While there are a lot of Magus guides they don't have much in the way of optimal builds for actual play.
Anyone have advice/builds on Magus in PFS?
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First things first: you decide Dex or Str.
Dex is easier to start from level one, so most people prefer that route. Then you have two options, Dervish or Fencing (assuming you don't want a whip. While cool and very useful, typically not really optimal).
If you're Human or Kensai, go Fencing Grace. Otherwise, Dervish Dance. Rapier or Scimitar are your weapons, everything else is inferior.
Second: First-level spell of choice.
Frostbite is build-intensive. You need a +3 magic weapon (+1, Cruel, Merciful-- though whip shaves off Merciful at the cost of more feats), one trait (Lineage/Spellhunter) ideally a second trait (for Int-to-Intimidate), and two feats (Rime Spell, Enforcer). At the end you're a debuff machine. This is where you'd consider the whip.
Shocking Grasp is easy. Lineage or Spellhunter, Intensify Spell in the 5th or 7th slot, and you're done. This is more useful if you want to experience the full breath of the Magus list, since it's very, very easy for you to justify casting other stuff. You can whore Shocking Grasp full-out but it's not really optimal.
Third: arcanas. Flamboyant Deed is your 3rd-level arcana of choice. Your next open feat slot goes to Arcane Deed: Precise Strike. Arcane Accuracy is probably the next arcana you'll want. After that there are a few good options.
Those are the basic building blocks. Assuming you have the same Dex as he has Str, come level five you should be outdamaging the Nodachi Barbarian-- while he's raging, and before we factor in spell damage. For the rest...
Racially, you want Tiefling, Elf, or Human. Human is obvious. Tiefling has stupid-good racial abilities/feats and optimally distributed ability scores. Elf has good ability scores and a really, really good favored class bonus.
Archetypes pretty much come down to Hexcrafter, Kensai, or baseline. Plus Fiend Flayer for a Tiefling. Hexcrafter for endurance, Kensai for ease of building
People love to love the Bladebound, but it's honestly kind of mediocre. You won't screw yourself over by using it, but you're pushing your big damage boost back two-four levels, gimping your pool points, gimping the kind of item abilities you can access, and what you get in return isn't great.
On paper the Beastblade looks awesome. However, the Cha-13 requirement for taking Evolved Familiar, possible rules issues regarding Improved Familiar and Mauler, and the fact that it doesn't go nuclear until level eleven makes me wary of recommending it for PFS.
That's all general advice. How things progress depends on what you decide to build. How we optimize a Frostbite-based Whip Magus is very different from how we optimize a Str-based katana-wielding Grasp Kensai.
What about starting with a level of swashbuckler with Inspired Blade and taking Fencing Grace?
You lose a level of spellcasting, but you get to use your Int bonus for panache and you get Weapon Finesse/Focus for free. (This is less good if you're a kensai, I guess.)
Bladebound Kensai is a really great way to go. It costs you a couple spell slots but as your main spell til level 10 will be shocking grasp, pearls of power are rather cheap. The Bladebound gets you a great intellegent sword at level 3. Its magical and gains +1 bounuses every couple levels. Kensai lets you add your int mod to your AC which is great. With both of these and a wand of shield you will have great AC and hit hard even when you dont cast a spell.
There is a 4th choice for Dex, the Aldori Dueling Sword, 1d8 19-20/x2 (whether it is better or worse then rapier/scimitar is up for debate)
Also, I play a whip using Kensai Magus in PFS. While it started slow, 3rd level saw me on par with everyone else. 5th has me being second best (only one better is a swashbuckler with a +13 damage to his longsword).
I am regularly doing trip+1d6+5, average 8 plus fatigue and entangle, damage on non trip is 1d3+4+1d6+5, average of 14 (plus the fatigue and entangle). I use frostbite without the enforcer but the bonuses from enforcer are very nice.
I personally do like the Black Blade. The free weapon is good for saving some cash. Not a must on any build, but it can be handy. That money you saved could be spent on a gauntlet or some such to get you the properties you want, dueling is the only one I like that you can not get via Arcane Pool.
