Kensai slashing grace magus build?


Advice


Is it viable at all? We're getting a 25 point buy, 2 traits and 1 drawback, I was gonna play as a human.

I'm pretty curious on how to pull it all together, was thinking of taking foul brand (Hand) as a drawback, maybe there's a better drawback to take and
truth be told I'm not all familiar with a lot of traits or drawbacks.

Either way some insight is appreciated and I thank those of you who are willing to use some of your time to discuss what I should take and what I should avoid.

I was thinking of taking the Katana since it still technically falls under slashing grace's restrictions and it's rather flavorful.

Edited to finish sentence, please forgive me lol.


Sorry. As far as I am aware, this doesn't work.

Slashing grace needs your other hand to be unoccupied. Unfortunately, casting spells in spell combat occupies that hand. Also, spell combat does count as TWF, which catches another clause in the same sentence.

So if you want dex to damage, you only feat option is dervish dance.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

This is not viable for 2 reasons:

1) You can't use slashing grace with spell combat because your other hand would be occupied when casting a spell. In this case, if you did cast a spell, you would lose the dex to damage benefit.

2) Katanas are not finesse weapons. You'd have to someone make it count as a light weapon to get dex to attack. The only thing I know of that does that is the swashbuckler/daring champion cavalier version of weapon finesse in combination with slashing grace, and the effortless lace magic item.


lemeres wrote:

Sorry. As far as I am aware, this doesn't work.

Slashing grace needs your other hand to be unoccupied. Unfortunately, casting spells in spell combat occupies that hand. Also, spell combat does count as TWF, which catches another clause in the same sentence.

So if you want dex to damage, you only feat option is dervish dance.

Ah very well, while this slightly disheartens me, I am still quite stuck on what traits and drawback I should take, but I suppose that is for me to look into.

I thank you once again for taking the time out of your day to respond to me, have a good day.


Some Other Guy wrote:

This is not viable for 2 reasons:

1) You can't use slashing grace with spell combat because your other hand would be occupied when casting a spell. In this case, if you did cast a spell, you would lose the dex to damage benefit.

2) Katanas are not finesse weapons. You'd have to someone make it count as a light weapon to get dex to attack. The only thing I know of that does that is the swashbuckler/daring champion cavalier version of weapon finesse in combination with slashing grace, and the effortless lace magic item.

Yes, unfortunate as it may be I suppose there's nothing much I can do about that with the build I have in mind, you were however ninja'd on the first one.

But I still thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to respond regardless, I bid you farewell and I hope you have a wonderful day.


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Fencing Grace still works with Spell Combat. It wasn't hit with the nerf bat that added wording/restrictions that weren't a thing before.


Azten wrote:
Fencing Grace still works with Spell Combat. It wasn't hit with the nerf bat that added wording/restrictions that weren't a thing before.

That...Was a super good catch by you my friend.

I thank you for bringing this to my attention.


You can still use the classic strategy of using a Scimitar with Dervish Dance, but rapiers really are better for a Kensai. A human Kensai can have Dex on attack rolls and to damage at first level with a rapier, and rapiers qualify for the Dueling special ability while scimitars don't.


instead of a katana use an aldori dueling blade, same stats as a long sword but if you have the exotic weapons proficiency(which the kensai can get for free) you would be able to use weapons finesse


Blackvial wrote:
instead of a katana use an aldori dueling blade, same stats as a long sword but if you have the exotic weapons proficiency(which the kensai can get for free) you would be able to use weapons finesse

But there isn't a good way for a Kensai to get Dex to damage with an Aldori Dueling Sword.


Azten wrote:
Fencing Grace still works with Spell Combat. It wasn't hit with the nerf bat that added wording/restrictions that weren't a thing before.

Technically, the dex to damage wasn't a thing before. The feat was originally just 'let swashbucklers use longswords'. But people thought that was just a garbaged feat, and complained that they wanted it to do dex to damage until they relented and let you do it with 1 handed weapons.

The thing about the nerf bat here is that they were caught between the original balance considerations and the overwhelming requests for light weapons to get dex to damage.

But they originally restricted the dex to damage to one handed weapons to prevent TWF style things (by forcing either an extra -2 penalty, or by forcing some items to be bought). Overall, they are really against easy access dex to damage for TWF- they view each of those as something that should have additional costs.

The reason that fencing grace wasn't 'nerfed' was because it never applied to light weapons, and as such always faced the one handed problems.

Now...why is slashing grace that restrictive in its language? ...because the devs have seen what has happened with less restrictive language- just look up 'dervish dance unarmed strike' in the rules forums to see why they are paranoid.


Or because they wanted the Unchained Rogue to look better. They seem to nerf a lot when new material that does something similar comes out.


lemeres wrote:
The reason that fencing grace wasn't 'nerfed' was because it never applied to light weapons, and as such always faced the one handed problems.

And it is in a line of books that they seem to be reluctant to errata.


Effortless Lace would work with the Agile enchantment on a katana to allow dex to damage. The Lace specifically calls out Weapon Finesse and weapon enhancements (among others) as things that the weapon now counts as 'light' for.

Didn't realize it also reduced the penalty for wielding oversized weapons. Glad you made me check! ;)

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