New to Pathfinder - Strength Magus build

[Ngiltner]

New to Pathfinder and looking to run a Strength Magus. I think I have a good handle on my build, but not as familiar with SKILLS and how best to build those. My basic question is how spread out should my Stats and Skills be? And I do want to stay straight Magus.

Human Magus
STR=18 (with bonus)
DEX=13
CON=14
INT=14
WIS=12
CHA=10

Feats=Combat Casting & Power Attack

Spells=Touch and Cone spells (mainly melee w/ touch spells with some cone spells to boot. Will switch to Power Attack when out of Spells)

Skills
Athletics +8 *point used
Persuasion = 0
Knowldege (Arcana) +6 *point used
Knowldege (wordl) +6 *point used
Lore (Nature) +1
Lore (religion) +1
Mobility +1
Perception +2 *point used
Stealth +1
Trickery +1
Use Magic Device = 0


So what Stats should I emphazie and which to dump? How important is raising DEX with a strength based Magus that can move into Med and Heavy armor? How important is WIS for the saving throws? It seems that every stat seems important to me except CHA?

I stacked my corrosponding Skills: Athletics, Knowledge (arcane & World), Perception. I dont know exaclty how these play out yet, so should a newbie generally stack 4 main skills or do I need some points in other areas for things i dont know about yet?

I am looking to role-play a fun character, not neccessarily have the most OP Magus possible. I just dont want to be 10 levels in and have built a dead-end mess. THANKS FOR THE TIPS!

[Autocthon]

You can live with a low Wis, you're a high Will class. It's the dumpstat of choice. I personally prefer Persuasion on my main character (and 100% prefer Dragon Scion over vanilla magus, but that's up to you).

Assuming you want to keep your dex, and don't want to eek out another +1 spell DC by getting to 16 Int I'd go for the following stat spread

20, 13, 12, 14, 8, 10

Your skill points are mostly up to you, but I'd switch the Knowledge Nature for Persuasion. Taking a -1 on your perception checks is a small price to pay for passing player character only persuasion checks.If you didn't want to go all-in on your strength score I'd move the points to Int rather tahn having them in Con/Wis

[wendigo211]

I find the best strength Magus, is the Eldritch Scion. Something like Scaled Fist 1 (Charisma Bonus to AC and Crane Style)->Eldritch Scion 8->Dragon Disciple 4 (Bite Attack, +4 to strength, +2 natural armor, levels add to ES for draconic heritage bonuses) ->Eldritch Scion for the rest. For feats, you mostly want to focus on the scimitar as a weapon (18-20 and you can 1 or 2 hand it) and the Cornugon Smash, Dreadful Carnage feats.

For a regular Magus it's a bit tougher, since you don't have DD to boost your strength, and you lose out on a lot of AC (about 12 or 13 points of AC by endgame, without counting the Crane Style bonus). You also don't have a race like Aasimar that gives you bonus to both Strength and Charisma. Really, you can't do anything with your Int other than get skill points.

If you do want to stay with the vanilla Magus then then I would recommend (18, 14, 14, 14, 10, 10) for stats. Strength is the only attribute you'll raise at level up. Bracers are better than armor (Full dex bonus and a cleric can buff it further with Magic Vestments), so you probably won't bother with armor.

For skills: put enough points in Mobility for the improved defensive fighting (you will be using defensive fighting at times). Otherwise I would probably take Persuasion instead of Knowledge (World), there are some places where you have to make a Persuasion check without the help of your other party members, so it's a good one to have some points in. Trickery is also useful if you want to loot your capital (but not essential).

For feats, you'll want to avoid Power Attack at level 1. Enemies have high ACs and ABs relative to PnP. While you will eventually activate this feat, at level 1 you want as much AC and AB as you can get. If you're going to take the Crane Style feats then Dodge would be a good level 1 choice, otherwise Weapon Focus (Scimitar) would be a good choice (you could pick another weapon, but there are some good scimitars designed particularly for Magi). You'll also want Blind-Fight at some point. Otherwise you should be okay, as long you're not planning on playing on higher than challenging.

[bkgamingacc]

Eldritch scion to DD is the only reason i might pick STR magus over DEX.
Weapon Finesse works on melee touch attacks aswell and agile weapons are plenty if you dont want to invest slashing/fencing grace.

[Ngiltner]

Well I thought I had a good handle, haha...I'll look more into Eldritch Scion as I keep hearing that to DD. I don't fully know how Dragon Disciple works. I assume that is a Prestige Class that opens later? I went back and forth between Human and Aasimar, but did not want to get to confused in all the extra "layers". I havent started my actual game yet, so still working out my build. Thanks for the tips!

