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Round 3: Revised Magus Discussion

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h0rnman wrote:

On the topic of Dervish Dance and broken builds, the wording of dervish dance is (emphasis is mine):

PFSRD wrote:


When wielding a scimitar with one hand, you can use your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength modifier on melee attack and damage rolls. You treat the scimitar as a one-handed piercing weapon for all feats and class abilities that require such a weapon (such as a duelist’s precise strike ability). The scimitar must be for a creature of your size. You cannot use this feat if you are carrying a weapon or shield in your off hand.

I can see the argument that your off hand is a weapon and therefore does not qualify you to use that feat if you use spell combat in the same round. I would say at the very least that using touch spells in this way might cause your off hand to be considered a weapon (you are considered to be armed while "holding the charge") and render this feat inoperable, at least for that round.

Thoughts?

Carrying a weapon and being considered armed are different things, mechanically and semantically.

I also think its silly that the mechanic represented by Dervish Dance is limited to scimitars so I got my GM to allow me to make one for Aldori Swords. Until some feat comes out that fixes this issue, you might want to do the same.


Hornman makes a good point. The description of Spell Combat even says "this functions much like two weapon fighting, but the offhand weapon is the spell being cast."

If Dervish Dance is based on all that careful balance and dodging, dipping, ducking, diving, and dodging...then using your free hand for complex somatic components to a spell probably doesn't work so well.

Shadow Lodge

Sylvanite wrote:

Hornman makes a good point. The description of Spell Combat even says "this functions much like two weapon fighting, but the offhand weapon is the spell being cast."

If Dervish Dance is based on all that careful balance and dodging, dipping, ducking, diving, and dodging...then using your free hand for complex somatic components to a spell probably doesn't work so well.

Ah yes, but the text is very specific:

PFSRD wrote:
When wielding a scimitar with one hand, you can use your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength modifier on melee attack and damage rolls. You treat the scimitar as a one-handed piercing weapon for all feats and class abilities that require such a weapon (such as a duelist’s precise strike ability). The scimitar must be for a creature of your size. You cannot use this feat if you are carrying a weapon or shield in your off hand.

You are not carrying your hand in your offhand. It says nothing about waving your hand around like a moron while you do you scimitar dance of death, just that you cant carry anything in it. I can see a wand or staff causing problems, but your bare hand used for a spell? Nope. Not RAW.


Making a magus for my Xcrawl game. It has 2 feats, return blow and guided strike, as well as an item, Defiant Mountain Tattoo, which are Xcrawl specific. Return Blow allows you to use a full round action to automatically crit an opponent if youve fought and damaged their species 3 times before and succeed on hitting their AC, which gives me about 50/50 on most creatures, and Guided Strike allows you to give an ally a crit under the same conditions. Defiant Mountain Tattoo gives me a +1 Con enhancement. The +5 Natural Armor is from the assumption of having a barkskin potion in me for pretty much all fights. Comments and analysis are appreciated ^_^.

http://plothook.net/RPG/profiler/view.php?id=8135

Liberty's Edge

Magi love crits. The turn before you crit, cast Vampiric Touch and hold the charge.

^_____^


Simple ranged Magus.

Elf
Magus 16/Arcane Archer 4
1)Point Blank Shot
3)Rapid Shot
5)Deadly Aim
5*Many Shot
7)Precise Shot
9)Weapon Focus
11)Weapon Specialization
11*Free
13)Free
15)Free
17)Free
19)Free
*bonus feats

Good Free Feat choices: Improved Initiative (he who casts first laughs last), Improved Precise Shot (handy but not essential), Improved Familiar (the imp's dr is worth the feat and spending an arcana), Lingering spell, Quick draw, Two weapon fighting, gunslinging.

Traits:
Reactionary, Warrior of Old

Arcana
Familiar or Concentration
Empowered Magic
Hasted Assault or Dispelling Strike**
Maximized Magic
Quickened Magic or Reflection**

**A magus has low spell levels (which limits most of it's arcana options) so these options are pretty meh, but if you don't mind losing a spell and failing then get these

Pros/Cons:
Enough for 4 attacks at 20, you don't lose much casting, good mix of archery and control, stacking enhancements from arcane archer and arcane pool. The old trick of imbue arrows with antimagic field isn't an option but the magus still has some good area spells (the ever iconic fireball arrow or even some walls/clouds). Focusing on the metamagic like arcana (since the others won't help much at range) means your casting will be slightly better than an average Magus. Flexible and simple build (more of a bare bones start then a build). You can easily adapt this build to a "switch hitter" tactic with little feat investment, taking advantage of spell combat. More survivable from lv 1 than a wizard.

Cons:
You have a lot of class abilities that don't do much for you at range. Your basically sacrificing wizard casting for the bab, hp and not having to deal with arcane spell failure which means it is less rewarding down the line when compared to playing a wizard. You can't arcane strike on top of your Arcane pool, which speculates that more feats will come out in Ultimate magus, but until then your gimped. Even though you can enhance your bow in multiple ways your still very much gear dependent when trying to keep damage pace with a rogue. Your spell DC saving throws aren't very good and there isn't many good buffs on the magus list for archery.

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