Pathfinder 1E How does the magus perform at high levels?

[Lord Pendragon]

Familiar is a good arcana, I would choose that if you are not Bladebound. You might also consider Spell Blending if there are any low level wizard/sorcerer spells that you find useful. There may be better 3rd party arcana, but I am not familiar with those.

Not going bladebound. The campaign is centered around an airship (by my request, I've always wanted to do a game with airships, ) and my magus will be designing/wielding a gunblade.

I have gone back and forth on Familiar. A hawk familiar would be pretty sweet, but according to the prd you only get the Alertness feat while your familiar is within arm's reach. So he literally has to be perched on your shoulder for you to gain the benefit, which seems kind of ridiculous.

Spell Blending may be something to look into at higher levels. Right now I've got him taking Arcane Edge (bleed damage) at mid-level, and I'm not sure how much benefit 5ish damage a round is really going to be.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Concerning the concentration thingy: Kobolds can select a favored class benefit to hugely help out here, making Combat Casting moot. If you want to play a Kobold that is.

Neat! Though moot for me, as my PC is already in play at level 1. He's a human; I went with the +2/+2 stat bonuses variant and put them in dex and int.

 

[Epametheus]

How exactly was your magus able to be the group's blaster as well as melee? Wand usage? I'd love to know, since our group only has me and an alchemist as arcane casters, and neither of our clerics appears to be focused on spellblasting atm.

It wasn't until late in the campaign that he had the ability to drop AoE spells back to back. Earlier he'd only one have one or two fireballs or equivalents, and he had the empower arcana so that when he did chuck that fireball, it HURT.

Wands and using pool points was also a key part of carpet bombing later in the campaign.

The wyroot is definitely nice. Just be sure to have an adamantine back-up weapon. Or you'll be a very sad magus when you meet your first golem.

Be sure to push the bard towards taking heroism and taking Good Hope. Good Hope is an amazing party buff, and heroism's a really good long term buff. By and large, the bard's buffs are much more important for you than the cleric's. Offensively, all the cleric can give you that the bard won't eventually do better is Prayer.

 

[Soramain]

Has anyone seen the magus in play at high levels? Our group is looking to start a new campaign soon, and Pathfinder seems to be the system we're going with, in part because our longest-running campaign up to this point (2+ years) was 3.5.

I'm enough of a powergamer to be irked if I'm not at least competitive in combat, so I'm hoping to get some anecdotal feedback from folks who've seen the magus in action.

Browsing the forum netted me this previous thread: http://www.enworld.org/forum/pathfinder-rpg-discussion/311718-tier-list-pf-classes-summary-each.html

Though there didn't seem to be much actual experience with the magus expressed therein. Seems like if magus turns out to be underpowered though, I'm safe with the other two classes I've been considering, fighter or wizard.

I played a magus up to about 15th-ish level. My impression was that it was like a more swingy version of a fighter. My DM approved the Dervish Dancer build, and I combined it with a kensai archetype. I prefer the dex-based build for a magus because it makes the class slightly less MAD (need good dex and moderate int/con, rather than good str and moderate int/con/dex).

Intensify spell was a great help. In general, the campaign did not have a lot of magic items, but I came across a Ring of Wizardry II, so I was packing a whole bunch of intensified shocking grasps. I had the critical focus feat and the kensai gives a bonus to confirming criticals, so I had roughly a 30% chance to crit with the extra attack and inflict 2d6 from the scimitar plus 20d6 from the intensified shocking grasp. Electricity resistant monsters were problematic - I resorted to frigid touch or vampiric touch mostly.

The arcane accuracy arcana is pretty amazing. I like the wand wielder one so you can use wands in spell combat. Quicken arcana was nice at high levels.

Let me know if you have any other more specific questions and I'll do my best to answer them.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Thanks for taking the time Soramain! Here are a few questions to start off.

1. How significant was your weapon damage at mid- to high-levels (let's say 8th+)? A poster on the paizo forums made a convincing argument for the magus' melee damage being almost completely irrelevant to his overall damage potential, does that match up with your experience?

2. ARcane Accuracy is my first chosen arcana. Are there any others that you found particularly useful? I'm find it hard to come up with many that I really like to fill all the available slots by mid- to high-levels.

3. I'm definitely going to be hunting for a Ring of Wizardry. Are there any other items that you found particularly useful for you?

4. At mid- to high-levels, how often did you find yourself not using your Swift Action for the round? Currently my plan is to take Arcane Strike to fill in those rounds when I don't need to cast a quickened spell or access the spell pool, but I'm wondering how often that will be. Obviously the less often I have a Swift Action available, the less useful Arcane Strike becomes.

Okay, that should be enough for now!

