I've read through InEffect's guide (nice work!) and it inspired me to try out a Magus. My question: is a Sword Saint 18/ Monk 2 still quite effective? I see that all the CHA synergy in InEffect's build is nice, but I'd rather play with INT.

Am I better off with a regular Magus?

Also, should I pick Rapier or Dueling Sword as Weapon of Choice?


Thanks in advance!

there is no point in dipping anywhere as saint. pick up something good as a chosen weapon, pump a lot of int and dex and you are a happy panda. Tongi with piercing grace is nice as there is a really good one you can get from exotics master at coronation give or take. dueling swords are meh as most of them are agile and you kinda want to make sure you can use them all with piercing/slashing grace not going to waste the one dueling sword that is not agile is CMD bonus so meh as well. there are some ok rapiers, but nothing amazing either. scimitars are always good and a safe bet for a magus.

then it's question of feats. I'd go for slashing/fencing grace depending on your weapon and then dodge-unarmed-crane style-crane wing line. you can safely skip imp crit in favor of keen weapon from arcane weapon. You won't have spare feats for DC boosting feats, so I'd abandon that and pumped dex on level-ups. int is more for added AC, than anything.
monk levels won't likely be worth it in that case - you can get censor robes from master tailor instead.

overall, I'd say eldritch scoundrel is the build you are looking for. It will do a lot more damage, than saint, while keeping arcane buffs and all that stuff. Both are similar in play-style, but scoundrel clicks together better.

Hope it helps

Thanks for the reply. Can you explain this part, please? "Tongi with piercing grace"

Also, why would Scimitar benefit me? It's not a dex-based weapon, is it? I'm mainly looking at the DEX based weapons. (i.e. usable with Finesse.)

I definitely want to play a Magus, without too many dips.

Now, if dipping into Monk won't net any substantial benefits, is it still worthwhile to go Sword Saint over Regular Magus?

slashing/fencing grace are feats that allow you to count any 1h that does slashing or piercing as a finesse weapon. it also allows you to add you dex mod to damage as long as you have 2nd hand empty, which magus always does.
from 1h weapons that do slash or pierce clear winners are tongi and scimitar. good tongi are nowhere to be found till the master brings you one. so there's that - it might be a bit of a suffer till then. sabers are readily available though the game and are generally geared towards magus.

a word about scions in general and sub-classes:
base class: is just bad. no AC, no Damage, no nothing.
sword saint: some ac from int, gets to do a bit more damage when he gets to 13 with prescient strike
draconic bloodline Scion:
Dex: THE tank among the bunch. about 10 more AC, than pure saint. kinda lacks melee damage boosters, but hey, he still has touch spells and arcane weapon. that has to count for something. also has pretty decent AOE spells.
Str: about the same AC as saint, but actually gets power attack and 1.5xStr damage and with it a good use for arcane accuracy. The damage dealer of the bunch. his only AOE to speak of is dragon's breath(from DD), but it should be enough in most cases.

in general, scion is geared towards front-line tanking and does lack burst damage classes with sneak attacks or good boosts can do, so don't expect any wins in damage olympics.

multi-classing for saints:
monk is good. question is when. another question is if you want to go hard into spells. if we could get to 20 saint/duelist would actually be pretty good with saint13/duelist7, but this is not the case. 18 is possible, but it will pretty much offer you nothing until you reach it, so I'd pass.

what is left would be saint16/monk1/vivisectionist1(if you ever get to 18. it depends on how much mobs you'd grind on the map).
when we'd take monk would depend on the race. we have 3 options:
-Plumekith aasimar: best will save as you'd go for traditional monk then. meh ability and wings come late for the tempo.
-Musetouched aasimar: even worse saves, but it's cha, so you get to be the talker of the group. some find it important for PC. scaled fist monk. wings come late
-Halfling: +dex+cha+1size ac+1all saves+early cautious fighter. scaled fist as well.

halfling will totally want to go monk at 5 so she gets both crane style and cautious fighter at that level.
aasimars would probably go monk at 9 to get crane style and crane wing at the same time, taking dodge prior to that.

pure Class saint:
it's ok. you do get some AC from maxed int, so monk is not totally vital. you will also miss out on LG monk robes, but censor robes give 2 dodge AC, so it's not that painful. A lot fairer to the game, than it deserves, if you ask me, but if you want to play more "balanced" character, that will actually get hit - it will do.

upd. fixed some typos.

