Unien's page

A single hopeful bump

The referred post is this post
Also this post

Damn, was going to edit the title and now I can't :)
Thanks for the answer. That was also my thinking, but I've seen confronted opinions about it. That's why I was hoping for something official here.

Now, the reason for the edit.

There are two more questions that, as far as I know, have not yet been clarified.

First one: The frostbite-enforcer combo.
It's well known the debate about it (I, myself, see it clear given the fact that the feat specifies that you have to deal nonlethal damage with a weapon without entering into the carrier-carried damage thing)

Second one: Touch spells with multi use capabilities (the mentioned frostbite or chill touch). A post in Ask JJ thread ended with an answer from him saying that this kind of touch spells stop being touch spells after being cast. Charges are not held but subsumed to the caster as "special" abilites that he can use when making a touch attack or weapon attack (if magus) meaning another spells can be cast and such. Yet, this goes against the basic touch spells rule.
Again, I don't know what to think.

Hello all.

I’m posting this question since I’ve been unable to find an official answer (the only thread I’ve managed to find in the Rules section is dated from 2011).
It’s a question that has recently arisen in our game table and it’s quite unclear how to resolve it due to the discrepancies (apparent at least) in both available descriptions about it.

The general rule says that a staff can be recharged by expending a spell slot equal to the level of the highest spell stored in the staff during the spell preparation in the morning.
It also says that only one staff cannot gain more than one charge and a caster can only imbue a staff per day.

Then comes the Staff Weapon (Su) trait from the Staff Magus:
A staff magus can restore 1 charge to a staff by expending a number of points from his arcane pool equal to the level of the highest-level spell cast in the staff, as long as at least one spell in the staff is on the magus spell list. The magus cannot restore charges to more than one staff per day. This ability replaces fighter training.

Nowhere says that it’s an alternate way to recharge a staff (other class abilities usually mention this when they complement or replace general rules), and it can be interpreted as an addition to the general ruling improving it.
There’s also the bolded phrase… “cannot restore charges to more than one staff per day”.

RAW, it’s implicit that the magus can restore charges, plural, to a single staff.
RAI, I don’t know.
Given the fact that it’s a class feature, it’s reasonable to think that it’s an improvement to the general rule, but I’d like an official answer if possible.

No one? :(

Hello.

I'm working on some sort of guide concept for my next Runelords AP char.
Usable material (for feats) is limited to Core Rulebook an APG.
Race: Human
Stats (rolled):
STR 11; DEX 20; CON 12; INT 16; WIS 16; CHA 11
Ranger (trapper, wild stalker) 1
Gunslinger (musket master) 5

Feats: Point blank shot, Precise shot, Deadly aim, Rapid shot, Endurance

That's the basic build.
From there my idea is 10 levels of horizon walker focused in mountain, underground and urban terrains.

Thing is I have no idea on what feats to pick from this point.
Also a question: how does terrain mastery work out of combat? Can you always keep the terrain bonus for allies?

Any help will be more than welcome.

AFAIK, Deadshot is still the same unclear thing as always.

I had in mind a musket master as a backup char for my current campaign.
Now I'm tending more to a 5 pistolero/x trophy hunter ranger with humanoid(human) as main enemy.
I'll make him a bounty hunter, call him Clint and I might throw a couple levels of alchemist to throw dynamite lighted with my cigar...

Also, Signature Deed can only be used once per round and Abundant Ammunition doesn't work with paper cartridges...

Looks like they are trying to center the 'slinger in a "one attack per round" thing.

Well, I'd like to thank all of you for your tips and ideas.
Sadly, the other day Nualia decided to show me her bastard sword. The sharp side. Through my chest.
So standing at 4HP and after a 25 damage crit, the magus is no more :(
At least she died...

I've decided to bring some ranged damage to the party in the form of a Zen archer. We'll see how that turns out.

