PsychoDan's page

Doh, I missed that. Glad to know it works.

The feat Tripping Twirl specifically calls out the staff magus archetype:

Special: If you are a magus with the staff magus archetype, you can use spellstrike on any one trip combat maneuver you make with the staff.

This looked like it might be an interesting magus build, so I was disappointed to realize that staff magi can't actually take the feat. Tripping Twirl requires Weapon Specialization(quarterstaff), which in turn requires Fighter 4. I'm guessing the intention was for the magus's Fighter Training class feature to cover that, but unfortunately the staff magus trades that away.

So as it stands, the staff magus, which is specifically mentioned in the feat, needs a 4 level fighter dip just to take it. This can't be how the feat is intended to work, right? Anyone have a suggestion for a replacement in the prereqs? Just dropping a feat seems too generous, but nothing comes to mind as a good alternative.

Well Force Missile, at least, explicitly says 1/2 your wizard level. That always rounds down, and has a minimum of +1, so you wouldn't get to +2 until 4th level.

In general, abilities that count the levels after you acquire them will state that explicitly. Look at the way Sneak Attack is worded, for example: "This extra damage is 1d6 at 1st level, and increases by 1d6 every two rogue levels thereafter." Or Inspire Greatness: "For every three levels a bard attains beyond 9th, he can target one additional ally while using this performance (up to a maximum of four at 18th level)."

If something simply says to add your class level, or 1/2 your class level or anything like that, count your entire class level.