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Oh no, not another Magus thread!!
I feel dirty playing one, seeing how 'flavor of the week' it is!
Anyway, let's say we have a 7th level magus who happens to cast Shocking Grasp a lot (shocking!), and let's also say that he has many enemies (both current and upcoming) who may have had or will have the opportunity to make note of such behaviour.
It would be easy for said enemies to procure protection from electricity, rendering our Magus much less effective than he would otherwise be.
I'm considering the various ways of mixing up his damage types. I've already started preparing alternate damage type spells such as Frostbite, Corrosive Touch, Chill Touch, or Frigid Touch, but the damage on those is lackluster out of the gate, not to mention lacking the advantage given by the Magical Lineage and Intensify combo.
So now I've turned my attention to magic items that would give me what I'm looking for on an as-needed basis. There are metamagic rods of elemental spell, metamagic gems of the same, or even a metamagic tatoo. The gems and tatoo have the advantage of not needing a free hand to wield the rod (something that a magus doesn't normally have, using one hand to cast and one to wield his weapon). The rod has economy on its side, being 3 times per day for only 3,000 gp. The tatoo costs the same for only once a day and the gems are consumable at 1,000 gp for each use.
I'm disinclined to take the actual feat, because while I could have need of a non-electricity based damage spell at any time, it's unlikely to happen very often and unlikely to be forecasted to allow preparation ahead of time. So I'd just like to have a couple tricks up my sleeve for when it's needed.
So any ideas that I haven't presented above or thoughts on the relative attractiveness of the ideas presented?
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Unfortunately I don't forsee the need for changing up the energy type often enough to invest in 2 extra feats (heighten and preferred) in addition to the elemental spell. I like the idea, but I don't think it works for the build.
And as I mentioned, the character is already 7th, with none of those feats selected.
I do like the idea and wish I had the feats to spend on it, but I don't. :(
Get a different energy type on your weapon. As a magus, all it takes to change energy type on your weapon is a point from the arcane pool.
If you really don't want to miss on having a shocking grasfp handy, just take elemental spell. You just need to prepare 1 of a single different energy type and you are good to go. You can just chaincast it with pool and pearl of power. Pearl are dirty cheap, especialli first level ones.
Otherwise, my advice is to just skip it and go for Frostbite, on a full attack deal way more damage than any other spell in existence, that spell is soo overpowered -.- at 8th level if you get your hand on haste you can cast it for an extra attack for a total of 4 attack in a round, if they all hit it's 4d6+32, compare to 8d6 of a single shocking grasp. And that same cast of Frostbite is still good for the next 4 attack, making it extremely slot-efficient.
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Unfortunately I don't forsee the need for changing up the energy type often enough to invest in 2 extra feats (heighten and preferred) in addition to the elemental spell. I like the idea, but I don't think it works for the build.
And as I mentioned, the character is already 7th, with none of those feats selected.
I do like the idea and wish I had the feats to spend on it, but I don't. :(
What's the rest of the party makeup? It may be cheaper and more effective to diversify your role when faced with electricity-resistant enemies.
Too many magus players fall into the trap of overfocusing on the fact they can have a wide threat range on their damaging touch spells. It's a great component of spellstrike, but it's not the magus' sole ability. The magus spell list has plenty of battlefield control in it. Pick up some inexpensive scrolls or a wand if you want to save your prepared spell slots for your spellstrike blasty goodness. Revel in your enemies' annoyance that the magus screwed up their plans by not following the de-facto "must maximize action economy" formula of force hook charging and spam shocking spell combat full melee attacks that they predicted.
Other than that, you already hit the best ways to cheaply diversify your damage. Just be aware that the metamagic rod option complicates using spellstrike and spell combat together. If you have a metamagic rod in one free hand and the Standard Issue Magus Scimitar in another free hand, it's hard to do somatic components (unless you're a hexcrafter with prehensile hair or similar magus with an extra limb).
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@Brambleman: True, but I'm referring to spell damage here. Good option though, if caught with my pants down and no other options to increase damage.
@Corlindale: I had considered a wizard dip for Admixture, but forgot to mention it. It's a great idea, and one I thought about for a bit, but in the end I don't want to delay magus progression or change the flavor of the character that much.
@Dekalinder: I hadn't realised just how good Frostbite is. Somehow I missed that last sentence that gives a touch/level. I just wish the developers would come down on one side or the other on how the multi-touch spells work with spellstrike and iterative attacks.
@WRoy: Yup, I have some options prepared for party support, etc, but I was trying to be prepared for more solo encounters. This is more of a freeflowing city adventure with intrigue and other twists rather than a straightforward AP or other prewritten module. Getting caught alone is a possibility. Also, PvP with another player could be in the cards someday.
Also, while a metamagic rod is the easiest and cheapest alternative, I realise the problems they cause for a magus. Maybe I can get a custom ring or other item made. Would be more expensive than a rod, but less than a tatoo. Tatoo magic is just plain cool though. :)
Thanks for the suggestions folks, helps me put my thoughts in better order.
One additional suggestion for you that requires allocating class resources as you level:
If you have decent DCs to your spells pick up ghoul touch with spell blending. Paralyzing someone with a spellstrike plus a 10' radius debuff is nice.
Hmm. Just realized how bad of a build that is.
Should maybe look like this:
Shocking Grasp Master
Human Magus:
Trait: Magical Lineage (Shocking Grasp)
1st: Combat Casting, Elemental spell (Acid or whatever)
3rd: Heighten Spell
5th: Preferred Spell (Shocking Grasp), Intensified spell
7th: Second Elemental Spell feat
9th: Empower Spell
11th: Third Elemental Spell Feat, Maximize Spell
13th: Quicken SpellYou get the idea.
Man I think this is a cool ass idea never cast anything but Shocking Grasp every time all the time
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The beautiful thing is that you wouldn't even actually prepare any shocking grasps. You'd have whatever other spells you think you'd need for the day and be able to convert any of them at any time to a metamagiced SG on demand.
Of course that's the whole poimt of Preferred Spell, so not like it hasn't been done before with wizards, but pretty cool with a magus I must say.
A magus has a couple of other touch spells that he can channel that use a different element and are very useful besides shocking grasp such as Frigid Touch. Inflicting the staggered condition for up to a minute on a crit is crazy useful. Frostbite is great and can be the basis of a Magus build on its own. You can even keep Corrosive Touch memorized as a back up if your concerned about elemental resistances, but as has been pointed out in a earlier post a Magus has a varied spell list filled with useful selections that will allow them to stay useful in a fight outside of single target damage. They can even diversify their spell list and take a few choice wizard/ sorcerer spells. Maybe a good summon monster spell so he can always have reliable allies when needed.