[PF] Help with a Magus "Healer"

[deadkitten]

Since you are focused on more on trying to heal with magus, it makes the build kinda awkward to figure out.
But since you are trying to be the melee healbot you could try and make the magus more defensive.
Possibly Kensai since it seems that the build doesn't care too much about the magus' actual spell slots.
Or go the frostbite debuff route when you are not wanting to heal in combat so you can do a nice string of debuffs.

[phaedrusxy]

Yeah, I discovered the Frostbite spell. Quite nasty. I'll probably be using that quite a bit. I also picked up Rime Spell.

The fact that staves only have 10 charges, and that basically anyone can recharge them, took quite a bit of luster off of this whole idea... especially after I saw how awesome some of the other archetypes are. I'm still going to stick with it, though. I think it could make for a fun character. Healing won't be his main "schtick", but it will be something he can do while bashing the crap out of enemies like a more "traditional" magus/gish.

[deadkitten]

If you are looking at PFSRD then in some regards it is not the most up to date on the Pathfinder Material.

http://www.archivesofnethys.com/Archetypes.aspx?Class=Magus

Honestly I prefer the site over the SRD, it has a search option for keywords in its entire index, that little beauty is how I figured that you can get an aid another bonus up to around +7 in pathfinder. 

[phaedrusxy]

The SRD is what most people use, though, so I'll probably stick with it.

A +7 Aid Another bonus? Do tell. (There is one of the cleric domains or archetypes that lets you add onto another caster's caster level check with Aid Another).

[deadkitten]

Its basically all through character traits to get the bonus.
Your pretty much stuck being a halfling to do it though.
There are other ways to boost it in regards to certain aid another rolls, but I think that's the highest general aid another bonus that I could get.
I was using their new investigator class for the idea, it gets the ability to aid another as a move and swift action. I was combining it with the caster level thing so that you could give someone a +21 bonus at level 4. There was some contention on whether multiple aid another bonuses from the same source stacked though on their rules forum, most people said it wouldn't work.

There is also a kinda niche build in pathfinder in which you give up AoO's to aid anothers ac instead. never really experimented on how well it worked. The idea was to use Kensai Magus funny enough, simply because they get their Int mod in additional attacks of opportunity.

[phaedrusxy]

Check this out...

A Magus wearing a spiked gauntlet casts Elemental Touch (Electricity) and makes his full attack using his spiked gauntlet via Spell Combat. Any enemy he hits takes an extra 1d6 electricity and must make a save or be staggered.

Next round he casts Rime Spell Frostbite, and delivers this via a full attack (+1 attack) using his Spiked Gauntlet (Spell Strike + Spell Combat). Now every hit does gauntlet damage, 1d6 electricity, and 1d6+CL nonlethal cold, and for each hit the enemy is Entangled and must save vs. being Staggered and/or Fatigued.

The only bad thing is that you can't use this with Power Attack + Accurate Strike...
You could however actually take the TWF feat tree and make your normal weapon attacks plus these as your offhand attacks...

[Frogman55]

Yup, it is an awesome power. Not so applicable with this build, but the Diviner Wizard and Sohei Monk both get that same power at level 1 too. It is very rare that my builds don't include at least one of these.

Especially consider the application if you've got a build that already has a great initiative - I've played with a dervish-magus, and at level 10 I've managed to get his Initiative pumped to +20. He also always gets to act in the surprise round (dip in Sohei - I preferred the two bonus feats (unarmed attack + Monk bonus) and the save bonuses instead of a smidgen of extra casting). His motto: "Who cares about Uncanny Dodge?"

[Hallack]

I realize that the main schtick sought here is using Staves for the healing.

If healing itself, even with staff, is the goal would being Samasaran for off list healing spells save on other opportunity costs?

[phaedrusxy]

Can't use 3rd party races. I'm pretty happy with how the character turned out. Now just to wait and see if he gets picked for the game...

[Hallack]

Looks good.   

Note however that Samsarans are from Advanced Race Guide, not 3rd party.  In case of future use. 

[phaedrusxy]

Looks good.   

Note however that Samsarans are from Advanced Race Guide, not 3rd party.  In case of future use.

We were actually limited to core only races. I misspoke. Otherwise I would have jumped on the Samsaran (I have one in another game ).

[phaedrusxy]

Well... that character didn't get selected for the game unfortunately (there were a zillion applicants)... but I'm apping a lower level version for another game.

After looking things over a bit, I don't think that you're restricted to using wands and staves for Magus spells when using the Wand Wielder arcana. So just by sticking some ranks in UMD and picking up that trait that lets you use Int instead of Cha for it, you can be tossing out heals/buffs/etc from other classes without multiclassing at all. (The new DM has OK'd this)

I also noticed another interesting option: card caster! This would let you actually use your touch-range spells at range! And it can be combined with Staff Magus (I'd wager that whoever designed these made them to work together, and was a Gambit fan )!

The Staff Magus archetype is actually pretty unecessary for this whole thing also, since you can recharge staves normally with your spellslots. So as long as there is at least 1 Magus spell in there, you should be good to go without the 10th level Staff Magus ability. (Also there is a homebrew material that you can use to make wands and staves out of that will cause them to automatically recharge at the rate of 1 charge per day... yes, I know...)

So... new build is just going to be Magus 3 with the Wand Wielder arcana. Not sure if I'll go with either/or of the archetypes. (I've never even read a Gambit comic... never been much of a comic fan...)

[deadkitten]

You could see if your DM would let you do an arcane version of the Exalted class while worshiping the god Nethys.
Looking at his dual nature of creation and destruction, he seems like the kind of diety that your magus would consider worshiping.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/e-h/exalted
Or you could see if your DM would ok you taking the 2nd level Exalted boon for the Evangelist Prestiege class.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/other-paizo/e-h/evangelist

You would pretty much want this ability:

2: Staff Channel (Su) You can deliver touch spells with a casting time of one standard action or longer through a quarterstaff. Using this ability doesn't change the casting time or other qualities of the spell, but you must make a melee attack with your quarterstaff against the target's AC rather than a touch attack against its touch AC. If you hit the target, you deal quarterstaff damage as well as discharge the spell effect. You can hold the charge as normal when delivering a touch spell through a quarterstaff.

If you went the Staff Magus/ Card Caster route, you would get back  a little of what you lost.

[phaedrusxy]

Interesting idea... It's a homebrew world, so I'd have to pick a deity that fits from his world. I could ask him if I could just pick up that ability as a Magus Arcana. I'm not sure how willing he is to use homebrewed mechanics, though.