Magus Vs. Fighter

[Nochtal]

Going toe to toe with a fighter can be the very downfall of the magus.

If both are going full on, and built well. The Magus is looking to auto fail.

lets put them both at 10th level. At 10th level I can give a fighter both Disruptive, increasing the Magus' defensive casting DC by +4, and Spellbreaker, so that each time he fails that concentration check, he is taking an attack of opportunity.

The fighter is capable of wearing heavy armor while the magus is stuck in medium armor at level ten, not to mention the 3 points difference between their BAB's alone. Not to mention weapon training's addition +2 to hit and damage, along with Armor trainings bonus to AC on top of it being heavy armor.

The magus is still taking a -2 to his attacks, but no penalty from spell combat on concentration checks. If the magus has combat casting, which he has to spend one of his own feats on, he can negate the fighters +4 to the DC. If not, the magus is looking to fail 50-75% of his concentration checks for spells level 3 and 4. So the Fighter really only needs to worry about lower level spells succeeding, which at this point he'll be able to make most the saves for anyways.

Every advantage the Magus gets, a well built fighter can negate and do more damage to the magus for it! Not to mention whatever other feats the fighter has, he can go for any number of specializations to include weapon focuses and specializations or maneuver feats. Say the fighter takes Sunder or Disarm! Removing the Magus' armor guaranteeing the fighter to hit each and every time, or disarming the Magus (with greater disarm), leaving the magus with only his spells or taking an attack of opportunity to retrieve his weapon (if he does not have another one he can quick draw). It wouldn't take long for a fighter to tear apart a Magus!

[Jason Bulmahn]

Although you make some good points here, remember the magus has a fair number of tools at his disposal, including area affect spells. Comparing apples to oranges will get you some skewed results, but they don't show the whole picture. That said, I am aware of some these imbalances, and while they can never be exactly the same (since this would be unbalancing), I am looking to leveling things out a bit.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

[Quandary]

INT bonus to CMD seems reasonable to me at some point, helping with things like Disarm/Sunder...
(Probably that would be lost when Flat Footed, since it`s the Magus` ACTIVE Arcane Combat presence that gives the bonus, not if they can`t see their opponent or are totally un-prepared)

Then again, the Magus should have Blur/Displacement/Invisiblity going to hamper such attacks as well...

[Gnorlak the Confused?]

Shouldn't the Fighter beat the Magus in a toe to toe fight like this?

[Abraham spalding]

Gnorlak the Confused? wrote:

Shouldn't the Fighter beat the Magus in a toe to toe fight like this?

In a toe to toe? Probably but it should be close. Then the Magus should cheat. Currently it really is only close if the Magus ignores his magic (feat wise) and has several levels under his belt. Until level three he has no chance in heck, and until level 8 he really is just an expert with access to spells.

[Epic Meepo]

Yeah, the magus isn't an arcane warrior. He's another melee switch-hitter. So he shouldn't be as effective in straight melee as a fighter. He just needs to put out modest melee DPS while using spell combat with a reasonable chance of success. As mentioned in other threads (edit: and by the ninja above), this starts working okay around 8th level or so, though lower levels might need a boost.

[Nochtal]

Re-reading this popped something else into my mind for the aspect of the Magus' role in the party. With a good fighter of equal level performing the tank role, he has access to buffs and spell aid right next to him in hectic combats and small areas without having to worry as much about protecting the Magus as he would a Sorcerer or Wizard.

Somewhere else was posted that perhaps the Magus should have access to a School of magic, like the Wizard does. If this were the case, it'd be much like an arcane Cleric.

[james maissen]

Jason Bulmahn wrote:

Although you make some good points here, remember the magus has a fair number of tools at his disposal, including area affect spells. Comparing apples to oranges will get you some skewed results, but they don't show the whole picture. That said, I am aware of some these imbalances, and while they can never be exactly the same (since this would be unbalancing), I am looking to leveling things out a bit.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

You have a few classes that have their own features that they bring to the table who have some mechanic to try to keep up in combat. The fighter is a good baseline for this.. not that classes have to meet this all the time, but that they can reach up to it.

Consider the rogue for example.. when he get sneak attacks off he can tread close to the fighter, but with less AC and hps can't do the full job. This makes for a reasonable secondary combatant- they bring other things to the table, but can reach up in certain circumstances.

The magus seems designed to bring some side things to the table (though their utility casting seems limited) and spell combat seems to be the way intended for the magus to compete with the fighter in terms of damage by burning through the magus' bard-level spells. This is the way that they compete, much like the rogue's sneak attack.

That seems to be the skeleton of the design. I think you need to work on crunching it a bit more to see where it delivers this and where it fails. In trying to make sure that you don't exceed I think in many places you'll find that you have yet to achieve. You've learned lessons with say the monk class over 3.5, and this is a similar task.

First looking at low levels, say 4th, which of the low levels should be the best place for the magus you can see that not only does the fighter's normal attacks greatly eclipse the magus when the later is burning one of their few spells per day, but the rogue also exceeds the magus here. Both bring far better ACs in melee than the magus (the rogue by virtue of focusing on DEX rather than STR) while at that point having comparable saves.

Thank you for your time,

James Maissen

[Nochtal Balzer]

I'm taking the time to roll out twink style builds for a 10th level fighter and Magus. I'll have a friend run one and I'll run the other and go all out, once this is done, I'll post up both character sheets and the results including a log of the combat. I should have it posted up tomorrow afternoon.