PF Build Help: "Hellbred" Magus

Just joined a new group (old group split up for the summer. So Sad...), so I have to make a new character in a mixed party (alignment-wise)

Before I show what I want to play, here's the party:

CE Aasimar Antipaladin 4 (He was turned to the Dark Side and is baby-eating puppy-kicking EVIL. Party Face/Tank)

CN Gnome Druid 4 (He is skinned as a Chaos Gnome from 3.5, and is seeking to show Darwinian Principal in all things. Healbot/Secondary Melee)

LN Human Rogue 1/Abjurer 3 (Thief turned Wizard who joined an order of wizards who are like the Judges from Judge Dredd. Primary Caster)

NG Goblin Ninja 4 (Playing to more of the Asian Goblins, he is kind of like a PF-ized Slayer of Domiel. Skillmonkey/Flanker)

And then there's me.

I was a fan of Hellbred from 3.5 and settled on being the "foil" to the Antipaladin. He was turned to darkness, and I chose to walk the path of light to try and fight my people's "Curse" (in this setting, Tieflings are more like 4e's).

I always liked the Magus, and having seen the DEX/INT bonuses, a Bladebound Kensai Dervish Magus seems perfect for what I want (seeing as how there is no true "melee guy").

We have a 38 point buy, start at level four, and I don't want to step on anybody's toes mechanically.

My feat choices up to level 3: Weapon Finesse (Scimitar), Weapon Focus (Scimitar) [Free], Dervish Dance.

If we have the books (ie: you downloaded the book), you can use 3rd party. Sadly, I only have The Genius Guide to Fire Magic, but I can foresee lots of "fun" with a fire-themed Magus (there are 2 metamagic feats in the book. One that focuses on changing Fire to "steam" to defeat Fire-Subtype monsters and one that makes fire spells 50/50 Holy/Fire), so I definitely want to take those.

So what other feats, arcana, and traits (I get one) should I take?

I wouldn't bother with kensai. It starts poorly due to capping the INT to AC at your level and ages poorly by giving up spell recall. Diminished casting hurts throughout. Read spell recall, then look at your spells per day. You need it.

Use it if it is essential to your concept, but don't think it beats a regular magus. Bladebound is fine though.

How exactly do you expect that group to work together? A CE antipaladin is going to be a challenge if you are at all strict about alignment.

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Originally Posted by stack

I wouldn't bother with kensai. It starts poorly due to capping the INT to AC at your level and ages poorly by giving up spell recall. Diminished casting hurts throughout. Read spell recall, then look at your spells per day. You need it.

Use it if it is essential to your concept, but don't think it beats a regular magus. Bladebound is fine though.

How exactly do you expect that group to work together? A CE antipaladin is going to be a challenge if you are at all strict about alignment.

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Kensei gives me Weapon Focus at level 1, so It lets me get Dervish Dance at level 3. Considering that the party is semi-optimized, it fits.

The campaign is centered around a PF-ized Elder Evil, and the party looks at the Antipaladin and says, "The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend. He sees us as tools to his ends. Something else plans to destroy the planet (which is his job. Someone else is stealing his gig, which makes him angry)

Dervish dance doesn't require weapon focus. A regular magus shouldn't have any trouble fitting in a semi-OP party.

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Originally Posted by stack

Dervish dance doesn't require weapon focus. A regular magus shouldn't have any trouble fitting in a semi-OP party.

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What about Cabalist? Would this be a good option?

Which of the Infernal Aspects were you thinking of taking for your magus? They both have their advantages and disadvantages.
Body aspect would give you more HP, especially if you use the Devil-touched feats to grab Devil's Stamina. The downside is that the penalty to your Int will hamper your spellcasting a bit.
Spirit aspect will give you a darkvision boost and telepathy at high levels. The downside is the boost to a stat you don't care about with a penalty to one you do care about.
Most of the Magus archetypes are strictly worse than the base class. Bladebound is one of the few exceptions. Cabalist is interesting, but it does have some big weaknesses. The first big hit is to your spells known. Normally you can know any number of spells like a wizard, but now you suddenly can only know 10 spells at level 3. The arcanas help mitigate the penalty a little but not enough in my opinion, since they must be at least one level lower than what you can cast. Getting access to the Bloodline powers of a sorcerer are interesting and some of them might even be worth losing Knowledge pool. Just gotta pick carefully. The bloodline spells are worthless though. Instead of gaining 14 spells ranging from 0 to 6, he instead gets 6 spells that are prechosen. Whoo.
Honestly I would just take the Eldritch Heritage feats.

