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In my above posts, you'll see that I suggest using the proposed concentration ability to fuel magus arcana. At higher levels, the magus is going to have a good enough concentration check that he'll be able to use spell combat with some spells without needing to use the concentration ability. So magus arcana could become additional ways to use the concentration ability instead of abilities that burn spells.

I did notice that wording but didn't catch that that was what you meant by it. How would that work exactly? Are you suggesting that you could give up one of your Concentration uses for the day in return for powering a spend-to-use arcana at the appropriate level? For example, if you were at 7th level (such that Concentration works on 2nd-level spells), you could trade-in a Concentration use as if you had given up a 2nd-level spell. Or would you use it more directly, i.e. every use you give up corresponds to a spell level up to the max spell level you can cast? For example, at 7th level, you could give up 3 uses to power an arcana at 3rd level spell strength, 2 for 2nd and 1 for 1st.

If it were changed to accommodate my suggestions, I suspect it wouldn't need improvements at higher levels. Being able to use it while casting spells of progressively higher spell levels should be improvement enough.

Thanks. You've been very helpful and patient with my questions. If I haven't already exceeded my limits, let me ask you one more. It's a more general question.

So many "rebuilds" of Magus have pushed the idea of an Arcana Pool to avoid the perceived problem of the give-up-a-spell Magus Arcana powers. I was wondering if you considered anything like this, why you might have rejected it, and what you think of the current give-up-a-spell Magus Arcana?

Was Dorje correct in assuming that, like flurry of blows, you would give the magus some sort of improvement at higher levels (say at 8th and 14th or 15th)? If so, what did you have in mind exactly? It could be that you just imagine that Concentration *is* the improvement.

Cool. Thanks!

I don't see why not. The magus can't step on the fighter's toes, because his lower BAB and lower effective fighter level mean he can't qualify for the good combat feats as quickly as a fighter can. And, in theory, the higher-level magus arcana are going to be better than feats because they have synergy with specific magus abilities, so the magus won't end up taking ten straight bonus feats anyway. But if really wants to, despite all of the other magus arcana options, I say let him.

Fair enough. Did you have any comments on the issue of minimum levels for medium armor, heavy armor, and counterstrike class features once turned into magus arcana? The same level at which they appeared in the original class? Any level?

Also, what do you think of the idea of Arcane Armor? Either way, the only thing that feels a bit weird is Arcane Weapon coming before Arcane Shield (or Armor). After all, +1 AC is cheaper than +1 weapon enhancement in gp terms. What were your thoughts behind arranging it this way?

One option might be to start the Arcane Shield/Armor progression at 1st level. But then 1st level is getting kind of crowded. It might require moving some other things around.

Finally, did you intend the Concentration ability to replace the Concentrate arcana?

Great stuff!

I love this and I will suggest these changes to my GM for our upcoming campaign (where I'm going to play a Magus). The only thing I would like to see is Arcane Shield changed to Arcane Armor and written similarly to Arcane Weapon. In other words, allow the magus to do with her armor what she does with her weapon, i.e. add magic armor properties or enhancement bonuses. This makes for some really nice symmetry and gives the magus a sort of spontaneous melee-artificer feel.

Allow the magus to freely select combat feats, item creation feats, and metamagic feats as magus arcana options.

Do you really mean to suggest that the magus should be allowed to take a bonus feat every time they get magus arcana? Isn't that a bit much in terms of stepping on the fighter's toes? Or are you simply suggesting that it's the same three bonus feats but that there is no level minimum for taking them?

On that note, what level minimums are you suggesting for the many class abilities that you are rolling into magus arcana?

If you can play monster races, consider Tiefling (+2 DEX, +2 INT, -2 CHA) for Dr. Strangelob. They don't get much else but the stats are a perfect match.