Kitsune Style Magus

[Minigiant]

Mingiant wrote:

After reading the Style Feat Post I became intrigued with combining the Stick-Figting Style feat line with the Staff Magus Archetype

....well little did I know that my research into that build would draw me away from both that style (to another) and that archetype (TBD)

The style that I have come to think is better for what I aim to do is Kitsune Style, specifically the second in it's chain of feats Kitsune Tricks

The entire build is focused upon Dirty Tricks, and triggering as many things as possible to go off when you are successful.

Race: Human
Class: Hexcrafter Magus

STR: 18
DEX: 14
CON: 14
INT: 15
WIS: 8
CHA: 10

Traits:
__________ (Campaign)
Bred for War (Race)
___________ (Undecided)
___________ (Drawback)

Feats:
1 (Level) - Improved Dirty Trick
1 (Human) - Dirty Fighting
3 (Level) - Kitsune Style
5 (Level) - Rime Spell
5 (Class) - Kitsune Tricks
7 (Level) - Enforcer
9 (Level) - Quick Dirty Trick
11 (Level) - Dimensional Agility
11 (Class) - Greater Dirty Trick
13 (Level) - ????
15 (Level) - Dirty Trick Master

Arcana
3 (Level) - ??????
4 (Class) - Hex: Flight
6 (Level) - Maneuver Mastery: Dirty Trick
9 (Level) - Hasted Assault
12 (Class) - Spell Trickery

So two effects are applied to the Dirty Trick, Spellstrike with the Rime Frostbite+Enforcer combo equals entangled+shaken+2 other conditions if all goes well, then at level 12 Spell Trickery allows for the possibility of a 5th thing happening too. The only caveat is that if you are spellstriking with your dirty trick, you have to use your weapon somehow.

It is pretty feat intensive and that has meant I don't have space for a few other feats that I like; Lunge, Weapon Focus, Improved Initiative. Kensai & Bladebound archetypes could resolve some of those issues.

Without investing into Charisma my intimidation is not particularly strong, a trait to boost that could potentially really help, as could the intimidating prowess feat or even just skill focus: intimidate.

[Minigiant]

Things are moving quickly. I have dropped the intimidate aspect because I can satisfy my need for quadruple debuff another way, and that involves dropping Hexcrafter for the Kensai archetype

Race: Human
Class: Kensai Magus

STR: 18
DEX: 14
CON: 14
INT: 15
WIS: 8
CHA: 10

Traits:
__________ (Campaign)
Bred for War (Race)
___________ (Undecided)
___________ (Drawback)

Feats:
1 (Level) - Improved Dirty Trick
1 (Human) - Dirty Fighting
1 (Class) - Weapon Focus
3 (Level) - Kitsune Style
5 (Level) - Rime Spell
5 (Class) - Kitsune Tricks
7 (Level) - Dazzling Display
9 (Level) - Quick Dirty Trick
11 (Level) - Dimensional Agility
11 (Class) - Greater Dirty Trick
13 (Level) - Shatter Defenses
15 (Level) - Dirty Trick Master

Arcana
3 (Level) - Close Range
6 (Level) - Maneuver Mastery: Dirty Trick
9 (Level) - ?????
12 (Class) - Spell Trickery

Conditions added from a Spellstrike Dirty Trick
- Entangled (Rime Metamagic)
- Staggered (Snowball or Frigid Touch)/Fatigued (Elemental Touch)
- Shaken (Dirty Trick 1)
+ One of; blinded, dazzled, deafened, or sickened.

Shatter Defenses at level 13 combines with

D20 wrote:

At 13th level, a kensai may always act and may draw his weapon as a swift action during a surprise round, though he is considered flat-footed until he acts. During a surprise round or when attacking a flat-footed opponent, he adds his Intelligence modifier on damage with his chosen weapon (minimum 0).

So the plan is to dirty trick and debuff massively but at the same time prep Shatter defenses which is triggered by the regular attacks with the added damage from the INT mod.

Kensai as a archetype also effectively gives me Improved Initiative and Combat Reflexes.

Dazzling Display is an annoying prerequisite that I am not sure whether I should invest in intimidate to at least try and make use of

[Scott Wilhelm]

This might have to do with personal biases, but I am not a fan of Kensai. That inflicing maxiumum damage thing is cool, but the no-armor restriction is really onerous, and so is diminished spellcasting. You can say, no, no: it's fine; Mage Armor. But if your ability to cast Spells is dminished, so is your ability to cast Mage Armor.

I got a bad taste in my mouth for Kensai ever since my first PFS game with my own character when we all made a plan for rushing in and handling a roomful of Goblin Alchemists. The Kensai and I were supposed to run in and beat on the Goblins, while the Wizard cast Sleep. Well, after the plan was executed, the Kensai decided, out-of-the-blue, that his character was too squishy to risk entering the room, leaving me the Goblins' only target for all their Alchemist Fire. They all had Burn! Burn! Burn!, too.

[Scott Wilhelm]

I don't think you should take Dirty Trick Feats and Shatter Defenses: they are a little redundant. Shatter Defenses makes your opponents Flatfooted. Dirty Tricks can be used to make your opponents Blind. Both Conditions involve denying your opponents their Dex Mod to AC. Being Flatfooted also means you can't take any Immediate Actions. Being Blind means you cannot even target opponents until you find them with a -20 on your Percaption Check, all Terrain is Difficult Terrain, and when you do find which square your opponents are in you suffer a 50% Miss Chance.