 

[Lord Pendragon]

It wasn't until late in the campaign that he had the ability to drop AoE spells back to back. Earlier he'd only one have one or two fireballs or equivalents, and he had the empower arcana so that when he did chuck that fireball, it HURT.

Nice. I'm trying to avoid 1/day arcana as much as possible, though I can see how that one time could be significant. I've currently got Quicken Spell on my list, though not until very very late in my magus' career.

Then again, I do plan on making use of rods eventually (when money permits) so a rod-empowered Fireball or two could be very nice...

Wands and using pool points was also a key part of carpet bombing later in the campaign.

*nod* I'm not really enamored of wands, only because the save DC on wand-cast spells is going to be pretty terrible by mid-levels. But Spell Recalling the same Fireball repeatedly definitely sounds fun. I guess part of it will come down to how tight my pool point usage will be. I suppose that if I'm chucking Fireballs though, that'd mean I'm not using pool points for Shocking Grasps, so it might not be as much of a drain as I originally figured.

Be sure to push the bard towards taking heroism and taking Good Hope. Good Hope is an amazing party buff, and heroism's a really good long term buff. By and large, the bard's buffs are much more important for you than the cleric's. Offensively, all the cleric can give you that the bard won't eventually do better is Prayer.

I can definitely do this. And the clerics will be pretty happy to eventually no longer have to worry about buffing as much.

 

[SteelDraco]

Nice. I'm trying to avoid 1/day arcana as much as possible, though I can see how that one time could be significant. I've currently got Quicken Spell on my list, though not until very very late in my magus' career.

Then again, I do plan on making use of rods eventually (when money permits) so a rod-empowered Fireball or two could be very nice...

I'm not sure rods are great for a magus, unless you have Quick Draw. You usually have a weapon in hand, and need the other hand to do your spellcasting.

 

[Soramain]

1. How significant was your weapon damage at mid- to high-levels (let's say 8th+)? A poster on the paizo forums made a convincing argument for the magus' melee damage being almost completely irrelevant to his overall damage potential, does that match up with your experience?

1d6 + 3 (enhancement) + 2 (weapon specialization) + 8 (dexterity) + 6 (power attack) + 1d6 of some elemental damage usually, for an average non-crit of 2d6+19.

The real damage comes from using a point from your arcane pool to throw that elemental damage on there, together with keen. It gave me a crit range of 15-20. The kensai archetype gets its intelligence modifier added to critical confirmation rolls - I think my intelligence was around +5 or +6 modifier at that level. I also had the critical focus feat.

How that works out is a 30% chance of threatening a critical, but an 80% of confirming any critical that hits. The kensai also has an ability called perfect strike - 2 arcane pool points when you crit to increase your critical hit multiplier.

I could burn through my arcane pool very quickly if I wasn't careful, but throwing down 3d6+57 felt pretty good.

Meanwhile, at 15th level I had a +11 BAB and was almost always hasted, so four attacks, plus if I use a touch spell I get a free attack to deliver that with my scimitar at my highest attack bonus. In other words, 5 attacks, 3 of which were at the maximum. We'd fight things that were immune to electricity (demons, e.g.) and I would still cast shocking grasp just to get that extra attack.

That's probably way more than you wanted to know.

2. ARcane Accuracy is my first chosen arcana. Are there any others that you found particularly useful? I'm find it hard to come up with many that I really like to fill all the available slots by mid- to high-levels.

Wand wielder was nice (low level shocking grasp or frigid touch spell to get the extra free attack each round). I always wished I had taken "close range" because it would let me use ray of frost to get that extra free attack. "Critical Strike" let me cast a touch spell as a swift action and deliver it with an extra attack once per day. Bane blade is nice.

Spell shield is bad, imo. You get your shield bonus from the shield spell and your intelligence is not likely to provide a much higher bonus.

3. I'm definitely going to be hunting for a Ring of Wizardry. Are there any other items that you found particularly useful for you?

One of your advantages over a more conventional fighting class is increased mobility. You can be "sticky" with flight and teleportation style spells to pursue casters. Items that help you there are great. Boots of springing and striding or ring of freedom are particularly good.

It was kind of a low magic game so I didn't get either of those. I had a +3 scimitar, the ring of wizardry, and stat items (dexterity and int/cha).

4. At mid- to high-levels, how often did you find yourself not using your Swift Action for the round? Currently my plan is to take Arcane Strike to fill in those rounds when I don't need to cast a quickened spell or access the spell pool, but I'm wondering how often that will be. Obviously the less often I have a Swift Action available, the less useful Arcane Strike becomes.

I would say I used my swift action for arcane strike any time I could really unload a full round. It's less good when you had to move to make your attack. There are a lot of swift options for the magus, though. The swift action options are, to my mind, what makes the inquisitor and the magus such compelling classes - they have this enormous advantage over the conventional classes in the action economy.