Being level 3 already, such changes can't be done :)

At several times I've considered wand wielder and discarded it. Now it again looks tempting, only issue being I don't know where to squeeze the arcana (and some way to easily manage the wands)

Currently my plan was quite simple:

1 - Toughness
1 - Exotic weapon (katana)
1 - Weapon focus
3 - Power attack
3 - Black Blade
5 - Arcane strike / Intensify spell (new)
5 - Craft wonderous items
6 - Arcane accuracy
7 - Weapon specialization
9 - Critical focus
11 - Bleeding critical
11 - Prescient attack
12 - Accurate strike
13 - Empowered/Quickened/Maximized magic or critical strike
15 - ?
15 - Bane blade

Didn't really think past 15
All in all, since spell upgrades weren't that great it's more a "melee'ish" build than anything. Now, of course, that could change.
I'm in that area where I doubt the absolute need to have Arcane accuracy. Everyone says it's great but with a limited arcane pool I'm not that sure. I could put Wand wielder there.

Today we have a gaming session (2nd level of thistletop, there we go!) and I'll talk my GM about the trait and the spell.
Also, I think he'll let me buy a ring of arcane mastery (I think it's the name) if the occasion arises and I have access to the 20.000gp needed.

Uh, didn't know about Weaponwand.
Even though I highly doubt I'll be able to use it, it certainly looks interesting.

Currently I have a campaign one, bladed magic (arcane pool lasts 2 minutes), one that lets you recover 1 AP per day on a crit and, after discovering that demoralize is both a mind affecting and a fear effect, the most lacklustre, the home that lets you add into bonus to intimidate checks instead of cha.

Ok, after some sessions some updates and a new question.

Some ROtRL spoilers ahead.

After barely surviving the catacombs of... can't remember, we have cleared the second level of thistletop and have reached level 3 (may be 4 when we get the xp from last session).

So far, it hasn't been that bad. Still suffering a bit in the defense area but doing god in the offense.

My magus right now:

STR - 17
DEX - 17
CON - 14
INT - 17 (18 at lvl 4)
WIS - 13
CHA - 11

Feats other than the class ones: Toughness and power attack.
AC: 17
HP: 32
Attack with Power Attack: katana +6 (1d8+7).

Now, at level 5 I had planned to pick arcane strike and craft wondrous items and then weapon specialization at 7, but my DM might let using the advanced player's guide opening the possibility to intensify spell.
Now I don't know if it would be better to keep the original idea of static damage or switch arcane strike for intensify spell at 5 (without magical lineage unless he let's me change a trait)

Ideas?

The Society is Indiana Jones. "It belongs in a museum", etc.

The Aspis Consortium is Belloq. They think of nothing but money, and will do anything to get it.

The pirates... are really just one pirate. She wants the city's loot to start her own pirate fleet. Pretty world-neutral, really.

The Sargavan government is a colonial government, in deep debt from having to pay protection. To the pirates. They're basically rich white people enslaving the natives. Imagine the hunter from Jumanji, maybe.

The Red Mantis are an assassin cult who worship the gods' assassin, a giant mantis-monster. They're not especially divine, so they should be fine.

As for the ancient civilization that built the city, they're related to certain ancient business in RotRL. There might be mild spoilers, but only general ones - it won't spoil specific plot points from Rise of the Runelords.

OK, PF Society is going to be some random group of people searching for atlantean artifacts and such based off Turan.

Consortium - Since Shem is where most of the trade routes are, it's a good place to set them. I might even leave the name.

The pirate. Well, she's a pirate and let's leave it just there.

Sargava. This one is more tricky. Still undecided.

Red Mantis. Assassin's cult but from Zamora. And no mantis but a spider.

Back to work :)

Sounds really interesting and caters to the interests of all my players (some prefer combat, some prefer social relatios, some are in the middle ground).

The Black Kingdoms are based off the mid-southern area of africa, so all's good.

