff Magus
3 1-Master of Many Styles: Crane Style, Crane Wing
4 2-Master of Many Styles: Crane Riposte
5 3-Staff Magus: etc.

Then take the other feats with ease with just -1 on attack rolls while fighting defensively.

Oh S-, you are right!

Hi Name Violation, if you take the level dip of Cavalier you get Mount class feature and if it's a horse it'll have at least a druid level of 4 by level 5.

Hi Kiba, the bonus feats of the character comes from the Cavalier dip I were suggesting. Gendarme trades a feature to get extra feats from a list and Cavalier grants Light Armor Proficiency to his mounts.

Anyway this were just if you wanted to do "speed up" your build with a dip and if you were interested into a lance-charge build otherwise it's common to do as you were thinking and to start getting mounted feats when the pet would get a size increase unless you would give your companion Hefty Brute as suggested by Temperans.

A straigth hunter non-charger mounted build could be this for example, a "mounted flanker":

1 - Combat Reflexes, Dirty Fighting
2 - Outflank
3 - Pack Flanking, Paired Opportunists
5 - Power Attack
6 - Broken Wing Gambit
7 - Mounted Combat

Suggestions:

#1 take Dirty Fighting feat instead of Combat Expertise: "This feat counts as having Dex 13, Int 13, Combat Expertise, and Improved Unarmed Strike for the purposes of meeting the prerequisites of the various improved combat maneuver feats, as well as feats that require those improved combat maneuver feats as prerequisites."

#2 dip one level of Gendarme Cavalier to get everything you need from the start and to not have your armor penality affect your riding checks

#3 If you need a Mount different from a Wolf the Monstrous Mount feat gives really good mounts options.. if Leadership is banned.

Build Example:

1 - Mounted Combat, Ride-By Attack, Spirited Charge
3 - Outflank, Dirty Fighting
4 - Pack Flanking
5 - Monstrous Mount
7 - Escape Route, Monstrous Mount Mastery

Pet:

1 - Light Armor Proficiency, Valiant Steed
2 - Sure Footed
5 - Pet becomes a Griffon, Light Armor Proficiency, Valiant Steed, Skill Focus: Fly, Signature Skill: Fly

^ As a Totemic/Bacchanal Skald I find that taking ERP every now and then is a great choice for getting selfish rage powers wich won't be shared such as Good for What Ails You and Internal Fortitude, Cha related skills can get me out of troubles wich aren't combat related.

A combination of Virtuous Bravo Paladin and Scaled Fist Monk (Unchained) would be a very durable melee martial wich uses both Dexterity and Charisma.

You can reach very high levels of AC and saves on top of allowing you to get Crusader's Flurry as soon as level 5.

If you are ok with worshipping Shelyn you can get Bladed Brush, allowing you to get the only 2h weapon wich works with swashbuckler’s class features such as Precise Strike and her Deific Obedience is very powerful too!