I've always liked the idea of net and trident fighters. After toying with some fighter builds I really fell in love with what the Magus could bring to using a net. The hope is that the addition of all of the Magus' magical tricks would keep a net user viable in a variety of situations across levels.
First, the build with relevant feats
Half-Elf Magus 16/ Fighter(Lorewarden) 4
1. Magus 1. Net Adept, EWP:Net(Ancestral Arms)
2. Magus 2.
3. Magus 3. Quickdraw
4. Magus 4.
5. Fighter 1. Combat Reflexes, Net Manuever
6. Fighter 2. Combat Expertise, Improved Trip
7. Fighter 3. Greater Improved Trip
8. Magus 5. Net Trickery
9. Fighter 4. Improved Dirty Trick, Greater Dirty Trick
10. Magus 6.
11. Magus 7. Improved Familiar (after getting a familiar through arcana)
12. Magus 8.
13. Magus 9. Boon Companion
14. Magus 10. ?
15. Magus 11. ? Boon companion is really as far as I've built this character in my mind. I don't think it will ever be played past a 15-16 point as most Pathfinder characters, so I was focusing on making the formative levels as jam packed as possible.
This was built with playing from level one in mind but I'll be starting at fifth. Starting at fifth makes me wonder if going a full magus 5 wouldn't be better. I chose to go with starting fighter at fifth level to make sure he gets the tripping feats in a timely fashion by hitting +6 BAB by level 7. The goal of the build is to be the best net fighter and a decent alternative magus build, not the most powerful magus (which is really only the case if DPR is made the main case for power). That being said, I wonder if a full 20 magus build wouldn't be better for quicker access to stronger debuffs and battlefield control effects.
The core of the build is spell combat and spellstriking with your net. Color spray, grease, and ray of enfeeblement are all great low level options to be throwing out as you try to entangle someone with a net. These efforts can be spread out amongst several targets or concentrated on one important one. Reaching second level spells early is emphasized to get Frigid Touch as soon as possible. The stagger without a save is just gold for a controller that's sacrificing spell casting power. Sure it's only for one round, but that should be enough for allies to finish the job on a creature that can't do much of anything to defend itself or harm others.
I love quickdraw in this build. It lets it play the AoO game with nets+enlarge person to create a huge area threatened by entangles, trips, disarms and blindings. It also means you can always pull out a scimitar and keeps the old Shocking Grasp crit thing a decent means of adding some burst damage to help end fights. It's certainly not the focus of the build, but having it ready and available as a free action is great for versatility. Intensify Spell and Improved Critical are some of my top choices for late game feats for this build to diversify how it can approach combat. These could even come earlier in place of the familiar feats, but I really like the idea of having a wand wielding familiar to help with action economy in the higher levels.
I guess one of my biggest questions I have is would Magus 20 be more beneficial? The main draw is the uninterrupted casting, but I also like the idea of being able to have a fully powered mauler familiar in the early levels to hit things after the entangles.
Any comments/thoughts/criticisms are much appreciated.
^Aren't you going to run into trouble with Magus not having a two-weapon fighting archetype? Spell combat and spellcasting itself require you to have a hand free, which doesn't allow you to be holding both a net and a trident in a useful way unless you somehow get an extra hand (or at least a prehensile tail to hold one of those weapons temporarily, but then you can't attack with that weapon during that time).
Oh wow yeah I probably should have mentioned that the focus of the build is no longer around TWF with a net and trident. Since the net feats don't call for a trident to work I decided to focus on how net adept makes the net a perfect tool for delivering magus touch spells. The offhand is kept free for spellstrike and spell combat, while quickdraw makes up for the lack of TWF by letting the build switch effortlessly to melee combat when it's called for.
One similar but different option would be a Half-Elf Oracle of Battle, using Favored Class Bonus with Maneuver Master. It only works with one maneuver, but the CMB is insane when you cross it with divine buffs (BAB = level+50%, then add Divine Favor). Plus you get the maneuver feats for free, so no need for 13INT or expertise. Without being worried about spell combat and net-and-weapon being incompatible you can just fight with a net and weapon ready, potentially using just the first Two Weapon Fighting to combine entangling with a full beating.
As an Ancient Lorekeeper you can grab some arcane spells as well, and Battle Oracle already has Enlarge Person as well as some pretty amazing revelations like War Sight, Iron Skin and Surprising Charge.
Anyhow it's a different option to consider - a bit less control, but better spell availability and combat potential.
^This would work, but has the unfortunate side effect of level-bumping Enlarge Person, because Enlarge Person is not a Cleric/Oracle spell except by getting it from your Battle Mystery Bonus Spells, and Ancient Lorekeeper replaces ALL of your Mystery Bonus Spells and level-bumps all the Sorcerer/Wizard spells that you get instead, meaning that at 2nd level you get a Cantrip to cast as a 1st level spell, and Enlarge Person has to wait until 4th level and becomes a 2nd level spell. Depending upon what you're doing, the tradeoff might still be worthwhile (Enlarge Person is good enough that arguably it should be level-bumped anyway), but you also have to consider that being an Elf (Ancient Lorekeeper is an Elf-specific archetype) is tough for a melee Battle Oracle, because the Constitution penalty hurts. This latter problem does not apply if you are allowed to be an Ancient Lorekeeper and take the Elven FCB as a Half-Elf.
This latter problem does not apply if you are allowed to be an Ancient Lorekeeper and take the Elven FCB as a Half-Elf.
Yeah I was assuming this since it's 'official'; you wouldn't want to do it with an Elf. There's also the Spirit Guide Oracle option, where with 12 INT you could grab a few 1st/2nd level arcane spells.
If you can do the racial alternates, the Aquatic Elf comes with trident and net as racial weapons (IIRC).
My husband runs an Aquatic Elf wand-wielder magus; he switches between net and trident as he needs to. Sometimes, he'll use Weaponwand to put a wand inside the trident so he can dual-wield net and trident. He generally uses self-buffing wands (like True Strike or Vanish) rather than offensive spells, relying on his arcane pool to enhance his weapons.
So far, it's worked pretty well.
Yeah I was assuming this since it's 'official'; you wouldn't want to do it with an Elf. There's also the Spirit Guide Oracle option, where with 12 INT you could grab a few 1st/2nd level arcane spells.This latter problem does not apply if you are allowed to be an Ancient Lorekeeper and take the Elven FCB as a Half-Elf.
I thought it was officially yes by FAQ but officially no by PFS.
If you can do the racial alternates, the Aquatic Elf comes with trident and net as racial weapons (IIRC).
My husband runs an Aquatic Elf wand-wielder magus; he switches between net and trident as he needs to. Sometimes, he'll use Weaponwand to put a wand inside the trident so he can dual-wield net and trident. He generally uses self-buffing wands (like True Strike or Vanish) rather than offensive spells, relying on his arcane pool to enhance his weapons.
So far, it's worked pretty well.
Good find -- I forgot about this one. This alternate racial trait (trades in Elven Magic and Weapon Familiarity) comes highly recommended in the pathfindercommunity.net Elf guide. Would also work reflavored for gladiatorial origin -- you're the Elf (or Half-Elf, if not PFS) that was forced to fight as a Retiarius (fighting between a Retiarius and a Secutor used to be a thing in Ancient Rome), but managed to survive long enough to escape Cheliax's, Nidal's, or Belkzen's gladiatorial pits.