For ancient civilizations the Black Ones are supposed to be really ancient and alien-esque, so they can be used as well. (I know about the Thassilonians ;) )

This AP looks great if only for reading it.
As for the other factions, I think they can easily be done.

I'll be back when I've read it.
Thanks!

Full plot outline/needs/issues incoming. :)

What do you know about those five factions I mentioned? In terms of Golarion lore, I mean.

I know about the Society (not in depth) and I think I've read something about the pirates in some backstory.

Well, in all honesty I still have nothing really serious in mind as the AP appeared as a revelation yesterday while researching some info and I know barely nothing about it.

Things I know

There's a serpent woman cultist in disguise that causes the shipwreck to reach the island where some people other than the PCs survive.
There's some sort of temple, and cannibals, and ugly water scorpions.
In the end, the cult wants to revive their god (let's call it Set for simplicity)

Aaaand that's all my knowledge of it.

An island is easy to drop anywhere in a map. Reasons for the ship to pass by aren't hard to manage (it was going to be a slaver's ship with the PCs being slaves, but I can accomodate some passengers if needed)
From that point I assume they'll return to mainland at some point, but I won't have issues accomodating it either.
There are some jungles in Stygia as far as I remember, and deserts (who doesn't love deserts?)

No divine magic though (low magic setting), but spirits and animism exist, an so does some sorcery (mostly evil) son that's a non issue since they can reproduce most Pathfinder magic but with more subtle ways.

And I guess I could adapt encounters if they are too weird. (no goblins, orcs, and such)

You give me hopes. I'll have to read the full AP :)

Ok, here I am looking for some advices and wondering if this could work or it's total madness.

I've taken a little hiatus from my L5R campaign and, given that nostalgy made me get a copy of Runequest 6 (RQ was my first game) I've decided to go back to it.
What started as "let's just play some sword and sorcery sessions" went to "hey, let's do it in Hyboria", then things went crazy.

I had in mind to start with a shipwreck and make the PCs survive till they reached the series of adventures from the Book of Quests, so I started researching for some tips as how to handle the shipwreck.
Then I found info on this AP and gears started to work.

Shipwreck - check
Survival in an island - check
An evil serpent cult... in Conan world? - check
Trying to revive a serpent god? - holy yes! check (Conan the adventurer's intro music starts playing in head)

So, for the ones who know this full AP... would this actually work?
I know that it will require half a ton of work or more just to match names and regions, but really, given that I know nothing about encounters and plots in the AP would this work? I'm overexcited right now.

Just for the sake of updating it, an interesting twist in the events happened.
DM didn't want a stat as low as 5, so in the end I asked him to roll my stats (I'll be out of the city and won't be able to meet him before next session).
They ended being 17, 15, 15, 14, 13, 13. Great rerolls even if his allowed reroll of the lowest was a discarded 12.
So, the 1st level tiefling kensai bladebound magus is going to be:

STR - 17
DEX - 17 (15+2)
CON - 14
INT - 17 (15+2)
WIS - 13
CHA - 11 (13-2)

Since he's not allowing the armor of the pit feat, the best option I see for the level 1 feat is Toughness.
With that I'm aiming for:
15 AC (3DEX, 1INT, 1silk), 19 with shield spell
14 HP (8class, 2CON, 3feat, 1level)
+4 hit (0BAB, 3STR, 1wfocus) I might get another +1 if I get a masterwork from the background
+3 damage

As I see it, it's not such a bad start.
Would a pure magus be better? Probably, but I like the idea of the kensai more

By level 4 AC will be at least 18. Nothing impressive but decent enough unless caught flat footed.
Since weapon enchants are costless and wonderous items will cost half the money at level 5, I can focus on a decent silk armor and also add some natural armor with magic items if needed

Give up this dangerous adventuring life. Come back home to the farm, marry that nice girl down the road. Give me some grandchildren.

