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Hello all, long time lurker, first time poster. I have always enjoyed playing bards or high charisma rogues and since I will be starting a new game I looked at their options in the APG (which I still haven't read all of). So I like the idea of the magician. I love the bards spell list and being even more spell focused for a bard seems like great fun. I am not sure how useful their dweomercraft is compared to inspire courage though. So I was wondering if anyone has played a caster focused bard, magician in particular, and if they have any advice. I would be starting at 8th level with a 20 point buy.
Oh, and the human favored class ability for the bard seems insanely good and I would have no reason to not go with that for a spell focused bard.
Well, it all depends on how your group is formed. I'm about to start a PFS Magician Bard. Here's the group the others have come up with. Half-orc Dragon Sorcerer, Human Witch, Human Summoner, and me. Now for me Dweomercraft is going to be insanely useful, though they might possibly prefer Inspire Courage since they're all kind of planning on being melee focused, but we'll see. I thought with all those casters a Magician would be awesome.
I played a caster focused bard back in 3.5. He was quite a lot of fun. You might consider looking at the Pathfinder Savant PrC from Seekers of Secrets. It's actually quite close in abilities to the Magician. You do lose a level of spell casting, though, so that's kinda tough, but I think what you get makes up for it.
Hello all, long time lurker, first time poster. I have always enjoyed playing bards or high charisma rogues and since I will be starting a new game I looked at their options in the APG (which I still haven't read all of). So I like the idea of the magician. I love the bards spell list and being even more spell focused for a bard seems like great fun. I am not sure how useful their dweomercraft is compared to inspire courage though. So I was wondering if anyone has played a caster focused bard, magician in particular, and if they have any advice. I would be starting at 8th level with a 20 point buy.
Oh, and the human favored class ability for the bard seems insanely good and I would have no reason to not go with that for a spell focused bard.
In my experience Inspire Courage is as useful as the party needs it too be. In this I mean that a party with a fighter, a druid with an animal companion, a melee cleric and an archer bard, will use inspire courage well. On the other hand, a party with a casting bard, a wizard, a witch and a single warrior won't get much from it. I think dweomercraft would be the inverse- ie: a casting party should love it.
Also, yes the human favored class option is a great idea.
Hello all, long time lurker, first time poster. I have always enjoyed playing bards or high charisma rogues and since I will be starting a new game I looked at their options in the APG (which I still haven't read all of). So I like the idea of the magician. I love the bards spell list and being even more spell focused for a bard seems like great fun. I am not sure how useful their dweomercraft is compared to inspire courage though. So I was wondering if anyone has played a caster focused bard, magician in particular, and if they have any advice. I would be starting at 8th level with a 20 point buy.
Oh, and the human favored class ability for the bard seems insanely good and I would have no reason to not go with that for a spell focused bard.
As Minstrel above me said, don't worry about losing Inspire Courage. The only real setback you'll face as a Magician is the loss of Dirge of Doom, which granted you a +2 to all your spell DCs.
My suggestion would be to pick out a few "signature spells" and keep them in wands at all times. You don't have enough spells per day to really rely on just your spellcasting, but the ability to cast from wands and use your own DC is quite valuable. Consider investing in spell focus.
Another thing I've thought about for the Magician archetype is that you might want to just abandon the idea on weapon fighting entirely, both melee and ranged. With the loss of inspire courage, both your accuracy and damage plummets, and you will probably want to shift your feats to boosting magic, rather than fighting. In the end you'll be better at fighting than a sorcerer, but really, who cares? I'd take the opportunity to dump strength a bit and focus on magic- I'm not sure how well it would work, but it's an idea.
Thanks for the feedback. I don't mind giving up weapon fighting at all. My last few characters have been either archers or melee so I want something else anyways. The expanded repertoire seems really good. I don't know which spells I would end up adding but I like the option a lot. I would kind of miss bardic knowledge but a huge bonus to use magic device is very nice. All in all I like a lot about the magician it is just new to me and I am not entirely sure how to make the best use of it.
