First Encounter with a L5 Magus


Round 3: Revised Magus Playtest


So I created a L5 Magus for a new campaign, and we met for the first time tonight. Through the talky-talky parts of the session, the Magus was well equipped to participate due to a decent sized skill pool (INT 18, Human).

Spoiler:

A quick rundown of his stats: 25 Point Buy; Human
STR 16
DEX 14
CON 14
INT 18 (15 +2 +1)
WIS 8
CHA 10

Feats: Toughness, Combat Casting, Weapon Focus, Combat Expertise, Imp Trip
EQ: +1 Flail, +1 Mithril Shirt

We got to our first encounter, and here's how it went:

Round 1: Charged by Skeleton and it misses with a 15 (AC 16 Flat-Footed). I use a swift action for +2 Enhancement Bonus on my weapon, and then Spell Combat to cast Shield and roll a 16 (rolled a 3) to cast defensively, so the spell fizzles. I swing my Flail+1 , and hit dealing 7 damage (1d8+6).

Round 2: Spell Combat again and succeed on the cast defensively for Shield. Roll a natural 1 on the attack: miss. Other party members finished this skeleton off.

Round 3: 5' up to Skeletal Champion, and Spellstrike using Shocking Grasp: natural 20. Confirmed. 10d6+2d8+16 damage. 92 possible damage - we didn't even both rolling, nor did I take my 'free' swing.


My initial impressions are that this class is extremely powerful, and I feel somewhat bad playing it compared to the other members in the party. Getting to cast spells on top of getting a full attack (or two swings, one of them charged with +5d6 when Spellstriking) seems not quite balanced. And crits with Spellstrike is just absurd. A Magus with a Scimitar would be doing obscene amounts of damage every round at higher levels with Keen (from Arcane Pool enhancement) and a plethora of 1st level Shocking Grasp spells.

Certainly my character is a bit of a 'glass cannon', with only a 18 AC unbuffed, but with Shield and Combat Expertise he's got a 23, which isn't horrible at 5th level. And he can fight defensively while casting Burning Hands or other save-based spells with little penalty for a 25 AC. And he still might even hit with his attack.


I totaly agreed here.
Playing my 5th level magus did today an absurd amount of damage.

(1d6+4 (scimitar + dervish dance) + 5d6 shocking grasp)x2 (confirmed crit) + 2d6 Poolstrike + 1d6 Arcane Weapon

at 5th!!!! Level, sorry this is far too much.
Did I miss something oir was it by the rule?


Tryn wrote:


Did I miss something oir was it by the rule?

I don't think you can do Shocking Grasp and Pool Strike at the same time - even though you're channeling the spell through your weapon, I think it still follows the "Cast another spell and lose the touch spell" rule.

Pool Strike's a supernatural ability, though, so maybe it works.

Regardless, using Pool Strike is a standard action in its own right, so you'd need to set up this combination over two turns - casting Shocking Graps and holding the charge in turn 1, then Pool Striking in turn 2 (or vice-versa).

What's Arcane Weapon?

On a critical hit, your Pool Strike damage would be doubled, as well as possibly the Arcane Weapon damage you listed.

So, in the end, you're doing:

(1d6 + 4 + 5d6 + 2d6 + 1d6) x2 =
(9d6 + 4) x2 =
18d6 + 8 =
71 average damage

It costs you a 1st-level spell slot (of your 5), 1/8th or so of your Arcane Pool, and you have to confirm your critical (of which, assuming normal enemies and defenses, only 15% of your hits will be confirmed criticals).

So the chances of this happening routinely are pretty small, but impressive when they happen.

Consider a Fighter using a two-handed sword and Power Attacking who scores a crit:

(2d6 + 4*1.5 (Str) + 4*1.5 (PA) + 1 (Weapon Training) + 2 (Weapon Spec.)) x2 =
(2d6 + 6 + 6 + 1 + 2) x2 =
(2d6 + 15) x2 =
4d6 + 30 =
44 average damage

This costs him nothing in terms of daily resources to accomplish. Granted, only 10% of the Fighter's hits will be crits (again, assuming normal enemies and defenses), but his attack bonus will be several points higher than yours, giving him a higher average number of hits (Power Attack's attack penalty cancels out his Weapon Focus and Weapon Training attack bonuses, making him still 2 points of BAB better than the Magus at this point).


Adam Ormond wrote:

So I created a L5 Magus for a new campaign, and we met for the first time tonight. Through the talky-talky parts of the session, the Magus was well equipped to participate due to a decent sized skill pool (INT 18, Human).

** spoiler omitted **
My initial impressions are that this class is extremely powerful, and I feel somewhat bad playing it compared to the other members in the party. Getting to cast spells on top of getting a full attack (or two swings, one of them charged with +5d6 when Spellstriking) seems not quite balanced. And crits with Spellstrike is just absurd. A Magus with a Scimitar would be doing obscene amounts of damage every round at higher levels with Keen (from Arcane Pool enhancement) and a plethora of 1st level Shocking Grasp spells.

Certainly my character is a bit of a 'glass cannon', with only a 18 AC unbuffed, but with Shield and Combat Expertise he's got a 23, which isn't horrible at 5th level. And he can fight defensively while casting Burning Hands or other save-based spells with little penalty for a 25 AC. And he still might even hit with...

I don't see it as overpowered going by your example. You only hit for a confirmed 35 damage as you can only truly count on the minimum damage. Granted you would have most likely hit for about 60. However I think your example incorporated all of the benefits and negatives the devs intended.

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