Just a quick question about which character you would prefer to have back up a slow front line fighter? By slow I mean a dwarf in full plate.
Thanks
Tough call, honestly. I think Inquisitor works better as a skirmisher, in other words move and get one attack. Most Magus shticks work better when you can full attack.
What's the rest of the party? Starting out level 1 or higher?
Magus can be a backup arcane caster, and Inquisitor can be a backup divine caster, though I think Mag is better at that than Inq. If you go Magus, definitely play a Bladebound Magus. Free magic weapon=teh win.
I have chosen to take leadership for a dwarven paladin of Torag. The rest of the party consists of:
*Tiefling Oracle (healing)
*half elf monk (took leadership and now has a wizard cohort with no specialization)
*half elf wizard (conjuration)
*Dwarven fighter (focused on Guns)
I have been given the option between a Dwarven inquisitor, or an elven Magus. Wondering what other people would do. I think I am leaning towards the inquisitor just because the mechanics are a bit easier and they would both be dwarves. However, I always like to hear what other people have to say.
In all honesty they're both stellar classes with great combat ability. Mostly comes down to flavor at that point, and if you think your guy would get along with another dwarf and you can have fun roleplaying it then go that way.
Both can get the job done and its more a matter of which concept appeals to you more. Both can buff themselves AND the fighter (though the magus can do so and still get attack in). The inquisitor has a better set of supporting abilities, where as the magus has in my opinion more combat 'oomph'. So really, take your pick.
Slow fighters are doing it wrong in the first place. Denying yourself the full benefits of armor training 1 and 2 makes me sad.
At any rate, I'm gonna go with the opposite of Kolokotroni. Inquisitors, in my opinion, have no supporting abilities worth mentioning, aside from super-minor healing and "ok" buffs, whereas Magi gain access to Haste, and all the martial classes will love having a Magus around just because his first action every combat should be to spell combat->haste
Inquisitor is, essentially, a selfish bard; this can certainly come in handy, especially since your party seems to be hurting for people with any skill ranks/level to speak of.
For what it's worth, Magus always seemed more flexible to me. Arcana and eventual fighter training means you can customize a bit more. Between the two, Magus strikes me as the "better" class.
I find the Inquisitor to be pretty amazing, myself, so I fully endorse the Inquisitor option. Also, I have a great deal of favor towards the idea of an Inquisitor/Paladin combo. Perhaps not Dwarves, but your flavor choice is definitely yours to make.
I find the Magus to be kind of bland most of the time.
Thanks for all the advice. yeah, I was thinking the Magus probably would be better for the whole spell and attack business, however, the idea of the paladin/inquisitor combo just kind of makes me happy.
Thanks again.
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I'd go inquisitor. An inquisitor is an archer, the magus is a melee character. An archer will be easier to run when you have two characters you're in charge of, and also will be able to take down more threats than a magus.
An inquisitor might as well be a half elf wielding a falcata two-handed. And with UC, there are now ranged maguses, too.
Magus is rather squishy and resource starved compared to the Inquisitor (at low levels) for my taste.
But the OP is talking about at least level 7+ because he's talking about which to take as a cohort through the Leadership feat. At level 8ish the Magus, especially Bladebound archetype, starts to really kick butt.
I'm currently playing both classes in two campaigns, the inquisitor is level 13 and the magus 4th. So far, the magus is much more destructive in combat than the inquisitor was at this level, but the inquisitor was able to do a lot more to help the party outside of combat, including healing.
The real difference is the inquisitor can burn through his judgments very quickly at low levels, which weakens him in situations where multiple encounters are happening each day. This is really annoying when you turn on judgment because it looks like a serious fight coming only to have it over in 2 rounds. Judgments would be better if they were so-many rounds per day and not have to be used consecutively. By the mid to higher levels the inquisitor doesn't seem to suffer resource depletion too often.
My magus has never used up his entire arcane pool between rests. Your arcane pool is 1/2 level (minimum 1) + int modifier. So, assuming you at least have a +3 Int bonus, that's 4 times per day you can make your weapon magical at 1st level. By contrast, a 1-3rd level inquisitor only has 1 judgment a day.
So all in all, while both are front loaded, the magus seems to have more stamina as far as class abilities across multiple encounters at lower levels.
I went kensai on the magus and skipped bladebound. The problem with bladebound is you give up the 3rd level arcana, and you really want that to get Close Range arcana. Also, you go from 1/2 level arcane pool points to 1/3 level. And finally, even though you can expend a point from the blades pool to add +1 to the blade, it only has 1 point in it's pool initially and doesn't get a +1 bonus to it's Int until 5th level.
Close range is a trap. Arcane mark let's you use spell combat/spellstrike for a 0th level spell and there's so many other useful arcanas to take.
Ah, but with Close Range you can use 0 level Ray of Frost with spellstrike all day long. And with Liquid Ice as a focus you do 1d3+1 with it. If you're going to take the -2 penalty to get in two attacks with spell combat/spellstrike, why not do some damage with it? And because a crit with the weapon is also a crit with the spell, you double the Ray of Frost for 1d3+1 X 2, which is 4-8 damage.
I use a scimitar, so crits chances come up fairly often. I also took Dervish Dance so my Dex bonus is my damage bonus. At 5th level I'll get to add Keen to the scimitar from my arcane pool (Already a +1 weapon) to have a 15-20 critical threat range. Or I'll add one of the energy damage effects, as the situation demands.