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Pathfinder: KingmakerMagus Sword Saint build?(47 posts)solved(47 posts)solved
(47 posts)solved
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This is my favourite topic
Posted December 28, 2018
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InEffect: with no sneak attack his damage is shit, plain and simple. and sword saints whole selling point is he gets more damage on early levels and doesn't have to worry about lvl19 bonus spells. what I did on SS run is V1/SS13/AT4+SS after that way you get 4 AC when you need it and have 5d6 sneak dice+ss flat-footed damage. that's decent enough considering he gets that bump at a reasonable pace. damage actually justifies all the hassle with lower AC. now if you go the monk route you sacrifice damage or spell progression severely and if you are already abandoning damage ES is better as it gives more AC faster. My approach to this is just cutting all half-measures. MC must do at least one thing amazingly well and the rest comes as a bonus. So as far as magus goes it's ES for AC and SS for damage.
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Haplok: Once more, a Sword Saint with a monk dip gets more AC then an Eldritch Scion - faster too. I already listed the facts above, so I won't repeat them.

How does a V1/AT4 get 5d6 sneak damage? I calculated 1d6+2d6. Okay, you can take Accomplished Sneak Attacker, but that's still 4d6. For that you sacrifice 3 points of BAB (you barely get the 3rd attack at the end), +1 weapon enchantment (that could also be a +d6 elemental damage) and the ability to take Bane Blade enchantment at level 15 (16 with a Monk dip), which is separate from normal enchantment limit and provides +2 more AB and +2d6 damage. Additionally you delay the ability to use Brilliant Energy enchantment, which makes you ignore enemy armors and shields. And you burn a feat as well. Not a cool trade in my book.

How is ES better if you're abandoning sneaks, when he gets less AC and no Int-to damage or Greater Specialization?
No ability to increase crit multiplier, get Int to confirm crits, no extra Attacks of Opportunity and no Initiative boost too.

An ES gets... the ability to wear armor, a little Strength, a few more points of damage on some spells and 1 more spell slot per spell level. But if you want to focus more on spellcasting, you should really go for a standard Magus.
3d6+prescient+accomplished=5d6

ES is better first and foremost as he actually is capable to reach 20. that is not possible on a no-cha option in full party afaik. and once he reaches 20 you get 5d6 sneak and some other nifty spells for the endgame. even more so no cha MC will end the game at 18 give or take.

monk saint is ok, I guess, but he doesn't gain much from monk. it's just 7AC between robes and wis. so he will get on par but with a little more damage and less resists, he also is bound to waste some of his slots on a situational spells that you just have to have but that won't be always useful. I guess pick your poison situation. initiative I don't value that much cause as long as it's decent it's good enough and you spend first turn(s) kiting for better positioning anyways.

also most of SS damage is conditional and those arcane points have better use than burning them every turn.

crit confirms are whatever as you do them at full bab always. so that's about +45 to the roll on proper magus. not enough things in game with so much ac

basically I'm scraping the barrel to justify saint at all given the level discrepancy. with sneak you can at least say "he deals some more damage midgame" to justify it.
Post edited December 28, 2018 by InEffect
Posted December 28, 2018
Prescient Strike? I don't think it adds sneak dice? And it's 1 round only. Perhaps you confuse it with Precise Strike Teamwork feat. If so, any class can take it.

And no, an ES can't reach level 20 in regular gameplay. Unless you go solo, MAYBE duo. Even if it were possible, getting those benefits when the game is over is hardly worth it.
Plus didn't you want to dip Monk on your ES for AC (and robe and crane)?

If you really care about Vital Strike and those other spells, there actually is a way as an ES. Pick Arcane Bloodline and you'll get New Arcana at levels 9, 13 and 17. But kiss the natural armor, strength and wings good bye.
I think it may actually be worth it though. Maximize number of attacks to benefit from Vital Strike as much, as possible. Like a monk flurry with sais. Echolocation would also be awesome to deal with annoying enemies with displacement effects. Yosharian posted a build like that on Steam forums.
Posted December 28, 2018
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Haplok: Prescient Strike? I don't think it adds sneak dice? And it's 1 round only. Perhaps you confuse it with Precise Strike Teamwork feat. If so, any class can take it.

And no, an ES can't reach level 20 in regular gameplay. Unless you go solo, MAYBE duo. Even if it were possible, getting those benefits when the game is over is hardly worth it.
Plus didn't you want to dip Monk on your ES for AC (and robe and crane)?

