Matt2VK's page

At first level, if you decide to go DEX over STR, it might be more worth your while to spell combat your round then make a single attack two-handed.

Combat round would go like this -
Declare spell combat
Make your melee attack at -2
Take a 5' step
Cast and make a touch attack with acid splash at -2

I like Scorching Ray at 2nd for those times when my Magus needs to reach out and touch some one. Comboing it with the Magus empowered arcana allows the Magus to do some serious damage at range.

Gear - Get yourself some flask of fire and acid. You'll need them for swarms. Seems like every third adventure you'll face a swarm.

Feats - Not a fan of Cleave. Just too situational for me and paladins always seem feat starved for every thing they want to do.

Weapons - For high strength characters starting out, I prefer a sling. It's cheaper, does more average damage, and the move action to reload doesn't hurt your action economy much.

If you go with the Wand Weilder arcana. Pick up a Wand of True Strike. You should have no problems using the whip for any of your combat maneuvers.

1st level wands are cheap and easy to come by in PFS.

Bard (or witch) spell: Beguiling Gift & a set of masterworked manacles.

Bard facing a big fighter wielding a big sword. "Here, you want to put these on.". Casts Beguiling Gift as she hold out the masterworked manacles.

Looking for a GM Cheat Sheet or trying to figure out what to put on it if I need to make my own. What I have so far -

(1) DC numbers for task broken down into how hard they are.

(2) Monster knowledge check DC numbers.

(3) Spell concentration checks vs different conditions.

(4) Dispelling magic

(5) Other. Things you've had to stop your game more then once to look up.

Correct

I was looking at how much fame you needed to buy stuff with gold. Was looking at that first table which list 4 fame or less you have open access to stuff worth 500 gold.

...got me to wondering how you could buy a wand worth 750 gold if you did not have access to it. After more reading, found out the wand is worth 0 gold if purchased with prestige.

Was a case of just enough knowledge to be wrong.

According to the PFS, 4 PP or less you can only buy up to a max of 500 go. I read that as you needing to play a minimum of three sessions to break that 4 fame mark.

Page 3 of the Pathfinder Society Field Guide.

I do see the part of purchasing anything at a cost of 2 PP for 750 gp on the next table. Problem is, that table does not grant access.

**edited**
Just read the last sentence of this page. Items purchased this way with PP are worth a total of 0 gp.

Ran a few new people through First Steps. Started explaining and showing them what they could purchase with both gold and prestige. Told them the first thing they should buy is a Wand of CLW for 2 prestige. While explaining all this I noticed the Wand of CLW was not open access. Also, with a gold cost of 750 go, you needed at least 9 fame before you could purchase it unless you get access on a sheet.

Now -
(1) Did I just miss the Wand of CLW being open access while flipping through the PFS guidelines?

(2) What's above is correct and you need to wait till you have 9 fame before purchasing a wand of cure light wounds?

Which is correct?

Lesser restoration
Enlarge
Reduce
Obscuring mist
Glitter dust
See invis
Delay poison
Mending
Protection from evil

Have a choice of three different armor types -

Breastplate +3. 9,350 gp

Adamantine Breastplate +1. 11,200 gp

Mithral Breastplate +2. 8,200 gp

This will be for a level 7 Magus (STR type). I see pluses and negatives for each type of armor. At moment I'm leaning towards the +3 breastplate or the Adamantine breastplate +1.

While the +3 breastplate offers an extra 2 AC, the Adamantine offers DR2. I'm not used to playing characters mid to high levels, so not sure which way to go.

Mithral, I'm just not sure the extra 4,000 gp it costs is worth the extra 10 movement and reduced armor check penalties.

Stats -
Having a 8 WIS means you're taking a neg hit in two ferry important areas, perception checks and Will saves.

Traits
Reactionary is a very nice trait. Having a high DEX already gives you a good initiative modifier. I'd look at some of the other traits that would be more helpful. Traits that give you perception or a bonus to Will saves as a example.

Arcana
A lot of people are a fan of Arcane Accuracy. While I also like it, it's resource cost just gets too expensive for all the other things a Magus can use his arcane pool for. Example: 4 fights in a day, 4 arcane points to enhance your weapon. Then there's also spell recall, which gets expensive if you use it a couple of times.

