subgenius's page

I'd say go for the bard. You don't expect intense combat, so there's no need to max out your combat potential. You can work on the roleplaying aspects instead, and bards have lots of that. You'll get bardic music and cantrips, which have a ton of potential in a low magic world. If there is minimal magic in the world, you can expect any magic to make a big impact on NPC's. Ghost Sound and Prestidigitation both come to mind. Even light could dazzle a crowd, and would come in handy for an all human party in the dark.

Since you have weapon finesse, you use your dex bonus already with the whip, so agile maneuvers won't help any extra with any whip based CM's. There are plenty of good feats to choose from, those listed above are good, or dodge & mobility might suit your character type.

STR Ranger wrote:

Exactly.

You can ATTACK with the weapon normally.

OR you can cast from the wand.
...
I see no reason why this doesn't work with spellstrike.

Assuming this worked as you're suggesting (and I don't think it does, because you're activating a magic item not casting a spell), how would it different than holding the wand in your off hand and activating it? If the spell from the wand could be used with spellstrike, you wouldn't need to have it imbedded in the weapon to do so.

I think it's reasonable that you can spellstrike from your newly merged weaponwand, as long as you have the Wand Wielder arcana which this seems to synergize perfectly with.

This also opens up a different fighting style:

As well, respectable AC is definately attainable as a magus; a chain shirt plus shield (which is useful for magi due to reduced action economy issues) is +8 at the very low end, plus dex.

Krispy meant the spell, but what about using a shield? You would only have the one spell in your wand to spam, along with your arcane pool weapon powerups, but it could a defensive one trick pony for the first couple rounds of a fight before you toss the shield and revert to full casting. Seems legal, though obviously that can be argued and is up to each DM to determine. What do you think, is it worth the extra AC at the cost of your spell selection?

I played an alchemist recently for a campaign and the bombs are pretty good for some circumstances, but have drawbacks. They do great against enemy wizards and ranged enemies. However, the bulk of the enemies you fight will probably be melee to some degree. That isn't a big problem for you, but they will also be up close to the rest of your party. And even with precision bombs, when you miss your attack (as you inevitably will), your DM will cackle maniacally and roll to see where it lands and who gets to eat splash damage.

Unless some of your party have fire resistance, they are not going to be very pleased to be getting hit for an extra 3-10 damage once or twice a round. Sometimes you'll have to do some convincing and negotiating to throw the bombs where you'd like to, which was definitely a lot of fun. But other times you will have to go after subpar targets.

So depending on your DM is and what he decides to throw against your party, he can use his tactics to tone down the bombs threat.

You could also consider getting Wand Wielder as an arcana, and a wand of true strike to extend longevity. Whether via wand or cast normally it synergizes well knowing you will get a hit on your next attack when combined with something like Frigid touch.

Combining that with a keen scimitar, and you have a 1 in 4 chance of causing 10 rounds of stagger with no save, while dealing something like 2d6+12+8d6 (?) damage in one hit.

I'd rather have keen than a +1 if you are fighting primarily humanoids since you have your arcane pool and arcane strike if you encounter a monster with DR.