Hexcrafter. You get Brand automatically so you can spell combat all day every day, and you have access to the witch's hexes (hello~ slumber).
Kensai magus can have slashing grace level 1.
Saves money on armor.
But i highly recommend level 2 rework and getting the rebuild started right. at that point you will pick str verse dex and what weapon to specalize in.
Im currently playing a kensai frostbite whip magus. I use slashing grace. My first level my p urchuses where a pearl of power level 1 and a MW cold iron scorpion whip. I can get CMB for trips/disarms of +25 at level 2. Yay truestrike and reach not provoking. If ijust want a double attack then i use arcane mark.
The diminished spell casting hurts. But after a few levels and a pearl of power your fine. I alsobought a wand of mage armor. Lots of PFS tables can find a use for it. I have people use it on me and animal companions that are lacking +4 armor. I even let them use it if they need. Its cheap and a good low level boost to the group.
The debuff route is powerful but puts way too much work on the GMs plate to track the modifiers.
So as far as I can tell for Bladebound I lose my 3rd level arcane and a couple of arcane pool points and in return I get an early +1 weapon that can't be enchanted and the Alertness feat? +3 weapons are not that expensive once you start playing 7-11s and unless I'm reading it wrong It is a straight + weapon, No innate weapon abilities, not cold iron or adamantium, and no way to enchant it. Is that correct?
The Hexcrafter seems to want the player to use Hexes. I get that having something to do other then spells is handy but I thought that was the point of using Arcane Mark. I played a Witch for a few levels. I barely touched my spells because the Hexes were so powerful. I could easily see the same thing happening with a Hexcrafter.
So let's say I want to play an Elf with both Bladebound and Kensai.
And I don't want to go with whip or heavy debuffs.
What are my best options under those parameters?
Edit: Bladebound blade is +2 at level 5, Magus can add +2 modifier at level 5. So at level 5 I can make my weapon a +3 keen weapon?
I play a debuff Magus in PFS. I bought the Pathfinder Condition Cards deck since it's the only reasonable way to keep track of all of those debuffs.
A typical turn leaves a given foe some combination of: Shaken, Sickened, Entangled, Staggered, Fatigued, Prone, and/or Grappled at the end of your attack sequence.
I like the Flight and Prehensile Hair hexes for a combat magus. If your INT is very high anyway, taking Slumber can be worth it, although you're likely not going to want to spam it the same way a Witch would.
I went for a STR-based debuff magus, which allows you to use Cornugon Smash in place of Enforcer so you don't need to deal nonlethal damage in order to render foes shaken. It does take a little longer to come online, but hey.
If you dip a level of Witch you can take the White-Haired Witch archetype, which gives a free Grab attack with your hair. This will qualify you for Final Embrace if you either go a second level of Witch or save up for an Anaconda's Coils; Constrict is very useful for the debuff build both in terms of adding extra damage and letting you render foes sickened with the Cruel enchantment on an Amulet of Mighty Fists.
If you're going to play a Magus in PFS, expect some different GM ruling on certain Magus abilities. Some of those GM rulings will be wrong and others open to interpretation.
One of those interpretations (suggested in this thread) is on - Arcane Deed: Precise Strike. If you can find a thread in these forums arguing about how something works, expect GMs to support one side or the other till there's a FAQ on it.
Then you'll have GMs that are not familiar with the Magus class and will tell you that your Magus can not do certain things that you are doing. This brings up two choices. (1) Just go with the GM for now and then try to change his mind after the game. (2) Try and change the GM mind quickly, during play. Requires you have support materials book marked and copy already showing what you're doing is legal.
The Magus can be a very complicated class to play. More due to it having a number of class abilities and arcana that can come in conflict with the general rules.
What is the optimization level like in your area? And what are your local GMs like? Remember that they are all trying to get some fairly long scenarios finished in 4 hours and grappling slows things down for several reasons. So I would only try the White-Haired Witch dip if the local GMs were really proficient at handling that condition.
