Raise your character to the pinnacle of magical might with Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Ultimate Magic! Within this book, secrets arcane and divine lie ready to burst into life at the hands of all the spellcasting classes in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. In addition to the brand-new magus class—a master of both arcane magic and martial prowess—you'll also find a whole new system for spellcasting, rules for spell duels and other magical specialities, and pages upon pages of new spells, feats, and more. Because when it comes to magic, why settle for less than absolute power?
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Ultimate Magic is a must-have companion volume to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook. This imaginitive tabletop game builds on more than 10 years of system development and an Open Playtest featuring more than 50,000 gamers to create a cutting-edge RPG experience that brings the all-time best-selling set of fantasy rules into the new millennium.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Ultimate Magic includes:
The magus, a new base class combining deadly arcane magic with the skills and weapons of a trained warrior.
Words of power, an innovative and flexible new spellcasting system.
New options for dedicated casters, such as alchemist discoveries, alternative uses for channeled energy, druid companions, sorcerer bloodlines, eidolon abilities, witch hexes, and oracle mysteries.
Additional feats and magical abilities for martially oriented casters, including monk ki tricks, inquisitor archetypes, and ranger traps.
New magical conditions called spellblihgts, as well as systems for crafting constructs, binding outsiders, and spell-dueling.
More than 100 new spells, plus detailed guidelines for designing your own.
lazy feats, some options are good, some others just dotn´
Archetypes: the best Bladebound Magus
worst of all: Trapper Ranger
Spellblights: interesting but too complex for a fumble system
Spellword Casting: at the beginning it looks very nice, then i read it and... is the same spell restriction and opportunities at a expensive cost of time
feats: ok those are feats
Magic spellbooks: why you dont just paraphrase some words concerning about how to protect the spellbooks with some spells and thats all. maybe a feat or two for scaling this option, besides the spellbooks looks greats.
spells: again, the magus options are great.
my advice for you: buy the book, cut the pages concerned for magus, and dump the rest or Download the pdf at any place you can, print the magus and drop the rest
While I do not think that either this or Ultimate Combat deserve to be called "Ultimate" anything books (maybe Ultimate Monk), I do think that Ultimate Magic does better cover it's proported theme. In my opinion, Inner Sea Magic did a better job overall, but is sadly setting specific.
On th Divine Side (minus Paladin) this book is extremely, extremely limited. There are a few gems, but most are either placed really far out of reach, or just not worth what you give up for them, and might as well not have been there at all rather than tease.
On the Arcane side, this book is full of material, but severely lacking as well. There is an assortment of random material that just seems like it was left over from other books and tossed in here. The only magical items in this book (exceptionally noticable on the Divine Magic side) are Wizard's Spellbooks, (which of the top of my head, only 3 Classes in the entire game will actually have any use for beyond the sell price).
There are a lot of (would be) nice Feats, except they are specific to a Class, or build, or whose names imply it would be great for somone else besides who it is actually intended. Over all, there are a lot of options, but actually very slim pickings. Overall, it leaves a lot of classes and build out in the cold.
Whereas Ultimate Combat is at best Ultimate Monk, Ultimate Magic is closest to being more appropriate as Ultimate Wizard/Inquisitor, (arguably Classes that did not need more).
After reading through Ultimate Magic, some new mechanics offered in this book can add flavor and fun to an adventure.
The Magus appears to be a class that is fun to play as. You are able to swipe at your enemies with your sword in one hand and with magic in the other.
Spellblights are interesting. These curses can hinder the spellcasters in different ways.
One chapter that I especially liked was the words of power. The concept was a little hard to wrap around but when you understand it fun ensues. I tried out a couple of words of power in an adventure and it was pretty fun. There was a point where I fought a spellcaster who also had words of power and it felt like the two were having a very destructive debate ha!
Overall I enjoyed this product and I recommend this to everybody!
ARG! I don't even have the APG in hand yet, I thought I might have a month before I started going crazy wanting the next book. But... Noooo, .... must have now.
Oh ye gods, another one? I suppose by the time this comes out I'll have had plenty of time to digest the APG, though, so I suppose April works.
All these hardcovers are sure making it hard for me to fill in my back catalog of Golarion material, though. Eventually I'll get caught up to speed....
yes! Yes! YES!!! Did I mention HELL YES?!!!! More exclamation points!!! My first wish for this book is that they create a PF version of the Ultimate Magus from the Complete Mage. I'm going to save my other 2 wishes for later.
Awwww - boost the page count to 320 like the other $39.99 books.
C'mon - you know you want to....
:)
This is very unlikely. Multiple 320+ page books in a single year = short drive to the Loony Bin for all of us here at Paizo. And then there'd be NO hardcover books from Paizo, because they won't let us use computers in the Loony Bin.
This is very unlikely. Multiple 320+ page books in a single year = short drive to the Loony Bin for all of us here at Paizo. And then there'd be NO hardcover books from Paizo, because they won't let us use computers in the Loony Bin.
Depends on why you're committed, I suppose.
Taking Jokes Too Seriously aside, premade spellbooks tickle the cockles of my dark, twisted, hateful GM heart. Will they use just PF core spells, PF core + UM spells, or PF core + UM + other Paizo books?
This is very unlikely. Multiple 320+ page books in a single year = short drive to the Loony Bin for all of us here at Paizo. And then there'd be NO hardcover books from Paizo, because they won't let us use computers in the Loony Bin.
not true, they let you use computers in the loony bin
This book looks awesome! I don't even have my APG yet and now I am anxiously awaiting the play test(s) (I hope we see the magus and the new magic system!), and for the book to be released. So many cool new things to add to my characters!
any chance there will be a playtest on the Words of Power magic system?
Please
There's a chance, yes.
