Honestly, if you just wanna put some hurt on people, my personal recommendation is to play a Barbarian. Magus have to deal with a ton of other stuff and you need to learn a LOT of rules to make them work.
Secret Wizard makes a good point. Honestly, despite their reputation, Magi aren't that damaging. Yeah, when you get a crit with Intensified Shocking Grasp it can rock, but you're using a limited resource to keep up with the martials, count on that crit, and hoping that whatever you're fighting is resistant/immune to electricity.
Now, that's not to say that Magi are bad, far from it. Magic gives a plethora of new and exciting things you can in and out of combat, being intelligence based means that you can make up for your innate lack of skill points and be rewarded for it.
Personally, I'd drop the Kensai and go strength based. It's rougher to start with, but a wand of shield and things like mirror image will get you through to medium armor proficiency, at which point things like spell resistance, energy resistance, and energy immunity can really make you glad that you have the option to simply say "screw it, two handed power attack" when needed.
Google "Walter's guide to the Magus". That should have everything you need.
... and just deal a lot of damage, ...
Magus is not a class to play in this case.
They deal good damage, but you have to juggle Swift, move, Standart, Immediate and Free actions, and spells each and every rounds. With standart attack and Full Attack rider abilities.
For this they get some nice non-damage options.
If DPS is what you really want, there are better classes for it, preferably not with 6th-level casting and complicated mechanics. Magus is a tricksy class with good DPS.
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I will half way agree with Secret Wizard but the Class I recommend is a Bloodrager. I feel Barbarian will not challenge you enough to learn something new. Bloodrager will give you just as good of a bruiser with more of a magical feel for you to learn a bit about magic. Magus can be a tricky class learning everything they have to offer. Bladebound+Kensai is hard to do from level 1 because of Diminished Arcane pool, Diminished casting, and no armor. A new player might not be able to pilot such a build successfully. But a Bloodrager is hard to go wrong. I like the Arcane bloodline the most. I also have a soft spot for Dragon Bloodline as now you can enter Dragon Disciple and pick up major stat boosts and FotD 1. (Don't take more than 8 levels). I like the Idea of a Raging Dragon....it's a terrifying thought.
I don't know that I agree with the above. Barbarians and some of the other martials can out damage a Magus in a straight up fight, but generally not by a whole lot, and their a quite a few situations where a magus will win out because of the flexibility their casting gives them.
At 4th the get bladed dash which is a pseudo-pounce. At 7th the get fly. At 10th they get dimension door, witch along with dimensional agility feat gives them a pounce-like effect from a couple football fields away. This kind of mobility gives them a big advantage in many situations.
Spamming shocking grasp is only a limited resource in theory. A few super-cheap pearls of power and you won't ever be the first one out of resources for a day.
I will agree though that it is moderately complicated to play. Juggling your swift actions and keeping track of your spells means there is quite a bit to keep track of, but (for better or worse) once you get used to it for most fights it is the same things in the same order all the time.
At 4th the get bladed dash which is a pseudo-pounce. At 7th the get fly. At 10th they get dimension door, witch along with dimensional agility feat gives them a pounce-like effect from a couple football fields away. This kind of mobility gives them a big advantage in many situations.
This, of course, is not what the OP seems to be asking.
He wants someone to mindlessly maul face and that's more of the job of a Barbarian.
I like Barbarian better than Bloodrager because combat already has a ton of rules to learn.
CLARIFICATION: Spells don't make a class more powerful than a martial class. They just grant it extra on-demand power at the expense of always-up power. Because of this strategic advantage, players tend to prefer them.
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At 4th the get bladed dash which is a pseudo-pounce. At 7th the get fly. At 10th they get dimension door, witch along with dimensional agility feat gives them a pounce-like effect from a couple football fields away. This kind of mobility gives them a big advantage in many situations.This, of course, is not what the OP seems to be asking.
He wants someone to mindlessly maul face and that's more of the job of a Barbarian.
I like Barbarian better than Bloodrager because combat already has a ton of rules to learn.
CLARIFICATION: Spells don't make a class more powerful than a martial class. They just grant it extra on-demand power at the expense of always-up power. Because of this strategic advantage, players tend to prefer them.
Well I am assuming that the OP is not completely new to Pathfinder. So I am sure he is familiar with combat basics and turns.
What I love about the Bloodrager is How well it does with UMD from dangerously curious trait. With Primal you can still get rage powers. Arcane is my favorite Bloodline because of it's 8th level powers of Haste or Displacement when you rage (for FREE). Later on you can gain the ability to cast a spell when you rage adding Displacement or Haste + a 2nd level spell or lower. It is amazing action economy. Then if you throw in Spell storing Armor and Weapons you can have amazing action economy and good LAYERED defenses built into the class. A barbarian can get more HP and DR than the bloodrager but with Primal archetype the bloodrager can still cherry pick the best of a barbarians abilities and has other tricks too.
And I beg to differ on your Clarification. Spells do make a class more powerful than a martial class. If this was not the case a Wizard would not be the strongest and most versatile class in the game. Those spells do make it more powerful than a martial class mid to late game. Maybe rephrase the statement a bit to make it true.
