
Lucy_Valentine |
The maths is against you. You can burn a ton of buffs to be better at fighting. Yay! But that will not usually be as effective as casting those buffs on someone else, who had better base numbers.
You can polymorph, which deserves its own mention. There was at least one guide:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1avbOKg848X3Z3dVpmdrpxtR__zan2jj_NzP0uZU 9LTw/edit
Still, if you don't want to multiclass or retrain as a transmuter... that's pretty much it. What does your build look like?

Dasrak |
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Thematically speaking I'd like the wizard to be able to hold his own in combat. Yes I know it's not a great idea but it's a thematic choice.
The Eldritch Knight route can do this. It won't play like a Magus, and you shouldn't try to make it play like a Magus. For instance, Eldritch Knights much prefer two-handed weapons, which is the opposite of what the Magus prefers.
If you have a decent strength score this isn't too hard to pull off, but chances are if you're build like a Wizard... you don't have a good strength score. The best course of action if you need to patch up bad stats is the Elven Battle Focus feat, used with an Elven Branched Spear. This gives you Intelligence to damage, weapon finesse with a reach weapon, and that allows you to pump points into dexterity to bolster your to-hit and also give you lots of attacks of opportunity with combat reflexes. The catch is that this is very feat intensive. If you're human, you'll need racial heritage to qualify for the elf-specific feats. If your physical stats aren't too stellar, this is probably the only option to turn around your build at this point without some kind of retraining.

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So my wizard is a wizard. But he wants to be a magus. As a level 6 divination wizard with craft wondrous item. Any ideas how I'd go about this without multiclassing?
Well, what exactly about the Magus does your Wizard want to emulate? Also what are your opposition schools? It could be a bit rough for you depending on if you made self-buffing spells or evocations opposed, in which case you'll need to take Opposition Research.
If you want the Magus' toughness in battle, you'll want to take Great Fortitude and Toughness feats.
With a low CMD, you are probably going to want to compensate with Defensive Combat Training.
If you are wanting to make a Wizard zipping around the battlefield blasting off damage, the good news is you can still do it, so long as you didn't make evocation or conjuration an opposition school. The bad news is that instead of Divination, Evocation school focus would help you more with admixture.
If you want to emulate the Magus' melee combat ability, you will probably fall short without multiclassing and jumping into Eldritch Knight. Fortunately since you are a divination specialist, you are practically guaranteed to go first in combat, which will let you get your buffs up.If you don't want to, here are some other thoughts:
Weapon Focus will be essential; if you have a bonded weapon, enhancing it up to +5 as feasible will help quite a bit, too.
And you can self buff with Haste (transmutation), Heroism (enchantment) and the like to further compensate for low BAB. There are plenty of spells you can use to debuff enemies as a wizard; never forget that Entangled gives a -2 to AC from Dex penalty, Fatigued gives -1, Exhausted gives -3,Stunned is -2&Dex bonus, and so on. Really anything that you can get double duty out of will help.
Additionally you can make yourself more accurate by getting to Greater Invisibility (illusion) at level 7 (+2 untyped bonus to attack rolls and ignore enemy dex mod to AC), which will serve you well offensively, defensively, and for utility, until you fight someone that can see you regardless. Speaking of utility, hopefully you didn't opposition illusion, since you can make good use of Mirror Image or Displacement to help yourself.
You can ask your GM if you can take Quicken Spell-like Ability at 11th level, which would let you swift action self buff with Diviner's Fortune for a scaling +5 bonus to your attacks, saves, and concentration checks, which would be limited to a few times a day, but helps you greatly with accuracy.
With craft wondrous item, you will be wanting to make items to boost your strength and constitution. Your CMD is also going to be pretty low if you want to be emulating the magus and operating in melee, so Knowledge is Power is probably going to be a discovery to consider.
Once you hit 12th level, craft yourself a Pale Green Prism Ioun Stone for +1 (competence) bonus to attack/saves/checks.
An Opalescent White Pyramid Ioun Stone will get you weapon proficiency with something martial, otherwise you're going to be using a quarterstaff.
If you are wanting to do melee touch attack spells, you might consider going for Lunge with your 13th level feat or just rely on Long Arm (transmutation).
Ultimately, you'll have to be clever, the combat wizard is always about choosing the right tool for the job and situation. Good luck!

MrCharisma |

Malefic wrote:Thematically speaking I'd like the wizard to be able to hold his own in combat. Yes I know it's not a great idea but it's a thematic choice.The Eldritch Knight route can do this. It won't play like a Magus, and you shouldn't try to make it play like a Magus.
This.
Wizard 9, *Fighter 1 Eldritch Knight 10. You'll have the same BAB as a Magus, you won't get the same class buffs (arcane pool, spell combat, etc) but you'll have 9th level spell-casting instead of 6th.*Fighter/Barbarian/Ranger/etc. Whatever you want really, although fighter is probably the easiest to fit to your character.

UnArcaneElection |
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^If you can manage to squeeze in the feats Favored Prestige Class and Prestigious Spellcaster, you don't even lose a spellcasting progression level from Eldritch Knight (although this doesn't do anything about the martial dip level).
If you can squeeze in the Mad Magic feat, consider Bloodrager for your martial dip (Blood Conduit Bloodrager even gives you a bonus Combat Maneuver feat without needing to meet the prerequisites). Then use the Rage Spell (2nd level) to give yourself Rage instead of depending upon your limited Bloodrage pool. (Note: If you were an Arcanist instead of a Wizard, you could even take Bloodline Development to progress the Bloodrager Bloodline.)