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Originally Posted by Tokuhara

What about Cabalist? Would this be a good option?

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It's not bad, though the diminished Spellcasting can be a bummer. There are plenty of Sorcerer bloodlines that would help you out.
- Orc for extra damage on your spells and eventually getting some nice melee bonuses in the higher levels.
- Draconic for extra damage (would take an electric dragon) on certain types of spells, and flight at higher levels.
- Arcane for the familiar... Though if you go Bladebound you will have to go with a bonded item (I believe you can still do that?). If you can, then maybe you can have a Twice Bonded Blade.

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Originally Posted by Chained Birds

It's not bad, though the diminished Spellcasting can be a bummer. There are plenty of Sorcerer bloodlines that would help you out.
- Orc for extra damage on your spells and eventually getting some nice melee bonuses in the higher levels.
- Draconic for extra damage (would take an electric dragon) on certain types of spells, and flight at higher levels.
- Arcane for the familiar... Though if you go Bladebound you will have to go with a bonded item (I believe you can still do that?). If you can, then maybe you can have a Twice Bonded Blade.

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Cabalist looks to be a blast, considering that it is Battle Sorcerer meets Warmage meets Duskblade. Looks like a blast. Dragon would be good, considering that Flight is a nice thing to have. That said, any bloodline ideas would be ideal.

Well for what you are going for there are a few decent bloodlines, at least in my opinion. Also I got lazy and stopped checking them all.

Infernal: Very thematic, maybe you dabbling in the dark arts is what got you sent down south in the first place.
Pros: Corrupting Touch isn't terribly strong, but doesn't allow a save. On Dark Wings, allows for permanent flight.
Cons: Your Bloodline arcana doesn't get much use, since you don't really use many charm spells. Hellfire is a suboptimal fireball.

Draconic Bloodline: An old standby, but nothing wrong with that.
Pros: Arcana is very easy to utilize. Get to customize his energy resistance. Flight at 15th level.
Cons: Claws don't have long duration. Breath weapon has very limited uses per day.

Celestial Bloodline: I like this one thematically. Perhaps getting touched by the divine when you were pulled out of the pit changed you.
Pros: Heavenly Fire is decent since it can deal damage or heal (although the only party member you can heal is the ninja). Wings of Heaven may not be permanent, but it comes online way sooner than Infernal or Draconic. Rerolls are always great.
Cons: Arcana doesn't get much use for you. As noted above, Wings of Heaven isn't permanent until 20.

Starsoul Bloodline: I just think some of the powers are cool.
Pros: Arcana could get quite a bit of use, even if it is a small benefit. Gain low-light vision, resist two common elements, don't need to breathe. Nice alternative to Wall of Fire. And whats not to love with throwing someone into space?
Cons: Minute Meteors is weak, easily resisted and has a small area.

I know Celestial, Infernal, Abyssal, and Draconic, so i won't disagree with those.

However... Strarsoul I just looked up, and there's a few concerns thus-far:

Voidwalker is semi-useless, seeing as how as a Tiefling, I already have Darkvision, and both resistances +1 that the Power doesn't grant. Yes, it's +5 to Fire and Cold, but that's about it. And the "outsider, but not really" part is kinda meh, since I've never wished I didn't have to breathe in a D&D/PF game. Ever.

Aurora Borealis is kinda cool, if a bit on the situational side. Once again, never absolutely needed a wall spell. But again, did play a Master Broodmaster Summoner, so touche.

Starborn is seriously situational. I basically become stronger at night. Most of my adventures are daytime. So basically I NEVER get to use that.

I do however ADORE Pestilence (I can become the disease-***** and nobody will care). Yes, I know most things around 20th level are Immune to Disease, but hey, a Demon spawn who fluff-wise takes the disease from others and carries it himself is fluffy enough the DM might allow them to be "cured" by me taking their afflictions. Plus, Cloud of Disease, Controlling Swarms of Insects, and Mummy Rot Touch is nice.

