Eldritch Scion Build


Advice


Much of the concept I’m working on is driven by themes rather than mechanics. That is to say, I’m interested in the character making sense mechanically as well as stylistically, but optimization is not a priority. I think I’m somewhere around the 90 percent solution, but would welcome recommendations, especially regarding feat selection for later levels—for reasons that will become apparent very quickly.

Race: Human
Racial Traits: Fey Magic, Fey Thoughts, and Low-Light Vision in place of Skilled
Character Traits: Artist of Battle in All Forms (Trip), Signature Moves

1. Dirty Fighting (human), Improved Initiative (level)

At the start, my survival plan primarily involves going first and using Daze, Blade Lash, and True Strike to get through encounters. Dirty Fighting is a stepping stone toward the maneuvers this character will focus on.

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Phoebus Alexandros wrote:
Much of the concept I’m working on is driven by themes rather than mechanics. That is to say, I’m interested in the character making sense mechanically as well as stylistically, but optimization is not a priority.

What are the themes you chose? With a squint test I currently see "fey" and "trip".

The "survival plan" and "get through" part sounds like you expect a difficult life for this character. Is this actually realistic, given the campaign and the GM? Because worrying too much can easily make you retreat to stuff you are familiar with, killing the concept you created.

It happened before. I had a player who started off with an original character concept (a curious merchant), but after a character death he was so consumed by fear that he abandoned that completely, in favor of playing yet another "god wizard".


Sigh. First I accidentally hit the submit button before I got done with my post. Then I accidentally closed out the window right as I got done finishing my post via edit.

SheepishEidolon, I promise you I had the whole thing fleshed out… 20 levels’ worth of planning, ideas, and questions.

I’ll have to revisit this tomorrow. I’m just too tired to type all of that again right now.


For a crit-fishing build focusing on the Fey Bloodline's Confusing Critical... you could start with one level of Inspired Blade Swashbuckler... trade Derring-Do and Dodging Panache for the Vengeful Heart deed of renown. This opens you up for Fencing Grace at level one, helps your weak save, and sets you up with Panache/Opportune Parry & Riposte, as well as Resolve.

For a trip build, I would probably use the Aberrant Bloodline... but that doesn't fit this theme.

What Bloodline and weapon do you want to use?


Okay, here we go, take two...

Race: Human
Racial Traits: Fey Magic, Fey Thoughts, and Low-Light Vision in place of Skilled
Character Traits: Artist of Battle in All Forms (Trip), Signature Moves
Class: Magus (Eldritch Scion) VMC Cavalier (Order of the Blossom)
Bloodline: Arcane (son of a human witch and a fey warrior)

The concept I'm going for is that of an "arcane knight" of sorts. Feat economy being what it is, I'm going with a Strength build, focusing on a rapier. He'll start with spell-enabled combat maneuvers, grow into hurting them with sneak attacks, and finally start hitting hard with Spellstrike for the last 6-7 levels. At his apex, he'll hopefully get 5 attacks a round, all of them benefiting from significant conventional and arcane attack bonuses; one of the highest BAB attacks will deliver a powerful touch spell, while the other will be aimed at disarming or tripping.

Partly because this character will already be VMC, but mostly for reasons of backstory and personal tastes, this character won't otherwise multi-class.

I am confident that my scion will be allowed to engage in spell research. As such, rather than invest in the Spell Blending Arcana I'll focus on having my scion research a handful of spells to round out his list. Sense vitals is a must for this concept. Calcific touch would be nice. Dance of a thousand cuts would be amazing!

Campaign-specific note: spells of the teleportation subschool are out.

1. Dirty Fighting (human), Improved Initiative (level)

At the start, my survival plan primarily involves going first and using daze, blade lash, and true strike to get through encounters. These two spells, and the dirty fighting feat, will in turn grow into the scion's larger concept.

