Magus build help

[Korthis]

Ok so I made the gnome bard to be a support character and my party nearly got killed by two goblins... So now I'm trying to build something with more omph
I want general opinions and have a few questions. Is the possible fatigue worth the trait used? What spells should I pick considering I have limited uses per day? This is for PFS, is it all legal?

Whip magus:

Veradin, Tail of the Beast, Bearer of the “Coiled Lightning”
Tiefling Magus (Bladebound Kensai),Fighter(Mutagen)
STR 10,DEX 20(18+2),CON 10,INT 17(15+2),WIS 10,CHA 5(7-2)
Languages: Common, Infernal, goblin, draconic, orc
FCB:+1/4 to magus arcane pool
Skills: Spellcraft, knowledge arcana, stealth, acrobatics, profession mercenary
Traits: Metamagic master (-1 MM cost: shocking grasp), Two world magic (Touch of fatigue)
Feats: Weapon Finesse, (Fighter feat-Slashing grace)
AC: 17
Initiative: 5
HP: 14
AB: 8 (6 with spell combat) 1d4+5
Can boost to hit, damage and AC by 2 with Dex mutagen
Equipment: 305g Masterwork scorpion whip(disarm, reach(15ft), trip),2g backpack, 1g pouch, 1g flint&steel, 5g 10ration, 1g waterskin, 1g rope, 10g journal, 1g ink/pen
Spells: 0 lvl: All
1st lvl: shocking grasp… help?
Abilities:
Race: Scaled skin (fire resist5, +1 AC), Skilled(+2 bluff/stealth), Maw(1d6 Bite attack), Darkvision 60ft, Prehensile tail
Magus: Arcane pool, spell combat, spells
Kensai: Proficient-Scorpion Whip, Diminished Spell casting, Canny Defense, Weapon focus
Fighter: Bonus feat, mutagen
@ 3 retrain the fighter level to magus and use third level feat for slashing grace and acquire black blade/arcana/+2 AC

[Rerednaw]

I'm not sure what you are trying to do. What is the purpose of this build? What is the typical attack sequence? It looks like you are trying for a dex build with using ToF for spell combat spam and a reach weapon to avoid having to cast defensively?

I can give my general opinion:

Spells are power. Kensai lose spells in exchange for martial prowess.
Dipping out of magus reduces your effectiveness even further.

Touch of Fatigue is not a spell I'd chose to specialize in, but you can if you want to.

A 10 con in PFS, especially in a melee martial build is not conducive towards survival.

One way to get a cantrip that you can spam all day long with spell combat is by using the Hexcrafter archetype. Not only do you get access to the amazing power of hexes you also add all curse spells to your list. This includes the Brand cantrip.

Spell-wise I'd probably add Shield. Though Frostbite (especially with Rime Spell metamagic) is a popular build.

Good luck whatever you decide for your magus!

[kestral287]

I'd skip the Touch of Fatigue thing. Arcane Mark does the job nearly as well without burning a valuable trait slot. If you're hurting for a good trait, Pragmatic Activator is Int-to-UMD and therefore awesome (right now, a +6 to a very useful skill that will scale as you level? That's a yes). Can't go wrong with one of the Perception-as-a-class-skill traits either.

I'm not a fan of combining Bladebound and Kensai because it butchers your Arcana access, but to each his own there.

Personally I dislike Scaled Skin, but then I'm a huge fan of Armor of the Pit. Maw isn't great; the bite is going to scale miserably unless you invest in an Amulet of Mighty Fists... which is not a good choice.

You want a Haramaki. +1 AC on the cheap.

True Strike, Vanish, Shield, Thunderstomp, Grease... there are a ton of good first-level spells.

[Kaouse]

What level are you starting at? It's a bit hard to see. I'm assuming you are starting at level 2, in which case multiclassing into Fighter becomes a much worse idea, since you lose out on Spellstrike, which seems to be a huge focus for you (with all the Shocking Grasp stuff).

At any rate, you can't have Scorpion Whip as a Black Blade. Black blade requires a "One-handed" slashing weapon, not a "Light" weapon. A regular Whip works fine for this, however you'll need Whip Mastery (and later, Improved Whip Mastery) before things start to shine.

For this a Human is preferred, as they can get Slashing Grace at Level 1, allowing you to get Whip Mastery at level 3 without being forced to choose between the two and wait until level 5 to have both, like a Tiefling (or any other species) would.

[Korthis]

To answer some questions, we just hit level 2 in a pfs module and we need some offensive prowess (I agreed to have some arcane casting ability).
@Rerednaw
Attack sequence @ 2 would be: move within 15 ft, spell combat disrupt undead/ray of frost(depending on what we are fighting), Attack with whip. That is 1d3, 1d4+5 per round either focused or spread to two different targets depnding on range and how hurt they are etc. Of course if the enemy is hard to hit just forgo the ray and swing with full attack bonus. For boss fights drink the mutagen and do the above.
For the dip, it is for slashing grace (though the mutagen will be nice for boss fights). I plan to retrain it to be full magus when we hit 3.
I could bump con to 12 by either dropping strength to 8 or int to 16, but is the 1 hp really worth it? (I've always been primarily a caster). Being kensai I don't really need strength to carry armor and such so it would probably come from there.
Touch of fatigue was for "oooh a get to have a second attack and I have a chance to debuff... shiny"
I will probably just use Arcane mark and think of a way to tie it into my story.
@Kestral
Agreed, going pragmatic
Scaled skin seems nice, but I will probably need lots of extra arcana/arcane pool
Agreed on haramaki
I was asking about spells because I get 1 prepared spell... What would be the best bang for the buck? Maybe true strike to disarm the bbeg or guarantee a hit
@ Kaouse
@ 2 with spell strike I would have 1d4 X2 which is 2-8 damage, with slashing grace I have 1d4 +5 which is 6 to 9. The shocking grasp is for when I have more spells per day.
No black blade is kind of sad... but the regular whip is too feat intensive so I will just drop it altogether.
I would LOVE to go human, but as we found out last session everything is pitch black. I need dark vision and of the races with darkvision tiefling seemed to fit the best.

