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As the title says. While Spell Combat is a powerful ability to be sure, the ability to use the new advance player's guide feat slashing grace with an elven curve blade seems, at the least, an ammusing path for a magus to take. The 2-handed magus is often seen as inferior for two distinct reasons. A) It loses the ability to use Spell Combat Effectively and B) It requires you to use str as your primary stat, which is often seen as an inferior primary to dex.
Slashing grace fixes one of those issues, the reliance on str. By going the -slashing grace- route you can weild an elven curve blade and get dex to damage(slashing grace) and to-hit(weapon finess), giving you the dex-reliance of the dervish dancer with the big, d10 damage dice of the bash and smash greatsword wielder. Even further, you keep the nice 18-20 crit-range of the scimitar, too. The downsides? For one, you can't spellstrike on extra attacks due to the way you have to work around spellstrike with free actions to channel spells through your curve blade. However, with the D10 damage dice and acssess to feats like power attack, furious focus, vital strike ect...in addition to your channeled spell, you'd be doing piles and piles of damage on that one attack. The second is that you delay dex to damage from level 3 to level 5. However, at levels 1-2 you are in FAR, FAR better shape then the dervish dancer, who has abysmal to-hit due to not being able to finess his scimitar without dervish dance.
Also, while Slashing Grace demands more feats to enter, it's actually less wasteful then dervish dance in terms of entry. Slashing grace dose cost one more feat then dervish dance, yes, but unlike Dervish Dance one of those feats is actually vital to your build. Weapon Finesse, unlike the dervish dancer, is of such importance to your build that you'd be taking it either way, so you can't really count it as a "wasted feat" since it's one of the two key feats in your build. The other "feat tax", Weapon Focus may not be the best use of it's place, it's still marginally helpful and you'll certainly get use out of it. Thus, we compare the two, both dervish dance and slashing grace waste 1 feat for entry(Finess for dervish dance, and weapon focus for slashing grace), and slashing grace's wasted feat is one that is actually useful though lackluster while dervish dance's wasted feat is a truly 100% useless feat tax. Oh, and to add insult to injury, dervish dance also demands you waste 2 skill points on the useless perform(dance). So while yes, dervish dance demands less feats for entry, in the end it is actually making you waste more resources despite.
However, I don't know the math on this...so I want to turn to you. Would this elven-curve blade 2-handed magus build be viable? Since it all but ignores spell combat, I was thinking it may be a good build to try out with Eldritch Scion since it only gets limited uses of spell combat until level 8 anyway. Unfortunately, this build is a bit later to bloom then the Dervish, getting dex to damage at level 5 instead of level 3. However, at levels 1-2 it is SIGNIFICANTLY better then the dervish, who can't even finess his rapier and thus has abysmal to-hit.
So would this build be viable? Or is it just too much trouble? Thoughts and opinions please.
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slashing grace only works for one handed weapons wielded one handed right?
slashing grace only works for one handed weapons wielded one handed right?
I believe this is correct.
Also, how would the spell Weaponwand work with a two handed weapon on a Magus with the Wand Wielder arcana?
In this case, you could try to find an Agile Elven Curve Blade (Agile adds Dex instead of Str for damage on any Weapon Finesse compatible weapon). If you cast Weaponwand on it, you are technically wielding both the wand and the Curve Blade (as the wand is inside the sword). With the Wand Wielder, you can substitute using a wand in place of casting a spell. Since Spell Combat functions as TWF, with your off-hand being a spell and you're replacing that spell with a wand activation, it seems like it'd work to me.
Is there a ruling against this?
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Ahh...I have to read slashing grace more carefully. If it's one-handed only then yeah, just ignore the original post The build is utterly pointless if thats the case. I was under the impression it worked with any slashing weapon. Sorry about the mistake. That does make me wonder, though, would a Swashbuckler 1/Eldritch Scion X build be viable for the purpose of making a magus that can go dex-based on a non-scimitar weapon with a larger damage dice with slashing grace(such as a bastard sword) and also get some extra versatility with deeds + panache?
slashing grace only works for one handed weapons wielded one handed right?I believe this is correct.
Also, how would the spell Weaponwand work with a two handed weapon on a Magus with the Wand Wielder arcana?
In this case, you could try to find an Agile Elven Curve Blade (Agile adds Dex instead of Str for damage on any Weapon Finesse compatible weapon). If you cast Weaponwand on it, you are technically wielding both the wand and the Curve Blade (as the wand is inside the sword). With the Wand Wielder, you can substitute using a wand in place of casting a spell. Since Spell Combat functions as TWF, with your off-hand being a spell and you're replacing that spell with a wand activation, it seems like it'd work to me.
Is there a ruling against this?
If you two-hand a weapon you give up all potential off hand attacks. It's one of the newer FAQs I think.
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Yeah, the bastard sword, however, looks like it does what I want. It gets a D10 damage dice while remaining one handed, which means with a swashbuckler dip I can get dex on damage and to-hit with slashing grace while keeping the insane damage dice of the curve blade. So yeah, would swashbucker 1/Eldritch Scion X be worth it, in this case, if focusing on the bastard sword and slashing grace? I think if I go this route, I'd also get to use spell combat with my bastard sword as well, making it even more powerful!
The thing to me is that a d10 19-20 compared to a d6 18-20 isn't that much of an improvement, if any. The bigger crit range means more crits. The extra 2 average damage per hit isn't all that much, also considering the less hits.
Now what you suggested would work like you say it will. You could do it all magus by getting a weapon finesse-able slashing weapon. But panache could be nice.
