Getting a decent AC isn't that hard, especially since you get medium armor next level (unless one of those archetypes gets rid of that, I'm not too familiar with them). Just cast Shield when you really need high AC. Your main defence should come from spells anyway. Mirror Image, Blur and so on. But in general, a Magus just kills everything that comes too close before it even has a chance to hurt him much.
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2mecg&page=1?UM-Walters-Guide-to-the-Magus
The god guide to all things Magus .
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The reason that the Hexcrafter guide doesn't help BladeBound much is because Bladebound really, REALLY suxs as a archetype. You give up far too much in exchange for saving a bit of cash and picking up energy attunement.
Overall you'd do better playing a regular Magi instead (or go straight Hexcrafter and just rule).
Ok, what feats should I take? Should I look at feats like dodge or weapon focus, or should I take extra arcana or increased arcane pool?
Your might want some metamagic here and there, don't forget your traits. Magical Lineage or Wayang spell hunter with a touch spell of your choice(There is also Student of philosophy to look at to make up for a dumped charisma.) A magus is a caster and a fighter, way later on you might consider the critical focus feats, but that's not for a long time and by then you get access to spell perfection. You can also look at power attack > Cornugan smash or Blade of Mercy > Enforcer combinations, but I never liked giving up much attack on a 3/4 BAB character. Possibly nab spell specialization and the like to boost the touch spell you intend to spam. As a Hex crafter you may think of using extra arcane for hexes, some hexes are very nice, but not too much because many hexes are lacking, as do many arcanas.
Lots of options!
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The issue with bladebound is even worse in a low magic, money starved campaign.
Blade bound costs you: A third of your arcane pool, the ability to EVER enchant your weapon, prevents you from getting a Magus arcana before 6th level and takes away your chance of getting a familiar (which is awesome on a Hexcrafter).
A. In a low magic campaign giving up a third of your arcane pool SEVERELY reduces your staying power (murders your spell recall when you get it, can't adequately power your arcane accuracy, etc).
B. Not getting any Arcana before 5th level means fully a third of your characters life is spent as a sub-par fighter. Arcana are too powerful to forgo for that long.
C. Bladebound weapons can't ever be enchanted so you will never get a spell storing enchant or any of the useful enchants that aren't on the VERY limited list the blade can do itself. It costs too much to get that low-quality "scaling" weapon
D. Getting the bladebound means taking an item that fights you for control of your own character instead of getting an ally who gives you an entire second set of actions each round.
The black blade is a bad choice 9 times out of 10, it lacks enough extras to compete with a good familiar most of the time and actively reduces your characters potency in combat. The hexcrafter abilities help with that a bit but it's more efficient to skip it and do something else.
Familiars are useful for a lot of things. Free alertness, second perception, great will skill checks, free pet, etc.
Bladebound doesn't actually give up a 3rd of your arcana pool. it reduces it from 1/2+int(15 at level 20 with 20 intellect) to 1/3+int(11 at level 20 with 20 intellect), which at level 20 would be a total of 4 arcana points. not quiet 1/3 but close. 4 level 1 spells would be equal to 4000 gold, though improved spell recall makes it much much nicer imo. I actually really like not having to worry about my weapon, but that's a personal preference.
Btw, no traits in this campaign, not sure why.
No traits and low magic? Anything else we should know?
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I'm guessing you've never actually used a familiar before, wands are the least they can do. Remember they are full creatures meaning they can do anything any other character can do (attack, move, aid another, steal, scout, etc) and can benefit from any and every spell you can cast as well as cast some of their own.
If you've read my Hexcrafter guide you've seen some of the polymorph tricks we've described there. Your familiar is a valid choice for all of those. Transform your familiar into a 12 foot tall four armed gargoyle or Charda and have him shred your opponent (have fun and time it so when you use spell combat the Familiar is the one delivering the spell instead of you).
Or use the Familiar Melding spell to jump into your Imp and get all of it's powers added onto your own AND become effectively un-killable for HOURS per day. Or just have a scout that can go ANYWHERE and let you know exactly what's going on throughout the whole dungeon from the safety of the front door.
