bellabiased's page

Hello! I'm running kensai DEX-based magus, and my DM has said she will ignore arcane spell failure if it is 10% or less (so treat anything with 10% or less as though it is 0% ASF), which opens up quite a few options for me armor-wise. I'd like the usual things, high max-DEX bonus, high armor bonus without incurring too many penalties. I'm thinking of going chain shirt made of mithral, but if there's like, secretly another option I'm missing that would be way more suited for my build, I'd love any insights! Thank you.

im generally not a fan of arcane accuracy, since magus is normally starved for swift actions anyway.

But i forget if kensai trades away things that i normally use the swift action for, like spell recall

It does.

bellabiased wrote:

For your fourth point, should I go for other feats then?

Yes.

I have suggestions, but it would help if you shared your list of Magus Arcana first. Personally, if given the choice between most combat feats and Extra Arcana, I'd probably go for the latter--there are far fewer feat taxes involved that route, and more opportunity for synergy.

Quote:

Or is there a way to increase my BAB?

Short of taking levels in a full BAB class, no.

I'm still trying to figure out my arcana at the moment. Of the four I can learn, I'm taking arcane accuracy at level 6 and quickened magic at level 15. A little hesitant to take hasted assault since we've got an alchemist that can craft me boots of speed (the goal is to get that asap). I'm also hesitant to retrain arcana.

What would you consider to be an adequate DC? Ideally I'd be making enough attacks with a high enough crit rate that multiple saves will have to be made. Worst case scenario, the debuff still happens, it's just not as strong. Appreciate the help.

A few things to consider:

1. Lunge needs to come at 9th level (at which point you have BAB +6). Intensified can be taken at 5th, instead. It will stack with Long Arm, so there's some utility there.

2. If you're not taking Armor of the Pit (and you probably will rely more on your magic for defense than mundane armor/natural armor), are there any magus arcana you'd like to get around that level that you couldn't at 3rd?

3. Improved Critical won't stack with Keen, which you can easily grant to your weapon using your Arcane Pool.

4. Both Staggering Critical and Stunning Critical work off your BAB. A Fort save DC 22 isn't going to net you much joy at 17th level.

For your fourth point, should I go for other feats then? Or is there a way to increase my BAB?

Hey, I'm running your run-of-the-mill bladebound/kensai dervish magus in a campaign I'm starting soon (we're going all the way to LV20 so I'm pretty hyped to see how kensai will develop) and I had an inquiry regarding feat selection.

My current feat list is as follows:
LV 1: Weapon Finesse
LV 3: Dervish Dance
LV 5: Lunge
LV 5+: Armor of the Pit
LV 7: Intensified Spell (Meta)
LV 9: Spell Penetration
LV 11: Improved Critical
LV 11+: Authoritative Spell (Meta)
LV 13: Empower Spell (Meta)
LV 15: Spell Perfection
LV 17: Staggering Critical
LV 17+: Stunning Critical
LV 19: Critical Mastery

Running prehensile tail tiefling.

Armor of the Pit is definitely getting axed. I know I could technically go for maximize or quicken instead of authoritative spell, but for roleplay reasons I think the whole concept behind authoritative is sick so I'm keeping it. My thoughts are as follows:

Should I keep lunge or axe it and use something like long arm?

My feat selection is incredibly offense-heavy. I'm a little worried I haven't invested enough in defense.

I tried to keep a reasonable balance between spellcasting and crit-fishing since I don't want to pander too much to one or the other. Should I drop staggering critical (along with armor of the pit) and replace them with critical focus + bleeding critical?

Feat order??? Should I swap anything around, or?

I'm picking magus as my favored class. How many hitpoints/ranks should I take, if any? Or should I dump everything into CHC?

Any spell/equip recs or general strategy is greatly appreciated. Thanks.