But also keep your defenses in mind. Good saves, layered defenses, maybe UMD (with Pragmatic Activator) to cover those abjurations that magi don't get (like Resist Energy), or divinations. PFS encounters do *not* always feature you knowing who the enemy is in advance, Spellstriking, and destroying them.
Quote: So let's say I want to play an Elf with both Bladebound and Kensai.
And I don't want to go with whip or heavy debuffs.
What are my best options under those parameters?
Dex based Shocking Grasp build is going to be your build then.
Most players choose the route of a Scimitar or the katana. As they are considered to be the premium weapon choice. But you could also pick a Wakizashi, Falcata, Temple sword, Cutlass, or Longsword.
The scimitar allows for Dervish Dancing feat while the others would need Slashing Grace.
You're going to want to pick up intensify spell metamagic and take Wayang/Magical lineage- shocking grasp.
Other than that its really up to you on your Arcana's and feats.
Scimitar or Rapier are the best martial weapons for this. A Katana is higher base damage but is an exotic weapon. Weapon Finesse at first and either Dervish Dance, Slashing Grace or Fencing Grace at third depending on what weapon you chose.
With the Kensai he wants he gets a free weapon proficiency for any Martial or exotic weapon he chooses.
Scimitar causes less questions since most people are familiar with the Dervish Dancing Magus and it focuses on straight out damage as opposed to lots of things to keep track of like debuffs. Tho a good majority tend to not Kensai as a Dancing Magus cause the diminished spell casting and loss of spell recall. They just stick to Mithral Armors instead of no armor and INT to AC.
Bigguyinblack wrote: The debuff route is powerful but puts way too much work on the GMs plate to track the modifiers.
So as far as I can tell for Bladebound I lose my 3rd level arcane and a couple of arcane pool points and in return I get an early +1 weapon that can't be enchanted and the Alertness feat? +3 weapons are not that expensive once you start playing 7-11s and unless I'm reading it wrong It is a straight + weapon, No innate weapon abilities, not cold iron or adamantium, and no way to enchant it. Is that correct?
Edit: Bladebound blade is +2 at level 5, Magus can add +2 modifier at level 5. So at level 5 I can make my weapon a +3 keen weapon?
So at level 3, you actually have a +1 weapon constantly, and a +2 weapon some times (via spending the point on your first turn)
At level 5, you have a +2 weapon constantly, and a +4 weapon/+3 Keen/+2 Keen (insert another +1 bonus property) (via spending the point on your first turn)
At 9th, you have a constant +3 weapon, and a +5 Keen Weapon, +4 Keen (insert another +1 bonus property) OR a +3 Keen (insert another +2 or 2 +1 properties) (via spending the point on your first turn)
Any of the elemental properties is good, especially if you know the target has a vulnerability to it (ie Fire or Cold)
Once you hit 5th, you no longer worry about material. +3 covers Cold Iron and Silver, +4 covers adamantine. At 9, +5 covers all 4 alignments (as well as the materials)
Bigguyinblack wrote: So let's say I want to play an Elf with both Bladebound and Kensai.
And I don't want to go with whip or heavy debuffs.
What are my best options under those parameters
Rapier (for the high crit range) or Aldori Dueling Sword (for the 1d8 damage and the 19-20 crit) (Weapon Finesse at 1st, Fencing Grace or Slashing Grace at 3rd)
Picking up the Precise Strike Arcana (and the pre req Flamboyant) at 6th (Elf FCB being 1/6 of a new arcana). 7th, I would suggest looking at the Bane addition to properties or go for more Arcane Pool Points (ie, extra arcana feat or extra arcane pool). At 5th, I suggest Additional Traits and Intensify (your starting 2 being Warrior of Old Elven Race Trait and I prefer gaining Perception as a class skill[Seeker], your choice may differ)
Alright I'm sure I want Elf, Favored Class bonus 1/6 Arcana. Arcane Focus and Fleet Footed both look good. I'm going to have to cast defensively pretty often. I'd like to start with at least a 17 in Int before the +2.
