I've always liked the idea of net and trident fighters. After toying with some fighter builds I really fell in love with what the Magus could bring to using a net. The hope is that the addition of all of the Magus' magical tricks would keep a net user viable in a variety of situations across levels.
First, the build with relevant feats
Half-Elf Magus 16/ Fighter(Lorewarden) 4
1. Magus 1. Net Adept, EWP:Net(Ancestral Arms)
2. Magus 2.
3. Magus 3. Quickdraw
4. Magus 4.
5. Fighter 1. Combat Reflexes, Net Manuever
6. Fighter 2. Combat Expertise, Improved Trip
7. Fighter 3. Greater Improved Trip
8. Magus 5. Net Trickery
9. Fighter 4. Improved Dirty Trick, Greater Dirty Trick
10. Magus 6.
11. Magus 7. Improved Familiar (after getting a familiar through arcana)
12. Magus 8.
13. Magus 9. Boon Companion
14. Magus 10. ?
15. Magus 11. ? Boon companion is really as far as I've built this character in my mind. I don't think it will ever be played past a 15-16 point as most Pathfinder characters, so I was focusing on making the formative levels as jam packed as possible.
This was built with playing from level one in mind but I'll be starting at fifth. Starting at fifth makes me wonder if going a full magus 5 wouldn't be better. I chose to go with starting fighter at fifth level to make sure he gets the tripping feats in a timely fashion by hitting +6 BAB by level 7. The goal of the build is to be the best net fighter and a decent alternative magus build, not the most powerful magus (which is really only the case if DPR is made the main case for power). That being said, I wonder if a full 20 magus build wouldn't be better for quicker access to stronger debuffs and battlefield control effects.
The core of the build is spell combat and spellstriking with your net. Color spray, grease, and ray of enfeeblement are all great low level options to be throwing out as you try to entangle someone with a net. These efforts can be spread out amongst several targets or concentrated on one important one. Reaching second level spells early is emphasized to get Frigid Touch as soon as possible. The stagger without a save is just gold for a controller that's sacrificing spell casting power. Sure it's only for one round, but that should be enough for allies to finish the job on a creature that can't do much of anything to defend itself or harm others.
I love quickdraw in this build. It lets it play the AoO game with nets+enlarge person to create a huge area threatened by entangles, trips, disarms and blindings. It also means you can always pull out a scimitar and keeps the old Shocking Grasp crit thing a decent means of adding some burst damage to help end fights. It's certainly not the focus of the build, but having it ready and available as a free action is great for versatility. Intensify Spell and Improved Critical are some of my top choices for late game feats for this build to diversify how it can approach combat. These could even come earlier in place of the familiar feats, but I really like the idea of having a wand wielding familiar to help with action economy in the higher levels.
I guess one of my biggest questions I have is would Magus 20 be more beneficial? The main draw is the uninterrupted casting, but I also like the idea of being able to have a fully powered mauler familiar in the early levels to hit things after the entangles.
Any comments/thoughts/criticisms are much appreciated.