In a lower magic world action economy gets stronger and stronger at each level. Add to that having a familiar lets you use a hex and deliver a spell at the same time. THAT is powerful, the blackblade just makes you spend finite resources faster for less of a return on that investment.
Anyway, you seem to be set on taking the less effective route with the blackblade. If it's what you want, go for it a good GM will create an environment to let any choice shine at least once.
The Bladebound Hexcrafter isn't as bad as some people here are making it out to be. It's the internet, anything people don't like quickly defaults to "Worst choice EVA!!!!!". Both familiar and black blade are choices that are GM dependent, and BB isn't a weak archtype or useless archtype, you'd still be in the top 1/3 of Magus archtype/archtype combos.
You won't find much on Bladebound Hexcrafters specifically though because they're very self explanatory.
You have a few less AP
You'll use Hexes instead (see the Witch guide in guide to the guides for reviews of Hexes)
You don't get arcana til 6
Since you're starting at 6 (and you got a hex at 4 IIRC) that isn't that bad
You won't have the familiar tricks
You will have 20+% of your WBL saved to be spent on other magic toys
The combination isn't a weak one just because it isn't the most optimized theoretically, it's decent. It just, aside from incorporating some hexes into what you do, and not using the familiar tricks, doesn't really need any special wisdom to play aside from the default Magus advice you can find all over the forums.
Good luck, and make sure to take the Slumber Hex ASAP.
Pick what you want and what's fun, or what your GM will give you a better time with (I'd ask him how he runs Familiars and Black Blades before I chose, personally). Hexcrafter with familiar or Bladebound Hexcrafter can both do their role in the group fine. It's on you as a player to make that happen, so play the oen you'll (enjoy) put(ting) the effort into.
You can always play the other down the road [Some nice GMs will let you retcon wat you are if you don't like it after trying it.] Pick what you want to pick. The two are close enoug in power a good player of one will beat out a bad/disinterested player of the other 99 times of 100.
The most vital of arcana are spell shield and arcane accuracy (not necessarily in that order), so I could get one at 6th and one with a feat at 7th. I'd get slumber, flight, and healing in that order ASAP. Would bladebound get terribly in the way of those plans? If not, I might go BB now.
Debate the healing hex. If that's good or a waste depends on your groups make up.
No, BB doesn't effect your Hexcrafting side of things. You can read it's description and know that though. It only effects your AP, WBL, and use of familiar.
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I'm guessing you've never actually used a familiar before, wands are the least they can do. Remember they are full creatures meaning they can do anything any other character can do (attack, move, aid another, steal, scout, etc) and can benefit from any and every spell you can cast as well as cast some of their own.
If you've read my Hexcrafter guide you've seen some of the polymorph tricks we've described there. Your familiar is a valid choice for all of those. Transform your familiar into a 12 foot tall four armed gargoyle or Charda and have him shred your opponent (have fun and time it so when you use spell combat the Familiar is the one delivering the spell instead of you).Or use the Familiar Melding spell to jump into your Imp and get all of it's powers added onto your own AND become effectively un-killable for HOURS per day. Or just have a scout that can go ANYWHERE and let you know exactly what's going on throughout the whole dungeon from the safety of the front door.
In a lower magic world action economy gets stronger and stronger at each level. Add to that having a familiar lets you use a hex and deliver a spell at the same time. THAT is powerful, the blackblade just makes you spend finite resources faster for less of a return on that investment.
Anyway, you seem to be set on taking the less effective route with the blackblade. If it's what you want, go for it a good GM will create an environment to let any choice shine at least once.
Or why not play a class that actually focuses on a pet instead of trying to shoehorn the magus into being something it's not? Summoner, druid, ranger, hell, even the wizard is better at this than the magus. The magus doesn't get tons of spells per day. If you're using them to make your familiar be less relevant, that's just fewer spells available for the magus to do his magus thing.
