I'm considering making a Bard of the Magician archetype, but the planning stage has already hit a snag or two. Should I go with a Halfling, Elf, or Gnome to start this sucker out? Cause both Elf and Gnome have access to Breadth of Knowledge, which would mitigate some of the losses I'd take to be the Magician. Kinda working this as a stage magician who has a few tricks up the old sleeve in a fight.
Your planning has hit a snag because the archetype is so severely flawed.
The weakness of a caster bard is save DCs. The solution is Dirge of Doom. Magician loses it. That's really all there is to say from that side.
Dweomercraft boosts spell penetration, but that's not a big issue for most of the game. Casters are generally good at avoiding concentration checks and the bonus to spell attack rolls is something you would have been getting from inspire courage on a standard bard.
Spell Suppression requires you to be performing in advance and only stops one spell. You lose Dirge of Doom with its -2 penalty to saves and attack rolls. You cast spells that have lower saves than a wizard would.
Metamagic Mastery lets you use metamagic without increasing casting time. But a bard doesn't have high level slots to metamagic into and doesn't have any spells that strongly benefit from metamagic. Frightening Tune may be going after a less than ideal save for its level, but at least it's situationally useful without expending character resources on something you'd otherwise ignore.
After all these terrible trades you get a few off-list spells and starting at 10th level some wand benefits.
In short, a vanilla bard will probably the role better or a rogue/sorcerer aiming for arcane trickster if you want non-bardic spells.
For race you certainly don't want elf. A caster bard needs that +2 in charisma for the save DC. 6 level casters have a hard enough time keeping up as it is.
Added to all of that if you want to go bard with a focus on spellcasting then you definately want to be Human or Half Elf for the favoured class bonus of extra spells known.
So in short, you guys are saying "Forget the concept you want and do something more generic." That's not exactly the best advice to give here, now is it? To be fair, I failed to mention I'm considering this for PFS. I doubt it would have changed any thoughts on the subject.
Think of what I'm going for as someone who's assisting the real spellcasters using his talents as a stage magician. Fascinating the enemy while the rest set up the kill, countering enemy spells with stage tricks, etc. Even making it seem that some of the other spellcasters are greater threats than they are. And when they think the magician is nothing more than an entertainer, I bust out magic more in line with a dedicated battle caster. Without necessarily using a wand to do it. Now does that sound like something a standard bard will do, without multiclassing?
Kalvit wrote: Now does that sound like something a standard bard will do, without multiclassing? In all fairness to you, I think it does, honestly. And since I realize that's sort a a rude way to say it, I'll go over some examples. If you're still into magician I'll look at it more, but I think you're well suited to doing this as a standard bard.
Kalvit wrote: Fascinating the enemy while the rest set up the kill, You do have access to fascinate as a standard bard.
Kalvit wrote: countering enemy spells with stage tricks, etc. Admittedly this is a really tough thing to do with a standard bard. But as has been pointed out already, it's a tough thing to do as a magician as well.
Kalvit wrote: Even making it seem that some of the other spellcasters are greater threats than they are. Now, admittedly the magician gets access to Dweomercraft. However, bluff is a bard class skill (and is made better with perform act given by versatile performance). Standard bards have incredible bluff scores and the ability to cast all sorts of illusions. If you want to make other units seem more powerful, it's not through magician stage magic but through bardic music and illusions. Keep in mind that dirge of doom really does make the casters around you far stronger.
Kalvit wrote: And when they think the magician is nothing more than an entertainer, I bust out magic more in line with a dedicated battle caster. Without necessarily using a wand to do it. The first thing is I'm not sure why you don't want to use a wand for this: the "something up my sleeve" trick is such a good one for the magician trope. Either way though: Eldritch heritage (arcane) will let you get a couple wizard spells. Not as many as magician would give, but still, there are gems here and there, and you'll also get a familiar, allowing for all sorts of sneaky things here and there.
All this said, I can't recommend the sandman archetype enough. If you want to combine magic and trickery, I feel like there's no one better suited to the task.
You might be able to do interesting things with burning hands as a lava gnome (darkvision + pyromaniac). Magic lineage that spell, intensify metamagic it at higher levels, and in general take fire spells.
You can also mix the sounstriker archetype in, for a little more striking power (mind the recent comment by a dev.
It is definitelt not an easy archetype to play.
I don't think Magician is *that* horrible. It does have some nice stuff going for it, though I would agree that many of its powers are very badly designed.
The biggest attraction is the ability to pull spells from other lists. This is particularly potent with the Summoner list, since it can grant you early access to some relatively powerful spells. Unfortunately the truly powerful stuff is outside the range of PFS levels, but you can still get some nice things.
Ill Omen from the Witch list is probably a nice choice for an off-list 1st level - it's a very good spell that stays relevant, and it fits perfectly with your idea of making other spellcasters better at what they do.
The other nice feature is that you can rock a Dispel check higher than most other casters thanks to Dweomercraft. You might play on this strength further and get traits and feats to crank up the CL of Dispel Magic even more, which will make you pretty good at dispelling and counterspelling stuff.
Remember that while you lose Inspire Courage you DO get Inspire Greatness, so you still have some music to buff martial types when your anti-caster performances(ie: Dweomercraft. Spell Suppression is indeed useless!) aren't needed.
