Because that is the way 3.5 did it. Didn't know that Pathfinder doubled the dice.
Nope. PAthfinder doubles the damage dice being rolled with the exception of extra dice like Sneak Attacks and such. This is why static numbers are considered so valuable as they automatically get doubled or tripled or what not on a crit.
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Because that is the way 3.5 did it. Didn't know that Pathfinder doubled the dice.Nope. PAthfinder doubles the damage dice being rolled with the exception of extra dice like Sneak Attacks and such. This is why static numbers are considered so valuable as they automatically get doubled or tripled or what not on a crit.
We must have carried over something from our 2nd edition games to our 3rd and Pathfinder games.
Also I like multiple dice as it has less varince in critical hits. I haev seen several times when playing it wrong where you get a crit and then roll a 1 for damage which doesn't make much sense at low levels with a longbow oh I critted for 3 damage. This way has a really low chance of that happening. 1/(8^3) instead of 1/8th.
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Because that is the way 3.5 did it. Didn't know that Pathfinder doubled the dice.
In 3.5, a longsword with a critical hit also did 2d8 points of damage.
Sometimes you multiply damage by some factor, such as on a critical hit. Roll the damage (with all modifiers) multiple times and total the results. Note: When you multiply damage more than once, each multiplier works off the original, unmultiplied damage.
Now I normally don't have problems with magus, but man I had a that guy story happen with one last night.
Last adventure of LoF, going to go kill the BBEG, down some players due to school getting out and graduation and all, I invited a guy who has been wanting to play, but not allowed due to party size. This is pretty much his chance to get into the coming summer campaign. He rolls up a magus, I warn him no super optimization, as the party is only mid to high optimized rather than minmax characters. He rolls up something that eventually looked okish. WBL ok, no prohibited feats... Oh, you have 1 level of sorc with 7 cha? Rebuild your guy so he can actually use your sorc levels or he isn't allowed. He does so, look some more... Oh, your armored kilt max dex penalty doesn't support your 8 dex bonus... no, you can't mithril it, every kilt I've seen looks nothing like metal, in fact looks like cloth or leather. Strength is only 10, but you have 34 pounds of worn gear... No I'm not allowing a masterwork backpack that is empty offset your encumbrance, and no you can't put your handy haversack in it to get past this and still expect to use it properly. Just buy a ioun stone to get past it, sure its expensive, but its not like you need to spend money after this.
Long story short, I finally allow something that doesn't look too bad, completely miss the archetype stacking since I got caught up looking at other errors/power level issues. Party is level 13 in a 15 level dungeon, think that anything I miss won't be too bad.
Actually fighting the big boss, he's dropped the 2 handed weapon fighter like a chump with full attack, the tanking oracle is dropped down to single digit health, the ninja almost died with just AoO and can't really hit the boss's AC well (39 AC), boss is hurt pretty badly, will take 2 PCs to actually finish him off, and 3 PCs get to act before boss goes again, so pretty much an epic finish and the whole party gets a shot in probably, and if they don't kill him this round, maybe 1 dead PC (acceptable losses, and makes the final more memorable). Magus charges in with his shocking grasp all ready and metamagic rods held in hand and hair hex. Gets an AoO from big boss, crit, 90+ damage, gets potentially grappled by area effect, able to break through, delivers touch (all pretty cool, no problems, epic fight is epic) crits with it, and its delivers 180 damage. Room goes silent. We just spent 7 months on a very hard adventure path, and the guy who is just there for 1 fight shows up spikes one of the toughest bosses in any adventure path for half of his really high HP.
Between metamagic rods, metamagic feats, and crossbloodline stacking and magus archetype stacking he was able to deliver more damage than the entire party was able to in 3 rounds of combat, with multiple characters nearly dieing to do it. And he did it with a first level spell.
My opinion still stands that Magus's aren't overpowered, but you really have to watch out for THAT GUYS when they are in a group that isn't as optimized, as they can really put the damage on bosses when they spike. I almost have the feeling he put in the other problems to hide the rest of the min maxing he did, as he didn't submit his sheet for review until the very last second and I didn't have a huge amount of time to go over it. (I'm pretty liberal about what is allowed, but I wasn't going to allow a min max guy when the party isn't as optimized)
Real reason why I call him that guy? Somebody later told me that he was looking at the boss on his laptop while we were fighting the BBEG. If I had known I would have permabanned him from my games on the spot.
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The magus ability that sends it over the top is the ability to crit more often with a spell.