Alright, I'll look more into Scion.

One question remains: how do Scimitars profit from Dex? I've seen it recommended in several threads, but they're not a Finesse weapon, right?

they can be with slashing grace, as I explained a few posts above. scimitars are the best martial 1h weapon, cause crit range is what matters.
from exotic 1h Tongi is pretty good and has a good weapon represented. falcata has a good base, but no really good ones in the game.

But Slashing Grace is only damage, not to hit. Not much point in hitting hard if you don't hit in the first place.

I read up on the Scion and yes, Bloodlines are great. Awesome, even.

Personally, I recommend going Rogue 3 / Sword Saint 10 / Duelist X stacking Dexterity and Intelligence.

Rogue 3 will get you free Weapon Finesse and Finesse Training (dex to damage) in whatever weapon you feel like specializing in. Furthermore, the Sneak Attack (and Accomplished Sneak Attacker) will make an impressive difference on damage, particularly with channeled spells.

An example of feat progression would be something like:

Level 1 - Rogue 1
Feats: Weapon Finesse [Free], Dodge, Improved Unarmed Strike

Level 2 - Sword Saint 1
Feats: Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Dueling Sword [Free], Weapon Focus: Dueling Sword [Free]

Level 3 - Rogue 2
Feats: Aldori Dueling Mastery, Piranha Strike [Free]

Level 4 - Rogue 3
Feats: Finesse Training: Dueling Sword [Free]

Level 5 - Sword Saint 2
Feats: Crane Style

Level 6 - Sword Saint 3

Level 7 - Sword Saint 4
Feats: Accomplished Sneak Attacker

Level 8 - Sword Saint 5
Feats: Combat Mobility [Free]

Level 9 - Sword Saint 6
Feats: Crane Wing

Level 10 - Sword Saint 7

Level 11 - Duelist 1
Feats: Weapon Specialization: Dueling Sword

Sorry, but Finesse being a prerequisite for Slashing Grace doesn't mean that Finesse works on Scimitars. Slashing Grace indeed does work, but Finesse doesn't, unless the description is wrong. Is it?

the description is not wrong. it literally says that it allows to treat that weapon as a one-handed piercing melee weapon aka apply weapon finesse to it.

One handed piercing melee does not qualify by default for Finesse. Only LIGHT weapons do, plus exceptions. So Scimitars don't.

Edit: I saw your screenshot in the other thread. The game works differently from pen and paper and is unclear about it.

even in pnp it works like that. there would be no sense in such a feat otherwise. feat basically turns any 1h slashing and )in case of fencing grace piercing) weapon in game into agile rapier pretty much.

No, it definitely does not work that way in P&P: https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/slashing-grace-combat/

Nowhere is mentioned that DEX gets added to to hit, only DEX to damage. One handed piercing weapons do not qualify by default for Weapon Finesse. (Short Spear, for example, does not.)

It always struck as a particularly "stupid" feat, though, since you need shennanigans of some sort to make slashing weapons work with DEX. (Apart from the Light Weapons.)

Edit: Another discussion about this in P&P: https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2uubs?Slashing-Grace-vs-Weapon-Finesse


Don't get me wrong: I'm happy it works the way it does in Kingmaker! :)

didn't see any clarification from paizo on that. guess, that's another "up do DM" thing. I would totally rule it does allow to apply finesse to such a weapon or the feat that alrady comes with a 1h empty restriction would become totally useless for vast majority of applications. the rule of cool and all that. imo it just makes it count as a special piercing weapon like rapier for all intents and purposes, except for damage. it would also make sense and otherwise fencing grace and rapier would be universally better, than slashing grace - bad design that way.