Time to add my two cents to this.
The Magus is Pathfinder's fighter-mage in a can, their answer to the Duskblade or the Psychic Warrior. Does it add up? I will unfortunately have to say: "No." But stick around, and let me explain the answer.
First, let's look at the main chassis.
The Magus is MAD. It's really, really MAD. Currently it requires a minimum of intelligence, constitution, dexterity, and strength. I'll discuss ways of limiting this later, but for now, this is absolutely terrible. The class is abnormally split between all of it's stats, but unlike the druid or the cleric, he can't really decide if he wants to be really good at fighting and not so good at casting, or vice versa.
3/4ths BAB is irritating but can be doable. After all, the Psychic Warrior had 3/4ths BAB and it was a great class. There's a lot of other 3/4ths BAB classes, too, that can do combat stuff decently enough. I'll be pointing out how this really doesn't work for the Magus, though.
Two saves, and they're the two important ones. No complaints here.
Now let's look at the abilities.
Spellstrike: If you are using a weapon with reach, then this is a fairly good ability! However, these weapons are very few and far between. In the end, if you aren't using a whip, you won't see this coming into play very often.
Cirno's fix: Spellstrike and standard action attacks can be combined - including Vital Strike or lunge. In other words, if you make a standard attack, you do both damage and get the spell off. This may in fact be how Spellstrike already works! But it's a bit awkwardly worded, if that's true.
Spell Combat: Here's where some of the major problems hit. Before we go into Spell Combat, let's talk about the other classes I mentioned.
Monks can flurry for full BAB. Bards have Inspire Courage. Inquisitors and Clerics both have a wide variety of self-buffs to increase their attacks. Inquisitors can tack their judgements onto that. Druids get wild shape.
Do you see what each of these do? They give the 3/4ths BAB class a means of raising their attack bonus. The Magus, on the other hand, has his main ability do the opposite. At level two, you are now attacking for -3 modifier (your attack misses) and you take -2 to your concentration check (your spell fails). In 3.5, Flurry of Blows for the monk was renamed "Flurry of Misses." How on Earth did you manage to make an ability that caused you to miss even more then that?
Spell Combat does not work when you get it. It literally does not function. This is a terrible trap for players who see this awesome cornerstone ability at level two, only to discover it doesn't work - you're just going to spend your turn whiffing away. At later levels it gets better, but is it so much to ask for an ability that works when you get it?
Cirno's Fix: Put Spell Combat at a later level where it doesn't have the major penalties, axe the penalties entirely - do SOMETHING here. The problems in Spell Combat are actually a part of the Magus' big problem overall, so there'll be more on this
Arcane Weapon: It's pretty nice. Not much else to say here. It's important to note however that "you have extra gold" has never been a particularly powerful class ability, and that the Magus needs more equipment then just about any other character in the game - including fighters.
Cirno's Fix: No real fix here. It's just a sorta nice ability
Fighter Training: I can kinda see the meaning of this, but I don't forsee it really coming into play. There's a startlingly small amount of fighter-only feats, and many of the good ones are at levels you won't be able to reach.
Cirno's fix: Again, no real fix here. Every class has abilities that are just sorta "alright."
Counterstrike: Too little, far too late. I don't think you'll ever even see Counterstrike happen. At level 16 the enemy is most likely flying, invisible, and shapeshifted.
Cirno's Fix: Having this earlier would make it a much more useful ability. Games going to 16 is rare as is, and this hardly gives you incentive
Weaponbond: Almost pure flavor. Little to no in game uses. At level 19 the old "you're kidnapped and naked in a prison cell!" storyline doesn't really work out, and disarm isn't much of a level 19 tactic.
Cirno's Fix: Would it be so much to have this at an earlier level where it might actually be meaningful?
True Magus: Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. Is this a capstone or was there a bizarre typo? You could've had this 20-15 levels early and nobody would've noticed.
Cirno's Fix: Again, this is something that should've been at an earlier level. Make a decent capstone for god's sake.
