Homebrew Magus Archetype: Fury


Homebrew and House Rules

Grand Lodge

I really like the idea of the magus, but spell combat two-weapon fighting/casting is just too clunky for my tastes. In an effort to simplify the class, as well as open up one of my favorite fantasy gaming images (the cloth-wearing guy with a greatsword), I made this: The Fury magus.

Thoughts?

Fury
Magi trained in the use of two-handed weapons are called furies, preferring to smash through their enemies’ defenses rather than dance around them. Their ability to prepare spells to trigger when they sense danger ensures they’re always prepared for a fight.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A fury is proficient with all simple and martial weapons, but not with any armor or shields. Armor interferes with a fury’s movements, which can cause spells with somatic components to fail.

A fury has the following class features.

Spell Preparation (Ex)
At 1st level, the fury learns to prepare himself for battle so he need not waste any time during a fight to cast his spells. Each day, he may prepare one of his magus spells in such a way as to instantly activate at the start of a battle. Whenever the fury rolls initiative, he may cast this spell as an immediate action, though he may only target himself. Spells prepared in this fashion must have a normal casting time of one standard action or less. At 5th level and every 5 levels thereafter, he may prepare 1 additional spell in this fashion per day, activating any or all of these spells as part of the same immediate action when he rolls initiative.

This ability replaces spellstrike.

Spellsunder (Su)
At 1st level, the fury learns how to wield a two-handed weapon with speed, efficiency, and grace. He may alternate between holding (not wielding) such a weapon in one hand (leaving his other hand free) or wielding the weapon in both hands as often as he wishes and at any time. For example, if the fury had cast a spell on his turn, then needed to make an attack of opportunity on an enemy’s turn, he could act as though he was currently wielding his two-handed weapon in both hands. In addition, when wielding a two-handed weapon, the fury adds a +2 dodge bonus to his AC. This bonus improves by +1 at 4th level and every 3 levels thereafter.

At 8th level, the fury can break through the magical defenses of almost any creature through sheer force of will and strength of arms. As a standard action, he can make one attack with a two-handed weapon at his highest attack bonus, bypassing all forms of damage reduction. If the fury hits with this attack, he can spend 1 point from his arcane pool to disable the target’s damage reduction for 1 round.

At 14th level, when the fury uses his arcane pool to enhance a two-handed weapon, he increases both the critical range and damage multiplier of the weapon by 1.

At 20th level, the fury no longer needs to spend points from his arcane pool to enhance any two-handed weapon he wields, and he may enhance such weapons as part of the immediate action taken to activate his spell preparation ability. If the fury has the Quick Draw feat, he may also draw a two-handed weapon as part of this action.

This ability replaces spell combat, improved spell combat, greater spell combat, and true magus.

Bonus Feats
At 7th level and 13th levels, the fury receives a bonus combat feat.

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Spell preparation should be given at 2nd level (like spellstrike). Especially since it's a very powerful ability.

I don't understand the point of spellsunder's main benefit. Shifting the grip of your weapon is a free action, so this ability comes off as kind of useless. It also doesn't make any sense why wielding a two-handed weapon would make you better at dodging attacks. Honestly this entire class feature is rather boring, which is a bad thing considering it replaces the magus's iconic class feature.


Cyrad is right about Spellsunder. Everybody can already do that. It's name is wrong too. It's nothing to do with sundering or spells, both of which have very specific meanings in Pathfinder. Spell prep should probably be moved as well.

That said, I like the idea of this archetype. It just needs a different implementation. How about something like this instead?

Proficiencies: A Fury is proficient with all simple and martial weapons, but not with armour or shields. Armour interferes with a fury’s movements, which can cause spells with somatic components to fail.

Canny Defence: At 1st level, a Fury gains the Canny Defence ability. This is identical to the Duelist prestige class ability of the same name, except the fury must use both his hands to wield melee weapons.

The Magic of Steel: At 1st level, a Fury can use a hand wielding a melee weapon to cast a spell. He can use Spell Combat when attacking with a two-handed weapon or a weapon in each hand. Regardless of his equipment however, he may not use Spell Combat to cast spells targeting anything other than himself. This modifies Spell Combat

Chanting Charge: At 2nd level, a Fury can cast a Magus spell as part of a charge. Spells cast in this way can only target the Fury himself and must have a casting time of one standard action. This replaces Spellstrike.

Offensive Defence: At 7th level, a Fury benefits from a +2 shield bonus to AC whenever he wields a two-handed weapon or a weapon in each hand. This replaces Medium Armour Proficiency.

The Best Defence: At 13th level, the shield bonus from Offensive Defence increases to +4. This Replaces Heavy Armour Proficiency.

Canny Defence is an already-implemented method for smart characters to defend themselves without wearing armour and it's already used by multiple Magus archetypes, so I went with it. It's pretty painful to depend on it at 1st level, but I think the devs want it that way to discourage dipping, so whatever. You could give him armour instead without messing up any other parts of the archetype.

The Magic of Steel allows the Fury to do what a Magus is meant to: Cast spells while hitting people. It lets him do some significant conventional melee damage at the cost of his free second attack from spellstrike and his ability to use his spells on his enemies. I don't know if you'd still consider this fiddly, but it is at the very least less fiddly. I opened it up to TWF characters as well, because why not?

Chanting Charge is the simplest implementation I could think of for a spellstrike-equivalent that doesn't mess with Spell Combat. It also seems thematically appropriate for a character with a bloody great weapon.

Offensive/Best Defence may be a bit weak due to access to shield, but that's OK in my opinion. An alternative would be to add a small deflection bonus for a round whenever the Fury casts a spell.

Overall, I suspect this is weaker than the vanilla Magus, and I wonder about adding the cure spells to its list with the limitation that it can only cast them on itself.

Grand Lodge

Thanks for the feedback, guys!

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