There is one problem to this archetype. A magician is not a full caster, but that is sort of the role he'll be playing. Also, he is be in a party with at least one other spellcaster so dweomercraft isn't only a self buff. This means you will compete for usefulness with the wizard. And mages, unlike warriors, DO compete for roles- the reason is damage. A proper wizard, or proper magician in this case, won't be dealing damage, as a primary role, fighters barbarians and to an extent, standard bards do. And damage deals work together- damage stacks. Mages don't. And a magician can't do the wizard's (or sorcerer's)job nearly as well. So you HAVE to co-ordinate with the real mage.
Also remember Good Hope / Crushing Dispair are spells that essentially replicate Inspire Courage and Dirge of Doom, just that the bonus is fixed and the DC doesn´t scale (for CD). Still, +2 morale bonus is very useful...
Magicians are a very awesome Archetype, the Rounds-of-Performance=Spell-Level-Dispelled is awesome sauce.
Magicians are a very awesome Archetype, the Rounds-of-Performance=Spell-Level-Dispelled is awesome sauce.
Really? I found that to be one of the most useless aspects of the archetype. Start performing (burning rounds of performance) to gain no effect, and then after a few rounds you've got a fair shot at countering a magical effect? Keeping in mind that you've got to wait for a spell that falls under your rounds-performing quota, and any additional rounds are wasted. Since you're getting it at 8th level, it's reasonable to assume that your enemies' "big spells" are roughly 5th level. You'll either need to start performing a few rounds before combat actually starts or hope your enemies wait long enough to actually make it useful.
It just loses steam as you go.
You can mantain the music as a free action. And dispel as an immediate without the need of prepared actions. Not the most powerful feature, but not so useless.
Magicians are a very awesome Archetype, the Rounds-of-Performance=Spell-Level-Dispelled is awesome sauce.Really? I found that to be one of the most useless aspects of the archetype. Start performing (burning rounds of performance) to gain no effect, and then after a few rounds you've got a fair shot at countering a magical effect? (...) Since you're getting it at 8th level, it's reasonable to assume that your enemies' "big spells" are roughly 5th level.
To gain no effect? You mean besides Distraction (awesome vs. Rainbow Pattern, etc), Fascinate/(Mass)Suggestion, Inspire Competence, Inspire Greatness, Soothing Performance, Inspire Heroics, and Deadly Performance, all of which Magicians still get? ;-) Dweomercraft of course synergizes just great with their Counterspell ability...
Sure, giving up Inspire Courage, Dirge of Doom, and Frightening Tune are serious trade-offs, but they still have great applications of their Performance. ...And even IF one thinks their Performance is useless (I don´t), that just means they have no reason NOT to start their Performance several rounds before an encounter (when possible, of course), since if there is supposedly no great benefit of Performance, they don´t really need to conserve it´s rounds for IN-combat rounds, but are happy to END their performance the 1st or 2nd round of combat!
Encountering 5th level spells means a 9th or 10th level (minimum) Caster, which means that is a single creature encounter for a typical party at 8th level when they gain it. IMHO, Full Casters do best when not alone, and single-Caster encounters are just awfully rare... So encountered spell levels aren´t usually going to be that high when they get it.
In any case, who cares if it POSSIBLY can´t dispel their BIGGEST spells? Casters depend on their lower level spells SCALING for their effectiveness, so Counter-Spelling a Mirror Image, Fly, Dimension Door, etc, can be EXTREMELY effective! If ONLY high level spells matter, then why does Glove of Lesser Invulnerability exist?
Anyhow, it´s probably not for every player or Bard, but I think it has some AMAZING stuff going for it, off-Bard list spell access for one (and not necessarily off-list, they just know alot of spells period), and action economy via Immediate Counterspell (without even needing to know Dispel Magic) for another. Gaining a Familiar and using own CHA and CL for Wands? Yes please!
Thread necromancy!
I think the Magician's Spell Suppression just got a lot better. A high level bard can now summon a shadow bard (a spell from UM) to play a performance. You throw up Dwoemercraft, and have the shadow bard do spell suppression.