I was looking at the elemental knight racial archetype for sulis and thought "wow, this is terrible, but it's so cool."
The race has a penalty to INT which is essential, and it focuses on elemental assault which, as far as I can tell, is almost useless.
Is there anyway to make this work?
I'm aware I could do a human with racial heritage, but what fun is that?
Yeah, so it's pretty terrible. I see nothing redeeming about it.
There are most definitely suboptimal choices built into the game to look cool but be pretty useless.
Assault energy is not that bad. It can add some damage to AoE spells. And I'm not sure, but I think it also doubles up on DoT spells like acid arrow.
Elemental assault is good for low level play, I guess. It appears the majority say this archetype is worthless which is what I thought.
Thanks!
Biggest Arcane Pool of ANY magus + 1/4 with favored class option + 1/4 with elemental matrix.
Assault Synergy is a good damage boost for builds using frostbite and rime spell for ongoing touches that fatigue/entangle
as written even if you have 'shockshield' for immediate action d6 electrification you can add other damage types if you have the archetype.
Reflection at 12th instead of 15th can have use in some campaigns.
The int loss is no biggy if you avoid save spells, 7 chr nets you a 9 and 4 stat points, +2 str is great for a str build.
There are some great str / staff magus builds out there!
Also works with blackblade if like the elemental blade thing but an elemental or other familiar is often sweeter.
I think the biggest problem of elemnetal assault is that elemental assault doesnt work in combination with manufactured weapons... While most of the magus powers are build around touch attacks/manufactured weapons. It's a weird combo. I'm putting on my list of "cool trap options".
What what ????
"Unarmed strikes with her arms or hands (or attacks with weapons held in those hands) deal +1d6 points of damage of the appropriate energy type."
NB: "or attacks with weapon held in those hands"
it doesn't get clearer than that !
I guess I am blind sometimes. HOW AM I USING THE INTERNET! AHHHHH!
Sorry, existential crisis moment. This makes it a lot more interesting. Although it does require more careful management of resources.
Suli>>>>>>>Elemental Fist.
In fact, I quite like the Suli. Suli sohei shooting off like 10 arrows that are all flaming and get+20 damage from class bonus? Yes please!
Now, for Elemental Knight. Is there a way to add cold descriptor to chill touch? That'd be pretty nice.
Can we make this work then? Anyone have any build ideas?
I'll try it out tonight, but I think it can be functionnal (if not optimal).
williamoak wrote: I'll try it out tonight, but I think it can be functionnal (if not optimal). Thank you, I eagerly await your conclusion.
Taking the Blade Bound archetype could be interesting, but it delays your unique arcanas (of which IMO only assault energy is worth thinking about). On the other hand, you shore up on your Arcane pool weakness of that archetype; Suli giving you 1/2 point/level as class bonus and the ability to emergency switch your Elemental assault into Arcane points more than offsets the 1/3rd pool progression of bladebound.
Other archetypes available are scarf dancer (meh, though could be taken along black blade...), Staff Magus (pretty good actually), Spellblade (ew...).
Another thing to consider is that you could actually try some multiclassing here. Taking Dragon Disciple for example sounds like an interesting path to take, and a level of crossblooded orc/dragon sorc sounds like a nice dip. In fact, I think since you are adding more die to the damage of the spell, there's a real chance here that the bloodline arcana and your assault energy feature would stack (as you are adding damage dice). This could be real interesting here.
I've been working on a blackblade/elemental knight up to level 13. For the moment, it's a bit underwhelming, but it doesnt seem awful. I dont have the time to finish tonight though, I've got a pathfinder game. Playing my own magus.
I'll see what I can do. I really like the crossblooded sorcerer idea. What are the traits that magi always take? Magical lineage and something else?
You see, it would work well with the cabalist 3rd party archetype; basically sorcerous magus...
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I had made this build before. I houseruled though that the cabalist magus casts with Charisma.
Elemental knight is a fine archetype. The INT penalty of the Sulis holds it back from shining.