Magus Arcana's I'll be covering each one and then offering my thoughts on the whole.
Arcane Accuracy: Currently the Magus will be needing to use this just about every attack. Part of a problem with the Magus as a whole.
Broad Study: The last line kills it. Bizarrely enough, the only use I can see for Broad Study is to combine it with a divine class - but you'd probably be better just playing said divine class from the start.
Concentrate: A strange ability. Almost a neccesity at early levels, but once per day hurts it a lot. At later levels you'll rarely notice it.
Critical Strike: Powerful ability, but the Magus will be using his swift actions perhaps too much for it to be used to it's full glory. The level limit is also harsh
Dispelling Strike: Just have your wizard cast dispel. The limit on what spells it can dispel hurts it significantly.
Empowered Magic, Maximized Magic, Quickened Magic, Silent Magic, Still Magic: A good ability! Sorta! They all share the same flaw.
Familiar: No complaints here - a good and thematic thing to have.
Hasted Assault: Just cast haste. I suppose it could be good for emergencies.
Maneuver mastery: Why whips go with scimitars as the only weapons you'll be using. Most likely something every Magus will want.
Reflection: Level limit makes this spell borderline useless. When would you use this at level 15? Who's casting level 4 or 5 spells when they've got level 7 or 8?
Spell Shield: Limited usefulness. AC isn't very potent to begin with.
The whole shebang: Most of the Magus Arcana's suffer from three flaws. First, they're only once per day. Second, you get them at a level where they're no longer useful. And third, you already have so few spell slots, that in most of these cases, it's not worth the sacrifice.
Cirno's Fix: Give the Arcanas that are once per day the following tagline: "At level x/y/z the Magus can use this 2/3/etc times per day instead." Remove or at least shift back the level limits for some of them. Consider giving double the bonus for the ones that spend a spell slot.
Spell List: I really, really hope there's good spells in the book to come. This is again a part of the Magus' biggest problem - he can't hit things. There's too many spells here that are neither touch spells nor offensive buffs. Don't get me wrong, it's nice having more spells! But they're spells that won't see a lot of use.
Cirno's Fix: We'll see what new spells we get.
The Big Flaws
The Magus suffers from three fatal flaws.
First, so many of their abilities are just "Sorta OK" at best. It looks like a lot of cool early level abilities were made, and then stretched out to cover the later ones. The capstone especially is hideously bad. So many of the level 11+ abilities could've been given before 1 and nobody would've batted an eye. The end result is a character that still seems very front-loaded, as the later abilities simply aren't worth it.
Second, the front-loaded doesn't really work. The Magus has the same flaw the 3.5 Monk did - the ol' Flurry of Misses. I mentioned it before, but all those other 3/4ths BAB classes had a means to increase their attack bonus. The Magus does not. Look at his spell list - how many of those increase his combat capabilities while not removing his spellcasting? He cannot offensively buff, he has no real attack bonus increasing abilities, and his main attack ability makes things even worse.
Thirdly, the Magus is hitting a problem that the 3.5 bard had, but even worse at it. Jack of all trades...more then barely competent in none of them. He can't really cast. He can't really fight. He most certainly cannot do both at the same time. If his abilities are all front loaded but the front loaded doesn't really work, where does that leave him?
The Minor Flaws
There are exactly three weapons you will see on every Magus due to how his Spell Combat works. Whips, rapiers, and scimitars. And the rapiers are only for players who can't get Dervish Dance instead of Weapon Finesse. While your melee damage hurts in this situation, it at least alleviates your MAD issues. Dervish Dance is close to being a "must" for Maguses, which is annoying seeing as how they already require Combat Casting. That you have to keep one hand open is annoying as hell.
The Magus is terrible at multiclassing into other arcane classes...but Broad Study lets them do it with divine casters. Kinda weird! Maybe not a full flaw, but just sorta weird.
