As fun as the Hexcrafter Magus is, there are some areas where it seems to struggle a bit. I'd like to see how you would address those weaknesses.
The goal: Build a Hexcrafter Magus that can run the gauntlet below.
The tools:
- 20 point buy.
- Any PFS legal race is ok. Ditto any PFS legal trait or feat.
- No starting stat can be below 10.
- The character is now at seventh level.
- You have 15,000 GP to spend (this is less than WBL... we're saving some money for the days you aren't running the gauntlet).
The team: You will be accompanied by:
- Butch Deadlift. Seventh level fighter, maxed out strength, swings a two-handed greatsword very hard.
- Dirk Backstab. Seventh level chained rogue, disarms traps and tries to flank people.
- Flash Powerwaster, a blaster wizard whose spellbook is limited to magic missile, scorching ray, fireball, and ball lightning.
They all have cure light wounds wands that they can use semi-reliably out of combat. Everybody has essentially limitless food and water.
The challenge:
Part 1: Your team will proceed into a dungeon filled with increasingly powerful undead. You will be permitted to rest after every three or four encounters. However, the CR on the encounters will rise by 1 after every rest period. The encounters will vary in structure: sometimes a bunch of weaker enemies, sometimes one big dude and a couple minions, sometimes just the one BBEG. Once your whole team is dead, you'll be resurrected back at the dungeon entrance and sent along to Part 2.
Part 2: Your team will now venture into a dungeon filled with vermin. Some swarms, some giant bugs. Again, you can rest after every three or four encounters. And again, the CR will be ticking up after every rest. You will keep going until you die, then rez back at the surface for Part 3.
Part 3: The final dungeon is filled with a mix of vermin, undead, and constructs. The weighting of each category will be even overall, but might tilt randomly one way or the other on any given day. Same structure as before with three or four fights per day and gradually increasing difficulty.
So, how do you build your hexcrafter to get as far as possible in each dungeon?
Since it's based on when you die, it feels less like a challenge to complete as much as competition for being on a leaderboard. I mean, I'm all for that.
Plus, you can always have a well-stocked book and force Flash to learn some utility to help out.
Well, I do love trying to make the leaderboard whenever I find an old Joust machine lying around...
The basic idea is this: for a hexcrafter, often plan A is to wreck the bad guy's saves and then slumber them. Plan B is Rimed Frostbite + Enforcer. But a bunch of enemies take plan A and plan B off the table. So is there a better plan C than Chill Touch and Shocking Grasp?
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Is the rest after 3-4 encounters necessary? Or only if you want to.
I'm thinking you can defiler it.
Human (Hexcrafter 5/white haired witch 2)
Str 13
Dex 14
Con 14
Int 18 (after lv 4 addition)
Wis 10
Cha 10
Traits:Magical Knack, Wayang spellhunter (chill touch)
Level 1 feat: Combat reflexes, Rime spell
2 levels of white haired witch follow. Strength patron, greensting scorpion familiar
Lv 3 feat: power attack
Lv 4: magus arcana: Arcane accuracy
Lv 5 feat: final embrace master, prehensile hair hex
Lv 7 feats: elemental spell (cold), spell penetration
You can use your 3 lv 2 spells per day for elemental spelled chill touch, to entangle undead.
Gear: Swarm bane clasp (to be given to fighter) - 3k
Headband of int - 4k
Amulet of mighty fists +1 - 4k
Cloak of resistance +1 - 1k
Quite some potions of enlarge person, chainshirt.. a reach weapon and consumables, but don't really have time to list down.
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Also curious about the NPC helper buddies. Their styles are spoken for, but the details are not. I assume a gaggle of Core NPCs without any special tricks, but some things are still up in the air, like Rogue talents and whatever feats the Fighter will be taking once he gets power attack and weapon focus/specialization. They might have a few game-changers up their sleeves.
Still, I'll spend a day looking over Magus stuff and see if I can't throw a build together.
Is the rest after 3-4 encounters necessary? Or only if you want to.
Only if you want to. My informal scorekeeping method would award you points equal to (number of encounters * encounter CR) per day). The underlying idea is to be effective through a PFS scenario.
You can use your 3 lv 2 spells per day for elemental spelled chill touch, to entangle undead.