Ok, I'm a touch confused. I don't happen to have my codex handy at the moment, but isn't Hellbred a race, not a template?
Anyways, Low-Light and Darkvision don't apply to the same thing. Darkvision only goes out to 60ft or further if you have it beyond that. Any further and you can't see. Low-Light lets you see double the distance of a human if you have some light, effectively halving the penalty for a perception check for a lack of light.
You've never been in a situation in D&D where you've needed to swim or have been subjected to a poisonous gas? Not breathing is great. Screw you Troglodyte, I don't care if you smell bad, I have a air freshener around my neck!
And you've never used a wall spell before? Have you seen how tremendously useful those are as BFC?
As for being more powerful at night, that applies to only the fast healing at level 20. There is nothing else that is dependent on day/night.

Not necessarily trying to hard-sell the Starsoul, but wanted to clarify a few things.

If you wanted to specialize in fire magic, you might consider the Efreeti bloodline. You can then convert any spell to fire damage at no cost, which will be useful for certain spells such as Shocking Grasp, which is a staple of the Magus.

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Originally Posted by Waker

Ok, I'm a touch confused. I don't happen to have my codex handy at the moment, but isn't Hellbred a race, not a template?
Anyways, Low-Light and Darkvision don't apply to the same thing. Darkvision only goes out to 60ft or further if you have it beyond that. Any further and you can't see. Low-Light lets you see double the distance of a human if you have some light, effectively halving the penalty for a perception check for a lack of light.
You've never been in a situation in D&D where you've needed to swim or have been subjected to a poisonous gas? Not breathing is great. Screw you Troglodyte, I don't care if you smell bad, I have a air freshener around my neck!
And you've never used a wall spell before? Have you seen how tremendously useful those are as BFC?
As for being more powerful at night, that applies to only the fast healing at level 20. There is nothing else that is dependent on day/night.

Not necessarily trying to hard-sell the Starsoul, but wanted to clarify a few things.

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The quotation marks were to hopefully explain that I'm not actually playing a Hellbred, but am instead drawing on their infinite fluff on how to come from evil and become good.

The air freshener around my neck thing made me fall out of my rolling chair from laughter. Can I sig that?

No, I've never played BFC with walls. I stuck with Bigby's Hands spells and Everd's Hentai Tentacle Rape spell when I did BFC. Nor have I had to swim, walk through poisonous gas (that's the use of the Fighter 9 times out of 10)

Okay. The fast healing is hit/miss for me.

And one last note. Just got word from the party of one more addition:

Half-Orc Barbarian 2/Bard 2. He's themed off of Brutal Legend "I play metal and the universe does crazy things" stuff. We each had to do a role play voice, and his is probably the best imitation of Ozzy Osbourne. First words he said in character were, "I want you guys to go ****ing crazy!", in Ozzy's voice. We all applauded in disbelief how close he was. Wish I had it recorded. He's the party's Comic Relief/???/5th Wheel. Think a half-orc who has a "guitar," long hair, KISS jacket and pants (studded leather armor), long black hair, sunglasses, and talks like Ozzy. Now imagine him swinging this guitar (DM ruled since his guitar is called an "axe," it's a greataxe with strings on it) while singing hits from Motorhead, Black Sabbath, Slayer, and other artists from the Brutal Legend Soundtrack.

Doesn't Protean give you a tanglefoot bag that causes damage as a power?

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core...tean-bloodline

Yes, it does. If you somehow had a mazimize spell-like ability feat, it would last 3 rounds (weird that PF has empower and quicken spell-like but no maximize).

At low levels, tanglefoots bags aren't cheap and even at higher levels, it is useful for entangle status effect.

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Originally Posted by Starbuck_II

Doesn't Protean give you a tanglefoot bag that causes damage as a power?

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core...tean-bloodline

Yes, it does. If you somehow had a mazimize spell-like ability feat, it would last 3 rounds (weird that PF has empower and quicken spell-like but no maximize).

At low levels, tanglefoots bags aren't cheap and even at higher levels, it is useful for entangle status effect.

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Protean was one I looked at, but it started great, but ended with a stinker of an ability...

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Originally Posted by Tokuhara

Protean was one I looked at, but it started great, but ended with a stinker of an ability...

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How about Daemon? That one starts out a little iffy, but gives some pretty nifty abilities towards the end.

Pit-Touched is a nice one... Tough as Hell lives up to its name, and a Magus can typically use all the Con he can get. The bonuses to Intimidate are kinda meh, but is pretty thematic.

Alternatively, there's Abyssal, but it goes against theme, being Demonic.

If you feel like sigging me, feel free to do so.

Definitely looked at Void-Touched. Very cool.