So I'd drop Arcane Accuracy and grab your Familiar Arcana at third and at sixth pick up the Empower Arcana.

Word of advice -
Go over the mechanics of the magus class with your gm and what spells work with spells strike and how they work before playing. There's a fair amount of confusion on these boards about the class and about a quarter of the stuff posted is wrong according to RAW.

Main reason I asked this is for PFS as we have to play every thing by RAW. By RAW it looks like you get all the damage you do as temp HP.

I also believe this isn't RAI, so wondering if there has been a ruling on this somewhere.

So how would it be ruled in PFS?

If a Magus uses Spell Strike to deliver Vampiric Touch. Does the magus also get the weapon's damage as temp hit points?

Example
Spell: Vampiric Touch does 7D6 damage. Total of 28
Weapon does 1D6 (base damage), 1D6 (frost damage from enhancement), and +1 (magic enhancement). IE 4 (base) + 1 (frost), +1 (magic)
Then there's the +4 DEX modifier added to the weapon damage.

So how much of this total of 38 damage dealt from the magus in this single attack become temp hit points?

From my reading of the spell it looks like all of that damage becomes temp hit points but I'm not sure.

This comes up fairly often -

By RAW
Weapon class has to be a light or 1handed weapon. Using a small 2handed weapon as a medium sized character one handed does not change the 2handed classification of that small weapon.

To use spell combat, you need a free hand for the complete round. No gripping the weapon 2handed, attacking, then freeing up one hand to cast a spell.

How set are you on having class levels in sorcerer?
As
I was thinking it might be more fun to have class levels in Ninja. This would give you more skill points for those social skills, a couple of ninja tricks, and that ability to stab someone in the back.

:) :) :)

Question -
Can you stack Pool Strike with a charged spell?

I know you can't hold a 'charge' if you cast a new spell but does Pool Strike count as a spell?

With the clarification of Haste, it might actually be more dps with the multiple charges line of spells (like frostbite).

Get a Haste casted
Spell Combat with spell strike frostbite (no extra attack with haste)
Lots of spell strike attacks delivering frostbite with full attacks with Haste.
Lots of damage.

There is a trait that allows intimidate for vermin.

If you are a melee, within 5-10', type character, there can be times you just won't be able to close with your target. Having a ranged demoralize can come in very handy in these situations.

One suggestion -

Before you play your magus, make sure both you and your GM can agree on how spell combat, spell strike work and which spells work with them. As there's a lot of RAW amd RAI confusion out there on the magus class and then there's the 'That's Cheese and I won't allow it.' from some GMs.

It's just better to get this all cleared up before it comes up in a gaming session.

Now comes the hard part, deciding on your feats.

A Strength based magus can go a number of efferent ways/styles. A lot depends on how you want to play your character. Weapon focus is always good and might be helpful to land your sword attacks with. Combat Expertise is needed if you're planning on going with a trip/disarm build. Also helps a bit on defense.

Overall, a Strength magus has a lot of options on different types of builds for different play styles.

A DEX build Tengu is doable but the hit to CON is painful. Building a STR type magus with a Tengu is no where near optimized. It's doable and could be fun to roleplay but if the rest of the table builds optimized characters, you'll end up feeling weak.

Stats could be something like -
16 str. 12 con. 14 dex. 14 int. 12 wis. 8 cha.

Swap out sword trained for exotic weapon training and pick up a katana.

...but it would be better to go with a Dex build magus (or magus archetype) for a Tengu.

Some things you need to remember -

Common Items
Most of the people visiting these shrines will be of common birth, other wise of low income. While Desna is all for helping travelers, she's also wise enough to reduce the temptation of people stealing from her shrines.
Items in the common room should be of low to limited value. Wood for a fire, flint and steel, cheap bulk food that has a long shelf life (something that is filling but does not taste good), maybe some common herbs used in healing and some bandages.

Secret Items
These items are more expensive but can't be too expensive as each shrine should have these items, which gets expensive!
Potions of -
Message: something along the lines of "Help needed at shrine 23".
Delay Poison
Stablize
Cure light wounds
Lesser Restoration
While wands and scrolls would be nicer and cheaper. The people that need this stuff may not have the ability to actually be able to use them.