3. Familiar Arcana

I struggled to make the cavalier's Tactician ability work with this character's theme. Eventually, I came to grips with how hard it would be to get the Order of the Blossom's sneak attack and bonus to feint work given the loss of half my level-based feats. That gave me the freedom to embrace the familiar as the means to give my scion a consistent means of flanking his opponent.

4. Arcane Bloodrage

My scion gets a much-needed +1 to his Arcane Pool thanks to his favored class bonus. He also gets four decent buffs, three of which should find consistent use.

5. Improved Disarm (Magus bonus feat), Improved Familiar (level)

I want improved disarm to cover my bases, maneuvers-wise, and because I don't want to have to rely on long arm to prevent attacks of opportunity.

Improved familiar is there for a couple of reasons. Thematically, I like the idea of a fey-blooded knight having a faerie as a familiar. Mechanically, having a humanoid (however tiny or diminutive) familiar hitting with reasonable accuracy and a miniature +1 keen rapier will open the doors to more damage-dealing possibilities.

6. Maneuver Mastery Arcana (Trip)

While true strike will be the vehicle for disarming, I don't foresee going away from blade lash for tripping. The range is just too good. As we head into higher levels, though, Maneuver Mastery turns into a +3 to +5 bonus to my scion's CMB, which could make a big difference with certain monsters. Given that enlarge person will allow my scion to potentially trip creatures up to size Huge, I'd rather maximize his odds.

7. Sneak attack comes online, courtesy of the Order of the Blossom! By this point, my scion will have dropped coin to research--and add to his spell list--sense vitals, to have stacking sneak attacks.

8. Greater Arcane Bloodrage

Sneak Attack goes up to 2d6, and my scion's bloodrage now provides displacement, adding to his survivability.

9. Chain Challenge (level), Hasted Assault Arcana

Challenge is now worth a damn, providing not just a +4 bonus to damage, but a -3 penalty to saving throws against my scion's spells. Doing that to potentially a lot of people, if only once per day, is pretty cool.

By now, hasted assault should provide my scion with 7 rounds of benefit... so I will hopefully only have to use that once a battle, mitigating the hit to the Arcane Pool.

11. Improved Trip (Magus bonus feat), Outflank (Tactician teamwork feat)

Improved trip is there to narrow down the bonus gap between disarming and tripping. Outflank will grant my scion an attack of opportunity whenever his familiar confirms a critical, and even if that's going to be a rare occasion the +4 flanking bonus should be a consistent thing.

12. Caster's Scourge, Close Range Arcane

Caster's Scourge is situational at best, I suppose... but on the other hand the people it will work on are precisely the ones I want provoking free attacks from my scion.

Close Range is understandably maligned, but at this point Order of the Blossom inflicts a -4 penalty to the target of my scion's Challenge. That makes higher-level ray spells like cosmic ray and, later, disintegrate, a lot more interesting.

13. Greater Trip

This is one of my big question marks. Greater disarm feels slightly more apropos for my scion's theme. Greater trip affords an attack of opportunity. Just as importantly, I wonder how many disarm-able opponents my scion will be running into, compared to size Medium-Huge creatures he can trip.

14. Sneak attack goes up to 3d6... 7d6 when combined with sense vitals!

15. Fey Enchantments, Quickened Magic Arcana

The spell-like abilities provided by the Order of the Blossom are definitely nothing to write home about.

The 1/day swift action spellstrike makes me reconsider going away from the tried-and-true Spell Perfection route.

16. Fey Enchantments, True Arcane Bloodrage

More SLAs to gather dust... although charm monster might come in handy, I suppose.

Of the three forms provided by my scion's bloodrage, at least two can't cast spells. Could my scion cast spells or wield his rapier in dragon form?

BUT--the target of my scion's Challenge now suffers a -5 penalty to saving throws!