It seems to me that the thing you do with Dirty Tricks is Debuff opponents by imposing Conditions. And it seems to me that if you want to do that as a Magus, you have your Spells to do that with. Also, you have your Hexes: you were thinking of being a Hexcrafter Magus?

I think that a better Combat Maneuver to focus on would be Tripping for your Magus. You take Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Vicious Stomp, and Greater Trip, and you get 2 Attacks of Opportunity with each Trip attempt. Magus seems to support Critical Hit Builds. You can take Tripping Strike which gives you a free Trip Attempt with every Crit. You could be a Half Elf or Human Magus and use a Rhoka, which does 1d8 and has a Threat Range of 18-20. You could be a Bladebound Magus and use a Black-Blade Rhoka. Then you take your Tripping Feats and get all those lovely Attacks of Opportunity. And you can use your Arcane Pool to put Keen on your Blade and give yourself a Threat Range of 15-20.

I still like the idea of starting with 2 levels in Fighter with the Eldritch Guardian Archetype and a Mauler Famililar. There is a Familiar Arcana, so it will continue gaining levels. Your Familiar will know all the Combat Feats you know, including Outflank and Seize the Moment which give your Ally an Attack of Opportunity whenever they score a Crit, and Paired Opportunist which means whenever either of you get an AoO, both of you do.

[Minigiant]

Scott Wilhelm wrote:

I don't think you should take Dirty Trick Feats and Shatter Defenses: they are a little redundant. Shatter Defenses makes your opponents Flatfooted. Dirty Tricks can be used to make your opponents Blind. Both Conditions involve denying your opponents their Dex Mod to AC. Being Flatfooted also means you can't take any Immediate Actions. Being Blind means you cannot even target opponents until you find them with a -20 on your Percaption Check, all Terrain is Difficult Terrain, and when you do find which square your opponents are in you suffer a 50% Miss Chance.

Dirty Trick (Shaken) + Shatter Defenses + Iaijutsu Focus = The combo

If the enemy is left standing then they are left in a precarious position as they have multiple conditions to contend with thanks to the 2nd dirty trick condition and potentially a debuff from a spellstrike.

Scott Wilhelm wrote:

It seems to me that the thing you do with Dirty Tricks is Debuff opponents by imposing Conditions. And it seems to me that if you want to do that as a Magus, you have your Spells to do that with. Also, you have your Hexes: you were thinking of being a Hexcrafter Magus?

Originally I applied the hexcrafter archetype because no other archetype was needed and hexcrafter is a straight up improvement over the regular magus. That was then dropped as it it doesn't stack with Kensai; which provides me the benefits of certain feats I don't have space for, Improved Initiative, Combat Reflexes, Weapon Focus etc

Scott Wilhelm wrote:

I think that a better Combat Maneuver to focus on would be Tripping for your Magus. You take Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Vicious Stomp, and Greater Trip, and you get 2 Attacks of Opportunity with each Trip attempt. Magus seems to support Critical Hit Builds. You can take Tripping Strike which gives you a free Trip Attempt with every Crit. You could be a Half Elf or Human Magus and use a Rhoka, which does 1d8 and has a Threat Range of 18-20. You could be a Bladebound Magus and use a Black-Blade Rhoka. Then you take your Tripping Feats and get all those lovely Attacks of Opportunity. And you can use your Arcane Pool to put Keen on your Blade and give yourself a Threat Range of 15-20.

Tripping is good but I have done a tripping build before so looking at doing something different. Dirty Trick is also in my opinion better long term whereas tripping gets made redundant with things like flight

[Philippe Lam]

Scott Wilhelm wrote:

This might have to do with personal biases, but I am not a fan of Kensai. That inflicing maxiumum damage thing is cool, but the no-armor restriction is really onerous, and so is diminished spellcasting. You can say, no, no: it's fine; Mage Armor. But if your ability to cast Spells is dminished, so is your ability to cast Mage Armor.

I got a bad taste in my mouth for Kensai ever since my first PFS game with my own character when we all made a plan for rushing in and handling a roomful of Goblin Alchemists. The Kensai and I were supposed to run in and beat on the Goblins, while the Wizard cast Sleep. Well, after the plan was executed, the Kensai decided, out-of-the-blue, that his character was too squishy to risk entering the room, leaving me the Goblins' only target for all their Alchemist Fire. They all had Burn! Burn! Burn!, too.

If I was around the table, I would have gotten an immediate after-session chat with the player. I created and played a Kensai a fair number of times, and the damn job of the character is to get in first, dammit. Otherwise where's the purpose of having Int to AC and initiative bonuses ? *Bleep* in a nutshell.

It's not like it's impossible to buffer further - either using Frigid Touch to lower enemy output to vampiric touch them to better deal with pain. Their nova ability is good but given they don't have spell recall, this exhausts way faster.

From my personal experience, I prefer Dex Kensais over str versions given they are better resilient in the long run. Str's are stronger but I don't feel it justifies the tradeoff.