scion of horus's page

He can't spell combat with brand or arcane mark. He's using a 2h weapon.

Actually, he couldn't use Spell Combat at all.

To use this ability, the magus must have one hand free (even if the spell being cast does not have somatic components), while wielding a light or one-handed melee weapon in the other hand.

Despite being usable with Weapon Finesse, the Elven Curve Blade is explicitly not a light weapon.

Well, when I met with the DM to finalize everything, for stats he decided to go with 4d6, drop lowest, and reroll if its 10 or less, so I ended up with the following stats, after racials:

STR 11
DEX 19 (+1 at 4, 8, 12)
CON 12
INT 16 (+1 at 16, 20)
WIS 12
CHA 9

I've decided to focus on using Arcane Pool for enhancing my weapon and recalling spells, so with that in mind, I changed my feats and arcana accordingly:

1 Weapon Finesse
3 Dervish Dance
5 Arcane Strike
5b Weapon Focus (Scimitar)
7 Intensified Spell
9 Lunge
11 Extra Arcane Pool
11b Empower Spell
13 Quicken Spell
15 Spell Perfection (Shocking Grasp)
17 Spell Penetration
17b Combat Reflexes
19 Greater Spell Penetration

3 Familiar
6 Lingering Pain
9 Spell Blending (Touch of Idiocy, Resist Energy)
12 Maximized Magic
15 Quickened Magic
18 Ghost Blade

There's probably better feats than spell penetration that late, but I figured that even before that point, SR would be somewhat common, so overcoming it would be nice.

As for spells, I was going to take the common buffs, touch attacks, utilities, with Bladed Dash and Force Hook Charge for mobility. When dealing with electrical immune opponents, I'd mostly focus on using debilitating touch attacks, and generally helping out the other party members with spells.

If I start taking 1/4 Arcane Pool at 8 for my favored class bonus instead of health, by 11th level I'd have 13 Arcane Pool (5 from stats, 5 from levels, 2 from feats, 1 from favored class), which gives me plenty for enhancing my weapons and recalling Intensified Empowered Shocking Grasps.

I think I'm generally pretty happy with my new build, but I just wanted to run in past the braintrust one more time. Thanks again for the feedback and help, everyone.

EDIT: Oh, equipment question. Besides Pearls of Powers, and stat/armor/save boosters, what should I look at picking up? I was thinking of spell storing on my weapon and boots of speed.

Thanks for the advice, guys.

I went with Maximized Magic mostly due to lack of other, more attractive options, honestly. The 1/per day isn't great, but I think the ability to really put a hurting on high priority targets when needed could be a useful utility.

Improved Familiar is honestly the choice I'm struggling most with. I definitely like the flavor of the scorpion familiar, but Faerie Dragon just looks too obscenely powerful to ignore. A flying, invisible scout that can stagger and sicken targets while carrying a wand seems like it would be better than +4 initiative.

Should I drop the point in INT for +2 WIS? I was trying to pump INT high enough to easily get a bonus 6th level spell (and also more Arcane Pool), but I guess a +6 INT item would be pretty easy to acquire at 16. I'd read that having decent will saves is important in RotRL, so it seems like a fair trade.

I was wondering if Spell Penetration would be worth fitting in somewhere, since so much of my damage will be coming from elemental spells. I'd probably have to drop Imp. Familiar to get it, which isn't a huge problem.

EDIT: Oh, and I was wondering if my Arcana choices were weak overall. Having two +hit arcana seems redundant, though Accurate Strike seems incredibly useful for high AC targets, while Arcane Accuracy seems to wane in power around then, which makes me wonder if picking up Arcane Strike is worthwhile. I'd prefer to save my Arcane Pool for buffing my weapon and recalling spells, so assuming I do that and use my swifts for Arcane Strike, what would be a suitable Arcana replacement for Arcane Accuracy?

So, I'm new to Pathfinder (and tabletop games in general, though I have passing familiarity with the D20 system from various CRPGs) and will be playing the Rise of the Runelords AP with a Magus. I'm basically just looking for some basic feedback on my build. I've looked at Walter's guide to get a decent idea, but it can be a tad overwhelming for a newer player to take in all at once.

It's pretty standard, I guess, but here's the 1-20 build, since our DM said we'll probably be 20 before the end of the campaign. The other party members are a THF Paladin, some kind of Oracle, and an unknown fourth.

CG Tiefling Magus w/ Prehensile Tail (20 point buy)

STR 10
DEX 18 (+1 at 8, 12, 16, 20)
CON 14
INT 17 (+1 at 4)
WIS 8
CHA 8

Traits:
Reactionary/Outlander (Exile), Magical Lineage (Shocking Grasp)

Feats:

1 Weapon Finesse
3 Dancing Dervish
5 Intensified Spell
5b Weapon Focus (Scimitar)
7 Improved Familiar
9 Lunge
11 Extra Arcana (Spell Blending: Heroism, Resist Energy, Communal)
11b Empower Spell
13 Quicken Spell
15 Spell Perfection (Shocking Grasp)
17 ?
17b ?
19 ?

Magus Arcana:
3 Arcane Accuracy
6 Familiar (Greensting Scorpion)
9 Accurate Strike
12 Maximized Magic
15 ?
18 ?

Obviously, the focus is around casting Shocking Grasp on all of the things as much as possible. I'm pretty uncertain of pretty much everything other than building around Dancing Dervish, so I'd greatly appreciate any feedback anyone can give me.