A wizard could do the same 180 shocking grasp, but he wouldn't have the hp to survive charging in or evading the grapple, and he'd only crit on a nat 20.
Sneak attack dice don't deal any extra dice on a crit, alchemist bombs only deal one extra die on a crit, yet magus crit with a Spellstrike and the entire spell and the weapon crit, at least doubling all dice.
That is the mechanic which allows Magi to be such great single target BBEG banes, and nerd the fight for the rest of the players.
If the mechanics were balanced, the spell would not crit. They wouldn't get to pull bonus dice out their behind. They'd still be able to deliver intense empowered shocking graps with swords, but if the spell didn't crit they'd be doing +10d6 to their hit, not +20d6.
If they're going to keep magus spell crits in the game, they should allow Alchemists to crit, or sneak attack dice to crit.
Personally I think they should get rid of the Spellstrike crit somehow.
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Participated in a game last night in which the 6th-level party fought their way past a troll gate guard and his trollhounds. The bladebound magus single-handedly dealt 50+ damage to a troll gate guard in one round, dropping him, while the rest of us tangled with the hounds.
He used spell combat with spellstrike and shocking grasp to make two attacks with his dwarven waraxe, dealing a total of 2d10+16 fire damage plus 5d6 electricity damage.
So he used the following abilities...
- Arcane Accuracy
- Arcane Pool (ongoing)
- Black Blade Strike
- Energy Attunement
- Spellcasting
- Spell Combat
- Spellstrike
...and the following resources...
- one 1st-level spell slot
- two personal arcane pool points
- two black blade arcane pool points
- a full attack action
...essentially exhausting most of his reserves in order to completely annihilate the troll. He did take a nasty wollap during the encounter, which nearly knocked him out, but then we remembered that, as a dwarf, he should have had a +4 dodge bonus to AC that would have amde the attack miss. Magus make better nova characters than most, it would seem. He then pumped his fist in the air and cried out, "Ha! I killed a boss monster!"
Then two more trolls showed up.
:P
The magus ability that sends it over the top is the ability to crit more often with a spell.
A wizard could do the same 180 shocking grasp, but he wouldn't have the hp to survive charging in or evading the grapple, and he'd only crit on a nat 20.Sneak attack dice don't deal any extra dice on a crit, alchemist bombs only deal one extra die on a crit, yet magus crit with a Spellstrike and the entire spell and the weapon crit, at least doubling all dice.
That is the mechanic which allows Magi to be such great single target BBEG banes, and nerd the fight for the rest of the players.
If the mechanics were balanced, the spell would not crit. They wouldn't get to pull bonus dice out their behind. They'd still be able to deliver intense empowered shocking graps with swords, but if the spell didn't crit they'd be doing +10d6 to their hit, not +20d6.
If they're going to keep magus spell crits in the game, they should allow Alchemists to crit, or sneak attack dice to crit.
Personally I think they should get rid of the Spellstrike crit somehow.
A specific set of circumstances does not an overpowered class make.
While it probably isn't as bad, a cavalier can be a real crit monster, too. They don't get the high threat range, but x3 crit, x3 lance charge (spirited charge) comes out to x6. I believe. Multipliers add, correct?
I had a boss encounter for my party of four. It was three equal leveled characters, low stats but definitely functional, and one fighter (sword and board) boss with PC-equivalent stats who was three levels higher than anyone in the party. First round, magus hits him with magic missie or some crap. Little bit of damage (this is not a magus sucks post, just what happened). Alchemist lobs a bomb, little more damage and burns some cronies. Cavalier charges. Boss dies on crit. Not unconscious, dead. I described as he exploded inside his armor. I don't know the numbers but it was more than six times what anyone else could deal in a first round of combat.
My point is, yes, magus is powerful. It can be optimized to madness. But every class has its strengths and their times where they get to explode the GM's long-devised and well built bossman character with a backstory and motivations and make the GM cry a little bit. It's the way of the game, and I think people only treat the magus like this because it does what it does (or can do, I should say) in a nova. Novas are easily dealt with; kill them later in the day, or at least break a few bones.
Ahh. Well, even so. Lots of damage
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The thing that i dislike about the magus is the range of the critical hits. He can have a crit every 4 attacks, that is too much for the high damage he can inflict with a sngle hit.
A paladin can crit just as often, automatically confirm those crits, and hit much much harder on all of them with roughly the same amount of investment.