Now, given how the AP has started, that is indeed a good advice

Errrrr... I guess you missed the part where I describe the limites...
No intensify nor preferred spell.

Some good advices there Cap, thanks. Buuuut.... Flamboyant arcana is from Advanced Class Guide :(
I've "almost" managed to convice our GM to give us access to some more feats, but right now it's still a no. I'm working my way for Enforcer at least...
That's the main reason I've such a spread selection of stats. I've even thought to roll 'em and pray for the results (we have the chance to roll for stats, but then we stick to them).

Still undecided if the trip line is worth it or not. The Combat expertise req is killing me.

So far:

1- Spell Combat
1- Arcane pool
1- Exotic weapon: Katana
1- Weapon focus: Katana
1- Canny defense
1- Bonus: Armor of the pit
2- Spell strike
3- Arcane strike (not like I have many uses for swifts right now)
3- Black blade
4- Perfect strike
5- Power attack
5- Craft wonderous items
6- Arcane accuracy
7- Feat: ?
7- Fighter training (-3)
7- Iaijutsu
8- Improved spell combat
9- Critical focus
9- Critical perfection
10- Fighter training (1/2) (I'd really love to know the point of this)
11- Bleeding critical
11- Bonus feat: ?
11- Superior reflexes
12- Arcana
13- Shatter defenses
13- Iaijutsu focus
14- Greater spell combat
15- Feat: ?
15- Bane blade
16- Counterstrike

Either level 7 or 11 should be Dazzling display for shatter defenses at 13. I like the idea of an AoE debuff with intimidate

Well, here I am again sooner than expected...
Advice: There might be some RotRL spoilers from Burnt Offerings ahead.

Three sessions into the AP, yesterday we went to gather some info about the missing Ameiko. The cleric was busy with Zantus and the paladin was reclaimed by his order (none of them could assist yesterday), so the rest of us (gunslinger, rogue, wizard and warrior, all lvl 1) went to glassworks.

We managed to avoid a bunch of goblins and procceeded to explore a lower level. Since I was the only one with darkvision, I peeked around a corner to check a corridor and Tsuto appeared from a door.
Surprise assault: I roll a init of 1 (yay!) and he gets a 20+ (yayyay!)
Charge and I get a punch of 9 damage. I use my action to retreat.
Combat starts and he acts first. Runs to me (again) dodging the roge and punches me for 7 more damage. There goes the gunslinger.
Rest of the party fights with little to no maneuver (damned narrow corridors) and it's a miss festival. Then the rogue proceeds to flee.

Then, in the following 15 or so rounds the warrior manages to hit him with a total of 4(!!!) attacks, rolling a 1 in damage for 3 of them.
The wizards manages to get resisted a lot.
Then we proceed to die... (not really, we all managed to stabilize) but there it is. Fun combat...

So, back to the magus.
After this first "real" encounter my view on the survival chances (or character creation, really) has changed, so I'm back to the kensai magus for whom I had a nice background.

Given the fact that a lvl 1 kensai is quite well rounded offensively, I've decided to go with Armor of the Pit as the lvl 1 feat.

Tiefling bladebound kensai magus. 20 pt buy

STR - 16
DEX - 16 (14+2)
CON - 12
INT - 17 (15+2)
WIS - 10
CHA - 5 (7-2)

1- Spell Combat
1- Arcane pool
1- Exotic weapon: Katana
1- Weapon focus: Katana
1- Canny defense
1- Bonus: Armor of the pit

So, at first level AC would be 10+3(DEX)+1(INT)+2(Natural) for a total of 16. Not that bad.

Thing is I don't really know where to go from that point...

Ok, I'll try to clarify the restrictions.
Magus, and all their class defining abilities are allowed. Also, all the stuff granted by the archetypes can be used.
Feats and such can be used by the previous rule. Otherwise, only from core (It doesn't matter if they are translated or not).
You are right at the website. It's slowly updated and not all the material from paizo has been translated.
Magic properties and items, again, are only allowed from the core book. That means that there's no access to the agile enchantment either (sad thing that no magus arcana grants it because that would be allowed...)

