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I'm building out a couple of different versions of a Magus, and I'm struggling a little with cantrip selection. It seems very beneficial to a Magus to be able to choose damage type, but to do that with cantrips means taking Acid Splash, Electric Arc, Produce Flame, and Ray of Frost. But Telekinetic Projectile does the most damage.
So do you just load up on 5 damaging cantrips? Or do you take shield? Daze for Mental damage or Chill Touch for Negative Energy? Detect Magic/Read Aura for utility?
Or do you take fewer attack cantrips, say Electric Arc, Ray of Frost (for something with a good range), and Telekinetic Projectile?
Is Cantrip Expansion another required feat for the Magus to have any utility casting?
At 1st level in particular, it feels like I'm either going to need to use cantrips or just ignore casting offensive spells most of the time.
In the situations I tried I used: Produce Flame, Distrupt undead (through adapted cantrip), Acid Splash, Electric Arc and Ray of Frost so I could cover most common weaknesses. I considered grabbing Divine Lance with adapted Cantrip too.
Note while thinking of grabbing stuff with feats: I noticed that it was fairly easy to grab the Rhoka sword for a Magus, and given the current crit fishing situation it's likely one of the best weapon for a Sliding Magus.
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At the moment I'm looking at Bastard Sword for a Slide Casting Magus. Rhoka is Uncommon and from the Bestiary 2, so I didn't want to assume it would be available. Also, I think it requires using Unconventional Weaponry in order to get advancing proficiency?
What I actually wanted to do was to recreate my Kingmaker CRPG character, who is a Magus/Aldori Swordlord, but going Dex-based just doesn't feel like the best test of the class in its current form, and I've got another Dex-based build already.
So the plan here is Bastard Sword with the Spell Parry/Capture Spell line. I'll probably build him out at 1st, 5th, 10th, and maybe 15th and 20th just to see what it would look like, though I doubt I'll get to test those levels.
I'm just really feeling the spell selection limitations.
At the moment I'm looking at Bastard Sword for a Slide Casting Magus. Rhoka is Uncommon and from the Bestiary 2, so I didn't want to assume it would be available. Also, I think it requires using Unconventional Weaponry in order to get advancing proficiency?
Unconventional Weaponry (Human 1st level feat, you can get it with Adopted Ancestry too) allows you to chose an uncommon weapon with an ancestry trait OR common in another culture. If you're proficient in all martial weapons (like most martials and the magus) you can choose and advanced uncommon weapon, and it'll count as martial for you then. The Rhoka sword is uncommon, but is the standard weapon of urdhefan soldiers and all urdefhans know how to use it, so it qualifies o/
Other than that, yeah I also prefer to take spell parry to replace shield so save a cantrip slot.
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Not every GM is going to allow Rhoka in every campaign, though. PFS, for example, does not allow anything from Bestiary 2. Unconventional Weaponry also limits the build to Humans/Half-Orc/Half-Elf (which the character is Human, so an option if it were allowed). I'd just prefer to test the character with a weapon I know would be allowed in pretty much every campaign.
I went with Daze, Electric Arc, Produce Flame, Telekinetic Projectile and Chill Touch. I also got Cantrip Expansion for Ray of Frost and Acid Splash.
The Utility Cantrips I got through a Ring of Minor Arcana (although the item is uncommon)
Not every GM is going to allow Rhoka in every campaign, though. PFS, for example, does not allow anything from Bestiary 2. Unconventional Weaponry also limits the build to Humans/Half-Orc/Half-Elf (which the character is Human, so an option if it were allowed). I'd just prefer to test the character with a weapon I know would be allowed in pretty much every campaign.
With Adopted Ancestry (a General feat) you can get that human feat since it has nothing to do with their biology. But yes it's quite heavily GM dependent, was just an interresting side-note
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I take daze, chill touch, electric Arc. These each target a different save and are the only damaging save cantrips to my knowledge.
Then I take produce flame and ray of frost. Or drop one in favor of shield cantrip.
I see little reason to deviate. I'll say if I picked a race that could get access to shield cantrip as a ancestry thing. I'd definitely take the 5 listed.
My logic for not taking TP is two-folds:
1: Not sure how it works narratively (yeah, that again) does it pushes the weapon more? So it adds 1d6 of the weapon's damage type basically. Or does it attracts a nearby object on the target (then depends on the environnement for damage type)
2: I tend to prefer having something to target elemental weaknesses, since there might not always be items laying around that would be of the right damage type to trigger a weakness against an ennemy. With some setup tho', like dropping a bag of silver daggers or stuff, it could be pretty useful i guess!
Adopted Ancestry puts getting Unconventional Weaponry to 5th level, since other Ancestries don't get a General Feat until 3rd.
It sounds like everyone just goes with attack cantrips. It also sounds like Telekinetic Projectile is the one that gets left off, despite having the highest damage?
It's critical effect is merely damage your weapon will be doing 1-2 of the 3 damage types already. I think people are just looking at leveraging weaknesses more. Produce flame critical effect is pretty huge at higher levels.
Produce Flame's crit, especially if you're lucky (or your GM is unlucky) can go a long way melting's a foe's HP.
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Alright. For level 1, I think I'm going to go with Daze, Chill Touch, Electric Arc, Produce Flame, and Shield (since I can't get Spell Parry until 2nd).
I could take Arcane Tattoo to get an extra one, but then I wouldn't be able to take Natural Ambition to get Combat Assessment, and I want to try to use something from the actual class other than Striking Spell.
The most fun cantrips I had on the sliding magus at level 13 were produce flame and tanglefoot.
Produce flame is fun because that persistent damage on a crit is incredibly brutal with how fast it scales, and it often pushes enemies to waste actions putting themselves out.
Similarly, even just getting hit by a tangle foot one time by higher levels means a battle long speed penalty that can often encourage a monster to waste an action to try to break free of. When they do, it gives them MAP for the round and they could fail (your DC isn't great, but it is not so bad that a bad roll won't keep them stuck).
Tanglefoot in particular is most fun with reach.
I'd be curious to what benefit we'd get from holding a spell if they did that though. Since we already get energized strikes I feel like it steps on toes.
Well, I would often cast tanglefoot on the whip in the first round and move into a defensive position or a place the enemy would have to move to get to me. (1st action was usually kicking runic impression on to get a targeted greater elemental rune - the crit effects on those are brutal).
Then round 2 you hit them with the tanglefoot. I never got a crit on that one, but it would probably have been worth true-striking if I had thought about it to boost those chances, because being immobilized and getting stuck with 2d10 persistent energy damage is probably a whole round waster on most enemies. The enemy probably breaks free with one action, but then is burning and stuck with MAP so they are probably just going to spend the next two actions putting themselves out.