I think a lot of complainers about one class or another need to sit down and figure out just what other classes can do with the abilities they got.
Yes the magus can crit on 30% of his attacks - but it has to be the round he casts the shocking grasp to be impressive.
And with his VERY limted resourses how often will this happen? At low level it COULD happen - but when you look at builds with spell focus + spell specialation they have almost no arcane pool at low level - they have maybe 5 1 lvl spells - for a whole day! IF you have 3-4 encounters pr day the magus have very few changes to crit with that shoching grasp - and the rest of the day the barbarian will do more damage in average...
And if the magus focus more on resourses taking extra arcane pool - he can contribute longer - but isn't impressive in damage out put.
Once the magus levels up - and get hold af a bunch of pearl of powers so he can shocking grasp several times in a fight - what happens? Monsters start to have SR or immunity to electricity.
Don't focus on the magus moments of glory - focus on all the time when he's just below average...
Broken is strong. Magi seem to be a better single target striker than the rogue. A player at pfs recently explained a build that allowed him to have a 4d6 shocking grasp at first level, 5d6 by 2nd with spell strike, and up to 10d6 with intense spell by 7th level, up to 20d6 with a sword on a crit or 30d6 at 7th level with an axe on a crit.
No, he read the skill description wrong. So very wrong.
This attack uses the weapon’s critical range (20, 19–20, or 18–20 and modified by the keen weapon property or similar effects), but the spell effect only deals ×2 damage on a successful critical hit, while the weapon damage uses its own critical modifiergood point. 20d6 on a crit max from the shocking grasp.
still way more than a rogue of 7th level can compete with. or anyone of 7th level for that matter. maybe if you herd kobolds into a room and fireball them , a wizard can compete for broad damage... . but single target?
The rogue is bad comparison, it's the weakest class in the game. Try the Ninja instead. At 7th level the Ninja has 3 attacks and has 4D6 sneak attack, grab teamwork feat if you can to get 5D6 on every attack. So that's 15D6 and no critical needed. The Magus get 1 shocking grasp as part of his attack and only a critical will it exceed the sneak attack dice of a ninja.
+1 what voska66 said.
Compare him to a good archer or gunslinger build.
Or a barbarian alckymist that's raging while under the effect of a mutagen...
If you wanna call something overpowered you must compare to the strongest other options not a suboptimal build.
The magus without a inticified spell, a sorc dip or Magic linerage...
Then compare him to other classes and call him broken...
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We can only respond to the builds you post and if that build is full of errors that is what's going to be called out. Now if you wish to flip it to Spell specialization and a rod of intensify then that Magus will STILL be limited to 5D6 damage per shocking grasp. (You can't use a Rod while spell striking OR spell combat with the build you posted).
Now if you want him to use that rod it's going to take 2 rounds to deliver that shocking grasp (unless he decides to just touch him, which kills his chance to crit).
Now as others have said comparing a magus to a Rogue is like comparing ANYTHING to a rogue, the rogue is garbage plain and simple and makes everything else look OP. (Just for clarification the rogue I referenced is the default best melee rogue... the half-orc.)
The magus is a nova class, he gets to shine once or twice a day and the rest of the time everyone else is usually performing better. Please reacquaint yourself with all limitations built into the class and try again.
Spell Focus and Greater Spell focus increase the spells DC not it's caster level. Gifted Adept does boost it so he'd be at Caster level +1. I'm not concerned about an 8D6 shocking grasp, it's only averaging at 28 damage a hit.Not greater spell focus. Spell specialization. The caster level with the selected spell goes up by two.
And a strong rogue who uses a real weapon will be doing a LOT more then that every round non stop. Make a strength based rogue who sneak attacks with a greatsword and power attack using improved feint and he'll make that magus cry for the damage he puts out (6D6 +15ish is pretty easy to do at that level).With improved feint, he's still stuck using his move action to feint for 6d6. The magus can move , cast as a standard action, and attack with his weapon to deliver the spell as the free attack. (the aforementioned 10d6 + whatever the baste weapon damage is)
And this is the 6th level magus, at 7th he gets nastier. With specialization, and a rod of lesser intense spell. Vs a rogue that has sunk his feats into martial weapon proficiency, combat expertise, improved feint, and power attack.
Yes I can see why he retired it, everything on this character is wrong and wouldn't pass any audit at any game I've ever played in. Let's look at what this character REALLY is shall we?
