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I'm not a huge magus fan but I decided to build one using the sorcerer archetype and dumped intelligence. Since the magus can just land any of their magus spell attacks with their weapon and scale any other non-spellstrike offensive spells with their sorcerer spells, this is a completely viable build right? Or am I missing something major for why a magus NEEDS to invest in intelligence?
Yes it's viable but you will be restricted to just use supportive and attack spells. Because all save spell will require your intelligence to land.
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Only those from the 4 magus slots though.
The sorcerer slots will be charisma based.
Not a bad idea.
Stick to attack roll and support cantrips and spells with the magus slots and get any save spells you want with the sorcerer slots
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Yeah the magus is kinda unique in that they can do this. As long as you make sure your offensive spells are all spell-attack based, you don't care too much about intelligence. For buff spells etc it rarely matters what your intelligence is.
(It could be an issue with you trying to counteract, or resist someone's dispel magic. But it's really rare that people try to counteract your buffs.)
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Do be aware that your Sorcerer Dedication cantrips will land on your Sorcerer Spell DC, based on your Charisma... which is good when you are low level. But your dedication doesn't go to Expert at 7th level like a regular spellcaster, you have to take a dedication feat at 12th level. So there is considerable lag there.
Also remember that a Dedication spellcaster acquires spell slots slowly.
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Do be aware that your Sorcerer Dedication cantrips will land on your Sorcerer Spell DC, based on your Charisma... which is good when you are low level. But your dedication doesn't go to Expert at 7th level like a regular spellcaster, you have to take a dedication feat at 12th level. So there is considerable lag there.
Also remember that a Dedication spellcaster acquires spell slots slowly.
This is no longer correct. Spellcasting Proficiency was unified by the remaster, so the character would cast spells at expert from 9th level onward, and at master from 17th level onward.even before the remaster, if the multiclass spellcasting dedication chosing shard a tradition woth your primary class, you could use your primary class's spell DC progression (That's why wizard was a popular multiclass for Maguses back then)
use my tome as a shield for tankiness
I don't reccomend this bit. Raise a tome is only valuable for its circumstance bonus to recall knowledge, which your Charisma magus will not be good at. You are much better off investing in an actual shield.
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I don't reccomend this bit. Raise a tome is only valuable for its circumstance bonus to recall knowledge, which your Charisma magus will not be good at. You are much better off investing in an actual shield.
Damn, you're right. It's really no different than just using a shield at that point it seems. Still, I was looking forward to blocking with my spellbook as a representation of my character's lack of appreciation for education, so I might just stick with it anyway.
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Viable, yes. As long as you are aware of the limitations, it can be quite fun to play.
In addition to the other things noted by previous commenters, I'll add a couple more.
You will probably want a ranged weapon. An INT maxed Magus can use Cantrips for ranged damage in a pinch. An INT dumped one would be better with a bow.
As noted, your spellcasting attack bonus and DC for your Sorcerer spells is pretty good (about as good as an INT maxed Magus's bonus/DC), but the spell slot Ranks are lower. You can use your highest Rank Sorcerer slots for damage spells, but they won't do as much damage as your Magus spell slot Ranks could.
So you may still be relegated to buff/debuff spells from your Sorcerer slots too. They will be too low Rank for modifying HP (damage or healing) and too low Rank for Counteract checks for condition removal.
But hey, Bards are considered top picks because of their ability to buff/debuff. Magus may not do it quite as well as a Bard (who does?), but that doesn't mean that spending those spell slots on that as a side-gig is a bad plan.
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...You will probably want a ranged weapon. An INT maxed Magus can use Cantrips for ranged damage in a pinch. An INT dumped one would be better with a bow.
But any cantrips gained through the Sorcerer archetype would use Cha rather than Int, and the OP's description of the character as an "intimidating brute" makes me think they want a high strength build.
With a low Dex and medium to high Cha, the Sorcerer cantrips could easily be a better ranged option than using a bow.
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Maxed cha would also make any ancestry spells good options too
I think dumping INT is plenty acceptable, but I'd probably pick champion over sorcerer if I wanted to go CHA. Heavy armor is useful and lets you have less DEX; Fire Ray is still a good focus spell.
You're not getting much spell-wise from the sorcerer archetype that you can't get from your own class slots, though. If you want to use the sorcerer archetype specifically for slotted casting, I'd say you're barking up the wrong tree. You would have a better time keeping your int high (so your magus spells are better), taking an archetype with a good focus spell to spellstrike with, and using your magus slots to play a pinch-hit caster. I feel like you're dangerously close to asking, "what if I dumped the stat my class uses to cast and used a different stat to cast spells I'll get from an archetype, even though the archetype spells are always behind in spell rank and cost feats to acquire and that means what I'm suggesting is strictly worse?"
Even if you dump INT, your magus slots will be more valuable than your sorcerer slots because on-rank buffs and saveless spells will be strong regardless of your save DCs. Your sorc slots are always 3 levels (as in, character levels of progression) behind at a minimum. And progressing sorc spells will require you to invest skill increases in an INT or WIS-based skill, which you might not feel so hot on after dumping INT.
This isn't to say there's no reason at all to take the Sorc archetype; you could use it to pick up an interesting focus spell for flavor or utility, and if you took the premaster sorc archetype, I believe Dangerous Sorcery would give your slotted spellstrikes a sizable damage boost. I do also wonder if, at high level, you couldn't cheese a lot of value out of Explosion of Power and 1A magic missile casts on a third action (at the cost of delaying spellstrike). But I would never try to use it to replace the Magus casting. The magus casting is just better by default.