We’re still deciding our ancestries and classes for our Rusthenge campaign and one of the new players wants to build a character that does martial with some melee (using martial weapons).
She I think has been inspired by the current Skyrim character she’s playing which combines one-handed martial with the other hand magic.
I know Magus fits this trope perfectly, but it’s not a newbie friendly class for beginner players.
What other options are ther to combine magic with melee?
My first thought was divine casters and semi-casters like war priest or champion. Kineticists also feel martial with magic used more like feats. Any other options? She wants to use martial weapons.
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I have a PFS champion of Nethys who casts a lot of spells from scrolls and otherwise uses a shield a lot. Even full casters end up having to use a lot of scrolls at low level to do much casting so an ancestry that gives a cantrip, a 16 in your casting stat and almost any martial is viable as a “spell sword.”
If you are going to be playing into the higher levels Monk and Champion really do it the best from the martial side. (My monk sorcerer who thought he was a wizard was a blast to play, and a devastating damage dealer (who would have died quickly if not in a party with a redeemer, some times party synergy makes or breaks a build).
From the caster side, Bard and Cleric are probably the best options for a hybrid that will be swinging a sword often. You could do it form a casters caster, but the low HP and difficulty building up your defenses and still using a weapon effectively can get you killed pretty fast.
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Casters with some inherent front-line abilities, like Warpriest, have the feel of a caster with a dash of weaponry added.
There are a couple of classes that are mostly martial with an inherent dash of mystical abilities added in. Thaumaturge and Monk are the ones that come to mind. Edit: And Champion, yes.
Another option for the martial with a dash of magic is to add it separately. This is done with a martial class like Fighter, Ranger, Swashbuckler, ... (not Barbarian because of the Rage preventing spellcasting) and then adding a spellcasting archetype. Preferably one that uses focus spells, like Psychic, Sorcerer, or Witch. Then you are mostly using Cantrips and focus spells for your magic feel because those scale at full level. Your spell slots will lag behind what is being thrown out by your full spellcasting allies. Adding Kineticist with their Impulses works too.
Taking a full caster and adding weapon abilities to it manually with archetypes doesn't work as well as we would hope. The problem is that the caster still doesn't have the HP and other defensive resources needed to actually be swinging a melee weapon at an enemy and be expected to survive the counterattack. You can instead add defensive abilities through archetypes and feat choices, but then you won't have the weapon abilities that you are wanting. It might be possible to add both, but it would require a very specific build - one that I don't know. Fortunately there are plenty of other options to use to represent your character.
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Also, the Magi isn’t necessarily as complicated as some folks make it sound. It is a little flimsy (and probably needs a fair bit of party support, but if you are not trying to spell strike every round, you have a lot of different options available to you, with your actions, but few of them are bad/must be completed in a specific order.
You can blast with a cantrip and go into arcane cascade one round, then rush forward and spell strike (for brutal amounts of damage), or move attack move and wait until an enemy comes to you, then spell strike and conflux spell. The twisting tree magus in our commander playtest has been devastating, even on rounds where she casts a cantrip and then strikes because spell strike can often be over kill in one injured opponent. I don’t think magus is really any more complicated than any other cast and stab build. The danger of all of them is being too MAD to boost Con, and dropping quickly.
All these have been very helpful!
What about Barbarian x Dragon disciple?
The player also has a deep love of dragons and while barbarians normally aren’t good with spells it seemed interesting
It's not a melee brute, but a pre-remaster PF2 wizard with the Staff Nexus thesis, the (Rare, so GM permission is required) Runelord class archetype, and a decent Str (14+ at 1st, increase to 18) can make a somewhat functional polearm/reach caster (the archetype gives proficiency in polearms and access to the feats Polearm Tricks for critical specialization and Fused Polarm to combine your polearm with your staff).
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Honestly, your best bet for a Skyrim Character is probably just an Eldritch Trickster Rogue that leans heavily into the ET schtick... and that's not ONLY because deep down we all know that most Skyrim playthroughs that aren't just "BEEG WEAPON FACETANK EAT FOOD DRINK POTION SURVIVE" end up being Stealth Archers with at least a handful of handy spells to boot, it IS the main reason I say so, but it's not the ONLY reason since, generally, Skills and talents are really crucial to Skyrim game feel and character advancement and the Rogue does that kind of thing better than anyone else.
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Honestly, your best bet for a Skyrim Character is probably just an Eldritch Trickster Rogue that leans heavily into the ET schtick...
