Advancing the Magus

[Dingo333]

So I have been looking at the magus class from the last playtest (I know it comes out in a month) and I was wondering what people thought were good combat styles for it

IE: 2 handed weapon, 2 weapon fighting (offhand as spell), 2 weapon fighting (offhand as weapon, using buffs primarly) or ranged

As I was looking at it, it seemed there were 3 prestige classes that would work well with it

First is the arcane archer. Elves get bonus to dex and int, and the class focuses on casting through the arrows and combining spells and archery

Second is the duelist. Since the 2WF offhand is a spell requires 1 weapon, duelist seems like a good way to augment the weapon side, but leaves the spell side as is

Third, and probally most obvious is the Eldrich Knight. A magus can take it at level 7, and the abilities combine nicely, on paper at least

Just wondering what people thought of it and if it prestige classes, what is the best option with each fighting style

 

[Mojo_Rat]

baring a change 2h likely won't ever be a style of magus. current design doesn't support it. same with twf.

eldritch knight seems to be the only realrc for them duelist would work but spell casters loosing spells would not be so good.

I think arcane archer suffers from the 2h weapon issue.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Arcane Archer doesn't work so well without a potential bow-focused class variant, since your Magus abilities focus on melee weapons and touch spells.

I've seen a bunch of Magus builds focused on bastard swords and similar weapons, such that you can easily switch back and forth between one-handing and two-handing (since you need the off-hand free to use Spell Combat and can cast one-handed for Spellstrike before putting your hand back on the bastard sword for the free action attack).

True TWF variants, where the off-hand weapon is a touch spell (like Chill Touch), run right into the Magus's biggest weakness as I see it: not enough feats available, and TWF is massively feat intensive. Moreover, there's a paucity of cast-once-attack-multiple-times spells, meaning that you'd tend to be recasting your spell quite often.

The "best" builds focus on wide crit-range weapons - rapier, scimitar, and ... falcata? - in order to maximize the number of Spellstrike critical hits with doubled spell damage.

I'll be posting an update on my Magus playtest shortly.

 

[Jhaelen]

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reported.