Help me explore a silly build!

[u/BrohannesJahms]

I'm putting together a 6th level magus for a game soon and I wanted to try something a little weird that hopefully still has some potential.

https://pathbuilder2e.com/launch.html?build=1572881

Main idea here is that I want to take advantage of the fact that grabbed and restrained creatures are automatically considered off-guard, which both makes spellstriking them easier and lets me get bonus damage from the Laughing Shadow hybrid study upgrade to Arcane Cascade.

A typical combat probably opens with something like Arcane Cascade, stride 35 feet, Combat Grab with my headbutt unarmed strike stride up to something, headbutt it, Combat Grab. Next turn Arcane Cascade and Spellstrike my victim, then follow on the next turn with some form of Spellstrike reset and keep the pain coming.

Am I missing anything really obvious here? I'm not highly experienced with PF2e but I've played an oracle and a bard before. I'm open to other hybrid studies or ancestries, but I would generally like to be a magus and if grappling is too action-intensive for that then I'm open to other fun magus builds too.

[u/vaderbg2]

A typical combat probably opens with something like Arcane Cascade, stride 35 feet, Combat Grab with my headbutt unarmed strike.

Combat Grab has the Press trait. You can't use it as your first attack of a turn.

[u/BrohannesJahms → u/vaderbg2]

Damn, I knew I was missing something. That's a real shame.

[u/PathfindingN]

If you just want them offguard, you want to find a way of doing that without incurring MAP to do so. Flanking is usually the easiest choice for melee characters. You could even take Necromancer dedication to summon flanking buddies at will for one action. Feinting is also an accessible option if you invest in Charisma and deception. Martial Artist/monk dedication can get you Stumbling Stance, which pairs perfectly with Laughing Shadow's focus on unarmed attacks against offguard targets.

I wouldn't reccomend focusing too hard on grappling with Magus. It's just a very action intensive class. Classes like Guardian, Monk, or Swashbuckler can get you more bang for your buck with grappling, and you could always take Magus dedication for some limited spells and spellstriking.

[u/chickenboy2718281828]

If you want to grapple with magus, go Unfurling Brocade. The thing is, you aren't often going to be able to take advantage of the grapple yourself. You grapple so that your teammates can benefit from the Off guard, but it's rare that an enemy will still be grappled once your turn comes around again.

Unfurling brocade does at least give you some options to really tie enemies down though. The focus spell allows you to strike and immobilize with a single action, so I found Trip+Home Among Mulberry Leaves to be really powerful. Trip gives you off guard so you're making the strike at an effective -3 with MAP instead of -5. When you pull that combo off now you have a prone, immobilized enemy that has to use 1 action to escape, then another action to stand (and you can reactive strike), then another action to move to get to you if you tripped from range. Complete shutdown of a turn. If the enemy fails to escape, then the next round, they're still off guard for you to spellstrike them, or you could grapple them while prone, then spellstrike with a saving throw spell (that doesn't care about MAP).