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Certainly at lower levels, the kensai is losing due to no armor, fewer spells, and no spell recall. Is the leveling of the kensai that much tougher until he makes it higher or does he fail as archetype overall? I'm making a new PC for my game and want this character. Multiclassing and min/max/opt-ing aside, is Kensai viable? I love the spellblending with melee combat, but don't want a weak character and losing what the kensai does, it seems like that arch doesn't have the tools needed to carry out a viable spellcombat/strike.
As i am currently building one (Kensai) as well I have been looking at this same issue.
I built both ways up to 7 and you are right the vanilla magus is a better caster.
However the Kensai seems to play more like a fighter with a few spells while the magus is a caster that can fight.
for me, I ended up going Kensai as i like the flavor and it seems like it will do fine at low levels.
level 1 I ended up with a katana at +5 to hit for 1d8+6 (2-handing it)
for what its worth you can see the beginnings of what ill be taking to gencon to run through first steps Here
Good luck with your choice.
I play a Kensai in a Kingmaker game and I love him. Full disclosure, I have a HUGE love for finesse fighter types. At 6th level, fully buffed (Mage Armor, Sheild, Cat's Grace) he has a 29 AC. We rolled stats, and I did well, so he has a 20 INT, 18 DEX. In terms of optimization DEX and INT should be switched I'm sure, but I liked the benefits of INT in terms of skills. One of the benefits is that he can attack and buff himself in the same round. He usually has Mage Armor up already, casts Cat's Grace, then attacks. If it looks like the Monster is getting close, he'll throw shield.
Being Kingmaker I went with the Aldori Dueling Sword, and even took the Sword Lord feat for the +2 shield bonus to AC (Sheild spell provides another +2) and the +1 to init. I think if I could do it again, I would probably avoid that feat, but it's not a huge regret.
Having such a high init really frees your traits up for other things. There are a lot of great ones for Kensai.
I find the character very viable, though will admit, being in a party with a Greatsword wielding Barbarian greatly improved my survival odds at lower levels.
I played a magus (hexcrafter) in Kingmaker until, at level 6 he got killed the second time and I retired him.
It was great fun and I'll be playing another magus sometime in the future. Perhaps I'll try a kensai next time. But the way I played him I never felt like I had too many spells and not enough martial prowess.
Except for his too low con (10), that killed him two times.
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I love the Kensai in theory, and I've helped a couple of other players in my group make one, but for me I just can't give up spell recall so easily, because it really is one of their most fantastic class features.
Mainly what I've been looking at is that the Kensai is a stronger candidate for Pool Strike than the standard magus simply because you don't have spell recall. Also, pool strike doesn't have to be cast defensively, so that's a big plus.
But the standard Magus is actually really versatile once you hit level 4, because then you never really have to prepare more than one of any single spell on any given day, just recall a spell if you need it again.
Regardless of the arch, you need to grab a high-crit range weapon, like a rapier, scimitar, or (for the kensai) a katana.
Losing Spell Recall plus the diminished spell casting seems to not be worth it at all for what you get in return.
I played one mixed with blackblade arch u to 11th level.. Ditn regret not going vanilla..