Now I am looking like:

Veradin, Tail of the Beast
Tiefling Magus (Kensai),Fighter(Mutagen)
STR 8,DEX 20(18+2),CON 12,INT 17(15),WIS 10,CHA 5(7-2)
Languages: Common, Infernal, goblin, draconic, orc
FCB:+1/4 to magus arcane pool
Skills: Spellcraft, knowledge arcana, stealth, acrobatics, profession mercenary
Traits: Metamagic master (-1 MM cost: shocking grasp), Pragmatic activator
Feats: Weapon Finesse, (Fighter feat-Slashing grace)
AC: 18
Initiative: 5
HP: 16
AB: 8 (6 with spell combat) 1d4+5
Can boost to hit, damage and AC by 2 with Dex mutagen
Equipment: 305g Masterwork scorpion whip(disarm, reach(15ft), trip), 3g Haramaki, 2g backpack, 1g pouch, 1g flint&steel, 5g 10ration, 1g waterskin, 1g rope, 10g journal, 1g ink/pen, 750g wand of mage armor?
Spells: 0 lvl: All (take read magic, detect magic, disrupt undead, ray of frost
1st lvl: shocking grasp… help?
Abilities:
Race: Scaled skin (fire resist5, +1 AC), Skilled(+2 bluff/stealth), Maw(1d6 Bite attack), Darkvision 60ft, Prehensile tail
Magus: Arcane pool, spell combat, spells
Kensai: Proficient-Scorpion Whip, Diminished Spell casting, Canny Defense, Weapon focus
Fighter: Bonus feat, mutagen

[kestral287]

I'd drop a point from either Profession or Acrobatics and put it in UMD; that'll give you a solid +7 on UMD compared to the +3 you have now.

With only one spell right now I'd take True Strike. You can use it with maneuvers to emulate a whole host of debuffing options right now.

[Korthis]

I didn't realize that tieflings were banned in pfs... sad face. on to ANOTHER build...

[Kaouse]

One more thing, like the Black Blade entry, Slashing Grace also requires a "One Handed" weapon, and not a "Light" weapon, to the chagrin of many light weapon users everywhere.

Once more, a regular Whip would work well here. Since you are level 2, it won't be a long wait to get Whip Mastery, and if you already have Slashing Grace you can start to deal some respectable damage. You only really need Improved Whip mastery if you want to threathen an area, but you can ignore it. Nobody even goes for Greater Whip Mastery.

Without Whip mastery though, Spellstrike is definitely still useful.

Reading more on your issue though, it seems as if an Elf could be useful to you. I'm fairly certain that if they can't see in the dark, they have a alternate ability they can trade out to get it. Either them or Half-Elves, definitely. But Elves have the same +2 to Dex and Int that Tieflings have (though the -2 to CON is definitely annoying). Half-Elves though, are just like humans with a floating +2 to whatever you want, if that floats your boat better. Half Orcs also have a floating +2, and they also have Darkvision.

That said, darkvision isn't all that important as a Magus, since you get 2 cantrips that can create light, and you literally have the ability to recast them all day. The "Light" cantrip turns any object into a torch, and the "Dancing Lights" cantrip creates 4 floating lights that move around as you command. Between the two of them, darkness conditions aren't too much of a problem.

I once more suggest using a Human Whip Magus with an actual whip.

[Korthis]

After looking at it I see. The "one-handed" isn't referring to a weapon that you wield in one hand, but it is a weapon class in and of itself... well that's annoying.
In the last game it was a party of 5 vs two goblins. The goblins just kept moving back into the darkness away from the light every turn so I had to spend my move actions to have the light follow them so that we had a chance to fight back. It was far from fun...
Improved whip mastery requires level 5, whip mastery is lvl 2 but by that time I've used up... all of my feats just to make it function and am still lacking dark vision. It was a nice idea but has become impractical.
Now I think I'm just going to make a blaster wizard that can do respectable damage with cantrips.
I'll post the full build tomorrow but it will likely be:
Elf with dark vision (thanks for pointing that out)
Evocation admixture wizard 1/ crossblooded orc-draconic sorcerer 1
Trait: havok of society for +1
Feat: point blank shot
Carry alchemist fire/acid/liquid ice to for +1
That's still 1d3+6 with some other goodies.

Hmmm. after looking at that older post I could get:
Magical lineage trait Acid splash + Extend metamagic and that could add up quickly
1d3+6 round 1, round two it hits again and can I cast it again for another 1d3+6 for 4 rounds... the only problem is I wont be able to retrain it ever so magical lineage-cantrip, I don't know about that one... Magical lineage fireball for dazification is probably better...
With false focus I wouldn't need to ever consume any materials so that will probably be my level 3 feat.
*edit Actually if I go this route I get darkvision from the orc bloodline so that opens up race options... I could go human and get false focus at level 1