Am I the only one who hates the Magus' spell list and levels?

[chaoseffect]

Flamehawke wrote:

@chaoseffect My group voted to transfer all wizard touch spells to level 6 over to the magus to give me more touch spells to play with. So far it has not destroyed the game at all just given magus players more touch spells to choose from.

I never looked too hard at touch spells for Wizard/Sorcerer; find anything worth using besides the obvious 3 that the magus gets?

[Flamehawke]

Its not a huge amount chaoseffect, but it gave me more to play with. Here is the list of touch spells I had on the character when I retired her. I might have missed some.

0- Touch of Fatigue
1- Chill Touch, Corrosive Touch, Shocking Grasp, Touch of Gracelessness
2- Disfiguring Touch, Elemental Touch, Frigid Touch, Ghoul Touch, Touch of Idiocy
3- Vampiric Touch
4- Bestow Curse, Calcific Touch, Touch of Slime
5- Blight

I should say my group also transferred over all the spells with a ranged touch as well. My GM let me apply Close Range to all ranged touch spells. So I added all of the rays plus disintegrate to my spell list.

[DM Player Nate]

That was the only thing I didn't like about the magus. No Touch of Gracelessness. It's a nasty spell, especially when you follow up with Close Range Arcana to deliver Ray of Enfeeblment.

But one thing I want to do, purely for a conceptual design, is a magus with a trident. It's a one-handed weapon so it can be used with spell combat. It's one of those strange weapons that meta-gamers never use unless they're using one of the specific magic items.

I still think I'll give the whip-Magus a try one day though. If only to see it in action.

[Flamehawke]

Please do try any weapons that seem odd. I think a trident would be a great weapon to use as well. I just got stuck GMing or I would be playing more magus' just to see what other weapon combos would work or concept I could pull off. Or play around with the various archetypes.

[psychicmachinery]

I personally like the rhoka for my magus. d8 damage and crits on an 18-20.

[Funky Badger]

Flamehawke wrote:

I just got stuck GMing or I would be playing more magus' just to see what other weapon combos would work or concept I could pull off. Or play around with the various archetypes.

Ulfen Skirnir! Great fun...

[MassivePauldrons]

Please Don't Kill Me wrote:

Yeah, your big thing isn't spells... its spell strike. I would like to see you complain about underpowered spells when you are walking around with a +1 Keen Nodachi using an Empowered Intensified Shocking Grasp. Then if you Critical Strike you can now use another Empowered Intensified Shocking Grasp if you score a crit (which wont be hard on a 15-20 weapon).

On top of this all, if you are a Kensai you can spend 3 Arcane Points to maximize weapon damage as if you where using a x3 weapon. You qualify for Critical Feats as well as a bunch of other fun fighter feats to raise damage even more.

So with a 22 Str (16 base with magic items and +1 at 4th and 8th lvl), power attack, critical feats, and weapon specialization you are doing 90 damage. Now factor in your first Empowered Intensified Shocking Grasp for 20d6+10d6, then throw in your free Empowered Intensified Shocking Grasp for 10d6+5d6 (we will assume this hits). Throw in a fun critical feat like Bleeding Critical to finish off the god awful amount of damage you will do.

So we will take average on the d6's so you are looking at 90 weapon damage + 105 from the first shocking grasp +57 from the second shocking grasp + 7 bleed from Bleeding Critical = 259 damage in one go... And I'm sure you can do a lot better then that if you wanted to.

[sarcasm] Thats not powerful at all [/sarcasm]

Edit: And for good measure make sure you take Magical Lineage (Shocking Grasp) and Wayang Spellhunter (Shocking Grasp) and now you can do the above but as a second lvl spell, adding the possibility of even more more Metamagic Feats.

Magical Lineage doesn't stack with Wayang Spellhunter when applied to one single spell as they are both trait bonuses. Also they are both magical traits(Edit: Whoops Wayang is Regional) which normally you can only select one of per two traits.

Magical Lineage is basically the number one reason Magus's get "overpowered" since they can just keep buying Pearls of Power level one for 1000gp and never run out of their "heavy hitter" spell. If you're a dm and are having problems with the Magus I suggest banning meta-magic reducers, or not using the "traits" optional rules.

Also Magus's cannot use Nodachis to spell combat as the weapon is Two Handed.

I will note that Nodachi's are really poorly placed as a martial weapon, 1d10 damage (18-20 x2) and brace, all on a "Martial weapon" yeah lol, it's better than an elven curve blade.

Also the extra free touch spell on a crit you described can only be used once per day. Additionally it cannot be used in conjunction Arcane Edge/Arcane Accuracy/or Arcane strike as all of these require a swift or immediate action which you only get one of per turn.

[Flamehawke]

Funky Badger wrote:

Flamehawke wrote:

I just got stuck GMing or I would be playing more magus' just to see what other weapon combos would work or concept I could pull off. Or play around with the various archetypes.

Ulfen Skirnir! Great fun...

I have considered that one in all seriousness. I don't run a Golarian setting, but the home setting does include an area with a heavy pull on Norse mythology and vikings. So I may do that at some point.

I also want to play a Black Blade, Spire Defender, Kensai, and Soul Forger. All of those look like great fun to play with on a magus

[Funky Badger]

Flamehawke wrote:

I also want to play a Black Blade, Spire Defender, Kensai, and Soul Forger. All of those look like great fun to play with on a magus

Was pondering a Buccaneer / Black Blade magus. The worst pirate in the world, all he ever wanted to be was an accountant, then he got shang-haied, and cursed and, and... it was just awful!

[DM Player Nate]

Flamehawke wrote:

I also want to play a Black Blade, Spire Defender, Kensai, and Soul Forger. All of those look like great fun to play with on a magus

Bladebound Magi are pretty cool. I got to play one once and it's great when you have a GM who is in sync with the character concept so he can roleplay the Black Blade. You can, if you really wanted to go crazy, is dual-archetype the Bladebound Magus with the Kensai Magus.

Funky Badger wrote:

Was pondering a Buccaneer / Black Blade magus. The worst pirate in the world, all he ever wanted to be was an accountant, then he got shang-haied, and cursed and, and... it was just awful!

I'm going to guess this was for the Skull and Shackles AP, wasn't it?

^_^

Sounds like it could have been lots of fun!