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What about the rhoka or katana, would that weapon be worth it? It's a d8 instead of a d10, but it keeps the 18-20 crit range. Sadly vital strike becomes no longer worth the trouble, at that point, so I'm not sure the swashbuckler dip is even worth it? Also, there are no finessable slashing weapons that are also one-handed, chess pwn, so swashbuckler dip is the only way to make use of slashing grace with a magus.
Yeah, the bastard sword, however, looks like it does what I want. It gets a D10 damage dice while remaining one handed, which means with a swashbuckler dip I can get dex on damage and to-hit with slashing grace while keeping the insane damage dice of the curve blade. So yeah, would swashbucker 1/Eldritch Scion X be worth it, in this case, if focusing on the bastard sword and slashing grace? I think if I go this route, I'd also get to use spell combat with my bastard sword as well, making it even more powerful!
i will quote the RAW:
Swashbuckler's Finesse (Ex): At 1st level, a Swashbuckler gains the benefits of the Weapon Finesse feat with light or one handed piercing melee weapons, and she can use her charisma score in place of intelligence as a prerequisite for combat feats. this ability counts as having the weapon finesse feat for purpose of meeting feat prerequisites.
And while Elven curve blade can be used with slashing grace (no point dipping into swashbuckler), it is not good for a magus, you can't spell combat, i think this is a crazy reason to do it.
Wow the Katana is so much better than the bastard, i mean 18-20/x2 deadly against a 19-20/x2, the 1d10 is not that superior, but i would stick with the scimitar, you don't even need the swashbuckler level for it, so you don't lose CL.
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Normally, you'd be right. However, the feat slashing grace allows you to count any one-handed slashing weapon as a one-handed piercing weapon for the purposes of feats, class features ect...meaning that a swashbuckler who takes the feat slashing grace could, in fact, weld a bastard sword or katana with swashbuckler's finesse. Just straight weapons finess, however, doesn't work since it only works on light weapons and a small list of other weapons, not all one-handed piercing weapons and therefor you need at least one swashbuckler level in addition to the slashing grace feat to get dex to-hit on something like a Katana or Bastard Sword.
However, despite this it's still better to go dervish dance, as no matter what your still not getting slashing grace until level 3, which means that one of the main appeals of this thought excersize, which was not having to worry about abysmal to-hit prior to level 3, is still an issue.
yes i realized that and edited my post instantly xD
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Yeah, and your still right. I just REALLY don't like the idea of having +1 to hit at level 1, and carrying around a finessable weapon at level 1 to have better to-hit can be quite expensive in terms of GP. Buying that scimitar and light armor will be pricy enough, let alone a second weapon such as a rapier that can be finessed. However, since I want to go eldritch scion(Cha-based Magus) instead of straight magus and will not dump int below 10, I can't see myself getting any more then 13 str, and thus a +1 to-hit at level 1, without going down from 18 starting dex to 17 starting dex....spo yeah...any advice on how to deal with the abysmal to-hit at levels 1-2 on a dex-based eldritch scion?
If your wondering, I'd be building this eldritch scion for PFS, which means 20 point buy and 150 starting gold....So if you think you can squeeze a scimitar, good armor and a finessable weapon along with adventuring gear and spellcasting equipment out of that 150 gp, please, tell me how as that would likely be the most viable solution provided 150 is enough gp to do it.
Yeah, and your still right. I just REALLY don't like the idea of having +1 to hit at level 1, and carrying around a finessable weapon at level 1 to have better to-hit can be quite expensive in terms of GP. Buying that scimitar and light armor will be pricy enough, let alone a second weapon such as a rapier that can be finessed. However, since I want to go eldritch scion(Cha-based Magus) instead of straight magus and will not dump int below 10, I can't see myself getting any more then 13 str, and thus a +1 to-hit at level 1, without going down from 18 starting dex to 17 starting dex....spo yeah...any advice on how to deal with the abysmal to-hit at levels 1-2 on a dex-based eldritch scion?
If your wondering, I'd be building this eldritch scion for PFS, which means 20 point buy and 150 starting gold....So if you think you can squeeze a scimitar, good armor and a finessable weapon along with adventuring gear and spellcasting equipment out of that 150 gp, please, tell me how as that would likely be the most viable solution provided 150 is enough gp to do it.
I would totally recommend dropping your dex from an 18 to 17. The stats you can buy with the difference is worth the one less. And at lv4 you put the point in and you're all good. I feel it's worth the better overall stats then for that highest.
Yeah, the bastard sword, however, looks like it does what I want. It gets a D10 damage dice while remaining one handed, which means with a swashbuckler dip I can get dex on damage and to-hit with slashing grace while keeping the insane damage dice of the curve blade. So yeah, would swashbucker 1/Eldritch Scion X be worth it, in this case, if focusing on the bastard sword and slashing grace? I think if I go this route, I'd also get to use spell combat with my bastard sword as well, making it even more powerful!Wow the Katana is so much better than the bastard, i mean 18-20/x2 deadly against a 19-20/x2, the 1d10 is not that superior, but i would stick with the scimitar, you don't even need the swashbuckler level for it, so you don't lose CL.
I think the primary consideration among those three blades is "How often do you expect to be enlarged?" and/or "can you cast Lead Blades?"
Normally, the katana does about 0.5 points of damage more than a scimitar, and the bastard sword does about 0.3 points more than a katana.
With Enlarge Person or Lead Blades, that difference increases to 1.3 points between the scimitar and katana and about 1.7 points between the katana and bastard sword.
If those aren't part of your strategy list, the difference is not worth worrying about.