Thanks,
What I thought but wanted to make sure.

Staggered condition - Can you take a 5 foot step and attack while staggered?

What exactly is a Slam attack?
Actions it uses?

This is not RAW but how I run it -

You can not take 10 on a active stealth check, example: sneaking up on someone. I will allow taking 10 for setting up a ambush site if you have the time to do so.

The real question is, if you're going that many levels into magus, why do you want to go into Eldritch Knight?

My best suggestion for you is to make a list of everything you gain if you stay a pure magus. Then make list of what you gain going with the Eldritch Knight. Compare the two lists and decide which you like better.

For me, staying pure magus is better.

Wand of Infernal Healing -

Does this wand detect as evil?

Can you use Teifling blood to craft this wand, cast Infernal Healing?

My opinion the best use for traps is to slow the party down.

Since you mentioned something about rescuing halflings, make the halflings the trigger of your trap. This will do two things. Prevent the halflings from making escape attempts and delay anyone trying to rescue them as disarming a trap takes time.

Traps can also be used to delay then party if there are active patrols. The patrols might come across the party as they are going about disarming it or the patrol can come across the disarmed trap and raise a alarm. Alerting the camp to begin a massive search for the party.

Don't forget illusions.

Back in the Living City days, my party got hired by a bunch of bad guys (we didn't know this at the time) to track down a person that was getting ready to cast a major ritual.

We tracked this person down to being in this house, while exploring, we found a gateway to a pocket dimension. Party decided to be cute and summoned up a Earth Elemental to scout out the entrance. After a couple of rounds the earth elemental came back and gave this report -

"Me saw a man doing something. Man look at me and screamed something. Big dog things popped into existance with other men. They tore man apart. I came back."

What was supposed to happen was the party was supposed to go through, breaking the wards of protection the person we were trying to find had up, find out we were tricked by the people that hired us, and then defend the person as they showed up with a bunch of demons to tear him apart.

Have him run around using a Wand of Infernal Healing. Everyone would detect as evil then...for 10 rounds.

I set up a TPK trap, gave the party all kinds of clues about what the trap did; grooves in the floor, walls, and ceiling that looks like a solid stone slab comes down and fits in, steep stairs leading down to a short hallway, on the floor of the hallway are some drains that have water trickling into them. Water is coming from a door at the end, which is trickling down from the edges, top, and which is seeping through it.

So what do you think the party would do?
To they go and open that door!

PS. There was treasure in the room and a encounter, the party just needed some water breathing items they would have found later.

Mod: Thornkeep

Going by memory here as don't have the mod in front of me. Just know the question came up and we spent about 15-20 minutes trying to figure out the answer.

Matt2VK wrote:

So how do you figure out the DC number to dispel a magical trap?

When the only info you have is the CR of the trap and it's effects.

Generally, it's the spell cast to make the trap. Which trap are you referring to?

(When people have specific questions, why do they so often hide information in an attempt to turn it into a general question?)

Kind of hard to give specific info when the trap is pulled from a mod and all it gives is the CL of the trap and it's effect. In this case it was 2D6 cold damage and the staggered condition.

Was hoping the DC for dispel magic on a magical trap was based off its CL number and there was a place to look it up at.

So how do you figure out the DC number to dispel a magical trap?

When the only info you have is the CR of the trap and it's effects.

Did a quick search, no luck, so hoping some one can give me a answer and a page/book reference.

How would the spell, Despel Magic, work against a magic trap?

Party makes the perception DC to spot the trap. Trap is Magic CR 3.

I'm throughly confused.

By RAW, for PFS, do you get the extra attack from Haste with Spell Combat?

I've read 'if you parse it this way, it's yes, but parse it another way, it's no'. So what is it by RAW? Or is that still unknown?

For PFS, I've just been letting the person running the table decide.

I'm a big fan of the Wand Wielder Arcana, not a fan of Wand Mastery. Reasoning I don't like Wand Mastery is most of those spell's you have wands for require no saving throws.

This might be different from what you're plans are but I suggest you look at which type of wands you're planning on using and seeing if the spells stored in them require a saving throw or not.

