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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Patryn of Elvenshae" data-source="post: 5435266" data-attributes="member: 23094">Normally, I'd agree with you, but in the normal case magic does not stack with masterwork because they both provide Enhancement bonuses (one to attack, one to attack and damage).The magus ability is different, however, in that it expressly stacks with any enhancement bonus the weapon already has.  Moreover, some people, at least, over on the Paizo boards are indicating it goes the way I originally assumed it did.Anyone else have any thoughts?----------------Had our first playtest session this weekend, and things went well.We had three combats, which caused me to spend 3/4 of my Arcane Pool enhancing my weapon.  Since I don't have anything else to with it at the moment, this worked out fine, but I can see a time coming when I'll have other demands on the points, and then it'll be a real juggling act.  Commentary on the Paizo boards is split (and heavily divided!) on whether they get enough points.  Looking at some of the higher-level Magus Arcanas, my thoughts are currently siding with the "too low" crowd, but we'll see!I ran out of interesting spells really quickly, but that's true for all low-level casters IME.  I started the day with my memorized spells being:0: Prestidigitation, Ray of Frost, Flare1: Burning Hands, ShieldI caught 4 enemies in the BH cone, but rolled a 2 for damage, so it was not particularly impressive (especially vs. the Half-Orc sorceror's +CL, +1 damage per die BH! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> ).  I'd hoped that my proclivity for being in the melee-mix would increase the value of those kinds of spells, and it might, but at this level it's not worth bothering with.  Shield, on the other hand, was a good choice - an AC of 21 (+4 armor, +4 shield, +3 dex) is pretty good at 1st-level (but only for 1 combat, unfortunately).For most of my turns during combat, I ended up using Spell Combat and mixing in a Ray of Frost.  An additional 1d3 damage at the cost of an additional -2 penalty to my main attack is below Power Attack in the attack-bonus-to-damage-roll calculus, but it was fun, if somewhat mechanically inferior.I only skimmed the Pathfinder rules, so I'd missed the part where ray spells provoke two AoOs (one for casting, one for making a ranged attack, and the second happens even if the spell was cast defensively), so there should have been a couple more AoOs coming at me.  Largely, though, I used the heck out of 5' steps so that I didn't have to cast defensively (and therefore didn't need to worry about the second AoO, either).  I never needed to use the additional-attack-penalty-for-concentration-bonus trade-off, and rolled well on my DC 16 concentration checks (with a +6 bonus; +1 CL, +3 Int, +2 Trait), so I only "lost" one Ray of Frost to concentration failure.I really wish I had a melee touch attack 0th-level spell; it would synergize much better with my class abilities - especially with the new AoO provocation Pathfinder added.  Even then, though, 0-level spells are not tremendously exciting (I mean, they *are* 0th-level, so they shouldn't be that great), and like all Vancian casters, it's pretty easy to run out of the "cool spells."  This should get better with more levels (and more spells).  That said, Ray of Frost is being switched out for Daze in my line-up, since damage-dealing is apparently still weaker, overall, than save-or-die/-suck spells.I took two hits for damage in the three combats, taking me from 9HP to 1HP.  This reinforces my belief that 3.X / PF characters are still too fragile at low-levels, and that I prefer the Saga / 4E method of not dying immediately.  The person playing our healer wasn't present in this game (she'll be there next time we play; Elven Paladin, I think), so that would help, but slightly better damage rolls by the opponents would have put most of the party unconscious in the second combat (the first combat only lasted two rounds + a surprise round; the second was more involved).All-in-all, I had fun playing the character and class, and am looking forward to the next session.</blockquote>

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