Nochtal Balzer's page

In the Adamantine Golem construction rules, it says a required spell is crushing fist, in the core rulebook, this is crushing hand, I looked through the Advanced Players Guide and found no new spell that would fit. Just thought I'd post it up for errata's or future prints.

I only found it because I'm writing a campaign that arcane magic is persecuted, and only magical items and creations that can be made only by divine spell lists are on the market. (The only Golems that can be made purely by divine magics only are flesh, stone, and wood)

Something that could also come of this system! Spell creation!

A player in one of my games asked me to help him write new spells, since his character was actively trying to create a new spell (PC personal goal). Using the Words of Power as a guide to creating new spells as opposed to an alternate caster class form of magic seems to be a strong possibility to me.

I'm keeping my eyes open for other uses of this system as well! XD
Hey! Just makes it more useful, right?

Right now the party I run for is wondering the planes. They have to go to each plane and find an 'NPC' to go with them to a new world and set up their respective planes there.

So far they have visited the Abyss, and have a Shadow Demon with Rogue and Master Spy levels. Elysium where they recruited a Treant with Druid levels, and Heaven where the Ranger was impregnated with a new divinity, has now been born and the party has to make sure it stays pure as it develops.

I'm trying to come up with Ideas for the rest of the planes. Any suggestions or ideas?

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!

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.