17. Cunning Killer (level), Spell Penetration (Magus bonus feat)

I rolled well for my scion's ability scores. Well enough that I should be able to maximize the use of Cunning Killer all the way through level 20. That means a +4 insight bonus to attack and damage rolls against any creature with an Intelligence of 12 or less that my scion identifies using the appropriate Knowledge skill... plus another +1 to +3 competence bonus to attack rolls from the skill itself.

18. ... Arcana

If my scion can cast spells and wield his rapier as a dragon, then I'd be inclined to go with the Natural Spell Combat Arcana. If not, then I would go with the Critical Strike Arcane.

19. Improved Outflank (Greater Tactician teamwork feat)

I'm not terribly excited about the benefit of improved outflank... given the high likelihood of my familiar being in the appropriate square to begin with... but I can't think of a much more useful teamwork feat for this late in the game. I'm happy to take suggestions!

20. By now, my scion should be reliably sneak attacking for 9d6 damage four or five times a round. I doubt we'll be running into spellcasters with a lower level than my scion's often enough, but it is what it is.

Thoughts?

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Eldritch Scion with Arcane bloodline is an amazing combo. You're eventually getting three buff spells as a single swift action, sign me up!

You can switch out your 1st-level bloodline ability for a familiar. This allows you to spend a feat on Extra Arcane Pool, which is nice to have (and even better if you can retrain it later).

You're probably familiar with the Spell Blending arcana, which allows you to pick wizard spells? That covers most of the off-list spells you want. Note that the Frostbite spell will probably outdamage Sense Vitals, anyway.

The spell to look out for is Tactical Adaptation, which lets you temporarily take a combat feat. This allows you to focus your regular feats on tripping, and pick up disarm feats in the occasion that you need them. It depends on the campaign, but in my experience armed humanoids are rare opponents at mid-level and up.

Greater Trip is amazing because it grants all your allies an AOO as well. I'd get this earlier if possible. Note that an exemplar trait counts as two traits, so you've currently got three traits and you usually only get two.

Finally, here's the Magus Guide. HTH!


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Have you considered Desna's Shooting Star? Since your build isn't baes on Shocking Grasp you don't need a high crit range weapon that much, and both combat maneuvers you focus on are made with weapons. It would let you focus on charisma, strengthening the casting side of your character; plus I think a charisma focus fits the fey theme, and that using the same stat for attacking and casting fits the "arcane knight" concept.


Kurald Galain wrote:
You can switch out your 1st-level bloodline ability for a familiar. This allows you to spend a feat on Extra Arcane Pool, which is nice to have (and even better if you can retrain it later).

The Bloodline Familiar is a very tempting proposition. I like everything you’ve said here, and the two extra Arcane Pool points are incredibly tempting.

Quote:
You're probably familiar with the Spell Blending arcana, which allows you to pick wizard spells? That covers most of the off-list spells you want. Note that the Frostbite spell will probably outdamage Sense Vitals, anyway.

I recognize the utility of Spell Blending, but at the same time I just don’t like the idea of committing an Arcana to something that will cost me little more than downtime and a moderate amount of gold.

As for Frostbite, an earlier iteration of this build was focused on just that—the old Rime Spell build, and all that. At the end of the day, though, I have a limited number of feat slots, and the Order of the Blossom’s sneak attack spoke more to me.

Quote:
The spell to look out for is Tactical Adaptation, which lets you temporarily take a combat feat. This allows you to focus your regular feats on tripping, and pick up disarm feats in the occasion that you need them. It depends on the campaign, but in my experience armed humanoids are rare opponents at mid-level and up.

I’m very excited about this spell. To your point, the nature of the campaign is such that I expect we’ll be dealing with plenty of humanoid (or at least humanoid-shaped) opponents throughout.

Quote:
Note that an exemplar trait counts as two traits, so you've currently got three traits and you usually only get two.

I did not know that—thanks, I’ll fix that!

EDIT: I was blissfully unaware of the larger intent behind the Exemplar traits and the Additional Traits feat. I may have to re-think some things.

