Hey everyone, first thread here.
I was wondering what you fine folks think of how to go about building a laughing shadow magus. I am playing one in a campaign right now, and when I was building him I was originally going for a DEX build, as the subclass seems to encourage it with the extra movement speed boost and the extra damage on flat footed attacks during arcane cascade sorta making up for having less STR. But then when I thought about it I realized that STR just seems better.
A STR build has just as good accuracy, way better damage, a wider selection of weapons, and putting a little bit into DEX and using medium armor lets you keep up AC wise, and all DEX builds get is 5 more feet of movement over STR builds.
Am I missing something? What does everyone think?
(also might not be able to actually respond much in this thread, this is what happens when I decide to start a discussion while on a road trip lol)
STR is better if you care only about damage, particularly early on. You can also use manoeuvres better, but in general the action economy for Magi doesn't encourage Athletics builds.
DEX offers better Reflex saves, stealth options, and the flexibility to use archery in encounters where flight or extreme range make it a necessity.
In the long run, the damage differential is fairly small. Assuming that you're getting foes flat-footed to maximise the effect of your Cascade, a STR build realistically starts with 1d8+4+3 (11) and ends with 4d8+7+6+7 (38) base damage. A DEX build realistically starts with 1d6+2+3 (8) and ends with 4d6+4+6+7 (31). That's about 25-35% damage difference, tapering off at higher levels.
Of course, that doesn't factor in spellstrike.
Assuming basic cantrips, spellstrike starts off adding 1d4+2 (4) damage and ends up adding 10d4+5 (30). That lowers the damage difference to 10-25%, again tapering off at higher levels.
Your mileage may vary on the speed boost from being unarmoured - PF2 limiting the availability of attacks of opportunity, and the fact you can move your full movement up to three times a turn, means that an extra +5 to movement speed can actually be pretty strong, but only if it regularly occurs to you to take advantage of movement and positioning.
People get stuck in the mindset of "move up to your enemy then stand next to them and strike until they are dead" which causes them to devalue movement speeds a bit.
edit: it is worth noting that spellstrike counts as two attacks for your MAP, so you will almost always be wanting to do something else than making a third attack with your remaining action after using two actions to spellstrike. You can potentially avoid a lot of damage by using the following attack pattern;
Turn 1:
A1: Move into melee
A2/3: Spellstrike
Turn 2:
A1/2: Spellstrike
A3: Move out of melee
Turn 3: Repeat turn 1.
This way you spend half of the enemy turns a full move action away (on a regular 25 foot move character, unarmoured laughing shadow means you are 35 feet away, meaning most enemies have to use 2 actions to reach you).
Edit 2: And now I remember that you drop out of Arcane Cascade when you make a move action (I had assumed you could just cast a spell then you remain in the stance, silly me) so that messes with the move in and out advantage of the extra movement.
Outside of thief rogues, archer builds and druids, I can't see any reason to ever build dex in pf2e given how trivial it is to get heavy armor prof for bulwark.
In this case, freeing up dex allows a magus to have ideal stats by investing in str/con/int/wis and further boosting by taking dex and cha flaws (usually for more con). From there, grab sentinel at 2 or if you're daring, wait until 3 for the general armor training feat and delay sentinel until 10 or 12. Magi feats are pretty low value for the most part so you can pretty easily start a dedication at 2, take archetype feats at 4 and 8 and then sentinel at 10.
Edit: and then after taking sentinel, retrain the general feat for something better
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but when the spells are gone and all the resources are used up and it's still fighting time he can two-hand the Katana for bigger damage since cascade will be off, etc.
You can still use Spellstrike and Arcane Cascade with Cantrips.
Not that two-handing a Katana is a bad choice either/also.
you don’t see value in better reflex saves or extra class feats?Outside of thief rogues, archer builds and druids, I can't see any reason to ever build dex in pf2e given how trivial it is to get heavy armor prof for bulwark.
In this case, freeing up dex allows a magus to have ideal stats by investing in str/con/int/wis and further boosting by taking dex and cha flaws (usually for more con). From there, grab sentinel at 2 or if you're daring, wait until 3 for the general armor training feat and delay sentinel until 10 or 12. Magi feats are pretty low value for the most part so you can pretty easily start a dedication at 2, take archetype feats at 4 and 8 and then sentinel at 10.
Edit: and then after taking sentinel, retrain the general feat for something better
Generally no. Bulwark 3 (or 4 through mighty bulwark level 10 feat) is more than adequate for ref saves. And every class has dead feat levels. In this case, the only feat non-staff magi really need 2-10 is attack of opportunity so you have plenty of space to get both feats or casting at 2/4/8 and sentinel at 10.
freeing up dex allows a magus to have ideal stats by investing in str/con/int/wis and further boosting by taking dex and cha flaws (usually for more con)
Negative Dex still reduces your AC even while wearing heavy armor but I 100% agree that sentinel is a great choice for magus for your reason.
freeing up dex allows a magus to have ideal stats by investing in str/con/int/wis and further boosting by taking dex and cha flaws (usually for more con)Negative Dex still reduces your AC even while wearing heavy armor but I 100% agree that sentinel is a great choice for magus for your reason.
That's personal preference I think. Either +1 AC (compared to medium armour) or +1 to a save and either +1hp/lvl or +1 to init and wis skills
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I was also trying to decide this for my sprite magus. (The gimmick is using dimensional assault to get into people's squares without provoking). But eventually I was looking at how to get opponents flat-footed for Laughing Shadow's bonus damage. I don't have charisma, so feint is out. Reach 0 (probably) can't flank, so that's out. But Sneak can get me there, so I needed stealth to be as good as it could be, so I went with dex.
I like a Laughing Shadow semi-monk build. Max Dex. Take Arcane Fist level 1. Starting array for Human 14 18 10 14 10 12. By level 10, your array look like this 18 20 12 18 10 14. +5 Dex means your AC is the same as wearing any armor that's not Heavy.
I really like the idea on an unarmed/unarmored fighter zipping around the battlefield blasting people with elemental punches to the face.
An alternative could be Elf 14 18 8 16 10 12, getting speed up to 40 by level 3. Level 10 array same as above, and getting to teleport up to 25 feet in one action. The 50 speed in Cascade means that you can stride and spellstrike a target that your heavy armor fighter has to stride twice to get to.
That is definitely the boldest stat array I've seen. Given that Spellstrike is two actions it feels hard to go in and outbor combat and you would get smakced in the face once and almost die.