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I'm curious about how the different Magus hybrid studies interact with weapons that have the Two-Hand trait like the bastard sword or dwarven waraxe.
The draw of those weapons is the ability to switch between high damage and high defense as needed. But each hybrid study kind of boxes you in to a specific fighting style. If you're Inexorable Iron, you're never going to really use a shield, you're expecting to take more damage and recover from it instead of mitigating it via shield. If you're Sparkling Targe, your shield is equal to and perhaps more important than the weapon itself, so you're never going to want to lose its benefits by utilizing the Two-Hand trait. Ostensibly, the only hybrid study that CAN take advantage of it is Twisting Tree, where switching between different weapon styles is baked right into its features, allowing you to change your staff's traits on the fly.
Am I understanding this right? Is there a way a Magus could hypothetically switch-hit in this way, like say, Inexorable Iron with the Bastion Archetype? Sparkling Targe with Mauler Archetype? I'm curious because I really like versatility in my characters, so I kind of chafe at how tight Magus can be sometimes...Thanks in advance for your discussion! :)
Worth noting that Targe Magi can use the Shield spell to if they don't have a real shield, it only really negatively impacts your shield block/dazzling block but that's whatever.
Laughing Shadow doesn't care that much about weapon type either, you trade situational damage for more consistent damage it ends up not being a big deal.
In general I feel like trying to juggle between 1h+shield and 2h is just not going to be great for anyone though. Feels awkward.
I imagine the main use of the trait would be being able to use a staff in the off hand some of the time, maybe for true strike on a staff of divination. Or letting you get a juicy d12 from the shifting of a striker's staff. But you could also use it intermittently for wands and such.
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Heh. I don't really find my magi boring, it's certainly a class that has a lot going on. Just not this particular thing. Every class has some things they care about and some they don't really.
Oh, I meant the Fighter class being the only one that gets anything out of switching between weapon grips. Fighters are, in my opinion, the most boring class.
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Well I'd say the hand-and-a-bit fighter is the fighter I find the most engrossing. While fighters focusing on sword&board or double pick or 2H weapons seem pretty locked into a few rotations. The fighter with an 1H weapon has a lot of freedom. You can do maneuvers, open doors, throw a bomb, use some feats, do some Two-Hand weapon action and so on.
It's because you haven't committed both of your hands while picking feats.
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But then when the fight's over you're just left standing around picking your nose while the interesting classes get to do things like persuade the council to listen to you, decipher the ancient runes on the door, analyze the workings of a complicated clockwork trap to figure out how to disable it, charm the local wolf pack to give you information on your target, receive holy visions from their deity, and you're just waiting for the next combat encounter to start so you can be useful again, because you don't have enough skill points or bonuses due to dumping Intelligence and Charisma and don't have any cool powers that let you do anything else but fight. :(
But then when the fight's over you're just left standing around picking your nose while the interesting classes get to do things like persuade the council to listen to you, decipher the ancient runes on the door, analyze the workings of a complicated clockwork trap to figure out how to disable it, charm the local wolf pack to give you information on your target, receive holy visions from their deity, and you're just waiting for the next combat encounter to start so you can be useful again, because you don't have enough skill points or bonuses due to dumping Intelligence and Charisma and don't have any cool powers that let you do anything else but fight. :(
Your basic fighter is boosting str/con/wis/other. You have three skills, same as magus. Pick cha and boost diplo or pick int and boost arcane or ignore your last stat and boost religion or whatever other wis skill.
Nothing about fighter in pf2e restricts their skill selection because everyone that isn't a skill-type (rogue) class is restricted to 3 skills anyway.
My Battle Oracle loves the two hand trait for when I've used up my True Strike slots or just need some utility from my staff.
I also think any build with shield block and a "revenge" shield meant to be broken is well suited to it. Or anything that just intermittently needs a free hand, for that matter.
because you don't have enough skill points or bonuses due to dumping Intelligence and Charisma and don't have any cool powers that let you do anything else but fight. :(
So don't dump those?
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How can you not if you want all your STR, DEX, CON and WIS to be as high as possible at the start?because you don't have enough skill points or bonuses due to dumping Intelligence and Charisma and don't have any cool powers that let you do anything else but fight. :(So don't dump those?
You don't really have to, not all of them at the same time.
Heavy armor with bulwark can make Dex much much less necessary. You'll feel it sometimes that you didn't take it, but that's true of charisma as well.
Bravery is a fairly early boost to Will and although you don't go to Master, the reduced Frighten takes the sting out of quite a few things that you'd be rolling Will against anyway. So you can afford to live with average (not quite bottom) wisdom.
You start out with good HP, good armor proficiencies, and a good base fortitude save, so Con is also something that you want but you don't have to have it so hard that you can't have anything else.
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My personal recipe for happy martial characters is to figure out one mental stat that I'll focus on, and get it to at least 14 at level 1 and keep boosting it. That way you have a clear angle for out of combat stuff to do.
For a fighter or champion it might be Intelligence, so that I'll have good Craft to repair my shield.
For a ranger it's clearly going to be Wisdom because of all the nature/wilderness skills.
For a barbarian I might go charisma because I want to be able to come to a tribal meeting and be impressive, not just the sulking hulk.
These aren't hard rules; most classes seem to have an obvious path but the other paths work too. Champion seems to have Charisma as an obvious path but there's synergy between Intelligence/Crafting and shields. A barbarian leaning into Survival and Nature makes sense too. A fighter might lean into Charisma for Demoralize, or rely on Intimidating Strike.
So, may different ways, but I think it's always a happy thing to pick a mental stat and develop it so you have more out of combat game to play.