Problem with 6th level Magus

[solamon77]

I'm a bit worried about a 6th level Magus in the group. Don't get me wrong, he's a great player and I love his presence in the game, but I'm worried that the Magus always seems to upstage the other characters inadvertently. At 6th level, the Magus is able to dish out absolutely massive amounts of damage to the point where the other characters feel like they aren't contributing as much to the battle. The sixth level Ranger can't even come close to the effectiveness this Magus is able to bring and it's only going to get worse as they level up.

Am I, as a DM, doing something wrong? Is the Magus just an overpowered class? I don't want to keep crafting battle designed specifically to neutralize the Magus's power because that seems hokey, vindictive, and doesn't make much narrative sense, but that's what I feel like I keep having to do to keep the players on a somewhat even plane.

Anyone have any advice dealing with this?

 

[Eltab]

Find out if (a) the Magus is the most optimized character in the group; and (b) he has done all his math right. A person can make mistakes; people may not take options because they don't like the option / don't know the option is there.

We don't really have a lot of background information to work with. If everybody is on the up-and-up, you may just have a playstyle difference manifesting in your game.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

At a quick glance, it looks like the Magus has a strong ability to nova - their Spell Combat ability lets them expend spell slots to perform a Spellstrike while also expending points from their Arcane Pool to grant their weapon two useful magical properties. If they already own a magical rapier +1, then this combination can give them the equivalent of a +1 flaming, icy, rapier that also discharges 5d6 electricity with +3 to hit against a target in metal armor. That's 8d6 damage on the first hit, and 3d6 on their iterative attack.

The catch is that they only have ~7 spell slots per day, and their arcane pool only has ~7 points in it. They can't sustain this level of output in the same way that a fighter can keep swinging their greatsword. The ranger might be making three attacks per round, at 1d8+3 per shot, but they have zero ability to nova - they don't have a resource that they can expend to deal more damage when they want it.

The traditional "solution" to a nova-heavy class is to just have more encounters per day. You want the Magus to run out of spell slots and arcane pool, so they're just swinging for 1d6+1 and the ranger gets to outshine them for a while. If you also have more encounters against groups of enemies, the Magus probably won't feel like using their magic, and the ranger can clean up there as well. The Magus really only shines when you throw big solo monsters at them.

 

[solamon77]

Thanks for the advice guys. Yes, you are right that my player's Magus is very heavily optimized. The player that plays him really enjoys studying the rules of the game. But Eltab, you are right. After going over the math from the last fight, I found that the Magus made a mistake. He shouldn't have been able to apply the Speed buff to his weapon because it's a +3 enhancement an at 6th level, he can only muster a +2. It was applying this speed buff that really made all the difference in the fight.