Suli Cabalist Elemental Knight Magus 12 / Dragon Disciple 8
STATS:
STR 18
DEX 12
CON 14
INT 5
WIS 12
CHA 16
Traits: Magical Lineage (Frostbite), Outlander: Lore Seeker
1 Magus Rime Spell
2 Magus
3 Magus Spontaneous Metafocus (Frostbite), Arcana: Arcane Accuracy
4 Magus Incremental Elemental Assault
5 Magus Additional Traits: (Metamagic Master: Shocking Grasp, Reactionary), Enforcer
6 Magus Arcana: Assault Synergy
7 Magus Intensify Spell
8 Dragon Disciple
9 Dragon Disciple Spontaneous Metafocus (Shocking Grasp), Power Attack
10 Dragon Disciple
11 Dragon Disciple Elemental Spell, Improved Initiative
12 Magus
13 Magus Extra Arcana: Accurate Strikes, Arcana: Hasted Assault
14 Dragon Disciple
15 Dragon Disciple Spell Penetration
16 Dragon Disciple
17 Dragon Disciple Spell Perfection: Cone of Cold, Quicken Spell
18 Magus
19 Magus Dazing Spell, Extra Arcana: Spell Blending (Contingency)
20 Magus Arcana: Spell Blending (Permanency)
Master of the Dark Triad wrote: I'll see what I can do. I really like the crossblooded sorcerer idea. What are the traits that magi always take? Magical lineage and something else? A good damaging build could go like this:
Magus 1
Magus 2
Crossblooded Tattooed Orc/Dragonic Sorcerer 1
Magus x
Take spell combat and spellstrike and dip one lvl of sorc for the increased damage. Then continue with magus. Standard blaster magus, the only additions that come from the Elemental knight archetype is the elemental assault and the elemental synergy.
Admittedly, Hexcrafter is a better archetype. However, Elemental Knightis still stronger than going straight Magus for a Suli. So this is a fine build.
I've been working on the Elemental knight build, and while it does have issues (mainly with saves, ac and to hit) it has very high damage.
Combine that with "monstrous physique" which can give you 5+ primary natural attack, AND ellemental assault, you can deal MASSIVE damage.
While the elemental knight isnt ideal, it is quite interesting. Once I'm finished the build I'll post it up.
Well, I've finished my build. It's interesting, though limited. He does decent damage, though his low to-hit relies on buffage & acrcane accuracy (a +5 is nothing to sneeze at).
Elemental knight
It isnt awesome, but it's decent. It's a good "nova" build, though it's defense are lower than I would like.
Nice. Would have gone staff magus as less hit and no AC issues. Far less damage though then again magus is all about its spell damage or spell lock downs.
The available arcane pool (effective elemental arcane pool) makes it pretty sexy. The picture for the race is one of the best as well.
Mas, I just realised I forgot to include arcane pool attacks.
In any case, I chose the blackblade to make him less dependant on his own arcane pool (which will always be anemic anyway). Plus, the blackblade never really needs to worry about weapon cost. Why? Because even if his black blade gets destroyed, it can be replaced at 200 gp * level. Super cheap.
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A minor note: with assault energy, frostbite is going to deal 1d6 nonlethal and 2d6 lethal +1 STR dmg on every spellstrike, up to 13 of them. That puts the damage/spellslot waaaay above the intensified shocking grasp (although, of course a lot more spread out). However, even on just a full attack with 5 hits (and four armed gargoyle can manage that) it'll outdamage it.
If elemental touch can be used with spellstrike it has an even more crazy good dmg/spellslot ratio. Acid arrow could be another good fire and forget spell.
XMorsX wrote: Master of the Dark Triad wrote: I'll see what I can do. I really like the crossblooded sorcerer idea. What are the traits that magi always take? Magical lineage and something else? A good damaging build could go like this:
Magus 1
Magus 2
Crossblooded Tattooed Orc/Dragonic Sorcerer 1
Magus x
Take spell combat and spellstrike and dip one lvl of sorc for the increased damage. Then continue with magus. Standard blaster magus, the only additions that come from the Elemental knight archetype is the elemental assault and the elemental synergy.
Admittedly, Hexcrafter is a better archetype. However, Elemental Knightis still stronger than going straight Magus for a Suli. So this is a fine build. the sorc dip also gets you an expanded list of wands/scrolls you can use without rolling for UMD, which has it's advantages.
AndIMustMask wrote: XMorsX wrote: Master of the Dark Triad wrote: I'll see what I can do. I really like the crossblooded sorcerer idea. What are the traits that magi always take? Magical lineage and something else? A good damaging build could go like this:
Magus 1
Magus 2
Crossblooded Tattooed Orc/Dragonic Sorcerer 1
Magus x
Take spell combat and spellstrike and dip one lvl of sorc for the increased damage. Then continue with magus. Standard blaster magus, the only additions that come from the Elemental knight archetype is the elemental assault and the elemental synergy.
Admittedly, Hexcrafter is a better archetype. However, Elemental Knightis still stronger than going straight Magus for a Suli. So this is a fine build. the sorc dip also gets you an expanded list of wands/scrolls you can use without rolling for UMD, which has it's advantages. Good point.
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