After talking to a friend I'm convinced losing Spell Recall is a pretty big deal. Especially if I go the Intensified Shocking Grasp route. Flamboyant Arcana was mentioned as a must have but I'm not convinced that spending 2 arcane points and my next swift action is worth the free attack.
Arcane Accuracy looks good. If I don't go Bladebound I like Familiar for the +4 to Init and Alert feat. Ghost Blade combined with my other abilities should let me handle every possible DR. Nothing else looks like a must have to me.
Feats look like level 1 Weapon Finesse, level 3 Dervish Dance, level 5 Extra Traits maybe, and level 7 Intensify metamagic.
People don't care for flamboyant, they care for what comes after, Arcane Deed. With that you can get precise strike, adding your level in damage to every swing.
Spell Recall isn't too horrible of a loss. You'll have less spells early on (which does hurt), but it starts to lose out as you gain more and more spells naturally.
Spell Recall's strength isn't so much the loss of that # of spells as it is the loss of versatility. The situation might call for a very specific spell and Spell Recall could grant me the ability to have 1 of the spell memorized but cast it 3+ times. I can't use Pearl of Power effectively during combat.
Per RAW Arcane Deed says nothing about your levels counting as Swashbuckler levels for purpose of effect and Precise Strike explicitly says Swashbuckler levels. RAI I could easily see it working but I'm playing PFS.
The gold I would save by going Bladebound and Kensai makes it really tempting.
Dafydd wrote: There is a 4th choice for Dex, the Aldori Dueling Sword, 1d8 19-20/x2 (whether it is better or worse then rapier/scimitar is up for debate) Mathematically inferior once you do nine points of static non-precision damage, which is laughably easy for a Magus. That should be level three or so.
If you want a dueling sword specific feat, go for it, but beyond that it's not the optimal play.
Bigguyinblack wrote: Edit: Bladebound blade is +2 at level 5, Magus can add +2 modifier at level 5. So at level 5 I can make my weapon a +3 keen weapon? Correct.
You're looking at a Dex-based Magus using Shocking Grasp and probably a rapier; the +2 versus some maneuvers makes Fencing Grace mildly superior to Dervish Dance. Feel free to run scimitar if you prefer it though.
Bigguyinblack wrote: Spell Recall's strength isn't so much the loss of that # of spells as it is the loss of versatility. The situation might call for a very specific spell and Spell Recall could grant me the ability to have 1 of the spell memorized but cast it 3+ times. I can't use Pearl of Power effectively during combat.
Per RAW Arcane Deed says nothing about your levels counting as Swashbuckler levels for purpose of effect and Precise Strike explicitly says Swashbuckler levels. RAI I could easily see it working but I'm playing PFS.
The gold I would save by going Bladebound and Kensai makes it really tempting.
If you're giving up Precise Strike you're losing a lot of value. Keep in mind that the same book gave us the Daring Champion, who also gets Precise Strike but as a core class feature, and also doesn't have an explicit level = Swash level. It's a poorly edited book.
Now, if you really don't feel it works then by all means, leave it behind... but it's a lot to give up.
Kensai vs. straight Magus (or another archetype) is something you'll need to figure. Kensai is the toughest to take down and the easiest to set up. Hexcrafter is the most forgiving and most enduring. Baseline is the most flexible. All three are extremely solid and blow every other Magus archetype out of the water, possibly excepting Beastblade.
Spell Recall is really not all that critical for a Grasp Magus though. The value of Grasp is that it's a good default trick. If you ever just need to hit something harder, cast Grasp. But never rely on it exclusively; the Magus has a great many nasty tricks with their low-level spells.
kestral287 wrote: Frostbite is build-intensive. You need a +3 magic weapon (+1, Cruel, Merciful-- though whip shaves off Merciful at the cost of more feats), one trait (Lineage/Spellhunter) ideally a second trait (for Int-to-Intimidate), and two feats (Rime Spell, Enforcer). At the end you're a debuff machine. This is where you'd consider the whip. Just out of curiosity, why Rime Frostbite only as a total debuff build option? It's a potent option even for the 'casual' debuffer, and can even be crossed with Grasp for versatility.
