Black Blade Magus notes
Lou, I am totally thrilled to have a Black Blade Bladebound Magus in the party! I've just been reading about them, and I'm going to have a blast!!
I'm interested to know Dontrius's goals and aspirations. All I can tell from his sheet is that he seeks secret, mystical knowledge to meld his blade with his arcane powers.
I've been reading about them, too!
First, it's nice to know that with the black blade having an ego of 10, it cannot control Dontrius yet....
Second, I'm still trying to get my head around how (Improved) Spell Combat (Ex) and Spellstrike (Su) work, both separately and together.
As a full round action, Spell Combat allows the magus to make all of his weapon attacks and cast a touch spell as a two-weapon attack. All attacks are at -2 to hit. Dontrius is normally +12/+7 with the black blade, so with Spell Combat, he attacks +10/+5 with the black blade and +10 with a touch-attack spell. So long as he doesn't need to make a concentration check to keep the spell alive, that's good.
Spellstrike (Su) allows the magus to cast touch-attack spells through a weapon strike at full attack. So he could cast a intensified shocking grasp (L2) through a black blade attack at +12. On a hit, the attack does weapon damage of 1d8+6 + 10d6 spell damage. The kicker is that the spell gains the critical hit range of the black blade long sword (19-20) instead of the spell range of just 20. Hmm, so a magus with a rapier can be really dangerous....
Used together, Spell Combat and Spellstrike, the combat looks like three black blade attacks, but either the first or the last (spell casting CANNOT be made between) attack is a Spellstrike.
I've been running test combat using DontriusTest (a copy of Dontrius). So far he has easily bested a hydra (CR4) and outlasted a troll (CR6), without resorting to more than the occasional shocking grasp.
For tougher combats, it looks like careful use of the +5 to-hit of Arcane Accuracy from his arcane pool (1/9 points) will be needed to get hits. Dontrius will be using the spell
Ablative Barrier each day to augment his armor. He also has one Magic Missile, one Fireball, and one Lightning Bolt each day. His kicker power is his sorcerous ability (Marid Bloodline Arcana) to convert energy spells to COLD damage at will.
Goals and aspirations: Dontrius wants revenge on those who cast him out. He has a good heart, so his desire for revenge is one of righting what he believes is an on-going wrong of prejudice against those who have different powers and skills. He believes that powers are not good or evil, only the wielder of those powers for good or evil. He also wants to discover the origins of his black blade. Who makes a sword like this?