Quote:
Finally, here's the Magus Guide. HTH!

It’s been bookmarked and saved for years now!


Derklord wrote:
Have you considered Desna's Shooting Star? Since your build isn't baes on Shocking Grasp you don't need a high crit range weapon that much, and both combat maneuvers you focus on are made with weapons. It would let you focus on charisma, strengthening the casting side of your character; plus I think a charisma focus fits the fey theme, and that using the same stat for attacking and casting fits the "arcane knight" concept.

Yeah, I put some real thought into it. It’s a terrific feat, and mechanically it makes total sense. At the end of the day, though, the starknife doesn’t resonate with the part of the world in our campaign will take place. I’ll float it by my GM and see how he feels about it being a fey weapon, though (I don’t think he has defined their overall feel yet, as our various campaigns until now have been focused on the Material Plane, with our various excursions being toward the Upper and Lower Planes).


Anyone have any clarity as to whether Familiar SLAs improve as you go up in level, or whether a Magus can cast spells while using Form of the Dragon?


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"When you cast a polymorph spell that changes you into a creature of the animal, dragon, elemental, magical beast, plant, or vermin type, all of your gear melds into your body. [...] While in such a form, you cannot cast any spells that require material components (unless you have the Eschew Materials or Natural Spell feat), and can only cast spells with somatic or verbal components if the form you choose has the capability to make such movements or speak, such as a dragon." CRB pg. 212


Well, that settles that bit! No big deal, I suppose. Being able to engage in spell combat in a different form always felt more like icing on the cake, rather than the cake itself.

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Derklord wrote:
cast spells with somatic or verbal components if the form you choose has the capability to make such movements or speak, such as a dragon." CRB pg. 212
Phoebus Alexandros wrote:
Well, that settles that bit! No big deal, I suppose. Being able to engage in spell combat in a different form always felt more like icing on the cake, rather than the cake itself.

As Derklord cited, you can use vocal and somatic components specifically when you're a dragon. You can use material components if you have a Polymorphic Pouch. So the answer is "yes".


Somatic or verbal components explicitly work in dragon form. I'm not sure if SCPs for dragons exist, and I don't think a regular one would work with those claws - at the very least you should need a larger one (you'd need to equip it after polymorphing, or use a Polymorphic Pouch with the GM having items inside it grow with you). Depending on your GM, you might need to actually take Eschew Materials or False Focus. The dragons in the Bestiaries RAW don't actually have any means to provide material components, as they have neither SCPs nor Eschew Materials.

Another issue is that dragons can't wield weapons, and that you can use only a single natural attack with Spell Combat (and only with a claw), unless you want to invest heavily into the Natural Spell Combat arcana. So you'd lose your weapon's benefits, and would need to waste a ton of money on an AoMF to get some back.


This… should actually work. Ultimately, I was trying to determine whether Natural Spell Combat would be a viable Arcana choice once my scion’s bloodrage granted him form of the dragon I. So now I have to ponder the cost/benefit of Natural Spell Combat (and, vis-a-vis, how often I’d be using dragon form) versus a 1/day Critical Strike.

Polymorphic pouch shouldn’t be an unrealistic item for our campaign. Honestly, given my GM’s taste for bespoke and otherwise signature items, as well as the Druidic angles involved in this campaign, something like a polymorphic baldric/scabbard might not be unattainable, either.

Thank you, both!


Note that Natural Spell Combat is for a single natural attack, so in order to get all the attacks of an ordinary dragon (minus the second claw that needs to be the free hand), you'd need to select it four times (bite, tail slap, 2x wing). Definitely not worth it, especially since three of the natural attacks are secondary ones.

Ultimately, Greater Arcane Bloodrage is neigh worthless for a Magus, at least for combat. It's that way for weapon based Bloodragers, too.

Of course, if your GM lets you wield a rapier as a dragon, that's different.