If you really care about Vital Strike and those other spells, there actually is a way as an ES. Pick Arcane Bloodline and you'll get New Arcana at levels 9, 13 and 17. But kiss the natural armor, strength and wings good bye.
I think it may actually be worth it though. Maximize number of attacks to benefit from Vital Strike as much, as possible. Like a monk flurry with sais. Echolocation would also be awesome to deal with annoying enemies with displacement effects. Yosharian posted a build like that on Steam forums.
yes you can reach 20 in team. if you "abuse" the persuasion checks(those pay out more the higher is DC) and take all the exp for the checker. those are 300k-350k a pop and there are like 5 of those so that's about 1.5 mil exp. and that is why cha is a superior stat and persuasion is the only important skill for MC. to make things better: whenever NPC leaves the roster and comes back later he is bumped to your level. so once you enter the house all your party will be 20 or very close to it. if you want to totally guarantee 20 switch on exp sharing once you done the check so you get all those trap exp as well.
Post edited December 28, 2018 by InEffect
Posted December 28, 2018
Either way, we're talking end game here. Have fun building for the last moments of the game.
Posted December 28, 2018
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Haplok: Either way, we're talking end game here. Have fun building for the last moments of the game.
first big payout persuasion is in armags tomb and that bumps you like 2 levels above the curve at the time. so tell me about last moments. and it's not like ES is worse at any point anyways.
Post edited December 28, 2018 by InEffect
Posted December 28, 2018
And you only have to metagame for it, manipulate the xp switches and savescum. But hey, if that's your definition of fun, more power to you!
Posted December 28, 2018
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Haplok: And you only have to metagame for it, manipulate the xp switches and savescum. But hey, if that's your definition of fun, more power to you!
you don't have to scum for it. you can go all game without sharing skill-check exp's and get 20 with persuasion. will probably need to go human to add another skill to grab that exp as well for ES, but it's totally doable without "abusing" anything strictly saying.
it's same as saying playing kineticist and keeping full screen of enemies constantly tripped is abuse. devs did put it into the game, so it's legit.
same with monk vs armor talk. devs decided to make it superior at every stage of the game due to large item bonuses.
Post edited December 28, 2018 by InEffect
Posted December 28, 2018
Oh, so your Persuasion is so high that you auto-pass those DC 45 checks?
Posted December 28, 2018
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Haplok: Oh, so your Persuasion is so high that you auto-pass those DC 45 checks?
so are we talking about ironman play-through all of a sudden? when Isay no scumming I mean you are not looking for a 5% success. persuasion by armags is about 24+6(if I remember correctly) from belt you find there +heroism, so that's 32. +2 from bard =34, that's in the realm of possibility(I also probably am forgetting something). after that it gets exponentially easier as you get levels and with it skills and greater heroism(don\t want to fire the game and see when linzy gets it so I counted regular one) from your party.

I don't think this game is made for ironman to begin with. but for ironman you could fit persuasive and skill focus persuasion by then just to be mostly safe as 1.5 mil exp are easily worth 2 feats
Post edited December 28, 2018 by InEffect
Posted December 28, 2018
No, I don't play ironman.
Just telling that level 20 is far from guaranteed and requires quite a bit of meta-gaming and exploiting of the game mechanics/robbing other characters of experience to get there.
Posted December 28, 2018
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Haplok: No, I don't play ironman.
Just telling that level 20 is far from guaranteed and requires quite a bit of meta-gaming and exploiting of the game mechanics/robbing other characters of experience to get there.
they do get exp back when it counts. getting to the house with a party of lvl16s is totally fine. and in house they will all become 20's. this strat has pretty much no drawbacks apart from metagaming. but you metagame anyways when you go LG monk dip, no?
Posted March 30, 2019
Older topic so it probably no longer matters, but to clarify the scimitar issue:

Scimitars CAN benefit from Weapon Finesse and Slashing Grace, so Dex to Attack and Dex to Damage. BUT! Only if you have both feats. If you just have Weapon Finesse, it will not apply to scimitars - it is only once you have both that you get the benefits. Since Magi do not have the +1 BAB required for Weapon Focus (which is a pre-req for Slashing Grace) at first level, that means the earliest you can do this is level 5.

Or at least, this is how it works as of the current 1.3 beta.
Posted March 30, 2019
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CelticMutt: Older topic so it probably no longer matters, but to clarify the scimitar issue:

Scimitars CAN benefit from Weapon Finesse and Slashing Grace, so Dex to Attack and Dex to Damage. BUT! Only if you have both feats. If you just have Weapon Finesse, it will not apply to scimitars - it is only once you have both that you get the benefits. Since Magi do not have the +1 BAB required for Weapon Focus (which is a pre-req for Slashing Grace) at first level, that means the earliest you can do this is level 5.

Or at least, this is how it works as of the current 1.3 beta.
saint can get it at 3 as he gets focus for free.
upd. it really doesn't matter too much as you can get agile pick circa level 3 anyway.
Post edited March 30, 2019 by InEffect
Posted March 30, 2019
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CelticMutt: Older topic so it probably no longer matters, but to clarify the scimitar issue:

Scimitars CAN benefit from Weapon Finesse and Slashing Grace, so Dex to Attack and Dex to Damage. BUT! Only if you have both feats. If you just have Weapon Finesse, it will not apply to scimitars - it is only once you have both that you get the benefits. Since Magi do not have the +1 BAB required for Weapon Focus (which is a pre-req for Slashing Grace) at first level, that means the earliest you can do this is level 5.

Or at least, this is how it works as of the current 1.3 beta.
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InEffect: saint can get it at 3 as he gets focus for free.
upd. it really doesn't matter too much as you can get agile pick circa level 3 anyway.
Right, I completely forgot about the free weapon focus.
Posted March 30, 2019
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CelticMutt: Right, I completely forgot about the free weapon focus.
also if you go human you can get it at lvl1 for saint.
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Pathfinder: KingmakerMagus Sword Saint build?(47 posts)solved(47 posts)solved
(47 posts)solved