Well i actually PLAYED a magician and completely disagree with the other posters that it is a poor trade off from a plain bard(which i have also played). I have seen very little good advice given on the message boards about the subject...mostly due to people giving the advice not playing the archetype in question. Yes the various replacement performances are weak, but the whole purpose of playing a magician is to be a better spellcaster, not a better performer/skillmonkey. I assume a group a magician is playing in doesn't need him to melee or do most of the skill checks, this can be especially true in a large party. So you make a magician the best possible spellcaster you can. Some believe this is pointless since other classes do it better...maybe, maybe not. I played in a group that had an oracle and an inquisitor and never felt weak in comparison...and saved the party at least as often as they did.
I would build one from a small race, since your not using weapons anyway(and don't need to after a couple of levels). The big advantage being not worrying about encumbrance, allowing strength to be a dump stat. I would also go middle-aged, especially in a point buy system and put all my level up points in char. The best out of class spells are magic missile(2nd lvl), black tentacles(10th), bear's endurance mass: from the summoners list of 4th level spells(14th), summon monster7 or creeping Doom: from the summoners list of 5th level spells(18th). At 6th level...well that depends, I like resist energy. Feat and spell selection are the most important parts.....
1st=Bouncing Spell
2nd=Craft Wondrous Item
3rd=Extend Spell
Extend Spell
Persistent Spell
Craft Rod
Quicken Spell
Spell Penetration
Spell Perfection(Mind Fog)
Spell Perfection(Overwhelming Presence)
Spell Focus(enchantment)
0 Light - 10 min./level
0 ~ Lullaby - concentration + 1 rd/lvl @ lvl 11
0 Detect Magic - concentration, up to 1 min./level
0 Read Magic - 10 min./level
0 Ghost Sound - concentration
0 Mage Hand - concentration
1 Cure Light Wounds
1 ~ Sleep - 1 min./level @ lvl 5
1 Charm Person -1 hour/level
1 *Magic missle
1 Feather Fall
1 Timely Inspiration
1 Unseen Servant -1 hour/level
~ Feather Step - 10 min./level @ lvl 5
2 Mirror Image - 10 min./level
2 Cacophonous Call
2 ~ Eagle's spendor - 1 min./level @ lvl 8
2 Blindness/Deafness
2 *Resist Energy
2 Alter Self - 1 min./level
2 Honeyed Tongue - 10 min./level
~ Tongues - 10 min./level @ lvl 8
3 ~ Dispel Magic @ lvl 14
~ Confusion @ lvl 17 Phantom Steed -1 hour/level
Invisibility Sphere - 1 min./level
*Black Tentacles
Good Hope - 1 min./level
Cure Serious Wounds
~ Purging Finale(cowering, dazzled, exhausted, paralyzed, shaken, or stunned) @ lvl 14
~ Glibness - 10 min./level @ lvl 17
4 Zone of Silence -1 hour/level
Wall of Sound - concentration + 1 round/level
Dimension Door
Echolocation - 10 min./level
*Bear's Endurance, Mass - 1 min./level
Legend Lore
Primal Scream
5 Dispel Magic, Greater
Mind Fog - 30 minutes, 2d6 rounds after leaving fog
Mislead
Vengeful Outrage
Village Viel - 1 day/level
*Summon Monster VII
Cure Light Wounds, Mass
6 Overwhelming Presence
Getaway - 1 hour/level
Euphoric Tranquility(creature touched)
Heroes' Feast - 1 hour plus 12 hours
Shout, Greater
This build is pretty enchantment/save or suck heavy, but he's REALLY good at them, while still being much harder to hurt than your average wizard or sorcerer...he also has access to some pretty amazing skill buff spells those classes don't in order to still be great out of battle like the average bard. And don't underestimate the power of a super high spellcraft skill. It allows you to craft magic stuff in half the time and/or without some prerequisites...and STILL auto succeed. And a super high UMD skill allows you to auto activate even items out of class AND wrong alignment...you'll be sucking up lots of treasure items nobody else wants and can put them in your bag of holding you were able to create without access to the secret chest spell...can the regular bard do that?!?
Also notice at mid level you'll be casting an extended(possibly from a rod you made) phantom steed spell, than putting invisibility sphere on it...later adding extended zone of silence. You now have 16 hours of at least speed 80(later on flying) and noone can hear you or your mount. You and your mount go invisible before battle(or 1st round), and if you use an attack spell the mount stays invisible and at level 14 you can cast mislead to become invisible again!
I'd say gnome, since the gnome's spell-like abilities are a resource that doesn't dig into your bardic cantrips. (Elves are better for Dex, but a gnome's size bonus amounts to the same touch attack bonus.)
Actually the Magician i played was a Gnome, worked pretty well, but i think i'd go Halfling in a new build....unless the campaign was such that i needed the extra rounds of perf/day a gnome's fav. class option gives. Just for slightly better saves and the speed at 30' racial option.
I think a large part of the problem was the constraints imposed by PFS. A fair bit of the class is enabling other casters in your party - but in PFS you never know who your party is going to consist of. As the original thread was 3 months ago, it would be interesting to see the OPs final decision.
I agree you should focus on being as good a caster as possible. I don't think the extra rounds of performance is that necessary (you will have enough with a maxed charisma) and so I would actually go human for the extra spells favoured class bonus.
The bard does have spells that benefit from metamagics, especially extend spell, bouncing spell, heighten spell and persistent spell. Feats are an issue so I would also take Piercing Spell over the two spell penetration feats.
An overlooked aspect of this class is also the Use Magic Device specialism, so possibly an item creation feat like craft wand may be especially useful for this character.
Finally I agree that this class does benefit from there being a number of other casters in the party, but is it a game-breaker? No.
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