Spells included in the basic magus list are allowed. Spells added to the list in other books are not.
I think curses would also be allowed if you are an Hexcrafter, but can't be sure about that point.

As for the clases, archetypes and features (arcanas, hexes...) I think most of them are translated and available. The only ones that aren't are those from the advanced class guide and the several handbooks (inner sea and the such)

I hope I clarified the limitations.
As you say, he's against powergaming. Problem is that he sees optimization and/or specialization as powergaming too. He's not fond of multiclassing unless it has some acknowledgeable/reasonable background and considers that doing it just to get access to class features is another way of min/maxing... It's... complex :)

I have a new build more or less defined. I'll try and post it later.

That barroom brawler looks nice. No access to it though...
The more I look into the kensai, the more I find myself overwhelmed with the MAD or the sheer amount of feats needed to make it work.

As kestral says, you can spellstrike on a charge if you have it precasted.

I like the idea of a trip build because I foresee the AP as being caster-intensive. That means that, if an (always) annoying caster appears I can, with combat casting, use the force hook charge, then trip him with my first attack and proceed to pound him with the rest of iterative attacks while on the floor.

AoO from sunder occurs before you roll for the sunder. So, if you go to smash that berserker's axe, he swings (and probably hits you, at max AB) then you get to try chopping it in half. So, yes, sunder feat lol, i 'm not trying to come off like some kind of sunder addict, really. Just saying, if you *are* going the maneuver route, the feats aren't entirely inferior to true strike. Plus, you may want to do certain feats more or less often, so if it's a once-in-a-week thing to sunder, just forget it and hit them with a sharp object. If it's part of a constant strategy (same goes for trips/disarms) where you use it for any/every foe, then take the feat if you can afford it, getting AoO'd is always calculated first, and that's sucky. Consider trips: if you trip someone and they try to get up, they proc an AoO from you. If you use that AoO to trip, it occurs while they're on the ground still. If you succeed on this second trip, nothing happens. They get up right afterward. So, disarm them instead. Now they get up, but they lost the weapon. They go to pick it up - AoO. etc etc. It's more of a flair thing, and a lot of extra rolling, but with the right build a magus can be as effective at battlefield control as a fighter-type of the same level, *and* still have spells.

I donno, I'm just saying, everyone builds magus for pure damage, I think they've got a lot more potential, especially in team building. Build for cc's or hell, even for support, and you can be really adaptable. Sunder is just one way you can do that. Hell, take a Kensai with a whip, or a myrmidiarch with a bow or throwing axes. It's just funny, in the last week there have been about 5 discussions about how to build a magus, and it always boils down to a hexmage/bladebound. I'm not knocking on that, i mean, there are only like 8 archetypes or whatever, just saying, that any magus already has damage. Why not throw in some CC or something on the side, that they can also do?

I totally agree. That's why on first though I was going on the kensai triping magus but I parked the idea due to seeing the hexes as more supporting (slumber, free fly, free heals...)

BTW, a related question. Even if you have the improved trip feat (from, say, monk), you still need to pick combat expertise for the greater trip right?

Yay, found it again. It was on page 8 of this thread :P

http://www.mediafire.com/download/5bwd0n24ncx1r02/WaltersGuidetotheMagus.pd f

Mmmm, I think I'll have to consider the sunder thingy :P
On the humanoid or non humanoid... no clue. As I said we just started RotRL and so far we have only found goblins. There are giants for sure (the recomended traits include a giant slayer one) and also magical beasts, aberrations and such.

Time to at least reorder the feats

Sadly, no alternate traits. No alternate favored class bonus either.
I have also considered arcane strike instead of power attack,but I'm not surf how often you can really use it

Oh man, the tablet autocorrect is killing me :S

Well, so car thos is what i've managed to build:

STR - 16
DEX - 14
CON - 14
INT - 17
SAB - 10
CHA - 6

Traits: Bladed magic, pragmatic activator, The trait that reduces magic item creation coste by 5% and a campaign une.