I love the lateral thinking here, but I'm not sure this works:
An undead creature you touch takes no damage of either sort, but it must make a successful Will saving throw or flee as if panicked for 1d4 rounds + 1 round per caster level.
Many of the creatures named will use natural attacks. Giving a chance of dazing them each time they hit should work wonders; the DC isn't great (15), but the action economy is amazing.
The setup should make wands valuable. Wand wielder allows them to work with spell combat.
Someone in this party needs to do a little battlefield control, and between the swamp's grasp hex and caltrop beads this guy can do a little, hopefully enough. The feather step slippers let him move thru the former easily.
The heal skill covers a small part of the healing role. UMD would be better, but I spent too much elsewhere for that to happen.
Human
Str 15+1=16
Dex 13
Con 14
Int 14+2+2=18
Wis 10
Cha 10
1: combat casting
Human: improved initiative
3: weapon focus (scimitar)
Hex 4: swamp's grasp
5: extra hex (flight)
Bonus 5: dazing spell
Arcana 6: wand wielder
7: extra arcana (arcane accuracy)
Magical lineage & wayang spellhunter on Gorum's Armor
FCB: +3 hp, +1 arcane pool
Hp 49
AC 18
Fort +7, Ref +3, Will +5
6 Arcane pool + 2 blade arcane pool
Black blade scimitar +2
Inheritor's breastplate
Wand of shocking grasp (CL 5)
Wand of vanish (CL 1)
Spring loaded wrist sheath*2, weapon cords on 1 wand, scimitar
Feather step slippers
20 iron caltrop beads
3 potions of lesser restoration
Adventurer's sash (5 beads, potion)
Backpack
Healer's kit (10 uses)
Leechwort (10 uses)
2 antitoxin
2 chakrams
Headband of vast intelligence +2
Spell component pouch
Spellbook
205 gp for misc.
Spells:
Gorum's armor
Blade lash
Chill touch *
Expeditious retreat *
Keep watch
Mount
Shield **
Shocking grasp
Silent image
Unseen servant
Weaponwand
Animal aspect
Bladed dash *
Frigid touch
Glitterdust
Ice slick
Mirror Image *
- Dazing Gorum's Armor *
Fireball
Haste *
1 spell slot open at each level.
Skills: Climb +10, Fly (from headband) +6, Heal +10, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +9, Knowledge (religion) +10, Perception +9, Spellcraft +13
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Hexcrafters don't use sicken.You would need 2 attacks to apply that. And a cruel amof. Or not, there's constrict. Besides to intimidate vermin, you need a trait called unnatural presence. And you're right, lol. Won't switch it out as it still gives constructs entangled. Lv 2 spell will still be rimed chill touch for constructs for appropriate levels. I wanted to try defiler for repositioning by grapple. If you could reposition baddy between so he's flanked by rogue, there would be lotsa sneaks!
In PFS I would have gotten that cruel amof, and taken cornugon smash.
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Defiler is more of a single target build that is not very effective against undead and swarms. No for this I'd recommend using the Melee Transmorg #2 from that same guide. It's far more effective at handling multiple opponents, doesn't care about the type specialties from undead, swarm or construct, and has the staying power to easily handle 3-30 battles without running out of spells. The only change would be switching from frostbite to Chill touch for undead & constructs. Undead won't take damage but they will need to make saves and since the build is throwing out 5-9 attacks a round it's a good chance the target will fail a save quickly.
Throw in being able to add any shared wizard/magus spell into Flashs' spellbook should let them wade through half a dozen or more challenges before ever needing to rest.
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Oooh the master has spoken.
Just for debate(maybe I'm not a very good student):
A lv 7 magus of decent int has 4 lv 2 spells. That would mean 4 attempts to go trog for 3 atks per round. Note that constructs tend to have DR 5/adamantine or hardness. Would it not be better to hit once, harder, inflict all kinds of nasty conditions, as opposed to having multiple small attacks?
The defiler, by virtue of final embrace, can trip and possibly grab baddies for the fighter and rogue to hit, and not get grappled, which means she can do it to multiple baddies.Combat reflexes helps provide a defensive wall from AOOs.5x per day(from prehensile hex), or more, if someone can enlarge her.
Melee transmorg 2, I see only 4 attacks per round when buffed (unless you use monstrous physique 1 for gargoyle - you're limited to 2x per day for it), one of it which is secondary(prehensile hair). In a gauntlet esp where undead have nasty conditions on hit, no condition removal in party, is it not better to prevent getting hit in the first place as opposed to trying to dps yourself, since having mobs debuffed in the right positions, the fighter and rogue will probably beat you at it?
