Norseman055's page

a couple of notes from reading all these... i know the playtest is over, but it is still interesting to throw ideas out there...

first, people mention spell combat and the negatives to concentration being somewhat dumb or gimpy. think of it from this perspective: a 10th level eldritch knight, once per day AFTER he scores a critical hit can cast a spell as a swift action on one of the targets he just critically hit. he already has to be able to cast 3rd level spells and have all martial weapons under his belt, meaning minimum level 6 (wiz 5/ftr 1), so hes 16th level. oh, and he still suffers spell failure from armor unless you use the arcane armor feats. meanwhile at level 2, you as a magus get to essentially do something better, getting your normal melee attacks in addition to casting a single spell while only suffering a -4 to hit with your melee weapons and a -2 to concentration checks that are required to be made. by level 16 you dont have spell failure from armor, dont take any negatives to the attack or concentration checks, and can do this every turn. the concentration checks help keep you from blowing up everything you see in one round of combat (maybe 2). it makes you choose either melee or magic and offers a slightly risky way to do both, being more risky the less experienced the magus is.

second, people complained that they need a high STR to help their weapon damage. this made me laugh. just saying, but if youre casting a spell at all during a round, your sword shouldnt be anything more than a nice bonus. if you want your sword to take more spotlight, blow your bonus feats on them like a fighter would. once again, you arent a primary fighting class, so you shouldnt have a lot of powerful weapon based abilities.

if youre trying to make this class a primary melee combatant as well as a primary caster, youre trying to break the system. magi, much like bards, are secondary classes in terms of melee combat and spell powers. youll never be as good as the fighter or the wizard at what they do. you are playing a versatile class that blends both magic and swordplay together, and much like the eldritch knight, you are going to have to make a sacrifice to enjoy both paths.

in terms of balance as with the other classes, this matches the power of the other ones quite nicely. the capstone ability works fine in my mind in that people like me who probably wont pump INT past 16 (i like melee) can reasonably use this ability consistently without failing. i still get a full round attack of swings in, and possibly a spell in addition. besides, a good DM should not allow casters to wantonly cast spells anyways. they should have a pair of melee fighters surround the mage and ready an action to swing when they try to cast a spell so that even if they DO cast defensively, they still can get interrupted by damage.

i noticed some people saying that this class shouldnt have a negative to the melee attack if the spell fails. why not? youre trying to perform complex magical symbols and incantations perfectly while swinging a sword around. sure you can cast either before or after the attacks are made, but youre still invoking magical powers through incantations and movements with your off hand. it makes sense that as you gain experience in such an art that the negatives are reduced or removed entirely, but there shouldnt be a reward for failing one aspect of your class.

if you arent happy with being a secondary class or with having below average attack progression or spell progression, you probably shouldnt be playing the magus anyways. the magus is a blend class- an attempt to be both a fighting type and a magical type without specializing on either. trying to make the abilities of the class more powerful seems like youre just trying to power-game the class so you dont have to sacrifice any precious feats to specialize. this is a good balance between magic and fighting in terms of game mechanics.

i know it was long, but after reading this whole thing, i had a lot to say! sorry if i came across as mean or aggressive, it wasnt my intention to do so... i just tend to be somewhat rough around the edges in social situations... :-P

as interesting as the concept of a racial heritage (werewolf) would be, im curious as to how they can be technically counted as their own race... the first entry under "creating a lycanthrope" in the bestiary states:
"Lycanthrope" is an inherited (for natural lycanthropes) or acquired (for afflicted lycanthropes) template that can be added to any humanoid.

whether natural born or afflicted, either way it is stated that lycanthropy is a template. a race is not a template, otherwise you could do something like go to a magician and have the "elven" template added to a human to get their racial features on top of your own.

THE RACIAL BONUS: as for the discussion that states that lycanthropy gives racial bonuses and thus must be a race, i assume its simply the system used since bonuses of the same type dont stack. a racial bonus is the base race's natural tendency to better perform in some way, and since lycanthrope alters your base race to have the shapechanger subtype, it alters the traits of your base race to include these new abilities.

SORCERER BLOODLINES: sorcerers are different in the sense that the bloodline powers they get arent from a racial source but a mystical one (such as dragons, elementals, celestial, etc). the major difference is that there are a number of bloodlines that arent tied to any race at all but a concept, idea or source of arcane power (like destined, arcane, and undead). it could be suggested that sorcerers could have a "lycanthrope" bloodline from which they recieve their powers, but how could you logically have such a thing? if a member of their family way back when was afflicted as a lycan and then had children, any child they had would be a natural lycan, not to mention that any children THEY had would also be a natural lycan... how did the lycanthropy magically "disappear" later on if the only way to be cured of it is by getting a remove disease or heal spell cast by a 12th level cleric or by eating wolfsbane within 3 days of becoming an "afflicted" lycanthrope only?

i personally would not say that lycanthropes are a race for the previous reasons unless the player agreed to lose all the old racial traits their old race had. after all, lycanthropes should not have separate traits depending on whether they were elven or human to begin with if they are a race of their own. they should all have the same basic traits. you can always throw the half-elf/half-orc discussion out here, but even they have a set of unified traits that ALL half-elves and half-orcs share, not just a few of them. half-elves arent elves with a human-like affliction, but the mixture of human and elven blood granting abilities similar to but not the same as either race.

just some points to throw out there to consider in this discussion.