With a teifling, you want to take a strong look at grabbing the wand arcana as soon as you're able too. As teiflings have that tail, which helps with your wand action economy.

Also, using wands do not draw AO. Which helps you avoid those casting in combat checks.

The reason I dont want Superstitous or Pounce was becouse I wanted something a bit different then all the Barbarians you see in PFS.

I just want to play something different that's still worthwhile.

Building a Invulnerable Rager barabain for PFS but I have no idea, at all, on what type of Rage powers to grab him. I do know what I do NOT want.

I do NOT want the Superstitious line of Rage Powers or the Natural Attacks line of Rage Powers. What I want is a Barabain with a big, hunking, Great Sword (or any other big hunking weapon) smashing his foes in front of him.

What I need is suggestions on what type of Rage Powers go with the Big Weapon, smashing foes.

PS. At moment I have CHA & INT as a dump stat.
STR 18 DEX 14 CON 14 INT 10 WIS 12 CHA 8 Half Orc
Stats subject to change.

Feats...
Toughness
Combat Casting
Weapon Focus {probably Bastard Sword}

Combat Casting: You're starting to face the diminishing returns for combat casting as a Magus around 7th level. Strongly suggest you look at another feat.

Weapon Focus is always good.

Extra Arcana Pool really depends on your adventuring day. If you'll be facing 4 or more encounters during the day, those extra AP come in handing. Those extra AP are very nice to have with Spell Recall.

Depending on GM, the magus arcana that allows a familiar and the improved familiar feat. Can allow you extra actions and, maybe, familiar UMD checks.
Helps with your action economy and the familiar can aid other you.

At 7th level you can grab the Extra Arcana feat: Spell Blending. There are some nice 2nd level wizard spells it might be worth getting.

Then there's all the Craft feats if your GM allows them. At least Craft Scrolls for those utility spells. Craft Wands is also nice if you plan on using any of the wand arcana.

or you can just go to the guide of guides sticky and find the guide to magus in that thread.

Disclaimer - Have not read the mod but I trust the GM.

WARNING: Grand Lodge faction mission is messed up ( believe it was due to a simple typo) for this session.

Magus has two area which seem to have a lot of confusion on -

Action economy, with the understanding of Spell combat and spell strike. Of which most of this thread is about.

...and...

Type of weapon used and the free hand requirement.
Have seen way too many people trying to use a 2handed weapon in one hand or use a 1hander with two hands using the free action to remove a hand, cast spell, free action to re-grip weapon. Both of these are not allowed by RAW but if you read just part of the text, you can get away with it.

From my reading of that, the shield while floating would work with spell combat.

Which brings up the question of why you just don't cast the Shield spell and not bother carrying around a shield?

How do you figure out the stats when a Magus's weapon is the target of a Sunder attempt?

Example: 10th level Magus with a +2 sword. Magus uses his arcane pool to enhance the weapon by +3. Bringing the weapon up to +5.

What does this do to the weapons toughness and hit points?
What about when the arcane pool enhancement wears off?

Another question dealing with same topic -
How does the change in enhancement effect DR?
Is it still treated as a +2 weapon for DR or as a +5 weapon for DR?

Shield and Hair, I don't know those rules enough to comment on.

Using the pole arm one handed with spell combat really depends on answering this question.
What type of weapon is it?

If it's found in the light or one handed section on weapons then the answer is yes. If found in the two handed section the answer is no. Does not matter if you're using that two handed weapon in one hand from some ability. As spell combat has a RAW of light or one handed weapons only.
Now by RAI that's between you and your GM. I wouldn't allow it but others might and it never hurts to ask.

Lots of encounters. 4+ encounters per day start getting rough on a magus. As the magus arcane pool only stretches so far. Magus usually spend at least 1 AP per fight to enhance their weapon, then if they want to do anything special, that usually costs another AP.

Magus is more of a melee, in your face fighter. Encounters that use hit and run or range tactics can shut down the magus's spell combat feature. Spell combat is a full round action, so any time you force the magus to use a move action, the magus can't spell combat.

A common mistake I see is that a lot of Dex magus are encumbered. Take a quick look at his gear vs his carry capacity as it doesn't take much to encumber a low Stress character.