The magus is a great class, with a lot of rules attached. It takes substantial system mastery to a magus shine.
I posted a magus build Here
It is not a pure DPR build, it is the character I am playing in Rapan Athuk. Substantial resources are invested in other areas.
It's not clear to me at all that the OP just 'wants someone to mindlessly maul face'.
What he said is he *wants* to play a magus, and is looking for advice on how to deal tons of damage with the magus. He didn't say he only wants to deal huge damage, or doesn't want to deal with complex actions or spells.
Anyways, the Magus.
Walter's magus is definitely the canonical Nova Magus, with huge elemental damage, spell crits, etc.
Kensai is powerful and worth it - I personally don't like it because I don't like diminished spell casting (or losing spell recall, but what can you do). If you like it, it can definitely be worth it.
My personal favorite magus, rather than Walter's, was a Bladebound Hexcrafter Whip user, though this would also work pretty well with Kensai (for ewp and weapon focus).
The whip magus focuses on strength, positioning + reach, and more sustainable damage buffs to make numerous painful debuffing attacks rather than nova.
Defensively, between Flight Hex and 15' reach there is very little reason you should ever be attacked. W/ enlarge person you have 30' reach, 20ft threatened (at 7+).
The way I did it was Half Elf (Ancestral Arms (Whip)), 1: Enforcer, 3: Weapon Focus, 5B: Whip Mastery, 7: Imp Whip Mastery.
Key spells are haste, elemental touch, frostbite, brand (for extra attacks when you aren't casting frostbite). Bestow curse is fun and horrible. Arcane Pool for +elemental damage dice. With magical lineage (Frostbite) & Rime Spell (which I don't think is necessary, but there you go), at 8th you could be making 4 attacks/round (3 at full bab-2), that deal ~1d4+8 (shaken)+ 1d6+8 nonlethal cold (fatigue, staggered)+ 1d6acid|electricity|cold|fire (Sickened|staggered|fatigued|on fire)+2d6 elemental. For something like 33 damage per hit + shaken, sickened, fatigued, staggered
And you can do that ~8 rounds (if you choose to imagine something is still alive).
I'm not 100% clear what the OP wants. From what he said he could want something that is simple and is just mindlessly mauls face. He could also want something that, even if a bit more complex, can effectively deal a lot of damage.
I certainly agree that if what he wants is just simple attack routines, Magus may not be his best choice.
"I really want to play as a magus" isn't exactly obscure. It's pretty clear what the OP wants.
He then goes on to say other things that he wants, which might be incompatible with the desire to play a Magus.
If indeed magus is 100% set in stone, then the mentioned guide provides the answer of how to do it.
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Here's a more up-to-date guide. Walter's guide is great but it misses several years' worth of archetypes, spells, and other options.
Overall, the Magus has good DPS not because its hits harder, but because it can use its mobility spells to land a full attack much more consistently than most other melee classes.
Here's a more up-to-date guide. Walter's guide is great but it misses several years' worth of archetypes, spells, and other options.
Overall, the Magus has good DPS not because its hits harder, but because it can use its mobility spells to land a full attack much more consistently than most other melee classes.
I think that the martial gap on mobility has closed a lot to be able to still say this without a lot of qualifiers.
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At 4th the get bladed dash which is a pseudo-pounce. At 7th the get fly. At 10th they get dimension door, witch along with dimensional agility feat gives them a pounce-like effect from a couple football fields away. This kind of mobility gives them a big advantage in many situations.This, of course, is not what the OP seems to be asking.
It really is.
I really want to play as a magus [...] I don't know much about this class and if anyone could help build a character that would be awesome
He wants to play a magus and wants help building one, possibly a Kensai.
So since that is the case, the guides suggested by others both work well. In addition to the others this is specifically a guide to building a Kensai, which might help.
There's also a few more guides to the Magus (including a great one focusing on how to optimise touch spells) here, just scroll down to 'Magus' darmin and you should find all the info you could need, good luck with your character!
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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I think that the martial gap on mobility has closed a lot to be able to still say this without a lot of qualifiers.Here's a more up-to-date guide. Walter's guide is great but it misses several years' worth of archetypes, spells, and other options.
Overall, the Magus has good DPS not because its hits harder, but because it can use its mobility spells to land a full attack much more consistently than most other melee classes.
Really? Can you inform me which other classes get pounce at level four with a bonus attack, and long range teleport pounce at level ten?
'limited resource' vs 'unlimited resource' is a fallacy anyway. All classes are limited by their HP pool at low levels, which is refreshed by -you guessed it- those dastardly casters. At high levels casters have a great deal of spell slots and enough tools to allow rest when necessary. When timeless demiplanes start appearing this distinction completely reverses.
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I see your psuedo-pounce at level four and raise you a psuedo-pounce at level one: sohei monk.
And that's all day every day, not any of this "second level spell slot" nonsense.
Right. So I said that most classes can't do this kind of pouncing, and you point out that there's just a single class that can also do it. So you're basically proving my point for me.
So yeah, Magus gets good DPS because it can make a full attack more often than most melee classes. Which was the point of the thread, after all. Bladebound archetype is another solid boost to that, as is the Frostbite spell.