Minor improvement - don't use Eldritch Trickster unless it is going to be a low-level-only campaign. If the campaign goes higher than level 3 pick a different Racket and just buy the Spellcasting Archetype (no longer locked to only Multiclass archetypes, btw) and Magical Trickster feats manually at the normal levels.
If you really need to have the spellcasting abilities at level 1, talk to the GM to see if you can use Eldritch Trickster during level 1 but then instantly retrain to a different Racket when you level up to level 2 as long as you promise to stick with the same Archetype choice for your level 2 feat.
Three quick thoughts.
1. What's the campaign level? Level 1 pretty much any caster class can start with +7 to hit, and levels 1-4 any caster class is equal to most martials in having trained proficiency. So if your campaign is going to spend a lot of time at levels 1-6, I'd say your player can pick any casting class they want and just use a feat to get the martial or special weapon they want added. An effective low level spellsword just requires investing in Str as a secondary attribute to your casting attribute.
2. Probably wouldn't take kineticist for this. While weapon infusion does let the k. emulate both 'swinging' and 'blasting' all day long, it sounds like your player wants to use all those juicy enchanted weapons that martials rely on. That's not a great fit with kineticist (but point #1 applies: k. is fine for this for levels 1-6ish).
3. What Unicore said about Magus. A player doesn't have to master the intricacies of keeping a spellstrike rotation going every round to make it a viable spellsword It's a perfectly fighter/mage even if you just spellstrike in round 1, then do whatever casting and striking you want, and only try spellstrike again when your "natural" choices of actions would include a conflux spell or give you a useless action you can now use to recharge it.
We are doing Rusthenge, then Wardens of Wildwood, possibly Curtain Call afterwards.
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Essentially, she really likes the flexibility that being a spellsword offers with melee mixed with casting. But she’s never played a ‘pen & paper’ rpg before.
Her playstyle is a lil impulsive in Skyrim and she tends to lean towards “Kill it! Kill it with fire!” Over calculated game play
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Essentially, she really likes the flexibility that being a spellsword offers with melee mixed with casting. But she’s never played a ‘pen & paper’ rpg before.
Her playstyle is a lil impulsive in Skyrim and she tends to lean towards “Kill it! Kill it with fire!” Over calculated game play
Based on your description, I feel the best would be to let her build a dual class PC of Barbarian (strong melee offense) and Sorcerer (ease of spontaneous casting). Easy to get the draconic theme on both classes BTW.
Which reminds me that we are going to get Bloodrager one of these days IIRC. Maybe that would be the best option when it comes out.
Note that both Barbarian and Sorcerer will be Remastered in PC2, especially the draconic ones.
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Honestly, your best bet for a Skyrim Character is probably just an Eldritch Trickster Rogue that leans heavily into the ET schtick...Minor improvement - don't use Eldritch Trickster unless it is going to be a low-level-only campaign. If the campaign goes higher than level 3 pick a different Racket and just buy the Spellcasting Archetype (no longer locked to only Multiclass archetypes, btw) and Magical Trickster feats manually at the normal levels.
Yeah, that's probably a safe bet for sure, esp since it can avoid mixing premaster and remaster Rogue functions, feats, and features.
Couple of questions about the build. Legacy or remaster? Free archetype or not? How much of a caster does she want to be? Depending on hybrid study she can do all that, not be too MAD, have as many cantrips as a regular caster with a better spell progression than an archetype.
Remaster. Missed this. My bad
Really like warpriests of Nethys. Pretty simple to play, you get access to Force Barrage for reliablility, and you can go heal/harm font for flexibility.
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Honestly, your best bet for a Skyrim Character is probably just an Eldritch Trickster Rogue that leans heavily into the ET schtick...Minor improvement - don't use Eldritch Trickster unless it is going to be a low-level-only campaign. If the campaign goes higher than level 3 pick a different Racket and just buy the Spellcasting Archetype (no longer locked to only Multiclass archetypes, btw) and Magical Trickster feats manually at the normal levels.
If you really need to have the spellcasting abilities at level 1, talk to the GM to see if you can use Eldritch Trickster during level 1 but then instantly retrain to a different Racket when you level up to level 2 as long as you promise to stick with the same Archetype choice for your level 2 feat.
This. My preference is Thief racket for Dex to damage, and then the spellcasting archetype of your choice.
If you are human you can pick up Arcane Tattoo at 1st level for something like Electric Arc, and use that until your actual spellcasting comes online. Since that uses CHA, it kind of points you towards one of the CHA spellcasting classes.
(My first PFS character did this and grabbed Runescarred -- it has some problems but is extremely flavorful in that all the magic comes from tattoos.)