Nochtal's page

"Unlike a typical human, a pureblooded ancient Azlanti gains a +2 bonus to all six ability scores. Such powerful humans can become player characters only with the permission of the GM."

The Inner Sea World Guide, page 12, second column, last paragraph.

I take this to mean that any non-ancient-pureblooded-azlanti is treated as just regular human. While the true Azlanti honed and perfected themselves, leading to superior specimens through science, magic, the arts, and divine study.

*shrug*

The best way to handle it, in my opinion, is to make it fit the story and drama.

Just wow! Get new players! I've killed the Human Paladin in my campaign three times now! Each time the party did what it took to get him back. Even though this last time he got reincarnated as a Goblin (Which is the Rangers 1st favored enemy) I haven't had any kind of problem like that. You just need to find more mature/experienced role-players! Even in Oblivion and other PC/console RPG's have repercussions for what you do!

It does make the most sense, it could work along the same lines as the Fighter feats.

Re-reading this popped something else into my mind for the aspect of the Magus' role in the party. With a good fighter of equal level performing the tank role, he has access to buffs and spell aid right next to him in hectic combats and small areas without having to worry as much about protecting the Magus as he would a Sorcerer or Wizard.

Somewhere else was posted that perhaps the Magus should have access to a School of magic, like the Wizard does. If this were the case, it'd be much like an arcane Cleric.

Not entirely disagreeing with you, but how many games do you play in where you get to start out at 15th+ level? This class is (theoretically) aimed at people who want to play a sword-and-blasty-spell character from the get go, rather than having to finish 10 levels of a prestige class. I'd wager the vast majority of games end before anyone gets to that point.

True, as that character even started out at level 2 and was a while until I got him up to that status. And I haven't had too many games that I've played in get to that point.

See, those are good points. And eep, I didn't realize I put lvl 4 instead of 7! LOL!

I didn't notice that the ElK was already brought up, but I figured it had. It'd be nice to see the Elk get some love in the new book, as it would fit the concept of the book to do so.

It still just seems like Magus is replacing ElK.

AH! Ok, my reply is cut short as I have to get going! >.<; I'll check back on this again as soon as I'm back home!

Speed up the process of gaining new levels of spells by 1 level (gain 2nd level spells at 3rd instead of 4th, and 3rd level spells at 6 instead of 7).

Rewording some of the abilities for sure would help as well.

More variety with Magus Arcana would be nice! Simply adding Magus Arcana that increase Concentration hecks and bolster the mainstream concept of the Magus rather than expanding to other classes abilities (like familiar, broad study, etc.). I know they have Concentrate, but that's a once per day shot, for +4, and you have to use it before you know if you even failed the roll! It really is only a safe bet to use if you rolled less than a ten, and if you roll worse on it, you are forced to keep it. This would seem more appropriate if it allowed you to roll twice and keep the better of the two.

I personally don't see the purpose of the metamagic Magus Arcana. Perhaps they could be switched out to add spell versatility in the Combat Casting. It doesn't seem to me that the Magus can perform a combat maneuver and combat casting at the same time, perhaps if there was a Magus Arcana that allowed the Magus to Sunder/Disarm/etc. and defensively cast a spell?

exactly! I could do this concept better with a few levels of wizard, fighter and ten levels of Eldritch Knight. Especially with the right feats I can almost guarantee a crit every other round! I know, I've done it before! XD

Spell Critical alone makes up for Spell Combat. No negatives, no concentration check as the swift spell you gain from it provokes no attack of opportunity. Its just wail wail wail SPZAT! sad day! And that my friends, is how you say no to panda!

Going toe to toe with a fighter can be the very downfall of the magus.

If both are going full on, and built well. The Magus is looking to auto fail.

lets put them both at 10th level. At 10th level I can give a fighter both Disruptive, increasing the Magus' defensive casting DC by +4, and Spellbreaker, so that each time he fails that concentration check, he is taking an attack of opportunity.

The fighter is capable of wearing heavy armor while the magus is stuck in medium armor at level ten, not to mention the 3 points difference between their BAB's alone. Not to mention weapon training's addition +2 to hit and damage, along with Armor trainings bonus to AC on top of it being heavy armor.

The magus is still taking a -2 to his attacks, but no penalty from spell combat on concentration checks. If the magus has combat casting, which he has to spend one of his own feats on, he can negate the fighters +4 to the DC. If not, the magus is looking to fail 50-75% of his concentration checks for spells level 3 and 4. So the Fighter really only needs to worry about lower level spells succeeding, which at this point he'll be able to make most the saves for anyways.

Every advantage the Magus gets, a well built fighter can negate and do more damage to the magus for it! Not to mention whatever other feats the fighter has, he can go for any number of specializations to include weapon focuses and specializations or maneuver feats. Say the fighter takes Sunder or Disarm! Removing the Magus' armor guaranteeing the fighter to hit each and every time, or disarming the Magus (with greater disarm), leaving the magus with only his spells or taking an attack of opportunity to retrieve his weapon (if he does not have another one he can quick draw). It wouldn't take long for a fighter to tear apart a Magus!

It does seem to be the 50/50 option. Though it could also be used as a tank option when well chosen spells are used.

Alright, my first thought upon seeing the Magus play-test was such: "Whats the point of Eldritch Knight prestige class then?"

One for one, You're starting off at 1st level with the basic concept of the Eldritch Knight already in place. Magic and Steel. All you need is proficiency with all martial weapons and the ability to cast third level arcane spells. It looked somewhat promises since you can just take 4 levels in Magus and be qualified for the prestige class.

Further on, why doesn't the Eldritch Knight have some of these abilities to it? All you receive from Eldritch Knight is 3 bonus combat feats, diverse training (which is useful for feat selection) and at the end, spell critical. Spell critical being your only option to attack and cast a spell within the same round, and that's only if you get a crit and confirm it.

The magus goes off of the medium BAB progression chart, which is a good choice since it does give a lot of other abilities as well, but Eldritch Knight goes off of Fast progression. The saves for Magus are also better than Eldritch Knight. Only the Fort save is good for the EK, where Magus has good saves for Fort and Will.

Although the two classes do look good together, giving some possibilities to wreak havoc on anything in its path! Taking 10 levels in Magus and 10 in Eldritch Knight you get some good bonuses.

BAB would be +17/+12/+7/+1
You'd be able to perform the Improved Spell Combat, making a full round attack and cast a spell with only a -2 penalty to attacks and no penalty to concentration. Plus if you score a critical hit and confirm it, you get four attacks in that round, a spell, followed by a swift action spell granted by the Spell Critical class feature. Plus you'd have a Magus Caster level of 19. Access to all 6 levels of Magus spells, and you'd gain those better hit points (d10's) from Eldritch Knight prestige Class. That and you'd count as a level 15.

The Magus Class somewhat streamlines doing the Elritch Knight character concept and prestige class, letting you have it straight from the get go, but at the same time kinda almost makes the prestige class useless.

The second ten levels of Magus I wouldn't get as much HP or BAB, but I'd get better saves, and more fluidity of combining melee and magic into one character. Switching to the prestige class, you lose out on a level progression for spells, you don't get heavy armor training, miss the final spell combat upgrade, counterstrike and a few Magus Arcana. I can live without the Magus Arcana. They don't have the best options right now. I'd like to see them be more unique rather than once per day freebie metamagics.

I like the concept of the Magus, obviously since I loved the Eldritch Knight and have played a character up through that progression combining base classes of Fighter and Wizard to attain my goal. Now with Magus, you realize how little you really do get from Eldritch Knight. It almost seems unbalanced in my opinion simply because of that fact.