BadBird wrote: kestral287 wrote: Frostbite is build-intensive. You need a +3 magic weapon (+1, Cruel, Merciful-- though whip shaves off Merciful at the cost of more feats), one trait (Lineage/Spellhunter) ideally a second trait (for Int-to-Intimidate), and two feats (Rime Spell, Enforcer). At the end you're a debuff machine. This is where you'd consider the whip. Just out of curiosity, why Rime Frostbite only as a total debuff build option? It's a potent option even for the 'casual' debuffer, and can even be crossed with Grasp for versatility. Because going half on it can is both A. much less effective (-2 Str, -6 Dex, -2 to-hit, half-speed. That'll brutalize a Dex fighter but only makes life a bit harder for a lot of enemies. Add another -4 to hit, though, and the target's out of the game), and B. has the same fundamental drawbacks. You're still doing nonlethal with at least the majority of your damage (healed twice as fast, some things get to ignore it), you're still boned against enough Cold resistance/immunity (and more than the full build who can at least still use the other half)... the only thing you bypass is targets who can't be Intimidated, and they're still vulnerable to the Frostbite part on the full build so your savings are very minimal.
So the short version: you have almost all of the same issues for, in my opinion at least, less than half of the gains.
If it works for you, go for it. But I wouldn't call it optimal by any means, and that was the thread title.
It makes me shed a tear when someone only wants to play the optimal way for my favorite class when there's so many fun character concepts that could be built. And for PFS no less.
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Cyrad wrote: It makes me shed a tear when someone only wants to play the optimal way for my favorite class when there's so many fun character concepts that could be built. And for PFS no less. Some people find "slaughter everything in front of me" fun and want the best/easiest way to do that. Nothing wrong with it.
Some people find "find a way to build my carefully crafted character concept, no matter how many levels of Rogue and Monk it take" fun. Nothing wrong with it.
Most people are in between the two. Nothing wrong with that either.
kestral287 wrote: BadBird wrote: kestral287 wrote: Frostbite is build-intensive. You need a +3 magic weapon (+1, Cruel, Merciful-- though whip shaves off Merciful at the cost of more feats), one trait (Lineage/Spellhunter) ideally a second trait (for Int-to-Intimidate), and two feats (Rime Spell, Enforcer). At the end you're a debuff machine. This is where you'd consider the whip. Just out of curiosity, why Rime Frostbite only as a total debuff build option? It's a potent option even for the 'casual' debuffer, and can even be crossed with Grasp for versatility. Because going half on it can is both A. much less effective (-2 Str, -6 Dex, -2 to-hit, half-speed. That'll brutalize a Dex fighter but only makes life a bit harder for a lot of enemies. Add another -4 to hit, though, and the target's out of the game), and B. has the same fundamental drawbacks. You're still doing nonlethal with at least the majority of your damage (healed twice as fast, some things get to ignore it), you're still boned against enough Cold resistance/immunity (and more than the full build who can at least still use the other half)... the only thing you bypass is targets who can't be Intimidated, and they're still vulnerable to the Frostbite part on the full build so your savings are very minimal.
So the short version: you have almost all of the same issues for, in my opinion at least, less than half of the gains.
If it works for you, go for it. But I wouldn't call it optimal by any means, and that was the thread title. So since there are VERY FEW quality Magus optimization threads here on the internet.. I have to resurrect this one.
Dumb question here.. So how does the debuff build not fall extremely flat against any amount of cold resistance? Like, if you run into any monster with resist 10 Cold. I can shock through most resistances, but Cold Resist 10 takes the debuff build out of the game, right?
Couldn't you go a Grasp build but just add in Rhime Spell as a feat and memorize a Frostbite as a 2nd level spell? This way you could empower your grasps and intensify them without running up the level too much and potentially hold metamagic rods with your witch hair and have an intensified, empowered shocking grasp that is either spell piercing or switched out in terms of energy type as a 2nd level spell (using a rod on the spell).
But 1 feat (rime spell) and a 2nd level spot is a pretty good situational splash for small feat investment in order to affect a -3 to hit on the enemy against my whole team. If I want to invest more I have to get rid of spell storing on my weapon (+1 spell storing scimitar is ~8k, which is significant Wealth by Level in mid levels).
