How would you go about making a kensai magus with the end goal of using Maximized Spellstrike?

[Masalic]

Cause the more I look at the kensai the more it becomes clear it was meant to be a magic quick drawing SA-MU-RAI. But to do this You either need to be really reliant on spells such as greater invisibility or something(Which while it can work is counter intuitive since you wanna hard focus on touch spells, or find a way to use it in combo with your attacks I.E Dirty trick or feinting. I decided to go with feinting cause while dirty trick can work I got something else in mind for that.

So I basically boiled it down to two route. The first one the wave strike route, More proactive but can only do it once per fight. Ok but if you're not close enough to someone when the combat starts its kind of dead weight.

The other option is swordplay upset, while while seemingly more reactive, you can force it out by intentionally triggering an AoO and then whipping it out. Personally this is the one I'm leaning towards but I wanna know if others think the first is better or there's another option I'm not thinking about.

[Phoebus Alexandros]

A few things.

Greater Invisibility is only counter-intuitive to the Magus if it’s counter-intuitive to your actual character theme. Which is to say, Greater Invisibility works just fine unless you’re opposed to your character doing his thing while invisible.

Swordplay Style demands so much relative to what it delivers. For it to do what you want, you’re giving up an attack (as part of Swordplay Deflection) and/or your swift action for the next round (as part of the immediate action of Swordplay Upset) for the privilege of setting up a Maximized Spellstrike in the next round.

That effect, of course, costs 3 arcana pool points. At level 12, you’re unlikely to have more than 15 points, so unless you minimize your use of your arcana pool elsewhere (and besides needing it to enchant your weapon, you’ll probably need points for uses of the Arcane Accuracy and Accurate Strike arcana, to offset the penalties fighting defensively or Combat Expertise are imposing on your character), you’re not using this power more than three times a day.

Honestly, if you want to try something left field, I would ask your GM if you’re allowed to research your own spells. If so, make a magus version of Tieldlara’s Feint. Alternately, see if your character can use a smokestick as, say, a pipe rather than a hand-held item in conjunction with the Equipment Trick feat. Using the Slow Burn trick, you character can feint once per round as a swift action for up to ten rounds (the slow-burning smokestick lasts for 1 minute).

[Kurald Galain]

You don't actually need to hard focus on touch spells. I mean, it's a good tactic but you have several other options.

And, note that instead of spending several feats on Swordplay Deflection (which is a weaker version of Opportune Parry and Riposte), you can simply take the Flamboyant Arcana which gives you the full Parry and Riposte and for much cheaper.

Here's a Magus guide, HTH.

[Masalic]

Kurald Galain wrote:

You don't actually need to hard focus on touch spells. I mean, it's a good tactic but you have several other options.

And, note that instead of spending several feats on Swordplay Deflection (which is a weaker version of Opportune Parry and Riposte), you can simply take the Flamboyant Arcana which gives you the full Parry and Riposte and for much cheaper.

Here's a Magus guide, HTH.

Ah I've always used your guide as a base, magus is my favorite class in the game after all.

[Phoebus Alexandros]

Kurald Galain wrote:

You don't actually need to hard focus on touch spells. I mean, it's a good tactic but you have several other options.

And, note that instead of spending several feats on Swordplay Deflection (which is a weaker version of Opportune Parry and Riposte), you can simply take the Flamboyant Arcana which gives you the full Parry and Riposte and for much cheaper.

Here's a Magus guide, HTH.

Flamboyant Arcana is absolutely the way to go for a parry and riposte ability, but I think OP was specifically looking at ways to enable Feint as part of a Spell Combat action.

[Belafon]

So what you are looking for is a way to feint that doesn't use a move or a standard action? (Swift, free, or "in place of a melee attack.")

Unfortunately I can't think of a way to do that with a Kensai unless you are using Combat Tricks from Unchained, in which case the Greater Feint trick lets you use it as a swift action that only lasts for one attack. Two-weapon feint and Feinting Flurry let you give up your first attack to feint but of course both of those rule out spell combat.

Invisibility?:

Do think through the effects of using invisibility as your method of denying Dex. One thing a lot of theorycrafting doesn't take into account is how often you actually get to take a full attack. And don't forget that when you use spell combat you can cast the spell before OR after making your weapon attacks. So you can take your melee attacks, then cast invisibility. (Greater or regular.) That sets you up to make a maximized spellstrike the next round whether or not you need to move.

Downside to that strategy is that many creatures can see invisibility by the time you are high enough level to take Maximized Spellstrike.

As others pointed out, arcane pool points are a limited resource. Maximized Spellstrike can end a fight fast, but in the best of circumstances you are probably only going to do it three or four times a day (saving some points for boosting your weapon and using any other arcana you have that require arcane pool points).

[Masalic]

Belafon wrote:

So what you are looking for is a way to feint that doesn't use a move or a standard action? (Swift, free, or "in place of a melee attack.")

Unfortunately I can't think of a way to do that with a Kensai unless you are using Combat Tricks from Unchained, in which case the Greater Feint trick lets you use it as a swift action that only lasts for one attack. Two-weapon feint and Feinting Flurry let you give up your first attack to feint but of course both of those rule out spell combat.

** spoiler omitted **

Yeah this is true, Feint might not be the way to go, but i might have found another idea. Canny Tumble would probably work well for this. Sure it only applies to one attack but that's honestly all i need.