The comparison
I mentioned the comparison to Duskblades and Psychic Warriors at the beginning - lets look at that. The Duskblade comparison seems pretty obvious and easy - but the Duskblade has better HP, better attack bonus, better spells, and it can learn outside spells too. The Magus has more "tricks" but, if the monk taught us anything, it's that "tricks" cannot replace "is actually good at things." One thing the Duskblade had were wizard spells that appeared at lower level so he could cast them, like disintegrate. Why doesn't the Magus have this? The Duskblade's weapon of choice was a reach polearm. The Magus in comparison can't use that.
The psychic warrior is also a good comparison - 3/4ths BAB caster-fighter class relying on self buffs. But the psychic warrior had a lot of offensive buffs to give him that extra edge that the Magus doesn't have. He also wasn't limited to using a single hand weapon, but even then had numerous powers that let him attack bare handed. Where are the offensive power buffs?
In conclusion, hopefully me vague solutions here could help show light on the problems and how to fix them. I'm a fan of fighter-caster types, but the Magus just doesn't work.
The way I see it, the Magus tries to do alot of things, yes, but at lower levels isn't very good at pulling them off. He can try, yes, but his chances ain't stellar. Yet. But as he progresses in levels, he gets better at doing those things. This actually works fine by me. When you start trying to learn how to do something impressive, you don't start off being an expert. You slowly get better at it.
If there is a problem, it's with what the Magus is aiming to do: be able to cast and fight simultaneously-essentially getting 2 standard actions per round. That is a very potent ability, and it was attempted to be balanced by making it difficult to pull off. It's a little like dangling a piece of candy just out of reach like a child. If you don't offer the candy, the child does not complain. Now that he's seen it, though, the wailing will come.
If the "problems" with the Magus were "fixed", then he runs the risk of outshining his teammates on a rather regular basis. As it is, he's compelled to work with his teammates to circumvent his weaknesses and pull off his impressive tricks at lower levels. At later levels, when his tricks become more consistent and potent, his friends have equally potent tricks up their sleeves so they compete on an equal footing. That works just fine by me.
Oh and as for the MAD issue. You're playing a warrior-mage. I think it's only natural that you find yourself having to balance your stat allocation.
The way I see it, the Magus tries to do alot of things, yes, but at lower levels isn't very good at pulling them off. He can try, yes, but his chances ain't stellar. Yet. But as he progresses in levels, he gets better at doing those things. This actually works fine by me. When you start trying to learn how to do something impressive, you don't start off being an expert. You slowly get better at it.
If there is a problem, it's with what the Magus is aiming to do: be able to cast and fight simultaneously-essentially getting 2 standard actions per round. That is a very potent ability, and it was attempted to be balanced by making it difficult to pull off. It's a little like dangling a piece of candy just out of reach like a child. If you don't offer the candy, the child does not complain. Now that he's seen it, though, the wailing will come.
If the "problems" with the Magus were "fixed", then he runs the risk of outshining his teammates on a rather regular basis. As it is, he's compelled to work with his teammates to circumvent his weaknesses and pull off his impressive tricks at lower levels. At later levels, when his tricks become more consistent and potent, his friends have equally potent tricks up their sleeves so they compete on an equal footing. That works just fine by me.
Oh and as for the MAD issue. You're playing a warrior-mage. I think it's only natural that you find yourself having to balance your stat allocation.
I honestly can't see the Magus overshining anyone even at higher levels - I do see him being overshined a lot.
Right now he's a mediocre character who can't fight well at lower levels where fighting is most important, and a mediocre character who can't cast well at later levels where casting is most important.
By the time he can "pull off" his tricks, they just aren't worth pulling off, in other words.
A minor point which I am sure you already are aware of: Dervish Dance has Weapon Finesse and 2 ranks of Perform (Dance) as prerequisites, which would mean that the earliest you can get it is at 3rd level. That is, if you are human, which should take care of Weapon Finesse and Combat Casting at 1st level. Otherwise, since arguably Combat Casting is a bit more imprtant for the Magus, the Dervish Dance feat gets relegated to the 5th level.