1. Arcane pool, cantrips, spell combate
1. Toughness
2. Spell strike
3. Black blade
3. Exotic weapon proficience - katana
4. HEX magus: slumber
5. Craft wonderous item
5. Power attack
6. Fly
7. Medium armor, knowledge pool
7. Arcane accuracy
8. Improved spell combat
9. Healing? Evil eye?
9. Weapon focus
10. Fighter training
11. ???, spell recall
11. ???
12. Ice tomb
13. Heavy armor
13. Critical strike
14. Greater spell combat
15. Bane blade
15. ???
16. Counterstrike

So, assuming the AP finishes at 16 I need one magus bonus feat and two regular feas.
Options: Majo healing, retribution, Accurate strike, weapon specialization...

Ideas? Valoración? Tweaks?

I managed to find a downloadable PDF version in Mediafire, but I don't have the link here right now...

@claudekennilol
I know it's hard to understand. At first he was going to limit all character creation to the core book, but then he decided to use the material from the web I mentioned (If any of you have spanish skills you can check it at http://www.rolroyce.com/rol/DDP/index.php. It adds the english names for easy fast-tracking)
To be honest, dropping CHA to 5 would be seen as massive munchkining. Jeez, he does consider a 20 int lvl1 wizard also munchkining because of a specialist spell DCs.
As I said, he doesn't like optimization. At one point I told him I was going to make a bard named Abe Reichmann with all 13s...

@Cap. Darling
Interesting ideas. All the spells from the basic magus list would be OK, so no problem there.
Honestly, I didn't check in detail the monstruous physique line. It's really great. I'm the only one to blame there since I focused too much in the lvl 1 and 2 spells from the list.

@Grokk_Bloodfist
To be honest I only see Vital Strike as a way to (maybe) bypass DR. It deserves some math though to see it's real value (and the improved version).

@BadBird
Didn't consider the crane style for defense. That brings some interesting combinations.

In the end it's all a matter of adding the feats and see where it can go...

I've been thinking more about the Hexcrafter. It just gives up spell recall and adds some nice posibilities since you keep the armor and most of the abilities.
Trip at BAB-5 with hair and greater trip and you get a prone target (-4 AC), a free AOO at full BAB, then you can make the iterative attacks with your weapon with BAB-2, cast (and attack) again with full BAB-2 All in all, looks good on paper. It also requires a nice amount of feats... Need to do some homework.

BTW, I keep seeing people posting nicely formatted builds but I have yet to find a decent (free) builder. Any tip on it?

Magical Lineage (Shocking Grasp) isn't required. But it is nice to have. A magus can do completely fine without it. If you are multiclassing, Magical Knack is required so you don't stunt your caster levels because multiclassing a magus is a horrible idea. That being said, since you can pick 2 from one category get both. I took a trait to make perception a class skill and Defensive Strategist (must worship Torag) so that I'm not flat-footed at the start of combat (being a dex-based fighter and rolling poorly on init sucks).

I would highly recommend you ask your GM if you can pick up either slashing or fencing grace from the Advanced Class Guide or Advanced Class Origins (respectively). That will make you much less MAD and let you bump your most important stats (int then dex then con).

You've got a paladin and a cleric in your party so cha isn't important. He can just be an introverted skill monkey. My tiefling magus's stats looked like this at lvl 1.

str 9
dex 16 (18)
con 14
int 16 (18)
wis 10
cha 7 (5)

If you don't mind giving up the arcana, kensai is really good. It gives you the weapon focus you need for fencing/slashing grace (again, ask your GM--you've already got 2ish potentially str-based fighters). If your campaign is going to go to high levels (teens) then bladebound isn't worth it. If it's only going to 12ish then it totally is. You won't have to buy armor or a weapon so you can spend your money on the cool fun/must have stuff that usually comes later. But if you're going to go to high levels it's not worth it because you can't customize your weapon.