Public playtests WILL continue as long as we're doing hardcover books. They won't always be super-extensive, though, and some books will skip this stage. We haven't yet decided what parts of Ultimate Magic will be publicly playtested, but I'm pretty sure the magus class will be one of them. The Words of Power rules are likely to be another... and that'll PROBABLY be it for this book's playtest. It's not something we're likely to nail down and decide on for sure until after Gen Con, though.
Taking Jokes Too Seriously aside, premade spellbooks tickle the cockles of my dark, twisted, hateful GM heart. Will they use just PF core spells, PF core + UM spells, or PF core + UM + other Paizo books?
any chance there will be a playtest on the Words of Power magic system?
Please
There's a chance, yes.
Public playtests WILL continue as long as we're doing hardcover books. They won't always be super-extensive, though, and some books will skip this stage. We haven't yet decided what parts of Ultimate Magic will be publicly playtested, but I'm pretty sure the magus class will be one of them. The Words of Power rules are likely to be another... and that'll PROBABLY be it for this book's playtest. It's not something we're likely to nail down and decide on for sure until after Gen Con, though.
I'm pretty stoked for this book :) Couple of Qs though:
1. Would it be possible to see something like Wild Magic or Truename Magic in this book? It almost seems like Wild Magic is already in it in some form.
2. Any idea when the playtest for the Magus might begin?
Man I'm barely containing myself at the prospect of getting the APG pdf tomorrow and now I discover this... Curse you Paizo I'm now wishing my days away lol
Book looks amazing though... out of interest will some of the new magic class options build on the archetypes or the base classes? [or both??] - as in say just bard options/spells or some geared towards say the Savage Skald [hint-hint lol]...
Can't wait though - raising the bar yet again people :)
Some concept questions, will the Magus "feel different" than classes like Eldritch Knight or a Spell-sword? I guess the root of the question is will it be different than "I wield a sword! and I cast spells through it!"?
I doubt you can give details yet, but if so, how will it be different in concept?
So that I know how excited to get about it, I would like to know one thing.
Does the Magus cast prepared, or spontaneous magic, and what casting stat does it use?
Speculation only:
Spoiler:
I *hope* it's a prepared caster, Int Based for two reasons.
1) To get away from the bard, would be nice for a change
2) More personally, I'm more comfortable designing spontaneous casters not prepared ones, I've my legionary and the arcane duelst now. by all means let them put out a Prepared caster so I can compare.
Wow, this is going to be both fun and insane for me.
I had to pour through the APG Spells and Feats to see if WotC had any duplicates. I usually use WotC's as a default, with exceptions (such as using Lunge over Lunging Strike).
I do the same with spells. It bugs me having "duplicate" spells, where a WotC spell and a Pathfinder spell do almost the same thing with a few twists or a change in spell level and I have to scour each one and make a Word file reference which material is stamped "Confirmed" or "Denied" on it, basically. (for example, there's the Tsunami spell in Spell Compendium and Tsunami in the APG; the one in the Spell Compendium is clearly better than the APG, so I ruled the duplicate in APG out my games)
So, my one request to Paizo staff, look at your WotC books, particularly the Spell Compendium, and try not to make duplicates. The same with feats! It's kinda annoying and tiresome :D Be unique!
Wow, this is going to be both fun and insane for me.
I had to pour through the APG Spells and Feats to see if WotC had any duplicates. I usually use WotC's as a default, with exceptions (such as using Lunge over Lunging Strike).
I do the same with spells. It bugs me having "duplicate" spells, where a WotC spell and a Pathfinder spell do almost the same thing with a few twists or a change in spell level and I have to scour each one and make a Word file reference which material is stamped "Confirmed" or "Denied" on it, basically. (for example, there's the Tsunami spell in Spell Compendium and Tsunami in the APG; the one in the Spell Compendium is clearly better than the APG, so I ruled the duplicate in APG out my games)
So, my one request to Paizo staff, look at your WotC books, particularly the Spell Compendium, and try not to make duplicates. The same with feats! It's kinda annoying and tiresome :D Be unique!
That makes no sense for Paizo. They are interested in new players, and new players should rather be spending $ on Paizo books, instead of scrambling for out-of-print WotC books. So, there will be some overlap.
(for example, there's the Tsunami spell in Spell Compendium and Tsunami in the APG; the one in the Spell Compendium is clearly better than the APG
The second part of this isn't really a surprise. Pathfinder has attempted to address the disparity between full spellcasters and those who are not, both by increasing the power of the non-casters and by scaling back the power of many spells. Any duplication in spells is almost invariably going to have the Pathfinder version be weaker by design.
That said, I know there is going to be some duplication based on the sheer volume of old material.
So that I know how excited to get about it, I would like to know one thing.
Does the Magus cast prepared, or spontaneous magic, and what casting stat does it use?
If I were doing it (but I'm not), I think that I would have tried to make it a sorcerer bloodline.
But they are planning on a new base class. There are some things which you can infer about the class from knowledge of the rules.
1. They will probably have the medium (cleric) BAB.
2. They will probably have a d8 hit points.
3. They will probably have good Fortitiude and Will saving throws.
4. They will probably have light armor proficiency and not have arcane spell failure in light armor.
5. There will be a Magus spell list which will be more combat oriented than the bard spell list, but which won't have the most powerful sorcerer/wizard spells. The spell list will includes 1st through 6th level spells.
6. They will probably have simple weapons and a subset of martial weapons.
The Bard would be a good starting point for speculation. Replace the bard spell list with the magus spell list and the bardic class abilities with magus abilities. (Better armor or weapon selections, channeling spells through weapons, expending spells for bonuses, etc).
I'm anxious to get a look at pretty much every aspect of this book. One of my primary character classes is the wizard, so this would be a great resource for me!