Your argument that bladebound is bad in a low magic game is also rather ridiculous. A free scaling weapon is huge in a low...
Wow, someone sounds like they don't like having the truth of their favorite archetype be discussed. First off, of those choices only the Wizard has a better, more useful pet. The Druid and Ranger are extremely limited in what they can get their pet to do and the Summoners pet is.. well we just want talk about that horribly complicated thing with all the problems it has.
The familiar is a wonderful OPTION that the Magi has and only the Bladebound archetype takes that away. No other archetype does that making this an important consideration when choosing from the hundreds of possibilities out there.As for the weapon, it's only of value if you build your character around it which if you had read the OP's opening statement you'd see is the exact opposite of what he's doing. (Hexcrafters focus on spells and hexes with the weapon a distant, distant third). A Magi's weapon is strictly a means of delivering a effect on a target, whether that's a feat, spell or maneuver that's really all it's good for. If you want to use it as a beatstick play a fighter, they do it faster, better and easier.
And finally losing ANY of his arcane pool is bad enough but I stand by the one-third comment. As MrSin put that math together for you earlier at max level you are so close to being 1/3rd of your arcane pool down that the difference is almost meaningless. The higher the level the game gets to the bigger the difference gets. With as many uses the Magi has for their pool points and as resource focused the class is giving up any of it is an expensive option. One I personally would not choose to take.
I've been considering focusing more on hexes than arcana. With that said, I'll need less points. Also, and I know this is dumb, but what does OP stand for. Other than overpowered, I mean.
OP can also stand for Original poster.
Hexes can pretty awesome. Too bad you never qualify for Split Hex. They also aren't very well supported, and many of them are just awful. Hard to complain about having more options though!
Blackblade might actually ahead for arcane points at end game because of life drinker, if you have 20 intellect at level 5 like my friend, you have 7 vs. 6 arcane points total. 1 point total.
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OP=Original Post.
Now before this goes any further let me give you a very simple statement to help you understand what a Magus really is. It sums up the class about as clearly as possible.
A Magus is a Caster who fights, not a Fighter who casts.
Everything about the class is based on the assumption that 90% of your effectiveness comes from your magical abilities. Spending resources on anything else actually makes your character weaker.
You can absolutely build your Magus as a bladebound and spend your feats/resources getting stronger melee attacks with it. Lets say you burn enough to get a flat +10 to hit and damage on each hit by 12th level, lets make it +15 to hit and damage instead just to highlight the difference. That means you're combat values look like this against a CR appropriate opponent (lets go an adult black dragon at CR 12).
1D6+15 at +24/+19 to hit. With spell combat it drops to +22/17 but you get to add 5D6 damage from 1 shocking grasp. Against AC 31 that's a 45% miss on the first shot and 70% on the second. Lets say you got lucky and both of them hit you would then do 7D6+30 or 54 pts of damage IF you could get through the spell resistance. (Since you focused everything on the Blade then your spell casting is going to be weaker and more badly affected by the SR).
Now imagine you invested those resources instead into your spell/hex casting instead and attacked that same target but shaped as a Calikang channeling a Frostbite spell and using the Accurate Strike ability.
Here you'll be doing ((1D6+2 (from str) + 1D6+12)x5 times a round) for 10D6+80 every round against your targets touch AC so you only miss on a 1 (Average of 115 a round instead). All this before using your hexes or familiar (aid another, flanking bonus, wand/scroll spell casting, etc).
The point we are highlighting here is your MAGICAL abilities are what you use to win your fights and in a low magic world those become infinitely more powerful since no one else has any magic to defend against it.
Any of your character resources you spend on martial combat (and the Black Blade is 100% martial combat focused) makes your magic that much weaker. And if you are concerned on what to do when you run out of spells or the target is immune to spells you use your Hexes which ignore spell resistance/immunity to magic and quickly devastates the target instead.
Your main hand weapon is an afterthought 75% of the time and an actual DETRIMENT to you the rest of the time. Your hexes take the place of the weapon swings most of the time while your natural attacks deliver all the HP damage you need.