That request (the slashing/fencing) would probably get a "no, you are trying to munchkin" answer. He doesn't like character optimization...

Thanks for all the answers.
Indeed, the monk dip seems worse than I really expected

Flowing: Didn't see the 1/day/level. Ouch. Was too good indeed.
Style feats: Given that the MoMS is based on styles, well, styles are accepted as part of the class. That said, I don't really see it that great since it's 1/round and eats the swift.

Some more rule clarifications: We are from spain and he wants to use the translated material. As per official he has the core rules, MM and the adventure path. Then there's a nice web where they have translated a lot of the material (races, some classes, archetypes...) and that's what he's sticking to. Sorry not to clarify it before.
So, by core I mean the core rulebook and just that.

So no Dawnflower dervish (looks nice though).
No chance at flamboyant arcana either (you are right, it's advanced class guide)
Weapon finesse looks like a decen option (no katana then, but I can live with that).

Yeah, I know Walter's guide by heart, and the kensai one is really good too, but every one assumes that the class can get the feats from their own book and that sadly is not my case...

My GM sees a guy that can fight and cast at the same time and says "hey, its a great class, I don't know why you say it's not viable".
But with 2/3 BAB and no way to improve the damage from the class' basic spells, I admit I don't know how to make it work :(

Second option: Hexcrafter staff magus. Quarterstaff master goes with the class so it's accepted.

Sorry for all the limitations, but that's the main reason I'm asking :)

EDIT: Magical lineage is a quite pointless trait since there's no metamagic decent enough to use. Maybe extend spell for a buff.

First of all, as this is my first post after some serious lurking, I'd want to greet and thank everyone in the community. You have been an unvaluable help :)

Now to the point.
My gaming group is starting today with Rise of the Runelords (yay!).
We have experience with DnD (up to 3.0 mostly, really brief 3.5) but no real experience with Patfhinder per se.
We have a dwarven cleric, an aasimar paladin, elven rogue, human wizard, human warrior and aasimar musket master that will multiclass into archaeologyst (that's me).

Both the GM and I have serious doubts about the gunslinger viability since it can seriously unbalance the encounters and/or make the other characters uncomfortable, so I want a backup character in case a change is needed.

I LOVE the magus concept. I've always played mostly wizards and warrior wizards are a plus. He also likes the magus (he told me he has an idea to introduce a tiefling black blade magus even) but, and theres the problem, we have some serious limitations in the options for characters and here's where I'm seeking the help from the more experienced.

Rules for character creation are:

Most races allowed (basic options. No alternate traits)
Most classes allowed (no ultimate class)
Most archetypes allowed
20 point buy
4 traits. 1 must be campaign. Can be from same category. List is quite long but some of the ones you all use may not be there.

Feats and spells from CORE only.
Only other feats and abilities allowed are those coming from archetypes.

So this are the rules. This means no intensify nor rime spell and no combat feats other than those from the core book.

The only idea I have in mind right now is a kensai-bladebound katana wielding magus with a dip in monk and make it a trip fighter with a focus in frostbite for the status.

Options for monk dip are:
Lvl 1 Flowing monk for the trip attempt on response to attack. Lvl 2 skill would be great if it weren't for the saving roll
Lvl 2 Master of Many styles with kirin style for the 2xint bonus to damage as swift (not that great)
Lvl 1 Maneuver master for the maneuver flurry and not losing the CMB.

Stats. No idea. Really.
Playing with the points I've come to:

STR 16
DEX 13 (15)
CON 12
INT 15 (17)
WIS 10
CHA 8 (6)

Feats
Trip feats are basic. Other than that no idea.

So, after this long wall of text (sorry for that), any idea?