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Can the spellblade magus use rods effectively?

Blackstorm wrote:

Cap. Darling wrote:

Rubbrband wrote:

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You can always get a intensify metamagic rod and save a trait and feat but it will only work 3x a day.
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There is alot of good stuff in this post. But this part is not good advice if you have a rod in one hand and a sword in the other you cannot use Spell-combat.

This has 2 ways to resolve that issue: tiefling with prehensile tail alternate racial trait or hexcrafter with prehensile hair hex.

Nope the tiefling tail doesn't let you manipulate things like a hand, only the prehensile has that abbility. That or dip 2 levels into alchemist for the spare arm.

Also, unless you are going for spell perfection route quicken spell is a less then optimal feat choice.

You can upgrade your tail with the grasping tail feat. Will that do the trick? It's worth considering as good as metamagic rods are.

You can play your magus more like a glass cannon and vanish, move in, take a full attack, vanish, and move out. I elected to use shield and mirror image most the time to try and prove the magus isn't a glass cannon.

I guess I was wrong about the rods. I don't actually have a rod on this character but was considering getting one. Glad I know that now.

I could make a list of all the really good powers and why but there are plenty of places to find that on the internet. The magus isn't the easiest class to plan strategy for so I will give you a breakdown of the best combat strategy I have found. This could probably be it's own thread.

Pre combat: I generally carry around a wand of shield and ping myself with it if I smell the slightest bit of trouble. If you absolute know a combat is coming the magus is really good at spell buffs so bulls strength up or vanish.

1st round: spark up your sword with the swift action and cast a buff spell. I suggest casting mirror early and often. You can use your movement to get a little closer to combat or position yourself in between the baddies and the squishy casters. If the situation arises for you to be able to fireball a large group of baddies take it, remember empower magic arcana is your friend.

2nd round: you are more than ready to charge into combat depending on how combat is developing and who needs help where. If you have a quick runner shirt you can move in and attack with a full round attack and shocking grasp but you won't be able to use any other nifty swift actions. You can also consider casing vanish and moving into mele range.

3rd round: by this time you should be letting it rip. Full round attack actions with shocking grasp consider sparking your sword keen to deliver the shocking grasp through you 15-20 crit range weapon and have fun. Check out the touch attack guide for more info on using shocking grasp.

Retreat: vanish is always a great oh s$%% button. You can do a full round or single attack and then cast vanish as a swift action get out of trouble. Take a round or two to chug some potions and then get back to work.

I have played a magus to level 10 through rise of the runelords.

A few notes.

Make sure you read the touch attack guide because it's all very confusing and you will likely nerf yourself like I did.

Traits: I think magic lineage(intensified shocking grasp) is probably better than gifted adept but they are both really good on shocking grasp for a very long time. Too bad you can only pick one. You can always get a intensify metamagic rod and save a trait and feat but it will only work 3x a day.

Dervish dance: this was made for the magus. There is almost no drawback whatsoever as the scimitar is one of the best weapons for the magus. I wish I would have known about it when I made my magus. It does take two feats but the magus isn't very feat intensive especially early on. If you don't have the feats to burn it's no big deal. The magus doesn't lack in damage potential. You can also consider an agile weapon.

Black blade: the black blade magus is not all it's cracked up to be. Slower arcane point progression and one less magus arcana. You can't customize your weapon and you end up trading feats for a generic weapon with some good but not exceptional abilities. It looks a lot better than it really is but I wouldn't go so far to call it a trap.

Swift actions: the magus is very swift action intensive. The magus breaks the game mechanics by being able to attack multiple times and cast a spell in the same turn at 1st level but never seems to be able to get enough swift actions. Abilities like arcane strike, hastened assault, magus weapon enhancement, black blade enhancement, accurate strike, quick runner shirt, casting vanish, and arcane accuracy all take swift actions and that's just off the top of my head. You need to be super selective which powers you take because you can't use all of them so you need to take that into consideration.

As is I think the class is great. The bloodline powers make for an awesome role playing experience. The only change I would make is uncanny dodge. It's great have but I would rather have something else that meshes better flavor wise.

Does the bloodrager have a stunted caster level like the paladin or ranger? As I read it now it doesn't. Idk if this has been addressed or it was purposeful.

Idk if anyone mentioned this but the sorcerer favored class bonus for kitsune gives bonus to enchantment dc