Seeking noob advice: Staff Magus / Weapon Adept Tripping Frostbite Build

[teemuchka]

So a good friend of mine, who is an experienced player, asked me to join a noob night with two or three others and him as the DM. I haven't tabletoped myself, but I have played computer D&D games up to Neverwinter Nights 2, so I'm pretty familiar with the general setting.

The DM is pretty lax, and lets us take pretty much any feat from any book that we want. We will be starting from level 1, however. He hasn't told us much about the setting, but I'm guessing it will be quite general fantasy with a lot of magic and no guns.

I assume everyone else just wants to do damage, so I was thinking of doing something more interesting with combat maneuvers. After lurking in these forums for the past week I came up with a build to Spellstrike with Frostbite, afflict terrible status conditions and trip the poor sobs while doing it. Here's the gist:

Magus 11 / Monk 2

20 point buy: str 15 dex 14 con 14 int 14 + 2 (human bonus) wis 12 cha 7

Traits: bruising intellect, magical knack (magus), maybe reactionary

lvl1: combat expertise, toughness (human bonus)
+ armor proficiency (light), quarterstaff master, weapon proficiency (simple)

lvl2: dodge (monk bonus)
+ improved unarmed strike, perfect strike

lvl3: enforcer, combat reflexes (monk bonus)
+ weapon focus (quarterstaff)

lvl4: str +1

lvl5: weapon specialization (quarterstaff), maneuver mastery (trip) (magus arcana)

lvl7: improved trip, rime spell (magus bonus)

lvl8: int +1, wand wielder (magus arcana)

lvl9: tripping staff

lvl11: hasted assault / arcane accuracy (magus arcana)

lvl12: int +1

lvl13: power attack / vicious stomp, dazing spell (magus bonus)

Other feats to consider: improved initiative, dazzling display, shatter defenses, felling smash

Favoured class bonus: hp +11

Skill points: 95

Props to: WalterGM (Magus guide), FrodoOf9Fingers (Frostbite build), submit2me (Monk dip idea), and ProfPotts (Staff Magus tripping theory)

Now, I wanted to ask you guys if I'm shooting myself in the foot with this. Yes, I know that it would be easier to just take a Scimitar and Shocking Grasp with it, but it sounds so boring. But I'm also worried that because it takes so long to set up all the feats, I will just be a liability for most of the game.

So, will this work? And on a side note, what exactly happens when your Charisma is 7? I have always been wondering about this, since its useless in the games I've played unless you need it for spellcasting. Thanks in advance.

[Imbicatus]

As much as I love monks, I would recommend against a monk dip for a magus. You really don't want to delay caster levels on a 6/9 casting class. The monk wis to AC doesn't help you that much because you wisdom is low, and flurry of blows doesn't stack with spell combat. Perfect Strike is too limited to be of much use, and the bonus feats you gain are not worth the lost spells.

[teemuchka]

Imbicatus wrote:

As much as I love monks, I would recommend against a monk dip for a magus. You really don't want to delay caster levels on a 6/9 casting class. The monk wis to AC doesn't help you that much because you wisdom is low, and flurry of blows doesn't stack with spell combat. Perfect Strike is too limited to be of much use, and the bonus feats you gain are not worth the lost spells.

Ah, I was afraid that might be the case. I was already feeling MAD as hell before adding Wisdom to the mix. But the flavor of Monk is just so... I always try to dip into it whenever I can. Maybe a level or two of Lore Warden then? Caster level should be fine with the Magical Knack trait.

[Imbicatus]

teemuchka wrote:

Imbicatus wrote:

As much as I love monks, I would recommend against a monk dip for a magus. You really don't want to delay caster levels on a 6/9 casting class. The monk wis to AC doesn't help you that much because you wisdom is low, and flurry of blows doesn't stack with spell combat. Perfect Strike is too limited to be of much use, and the bonus feats you gain are not worth the lost spells.

Ah, I was afraid that might be the case. I was already feeling MAD as hell before adding Wisdom to the mix. But the flavor of Monk is just so... I always try to dip into it whenever I can. Maybe a level or two of Lore Warden then? Caster level should be fine with the Magical Knack trait.

Caster level is fine with Magical Knack, but that doesn't increase your spells per day or access to higher level spells. On a magus, you don't get third level spells until 7th level. On your build you don't get them until 9th. That hurts.

[teemuchka]

Imbicatus wrote:

Caster level is fine with Magical Knack, but that doesn't increase your spells per day or access to higher level spells. On a magus, you don't get third level spells until 7th level. On your build you don't get them until 9th. That hurts.

Ouch. That does sound bad. Especially since Spells are so much better than Melee in most RPGs I know of. I guess there is no reason to dip into "no spell progression" classes eh? Does Pathfinder have some kind of aversion to multiclassing I should know of?

[Imbicatus]

Multiclassing is generally bad for casters. It's better for pure martial classes, although you can still end up delaying key class abilities. Whether it's worth it or not depends on how high of a level you will get to and how long you play at higher levels.

[teemuchka]

Imbicatus wrote:

Multiclassing is generally bad for casters. It's better for pure martial classes, although you can still end up delaying key class abilities. Whether it's worth it or not depends on how high of a level you will get to and how long you play at higher levels.

I see... Thanks for the advice, I'll roll a pure Magus then and try to make do with the limited feats I have.

[Kurald Galain]

While I must agree with the earlier advice against multiclassing, please note that you can have make a "monk-flavored" character just fine by doing an unarmed Magus.

Enforcer + Rime Spell + Frostbite makes a great combo.

True Strike + spell combat + any maneuver also makes a great combo.

Finally, a fun thing to try is Hexcrafter archetype + Hex Strike feat + (e.g.) Misfortune hex. This feat is arguably better on a Magus than on a witch.