Eldritch Scion Magus... Seems to be a bit of a hassle, but oh do I wanna

[noble peasant]

So I've been wanting to make one of these guys the minute I heard of them, but someone told me they were stupid pieces of crap and to just be like, pretty much any kind of Magus but that one. So I took a little bit harder of a look at things and yea they seem to have of a few issues. Mainly metamagic taking to long to do. Spell combat I guess but for whatever reason I'm not terribly worried about that, I understand most people see that as why yo be a magus but I am more than content to just get by on spell strike, at least until I either get other reasons to go into mystic focus or I just hit lvl 8. However I feel the whole 2 ranks and INT not being my casting stat is pretty sucky.

My main concerns here are how do I fix the metamagic issue? I need ranks, However I feel that would get into MAD territory pretty quickly if I just pump INT. I understand being human could help but this is planned to be a tiefling as I will soon recover an old chronicle of one I lost long time ago. Knowing the race perhaps some Stat suggestions?

Plz make all suggestions PFS legal if you don't mind. Anything not legal wouldn't be helpful and then people get distracted and expand on those ideas rather than ones I can use ya see.

Thanks in advance. :)

[Entryhazard]

Tiefling is fine if you go with a variant that has a bonus in Cha.
Demonspawn if you go Strength (But the in penalty may hurt), while Rakashasa is excellent for Dex-based. Luckily the Wis penalty is offset by you being a class with a good will save.

Also, with tiefling you can take the Fiend Flayer archetype that stacks with every other magus archetype (does not replace any ability, just adds one and access to two arcana)

[kestral287]

Spontaneous Metafocus is how you solve the metamagic thing-- and yes, it's a pretty bad feat but it's your only option for PFS.

Stat-wise?

Realistically you're probably going to have to ignore Int. The Scion has serious combat endurance issues due to how heavily they draw on the Arcane Pool. Solving that means pumping Cha hard (Tiefling's FCB helps though-- take that every level). Even with 18 Cha you have, effectively, eight rounds of fight in you. And that's assuming you never use the Pool for anything else, which is unlikely, given that it's also your accuracy booster.

Beyond that standard Magus advice applies. Figure out if you're going Str or Dex based, take early feats accordingly, pick a weapon that works with Precise Strike, etc, etc.

Scion does hit baseline functionality slower than a standard Magus for a Dex build due to the need for Metafocus though. The Magus can pick up all of his essential feats by level 5 thusly:

1: Weapon Finesse
3: Dervish Dance, Flamboyant Arcana
5: Extra Arcana: Arcane Deed: Precise Strike, Intensify Spell
6-20: Open for whatever flavor you like.

What you're looking at though is basically having one less free arcana:

1: Weapon Finesse
3: Dervish Dance, Flamboyant Arcana
5: Spontaneous Metafocus, Intensify Spell
6: Arcane Deed: Precise Strike

That one's not as big of a deal as needing to wait until level 8 to actually be as competent as a standard Magus in a fight, but it is there and it does matter. It encourages a Str build a little more, if you think you can make that work.

[shadowhntr7]

Noble Peasant, I've got the same 'problem' as you. When the Magus first came out, I wished it'd been a spontaneous.. and when Eldritch Scion came out, I knew I needed to make one. So I will be. :) I'm not currently planning to use metamagics, at least not until a later level, so I couldn't really say how that part will work out for you. As far as your skill points problem goes, yeah.. it's bad and will remain bad. So make it worse!

My build in a nutshell:
Nagaji for race (+2 Str/+2 Cha/-2 Int) with +1 to AC and +2 Perception.
Eldritch Scion (Draconic Bloodline) with tbe Bloodline familiar from FF
Spellblade and Staff Magus archetypes as well, they do all stack.
Planning to go Dragon Disciple at 8th(?), whether or not they FAQ it.
Stats: 16/15/14/5/12/16

At this point it's an entirely different magus.. one who focuses more on buffing himself and TWF than delivering the same insane 10d6 shocking grasps every round. Heck, I won't even have Spellstrike! However, I will have several useful abilities that make me a little more flexible feeling.