+2 Keen weapons cost 18300+ gold, a 6th level PFS character who has NEVER failed a faction mission is limited to a maximum of 11,750GP on an item. This weapon is illegal.
+2 keen is the effective output of using 1 point of his arcane pool at the beginning of combat as a swift action to add to his normally +1 katana. By 7th he can add +2 to the weapon, choosing in this case keen and increasing the +1 to +2.
Magi effectively get 10k gp in enhancements As a swift action in most combats by 5th level.Arcane pool is not 13 it's 9, Int bonus (4) + 1/2 magus level (3)...
The whole shocking grasp being able to do 15d6 is an Intisified and Empowered shocking grasp. Thats a level 4 slot spell to do 15d6 (15-20x2) with a keen rapier. So yes you can do 30d6 on a crit. If you go back and look at the dip into sorcerer that gives +1 per damage die for a spacific energy type you get another +15 or +30 out of that.
So, just maxing things out you can get (with a critical hit) 30d6+30 on a shocking grasp. Magus must be level 10 and have a character level of 11 with the sorcerer dip to be able to do this. Aslo if you take maximized magic arcana at magus level 12 character level 13 you can max that out once a day for 210 points of damage.
O and don't forget the weapons damage 1d6+(min)1+(any str)+from say +1 spell storing (from arcane pool) keen frost flaming, storing vampiric touch. You get a nice weapon damage bonus to all the above of (16+1)+1d6+1d6+ VT 5d6 ()X2 if crit. So an extra 8 to 9 d6.
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Now you are just adding more Nova to the exsample - I think we have established the magus can make quite a crit - hey he migth roll all 6's - let use that as an exsample as well!
Can he do this all day long? If he can bring that kinda pain in every encounter - and not just when he's lucky - then we can talk about broken - but he can't. Let's just assume he want to survive and have to use defensive spells as well. And spellstoring - that's once pr combat - AND he will have to see the combat coming to A) Enhance his blade and b) cast vam touch into it.
If he doesn't see it coming then he have just used a round buffing - to devide the damage by two.
And okay he killed something - we don't even know if if was just "the first troll" - the apprentice wizard or just a random scary looking heachman...
O, no don't get me wrong. In order to have a successful magus you have to practice good judgement and critical thinking. You have to know when to "nova" and when not to become the target of inside and outside animosity. A magus is not a front line fighter or a maga spell blaster.
A magus is a back-up. I would save the heaviest hit I had for a time that it would save a party members life of end an encounter that the party was having difficulty with do to die rolls or mechanics.
Heck, I wouldn't even let the party know I had this up my sleave untill it was absalutaly nessary. You can sheild and small regular shocking grasp your way to good time roll playing, or nuke your way to the head of the "I hate you list". How do you use a nuke in real life? You show it to people once, and then train your ass off in intimidate. lol
Wouldn't tatooed sorceror be better for the dip to keep caster level up and take copper dragon for +1 for each dice and get +1 caster level at lower levels or even with intensified and all evocation spells. Tatoo familiar will also if choosing a scorpion or something else let me take a scorpion or something else that gives me +4 initiative. Also draconic bloodline makes perception a class skill.
Succubi are seriously broken. They can cast vampiric touch for 6d6 damage and then deliver it through their claw attacks. Then they get all that damage as HP. Heck, if that succubus got a critical hit, then she would deal 12d6 damage and get the same amount as HP! They have a perfect BAB, and can do this every round. They're so broken! /silly_sarcasm
Magi are kinda "meh". They're good, but they're not that good. I'd even go so far as to say they're still inferior in strength to eldritch knights (they sure lack the options that EKs have). It sounds like the Magus in this thread with the big crits had to invest an awful lot into getting that sort of damage, including some traits, several feats, and some metamagic. For what exactly? A solid slap with bonus electricity damage. Ignoring the fact there are lots of nice enemies in the game outright immune or heavily resistant to electricity (or just drinking a 50 gp resist energy potion to ignore the first 10 points of electricity coming in), he still has to hope all his ducks fall in a row (in melee, hit the foe, threaten a critical, confirm that critical, etc).
Honestly, with this amount of investment into this tactic, I'd be pained as a GM if he didn't deal severe damage to the opponent. As TarkXT pointed out, virtually anyone with a lance can do similar damage with way less setup (small sized creatures are ideal for this).
Heck, don't magi use spell-books? Ol' boy should have a Book of Harms if he's really trying to push this. Free maximize 1/day is pretty nice, right?