A minor point which I am sure you already are aware of: Dervish Dance has Weapon Finesse and 2 ranks of Perform (Dance) as prerequisites, which would mean that the earliest you can get it is at 3rd level. That is, if you are human, which should take care of Weapon Finesse and Combat Casting at 1st level. Otherwise, since arguably Combat Casting is a bit more imprtant for the Magus, the Dervish Dance feat gets relegated to the 5th level.
Oh, haha, I forgot that you needed weapon finesse for it.
Well, it's still a really important feat for the Magus. I guess now the Magus is just a little more terrible with it, though!
I stand by my original statement that I think that almost every Magus will be using either whip, rapier, or (if the feat is allowed) scimitar. Unlike most other classes where yuo're open to, say, "all two handed weapons," this is a frighteningly low number of "good" weapons to choose from. And, now that you've noted the need for weapon finesse, scimitar isn't even really open until level 5. And whips take a feat to learn.
So yeah, a class accidentally built entirely around using a rapier. And not in a good way.
I recently pulled out my copy of the Book of Experimental Might and compared the runeblade to the magus. While the classes play differently, some of their abilities are the same.
For example, the runeblade can summon his weapon as a standard action at 9th level and as a free action at 14th level.
The Runeblade also gets Runic weapon at 1st level compared to the magus' arcane weapon. I am not sure the Magus needs it early, but it would help make spell combat more playable.
All-in-all, I agree with your assessment. Some of the abilities just need tweaking, others really need to be looked at better.
I thought I'd compound a bit on the differences between the magus and the two archtypical "fighter-mage" classes. Both were 6 level casters, both were intended to cast and fight, and both share other huge similarities with the Magus
I think the big problem is Spell Combat. Both of the above classes had a means to cast spells and attack at the same time: the Duskblade could cast touch spells and have them deal damage through his weapon in both single attacks and, later, full attacks, allowing him to use damaging spells and full melee capabilities at the same time. The Psychic Warrior had a plethora of swift action casting time powers to allow him to buff up and attack at the same round.
The big difference is that neither of those penalized the character. In both cases the class could use their signiture ability without taking a hit to effectiveness - they never had to decide "Should I use my archtype ability that defines my class, or is the price too high?" Oh, certainly, in both cases they were limited in resources, but there's a huge difference between resource management (which the Magus also has) and punishing him for using his prime ability.
To put this to the more extreme - no other class suffers this punishment. No other class actively has their effectiveness lowered by trying to use their primary ability. Spellcasting doesn't give wizards negative AC or lower his health. Paladins don't take a hit loss when they use Smite Evil. Monks don't take a penalty to their attack bonus when they flurry of blows, and the monk thing is a big one.
Remember 3.5? Flurry of misses? That's why monks were changed. Why are we forcing the penalty we purposefully killed off onto a new character after acknowledging that it's a bad idea?
The other major difference is that both of those classes got spells earlier then spellcasters did. Spells on the Psychic Warrior list were at a lower level then they were psions. The Duskblade got a number of spells at lower caster levels then wizards did, although they did get tend to get those at the same class level that wizards did. The Magus gets neither; the spells he gets are all the same spell level as they are with wizards, which means he gets them significantly later on then wizards get them. This means that the Magus isn't just a wizard who doesn't gain later spellcatsing, it means that the Magus will never be a decent caster. Even the Paladin, Ranger, Bard, and Inquisitor get spells earlier then their cleric/wizard counterparts. Magus just...doesn't.
Before I make comments, can anyone explain to me the MAD acronym? I am unfamiliar (it may be something that's tossed around frequently in CharOp, but I usually do not frequent these threads). Thanks.
Before I make comments, can anyone explain to me the MAD acronym? I am unfamiliar (it may be something that's tossed around frequently in CharOp, but I usually do not frequent these threads). Thanks.
As W^4 said, it's multiple ability or multiple attribute dependence.
The Magus needs four out of six stats to be relatively high. That's, uh, a lot. More then any other class, in fact.
I would definitely play a Duskblade over this Magus.