Spellblade for a dagger made of force- bypasses DR, hardness, hits incorporeals, shares all arcane pool enchants with main weapon for free. Hand counts as open for purposes of casting spells as well.

Staff Magus lets me swap a quarterstaff between 1h (combined with spellblade) or 2h (full attacks from early levels/when I'm conserving arcane points). Being a double weapon I can swap ends on, I can also tailor it's enchantments and pick the one I prefer for the fight. At 7th level my staff's enchancement bonus counts as a shield bonus, meaning I no longer need to cast the Shield spell to keep my AC up.

Eldritch Scion won't mandate the Trance option at all, so I don't have to spend points on anything but enhancing my weapons until late levels when wings and breath weapon open up. At 1st-3rd, my bloodline power is an always active familiar, so no need to burn points there. At 4-7th it'll count for 1 AC and resist 5. 8th+ though, yeah: My AC/resists go up, I get a breath weapon, and if robes of arcane heritage work, wings as well.

This concept was built around a Scarab Sages Nagaji who serves

Spoiler:

Tahonikepsu, time dragon and Diamond Sage

and worships Apsu, whose favored weapon is the staff. Fluff his bloodline as making him more draconic than reptilian, and you have a (to me) very interesting TWFing magus. :)

[noble peasant]

Gah I just can't get past the no skill ranks crap. For the first time I made a pure martial character who isn't to good outside of combat because it seemed all the scenarios I was doing were just combat. Now that I've made a character just for combat I've been doing all the social missions. Ugh, this may be a failed endeavor, I refuse to go without skill ranks. Man I wish this archetype got a little more tlc...

[shadowhntr7]

Yeah, for mine I'll be taking skill points for favored class and a int headband/ioun stone at mid-leves. The loss of points is definately painful. Even moreso because the class skill list doesn't change for Scion.

[LoneKnave]

You know the shitty first level powers of most bloodrager bloodlines?

Well, you can freely exchange them for a nifty familiar using the Familiar Folio.

It can shore you up a bit on skills (having a draconic lecturing owl/raven sounds hilarious), but you could also use it as mount with the Mauler familiar archetype if you are small or take the undersized mount feat.

[noble peasant]

Frankly this sounds like an iffy option that could use some experimenting, however, I only get one tiefling since they are illegal now. I may wanna find something I know will work. Need to find something that is useful in and out of combat and still fulfills what I'd want a partial demon dude to do.

Will have to pick up this idea for a later character I don't mind screwing up.

[shadowhntr7]

Yeah, mine takes that Familiar Folio option as well.. though speaking of which, that's another thing you can use. The Sage archetype grants your familiar 2 ranks per level (essentially giving 4+Int between the two), and bardic knowledge. Even with a bad Int you can cover some knowledges, though not to the wizard's degree of course.

Mine's going with Mauler probably. Planning to get Improved familiar (Pseudodragon) at 7th, which will be pretty awesome.

Note to self: Get Hat of Disguise for Pseudragon.

[Atelles]

shadowhntr7 wrote:

Yeah, mine takes that Familiar Folio option as well.. though speaking of which, that's another thing you can use. The Sage archetype grants your familiar 2 ranks per level (essentially giving 4+Int between the two), and bardic knowledge. Even with a bad Int you can cover some knowledges, though not to the wizard's degree of course.

Mine's going with Mauler probably. Planning to get Improved familiar (Pseudodragon) at 7th, which will be pretty awesome.

Note to self: Get Hat of Disguise for Pseudragon.

Why a Hat of Disguise for Pseudragon? I mean, how are you going to use that with the Pseudragon?

[Markov Spiked Chain]

I assume they mean Greater Hat of Disguise, so the familiar can become a Small or Medium humanoid as needed and have reach, hands, etc.