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Derklord wrote:
Ultimately, Greater Arcane Bloodrage is neigh worthless for a Magus, at least for combat. It's that way for weapon based Bloodragers, too.

An alternative to Form of the Dragon is Beast Shape IV (which covers magical beasts too); I'm sure that offers some forms that have hands, so that gives you a hefty +6 to strength and armor class.


Derklord wrote:

Note that Natural Spell Combat is for a single natural attack, ... Definitely not worth it, especially since three of the natural attacks are secondary ones.

Ultimately, Greater Arcane Bloodrage is neigh worthless for a Magus, at least for combat. It's that way for weapon based Bloodragers, too.

Of course, if your GM lets you wield a rapier as a dragon, that's different.

I viewed Natural Spell Combat as a means to facilitate an emergency situation rather than as a go-to for melee combat. I don’t doubt that something good can come out of True Arcane Bloodrage, but yeah… at best, it essentially requires you to invest a lot of resources to re-specialize during what should be the character’s end-run stage.

Kurald Galain wrote:
An alternative to Form of the Dragon is Beast Shape IV (which covers magical beasts too); I'm sure that offers some forms that have hands, so that gives you a hefty +6 to strength and armor class.

Which brings us back to the conundrum of forms that allow for speech. There are, I think 7-8 spells that don’t require a verbal component, of which maybe three directly apply to Spell Combat.

That said, I’m going to spend a few minutes pondering whether the silent spell feat—and, vis-a-vis, all my scion’s spells using up a spell slot one level higher than their actual level by default—are worth the functionality and increased physical prowess beast shape IV and form of the dragon I provide.

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Phoebus Alexandros wrote:


Kurald Galain wrote:
An alternative to Form of the Dragon is Beast Shape IV (which covers magical beasts too); I'm sure that offers some forms that have hands, so that gives you a hefty +6 to strength and armor class.
Which brings us back to the conundrum of forms that allow for speech.

Ring of Eloquence says hello.

I've checked; the Reigion, Ahuizotl, Dire Wolfwere, and Lionwere are large magical beasts that can wield weapons. The Devil Monkey is a huge animal that can wield weapons.


Excellent! Thank you so much for your help, Kurald!


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Kurald Galain wrote:
I've checked; the Reigion, Ahuizotl, Dire Wolfwere, and Lionwere are large magical beasts that can wield weapons.

I can't find a creature named Reigion, and Dire Wolfwere and Lionwere are not from a Paizo source. Ahuizotl's human hand might be able to wield a weapon, but it would lack a second hand to cast a spell or use Spell Combat.

The Angazhani (High Girallon) might work, but it's from a softcover book, and potentially falls under "Polymorph spells cannot be used to assume the form of [...] an advanced version of a creature." It's also unclear whether the hands are delicate enough for spellcasting.
Jackalwere is also listed with weapons, but it's a shapeshifter and the natural form is a jackal.

Kurald Galain wrote:
The Devil Monkey is a huge animal that can wield weapons.

That's dubious, I'd say, but more importantly I'm not convinced it can cast spells.

Kurald Galain wrote:
that gives you a hefty +6 to strength and armor class.

The natural armor bonus is off-set by the dex penalty and by you losing your armor. Indeed, if you don't have Mage Armor (which is not on the Magus list), your AC will notably drop. Not necessarily enough to make it not worth it overall, but still.

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Ah crap, I missed that it's third-party (usually you can tell from the URL, but not always).

Still, a regular girallon should work; apes can use tools. I'd argue that any bipedal mammal with hands (and a ring of eloquence) can cast spells, although I'm not sure if there's strict RAW on that.

Fair point on armor class, but Mage Armor is only a Spell Blending or an UMD check away.

However, even if you can't cast spells, replacing your weapon/iterative/spell combat sequence with claw/claw/claw/claw/bite, or with claw/claw/wing/wing/bite/tail, seems like good thing, no?

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