Suggestions for a level 20 character. I am thinking magus.

[Idward Evanhand]

My group is looking to do a few one-off games while we wait for Pathfinder 2e's beta test.

Character rules:
-No background or story needed, but 2 traits
-Level 20
-Core featured, or uncommon races (no custom or monsterous)
-Epic Fantasy ability score points (25 points)
-1 million gold worth of equipment (no limit if you can afford; no relics)
-PRD only (no PSFRD or third party)

It has been a while since I played and now I am not sure what to play. I was thinking about doing a magus, maybe do the staff magus archetype since I like the idea of wielding a Staff of Power. But I am not sure how to build it out as a working character. I am thinking something like this.

Elf
starting
17, 11, 16, 13, 10, 8
Adjusted
17, 13, 14, 15,10,8

I would like to do more melee/combat and use a good bit of buffing spells then pick up Touch of Fatigue or Arcane Mark for spell combat, reserving some higher level spells or use wands for typed damage.

[Potato disciple]

So you want to play a gish. I know the appeal.
Level 20 is very easy on the gish - the early problems of having both less spells than a dedicated caster and less BAB than a dedicated martial just dissapear when you have 20 whole levels to play and multiclass with!
Magus is an excelent choice, as it has the idea of a "gish" built into the design, with the problems of action economy (can't full attack and cast spells in the same round!) adressed.
However, if you would like some other suggestions:
- a sorcerer-martial (paladin works great)-dragon disciple, if you like being a dragon
- a transmutation-focused stregnth-wizard is always fun (not much of a book nerd now, HUH?!)
That's the two main options: caster-martial multiclass or stregnth-focused full caster.
Have fun!

[Meirril]

I really don't like the Staff Magus. You give up medium and heavier armor, and fighter training so you can use a staff as a double weapon, or 2 staves.

On first inspection, it sounds good. Especially the Staff of Power. Then I looked at it. The staff magus ability to give each staff an enhancement bonus makes a CL 15 Staff of Power a +3 weapon. And the powers you can use from it are mainly bad. Most can be saved against, and most are AoE that you'll convert to single target. Really the only good thing about a Staff of Power is the luck bonus to AC and Saves.

Staff of Hungry Shadows gives the same +3 enhancement bonus, and has vampiric touch for 1 point. In my opinion, its more useable. The saves from the Staff of Power kind of make this a wash.

Staff of Passage and Staff of One Hundred Hands are both CL 17 so make for +4 weapons, but their powers are underwhelming for a magus. You'd really need a Staff of the Magi to get a +5 weapon out of this, but again most of its powers go to waste if you plan on spell striking. I guess its good for rounds you want to sit back and not spell strike?

I think you're better off with the vanilla Magus, taking the Wand Wielder Arcana and loading up on a few quality wands. Spend 15k on a Wand of Intensified Shocking Grasp (10th level), another 15k on a Wand of Intensified Corrosive Touch (10th level), and the big money for a Wand of Vampiric Touch (20th level, 45k). Make sure you cast Wandweapon to free up your off hand for spell casting.

Pick 1 spell to specialize in. I'd recommend Snowball...if it was in the PRD. Since it isn't the spell dejur is Shocking Touch. Intensify, Elemental (cold? fire? you can do Acid with another spell), and Quicken are almost mandatory meta magics to keep this useful with Spell Perfection and Magic Lineage: Shocking Grasp. This way you can use your first level spell slots to cast Quickened 10d6 Shocking Grasp for 2 spell strikes per round (second one from a wand, or cast normally).

As for the weapon...crit range is everything. Rapier or Scimitar. I'd recommend a +5 Nullifying Mimetic Dispelling Dueling Transformative Scimitar. This lets you reduce SR on things you hit, gives you Dispelling Arcana a +5 bonus and free chances to cast Dispel Magic on a crit, and lets you copy 10 points of a resistance your target has...and more importantly lets you know what resistances and immunizes the target has! Also since the weapon is Transformative you can change it into other 1 handed weapons.

[MrCharisma]

Idward Evanhand wrote:

Elf

starting
17, 11, 16, 13, 10, 8
Adjusted
17, 13, 14, 15,10,8

Ok my first thought: Why are you going Elf with those stats? (The answer could be as simple as: "I like the challenge" or "I like Elves", it's just that you're really not making the most of your racial stats there). I could re-phrase that as: Why are you taking those stats with an Elf?

Assuming you're going to level up your INT at least once with your current stat array, you could do this instead:

starting
17, 12, 15, 14, 10, 8
Adjusted
17, 14, 13, 16,10,8

Then level up CON once instead of INT and you've got a free +1 DEX (and your CON and INT would be the same as your above array).

Meirril wrote:

I really don't like the Staff Magus. You give up medium and heavier armor, and fighter training so you can use a staff as a double weapon, or 2 staves.

This isn't quite true, you give up medium and heavy armour progression but get a shield bonus equal to your staff's enhancement bonus +3 (including the enhancement bonus from your arcane pool). At level 20 this is always going to be a +8 shield bonus. Of course the normal magus can cast the Shield spell, so this basically nets you a +4 shield bonus to AC. Since Idward Evanhand is starting at level 20 he can easily afford CELESTIAL ARMOUR (and upgrade it to +5) which means you actually end up with 1 point higher armour class than a regular magus wearing +5 full plate (and with Shield cast). The Staff of Power also gives that +2 Luck bonus to AC which makes it even better.

As for the enhancement bonus on the staff: The magus can spend their AP points to bring it up to +5 so it's not hugely important to max that out.

The disadvantage of the Staff Magus is that he loses that 18-20 crit range for spell-strike (and since a staff isn't a slashing or piercing weapon it can't be made "Keen" with an arcane pool enhancement).

This might not work, but I just had a thought: What if a 10th level Staff Magus spends a feat on Weapon Proficiency: Scimitar? If they hold the staff in the off hand and the scimitar with the main hand do they count as wielding both weapons? If they use Wand Wielder to cast using the staff and attack with the Scimitar do they keep the shield bonus? I just thought of this and haven't thought it through yet, so it may not work at all, but I thought I'd put it out there.

To Idward Evanhand, I'd grab the FATE'S FAVORED trait (found on THIS PAGE on the PRD). The Staff of Power gives a +2 Luck bonus to AC and saving throws, and with this trait those become +3 bonuses. If you do go for Fate's Favoured, see if you can get a custom wand of DIVINE FAVOUR (caster level 9th, costs 6750gp for 50 charges, or 3375gp for 25 charges). With Fate's Favoured this will give you a +4 to hit/damage for 1 minute that stacks with pretty much everything. If you want to help your party you could instead go with PRAYER (I'd probably nab either a STAFF OF COURAGE or STAFF OF THE HIEROPHANT).

The other thing a Staff Magus could do is buy a bunch of staves and an EFFICIENT QUIVER and pull them out as needed (and maybe spend a feat on quick-draw). This gives you a huge variety of spells you can cast on any given day. My advice would be to look through some of the STAVES and find some cool unusual spells that you want to have at your disposal.

*One last thing: You want to be able to use wands/staves as a Staff Magus. The WAND WIELDER arcana is basically manditory for you as is a high UMD skill. In your position I would probably take Fate's Favoured (above) and PRAGMATIC ACTIVATOR as my 2 traits.