Wait, so Flash doesn't have Burning Hands? What kind of a blaster wizard is he?
He's trying to branch out from setting things on fire but he doesn't quite get the idea of battlefield control. I wanted to fill out the party with standardized characters but if we had an optimized wizard in play it wouldn't be much of a gauntlet.
Is the Transmogrifist build really foreclosed from doing things the Defiler does? You can't get the ungrappled grapple (practically speaking) and you can't spike Int as high but otherwise the Transmogrifist mostly seems like a commitment in spell usage. I think you still have access to a lot of the defiler tricks, albeit at a slightly lower DC.
For the undead and construct portion of the challenge I think a wand of blade lash and the wand wielder arcana could add some staying power. Of course, you might not be able to fit the arcana into your build.
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The idea of tripping never had anything to do with blade lash since its a single roll. Its to do with always having greater reach (even when its not your turn), so you can trip anyone who tries to gets near you(esp with pounce!). Its the reason why people use polearms and combine polearms with enlarge person.
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Oooh the master has spoken.
Just for debate(maybe I'm not a very good student):
A lv 7 magus of decent int has 4 lv 2 spells. That would mean 4 attempts to go trog for 3 atks per round. Note that constructs tend to have DR 5/adamantine or hardness. Would it not be better to hit once, harder, inflict all kinds of nasty conditions, as opposed to having multiple small attacks?The defiler, by virtue of final embrace, can trip and possibly grab baddies for the fighter and rogue to hit, and not get grappled, which means she can do it to multiple baddies.Combat reflexes helps provide a defensive wall from AOOs.5x per day(from prehensile hex), or more, if someone can enlarge her.
Melee transmorg 2, I see only 4 attacks per round when buffed (unless you use monstrous physique 1 for gargoyle - you're limited to 2x per day for it), one of it which is secondary(prehensile hair). In a gauntlet esp where undead have nasty conditions on hit, no condition removal in party, is it not better to prevent getting hit in the first place as opposed to trying to dps yourself, since having mobs debuffed in the right positions, the fighter and rogue will probably beat you at it?
You are right that the defiler build would normally be able to do all those things but don't forget that the Undead and Construct type are immune to non-lethal damage so most of what the defiler is based on stops working (No frostbite damage, no shaken, no fatigued, no entangled (rime requires them to take damage but they can't since it's non-lethal). At best you could trip and grapple the target but without the debuffs on it you just took the nastiest creature you can fight and moved it adjacent to you and opened yourself up to a full attack from it. Not an ideal choice.
The transmog works better since at it's core it's designed to simply throw out massive mixed melee/spell damage at a steady constant rate where at least half of it ignores DR/Energy resistance. Remember it's damage is split pretty evenly between melee damage and elemental damage. This lets him ignore a significant portion of his opponents resistances and always be doing damage.
Also remember this default build is still based on the standard shocking grasp build but uses it as a rider attack from the AoMF (spell storing). It's going to do a ton of damage from it's full attack (default 3 from alter self + 1 from haste which he'll teach Flash +1 from the free attack he gets from Bladed Dash +1 from the AoO caused by 1 of the rest of the party which is their job as support characters).
Finally if the target does have significant enough DR/Hardness/Energy resistance, well we are playing a caster who has access to a pretty varied spell list as well as some very nasty hex abilities that lets you just fly out of reach and pound the target into the ground with your beard. Slow but steady and very high single strike damage.
edit: the one thing I've wanted to do is go back and add spell scars in as a valuable additional arcana since it effectively gives an additional 18 spell levels of casting per day. On this kind of challenge it would extend the Hexcrafters ability to continue fighting through the roof.
The idea of tripping never had anything to do with blade lash since its a single roll. Its to do with always having greater reach (even when its not your turn), so you can trip anyone who tries to gets near you(esp with pounce!). Its the reason why people use polearms and combine polearms with enlarge person.
Fair point. I guess my view of it is colored by mostly playing within PFS. You don't see a lot of attacks of opportunity when your teammates are charging towards the enemy as fast as they can starting as soon as they can. I like blade lash for the ability to dump somebody prone right next to the party barbarian.