OdinsBeard's page

Ki_Ryn wrote:

I tried wading through all this but just couldn't make it. Could someone briefly tell me if Close Combat is a good choice for my first arcana if I am NOT going use Arcane Mark to get multiple attacks?

If it's still a bad choice, could you let me know why? It seems like a great choice to me but I'm assuming that channeling a ranged touch spell through your sword no longer counts as making a ranged attack. Is that right?

"...but I'm assuming that channeling a ranged touch spell through your sword no longer counts as making a ranged attack."

This is exactly why it's a bad choice. You're always going to be better off targeting touch AC, and there are better touch attacks than ranged touch attacks anyway, so it's a waste of an Arcana. And the biggest problem with this is if you're using a ranged touch that would normally be more than one ray (like Scorching Ray) you lose all the extra rays and just get one.

Get Arcane Accuracy (+Int to attack rolls for the whole turn by spending an arcane point as a swift action) or Wand Wielder (use wands for spell combat/spellstrike, awesome to keep from wasting your spell slots) as your first Arcana at second level. Trust me on this one.

There's nothing in the description of Wand Wielder which says a magus can use a wand in combination with Spellstrike (and the description of Spellstrike starts by saying "whenever a magus casts a spell," which eliminates the possibility of using a wand), which makes it a lot less appealing. That's not to say there aren't some interesting things you could do with wand wielder, of course.

Another idea: if you take Dimensional Agility you can use Dimension Door as part of Spell Combat. Dimension Door up to bad guy, cast quickened shocking grasp, unload on bad guy.

A question: If you have a metamagic rod, can you use it in spell combat? If you have a sword in one hand, and the rod in the other, it doesn't seem like you could cast a spell with somatic components.

So assuming one uses the guide as a template, where do you go after level 11?

For instance, is the shocking grasp strategy worth continuing? I was thinking that taking the Quicken Spell feat and some other metamagic feat and taking spell perfection with shocking grasp might be powerful. If you took the Magical Lineage: Shocking grasp trait, you could drop quickened intensified shocking grasps with level 1 spell slots. If your other metamagic feat was Maximize Spell, in one round you could cast a maximized intensified shocking grasp and follow it with a quickened intensified shocking grasp, and then all of your attacks. Taking the elemental spell feat could also help against electricity resistant enemies.

The question is, is this a useful expenditure of resources? It would require a fairly significant feat investment. Any other ideas for 11+ builds?

For what it's worth, many dice aren't perfectly balanced, and results will not be perfectly distributed. Often, a die will be biased to one axis. For instance, I have a D20 which rolls on the 1-20 axis (i.e. either a 1 or a 20) 20% of the time.

I'm not saying this is the reason, but most dice aren't as perfect as people think they are.

On page 37, under the description for the Gendarme, it lists bonus feats that must be selected, but there is no text regarding meeting the prerequisites for the feats. For instance, Spring Attack is on there but none of the prerequisites for Spring Attack are on the list. So if that's the only feat on the list I haven't taken, can I take it for my bonus feat even if I don't qualify for it?

Another question, what saves do you use when fused with your Eidolon? I feel like the description implies you use the Summoner class saving throws.

Also what happens if you fail a saving throw against poison or disease? Are you only effected when in Eidolon form?