I'm not trying to be argumentative here - I just don't see how you get past resistance 10 against Cold... and heavily investing in a build a that can be negated by that seems rough. Maguses are already weak against demons and devils... and they're everywhere in the PFS mods.
Cold resist 10? At what level? Frostbite is 1d6 + 1 per caster level. So if you are level 5 you have a small chance of doing at least 1 point of cold damage above the resistance.
If you are going all in on frostbite... Empower it. That 1d6+5 at level 5 has gone from average 8.5 max 11 to 12.5 average max 16. If you roll a 3 on the damage dice, you at least do 1 point of damage against resistance 10. At level 6? You need to roll a 2.
Throw in Varisian Tattoo(Transmutation) from dipping Tattooed Sorcerer (Inner Sea Magic) with one of the Bloodlines that gives +1 damage (or if you want to make all of your spells do cold damage) for a net gain of +1 (technically balanced with the level loss on precise strike for total damage). Throw in a pinch of Urea(2 gp per cast) from Alchemy Manual for another +1 caster level. Use a Rime Metamagic rod(3k) instead of the feat and precast it or cast and drop (quickdraw swap your rapier with a scabbard of many blades perhaps?) because you likely had to move anyway in the first round so you aren't using Spell Combat (without Bladed Dash anyway).
Level 4 Magus/1 Sorcerer (1d6+7)*1.5 Empowered Rime Frostbite in a 1st level slot(assuming both traits to reduce metamagic, and Rime metamagic rod) for minimum of 12 damage for the next 6 hits. And you can get more utility cantrips (radio, I mean message, mending, detect magic) so your magus cantrips can focus on the spells you are likely to spell combat with and Mage Armor & Shield from Sorcerer (or dazzling blade, feather fall, vanish, heighten awareness, protection from evil) or at least being able to use any wizard wand/scroll without having to UMD. And a much higher will(+2 from sorcerer 1, +2 for hedgehog familiar).
Optimal, probably not, but adds some interesting tradeoffs.
Just a note- with arcane deed, rapier is one of the premium weapons for both dex and str builds.
Arcane deed can get your precise strike from swashbuckler. That deed was balanced to put swashbuckler on par with other full BAB characters. On a magus, it basically matches power attack in terms of extra damage, but it doesn't incur an attack penalty. Soo just going with that and a nice piercing weapon seems ideal.
So even if you go str, you would only miss out on 1/2 str (which would only be what? 1-2 point since you have so many important stats?) for a ton of accuracy. Just take arcane strike, and you pretty much made up for the difference (and open up the path for riving strike, which lets you lay on debuffs to help other casters- very valuable for hexcrafters who might have already thrown out an evil eye).
Dex builds can possibly get away with scimitars and other 1 handed weapons, but that can be harder to build around. It is easier just to use fencing grace, since you might not end up crowded around level 3.
Cold resistance is an issue. And your right, frostbite builds are one of those things that you should consider twice before fully investing in. Though 2 feats (enforcer and rime spell) doesn't seem much to me.
At the end of the day though, a Magus's strength is his diversity. He deals both physical and magical damage. Casting spells is a huge deal. Sometimes we theorycraft with tunnel vision: we assume that we'll always be able to do what we want to do. Frostbite is on some precarious footing, there are lots of things utterly immune to the combination. Thats why we should have other options other than magical damage available for use with spell combat.
Beckman wrote: So how does the debuff build not fall extremely flat against any amount of cold resistance? Like, if you run into any monster with resist 10 Cold. I can shock through most resistances, but Cold Resist 10 takes the debuff build out of the game, right? It's pretty brutal, let me tell you. My debuff magus (seen here) is a Grapple/Constrict build, so I can do a pretty good clip of damage when the stars align in addition to the debuffing, but there have been some adventures where the demon resistances and DR really took the wind out of my sails.
I find there's always some kind of combat maneuver that is useful, though, unless they're a -very- large foe.
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