[Autocthon]

Dragon Disciple for a Magus you only really want the first 4 levels out of. Going full magus is perfectly acceptable anyway.

People... Overly appreciate Dex. For Min/Max reasons. Unless you intend your Magus to be getting attacked (and really they shouldn't be, Greater Invisibility / Mirror Images / Displacement / Blur exist for reasons) the difference between a "full dex" build and a Str build doesn't become exceptionally notable until after you've done a lot of Min/Max setup and are in Hard/Unfair difficulty.

[Morgian]

The advantage of going DEX is that you can leave STR low and get a slightly better DEX out of it. DEX has the advantage over STR that it affects other things, too, which STR doesn't. In this case the AC, reflex saves and initiative. The disadvantage is that you need some way to get your DEX to damage, which means multiclassing.

Dragon disciple is a subpar class imho, but people love the stat boosts. You lose 3 caster levels over the 10 of the prc in exchange for boosts to your physical stats and dragonic bonuses (bite attack, wings). For me nothing is worth losing 3 caster levels to me when I am playing a caster. There are also some issues about getting spread out too much. Where will you put your feats: melee, metamagic, ranged (= ranged touch) or something different?

There have been several attempts to remake the fabled elvish fighter/magic-user of old (AD&D 1st edition), who could freely mix melee with magic. The magus is the Pathfinder incarnation of that.The magus is also a BAB 15 class and a semi-caster, not a major one, so he is master of nothing, unlike a fighter or a wizard. That is hardly new to semi-classes, who in turn need to develop an edge along their unique class abilities to stay attractive.
He got his damage mechanic, of which all melee classes have one, based on touch spells, which are kinda mediocre past the first levels for a caster, but make a nice bonus to a melee attack. His problem is the number of spells he can employ. To make the most out of the unique mechanics he needs the largest number of spells available, the highest spell level he can get, and a couple of metamagic feats. The much-beloved Intensify Spell is not in game, but empower and maximize are.

You can do some math to see how it checks out. What will he have at level 10 when going straight and what if he doesn't? Will the higher number and level of spells be better than the advantages of dragon disciple at that level or the other way round? Theorycrafting is an old pastime in RPGs, but not everyone's cup of tea. But check at least a little ahead what you will get (and what you won't) before you decide where to go with your character.

[For_Science!]

One other point you might consider is your choice of feats. Power Attack is less useful for a magus than for a fighter, because a lot of your damage comes from touch spells chanelled through your weapon. To channel these spells, you need to land hits, so giving up hit chance for extra damage isn't a great trade.

Granted, you could still take Power Attack for use at times when you're not channeling touch spells, but you might find a different feat more useful. I find magi, with their (initially) light armor and no shield, to be glass cannons...so I would start with Dodge.

[dmwyvern]

Originally posted by Ngiltner:

New to Pathfinder and looking to run a Strength Magus. I think I have a good handle on my build, but not as familiar with SKILLS and how best to build those. My basic question is how spread out should my Stats and Skills be? And I do want to stay straight Magus.

Human Magus
STR=18 (with bonus)
DEX=13
CON=14
INT=14
WIS=12
CHA=10

Feats=Combat Casting & Power Attack

Spells=Touch and Cone spells (mainly melee w/ touch spells with some cone spells to boot. Will switch to Power Attack when out of Spells)

Skills
Athletics +8 *point used
Persuasion = 0
Knowldege (Arcana) +6 *point used
Knowldege (wordl) +6 *point used
Lore (Nature) +1
Lore (religion) +1
Mobility +1
Perception +2 *point used
Stealth +1
Trickery +1
Use Magic Device = 0


So what Stats should I emphazie and which to dump? How important is raising DEX with a strength based Magus that can move into Med and Heavy armor? How important is WIS for the saving throws? It seems that every stat seems important to me except CHA?

I stacked my corrosponding Skills: Athletics, Knowledge (arcane & World), Perception. I dont know exaclty how these play out yet, so should a newbie generally stack 4 main skills or do I need some points in other areas for things i dont know about yet?

I am looking to role-play a fun character, not neccessarily have the most OP Magus possible. I just dont want to be 10 levels in and have built a dead-end mess. THANKS FOR THE TIPS!

Here's an alternative you could consider too:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/640820/discussions/7/1741100099549502524/

Don't forget the utility of Vivisectionist for boosting strength, one dip into it gives you +4 STR for those fights when you need to hit harder and better compared to the 4 levels sink into DD.

Another feature I like about this build is that you quickly max out your Sneak Attacks, making your character more lethal, sooner.

[Delvaron]

If you are gonna go strength Magus with the Eldritch scion archetype just go Abyssal Line for the inherent strength bonuses at 9 13 and 17th level. I think you will be a little bit better off than going into Dragon disciple.