I love the concept of a Magus with a shield. As soon as I saw this I thought Taldan Duelist Magus. It seems like the only way to do a build like this is with a Buckler, since you can't cast spells with both hands full. It seems like unless you bond with a Buckler, the class really doesn't do what you think it should until at least 8th level (that is cast spells with sword and shield in hand). I must be missing something here, right?
You only need one hand to cast, and IIRC a light shield still allows you to cast with that hand while wielding a weapon in the other one.
I love the concept of a Magus with a shield. As soon as I saw this I thought Taldan Duelist Magus. It seems like the only way to do a build like this is with a Buckler, since you can't cast spells with both hands full. It seems like unless you bond with a Buckler, the class really doesn't do what you think it should until at least 8th level (that is cast spells with sword and shield in hand). I must be missing something here, right?You only need one hand to cast, and IIRC a light shield still allows you to cast with that hand while wielding a weapon in the other one.
Yes you can cast when you use a light shield but not the way you said.
The light shield allows you to hold things in your hand, so you free action your weapon to the shield hand, cast your spell, free action the weapon back to your weapon hand, it's the way the clerics are casting spells while holding a light shield and a morningstar.
Don't blame desing, blame 3.5 legacy and backwards compability, they could change only so many things in PF and keeping backwards compability so we end up with some weird and silly things like that.
By the way the 8th level ability means that now the magus can use heavy shields.
I don't think so. In the description of a Buckler, it specifically states that you can use a Buckler and cast a spell, albeit with a forfeiture of the AC bonus of the shield. There is no such mention with regard to light or heavy shields.
In addition, the Skirnir can, at 8th cast with a shield (other than a Buckler), and if using a Buckler, no longer forfeits the AC bonus. This suggests to me that Bucklers are inherently different than other shields with regard to casting.
The problem, of course, is that you cannot bash with a Buckler unless you take 2 levels of Rondelero Duelist Fighter.
It seems like it really takes 8 levels or a multiclass to make this archetype work, and I was under the impression that these were precisely the things Pathfinder was trying to avoid (complicated multiclassing and class archetypes that take several levels to do what they are intended to do).
Edit:
Of course, there is always the Quickdraw Shield... which with the Quickdraw feat allows donning and removing a Quickdraw Shield as a free action.Edit 2:
Sorry Leo, you posted right as I was finishing mine. I see what you are saying, but this seems like a silly workaround for a poorly designed feature.
Or you could use the shield itself in combat. Won't be a dpr nightmare or a crit nightmare, but it's a flavorful and decently powerful enough build for a magus specializing in shields.
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The Skirnir archetype cannot use Spell Combat until level 8. It's pretty clear. However, there is nothing preventing her from casting spells as usual with a light shield or buckler in one hand and a weapon in the other. Same as any caster. Don't forget she also doesn't have any spell failure chance when using a shield. She functions sort of like a cleric as far as how she can use shields and cast spells.
She gains spell combat at level 8, but only when using her bonded shield. She loses her shield bonus though when using spell combat (unless its a buckler). [She wouldn't lose her shield bonus to AC when casting a spell normally]. At 19th level, she retains her shield bonus to AC when using spell combat.