Magus / Arcane Archer: How can I make this work?

[Better_with_Bacon]

Good Morning Fellow Gamers,
I have a player who wants to make their magus into an Arcane Archer.

I want to encourage them to explore their character concepts, even if they may not be ... traditional.

How would you turn a Hexcrafter Magus into an Arcane archer.

This is not a 'from the ground' build. And the feat selection has not archery feats, so they wont be able to qualify for Arcane Archer until 9th level, so they will be 8th level Magus/1st level Arcane Archer if they take the required archery feats between now and then.

(They are also interested in Eldritch Knight... but I think that is kind of redundant with Magus, but they want more hit points...)

Very Respectfully,
--Bacon

[Zwordsman]

Other than being sure to get the prereqs for arcane archer whats the problem?

You can't spell strike with it (i suppose maybe myrdamatch archetype but there is some issue i don't know of I've heard) but you can do spell combat, which with the arcane archer's thing means you can just shoot a load of powered up arrows, with one attached a spell..
Except for losing the spell sword thingy (as your using abow.. though i guess maybe you could do it by stabbing someone with an arrow in CQC if you had to)

It seems like they'd fit well enough without much issues (sans how heavy archer is feat wise I suppose)

Though i suppose most hex's are what 30ft range? kinda close

[Imbicatus]

I would recommend either house-ruling bowstaff to be a magus spell or allow a weapon enchantment to have an always on version of the spell. That way, they don't have to choose between melee and ranged weapons.

They would loose out on Arcana, but the AAs enchant arrow and imbue arrows make up for it somewhat.

The biggest problem is as a magus with reduced casting, they will loose the best Arcane Archer trick, Antimagic Field Arrows.