Slumber is nasty, Misfortune is a game changer, Evil Eye is ALWAYS great, Flight is king of the battlefield and Ice Tomb is just made of Win.
@Vestrial, the reason you'd only have a 20 Int at 20 is probably because you had to invest in STR/DEX & con since you are now focusing on melee damage. (What's the point of taking an archetype that focuses on weapon damage if you don't build around using the weapon).
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Familiars are useful for a lot of things. Free alertness, second perception, great will skill checks, free pet, etc.
Having a Black Blade DOES give you Alertness. What it gives up is a few feats worth of stuff, its easy to survive to level 6 without an Arcana. Plus, with Hexcrafter, you don't even need your pool for recalling spells until Improved Spell Recall.
Weapon focus is a nice feat to take with a Bladebound, given that you are never ever going to use anything else. Another feat to take at some point is Improved Critical, since you want to be able to spend your free enchanting in other ways.
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stuffYour entire argument is based on the premise that either: You spend all your resources on spells/hexes, or all your resources on melee. This is a false dichotomy. The entire point of the magus is that he does both. You will not be casting spells/throwing hexes every single turn. Being able to contribute reasonable amounts of damage spending 0 resources is a good thing.
If you want to go full caster, again I ask, why are you playing a magus? A wizard is vastly better at being a straight caster. People usually chose magus because they want to actually melee and cast.
And I don't really see the value of pulling numbers out of the air as you're doing. Compare actual decisions that are relevant in this case.
Now imagine you invested those resources instead into your spell/hex casting instead and attacked that same target but shaped as a Calikang channeling a Frostbite spell and using the Accurate Strike ability.
Here you'll be doing ((1D6+2 (from str) + 1D6+12)x5 times a round) for 10D6+80 every round against your targets touch AC so you only miss on a 1 (Average of 115 a round instead). All this before using your hexes or familiar (aid another, flanking bonus, wand/scroll spell casting, etc).And how did you become a Calikang? Even in your own comparison, the 'caster' magus is expending vastly more resources than the melee to double his damage for one whole round? And the first example gets two more uses of SG to boot...
No the argument is that you are spending ANY of your resources on the other. The point I stated is simple, every point of resources you spend increasing your melee ability is a point you didn't spend increasing your arcane ability. This is simply an indisputable fact.
As for the reason of going Magus over Wizard is immaterial. The OP wanted to build a Magus that did X, whether a Wizard does it better doesn't matter since the request was to do it with a Magi.
As for the numbers "out of the air" we can only work with what we were given. We have a shared Hexcrafter build the OP and I have both acknowledged we know of and a nebulous idea of a melee focused BB. Without stats for that BB we can only pull numbers out of the air to compare against a known quantity.
If YOU would care to generate a BladeBound Hexcrafter to contribute to the discussion to show what that design can do then Please provide it. I for one would love to see an alternative to the casting focused magus.
Finally assuming the Calikang form did expend a higher level spell slot but got VASTLY higher return on that investment since that slot will last a minimum of 2 battles (probably more since this is a 1/min per level spell and benefits from Extend Metamagic) and caters to this style of play. Also expending a 4th level and a 1st level spell to equal the output of 3 2nd level spells is close enough not to split hairs.
Your party already has 4 melee types (ah and cleric as auxiliary 5th), I assume. Killing of sorc & putting one melee type more isn't going to help the party. I would recommend starting to switch your spell arsenal from blasty spells to those benefical to others (=Enlarge Person for Pally & big guys, Vanish for Rogue & to who ever is in trouble, Haste for all). Now of course chancing spells "right way" is unforunate slow process. If you are a human, use the favoured class option all you can. Or talk to GM. Maybe ad hoc changes in the spell list isn't as bad as chancing chars.
If you are however anyway going to do str Magus, I would recommend spamming Mirror Image rather than trying to improving AC. Also then in that group, I would rather use my spells on others than myself.