Unbegreiflich |

Yes - have another character make a Magus or use an NPC.
Make a decent deal with him, say split 50/50.
Cast Magic Jar and take over the Magus. Store your body using Shrink Item. Act like a tag team - Tap out into the jar (I suggest 2 earrings with nice diamonds in them) and back out into the Magus when he covers the earring.
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yes - your BAB is pitiful as a Wiz. Even with Wpn Fnss, wpn prof(spl), long arm, exp rtrt, mir img, and blink. Then you're feat starved...
Generally a dip of 2 lvls into Monk(Flowing) or Brawler gets you all the "martial" you need and ups your saves.
Without Spell Combat and Spell Strike casting in combat isn't fun.

wraithstrike |

Wizards are not good frontliners. You can try to go Eldritch Knight, but even that doesn't play like a Magus unless you just meant magic plus fighting in melee.
Nevermind. I just realized that you said without multiclassing
This is not going to happen without the GM being nice to you. You won't be able to deal enough damage to be a respectable front liner, and it will be difficult to have a good enough AC to not get taken out.
If you have some other idea that does not involve standing toe to toe in melee that might make things easier.

Vidmaster7 |

Closet I got was a scroll master wizard with the kirin style martial arts basically if someone thought they could get close to him and wreck him he could get one surprise WTF THE WIZARD HIT ME WITH A ROLLED UP SCROLL shot for about 28 points of damage.
He did once distract a t-rex for one round with it before running... running fast... running far.

nate lange RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32 |

Without multiclassing makes this pretty tough. Even with multiclassing it would be tough if you didn't build for it from 1st level, though the aforementioned Eldritch Knight ideas are viable. For a standard wizard if you want to wade into melee sometimes pretty much all you can do is wait for 11th level... once you hit 11th you can cast transformation (which isn't a polymorph effect) on top of things like monstrous physique 3 or elemental body 2. You can't cast while transformation is running, so its still not really like being a magus but you'd certainly be viable in melee.
Other than that the only other thing I could think of would be to group up with some lower level characters... a 10th level wizard has the same BAB as a 7th level magus, and can start using quicken spell to get off low level buffs and attacks spells while in melee. Honestly, a 10th level wizard almost always has better options in combat than pretending to be a 7th level magus but if that's really what you want you'd just have to sell a GM and party on it...

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Knowledge is Power to add Int to CMB.
Combat Reflexes.
Opalescent White Pyramid Ioun Stone (5k if you craft it) to get proficiency in the Elven Branched Spear.
Long Arm spell.
Trip enemies who provoke AoO in your threatened area and do not threaten you. The Elven Branched Spear also gives you +2 to AoOs caused by movement. Add Weapon Finesse if you have very low Str and decent Dex, and you are willing to spend another feat. Or take it instead of Combat Reflexes (not recommended though).

Rhedyn |

VMC battle Oracle.
Prestigious Spellcaster feat
Eldritch Knight.
At 11. Bind favorite outsider. Use Geas to v make it take no actions and fail all saves. Use magic jar to ride around in that body.
Now you have 3/4ths BAB and marital physical stats. Some buff spells and polymorph v will allow you to dominate melee combat.

UnArcaneElection |

{. . .}
Nevermind. I just realized that you said without multiclassing
{. . .}
D'oh! How did I miss that? Lousy brain . . . Quick -- have to think something up.
Okay, adding to Volkard Abendroth's idea of retraining your Arcane School to the Earth Elemental Arcane School -- use the very recently introduced(*) Mud Subschool. This retains the Earth Supremacy that you need for the attack and damage roll boost and the CMD boost, but at 1st level it trades out the melee-unfriendly Acid Cloud for Hindering Muck, which you can use several times per day to entangle creatures in a cone of mud(**), and Entangled creatures have to eat a Standard Action and provoke Attacks of Opportunity to get rid of the mud (so get Combat Reflexes and preferably a Reach weapon(***)). At 8th level it trades out Earth Glide (which is unfortunate) for Mud Missile, which is a Ranged Touch Attack that you can use several times per day to do half-decent damage and blind a target for a short time, which could also let you get some free shots in. Of course, you also need to get the Knowledge Is Power Arcane Discovery as soon as you can, for the boost to CMD and Combat Maneuvers -- and the way I read this, it should also work on spells that perform Combat Maneuvers, as well as ones you do physically.
(*)From the recently released Blood of the Sea according to www.d20pfsrd.com (but why would this also have Fire-associated Arcane Subschools? -- seems like this must be a mistake), or from the even more recently released Elemental Master's Handbook according to Archives of Nethys (this one is probably correct).
(**)If they fail their Reflex Saves, and this doesn't work in water, and quits working if they jump into water or get a large amount of water dumped on them.
(***)Elven Branched Spear is best, because it gives you +2 on Attacks of Opportunity, which combines with the +1 from Earth Supremacy to partially compensate for the fact that you are 1/2 BAB instead of 3/4 BAB -- actually, on your Attacks of Opportunity, you will be ahead of a 3/4 BAB character lacking Earth Supremacy and an Elven Branched Spear, and you are even with them at 11th through 14th level, and only start to fall behind at 15th level.

Coidzor |
Thematically speaking I'd like the wizard to be able to hold his own in combat. Yes I know it's not a great idea but it's a thematic choice.
The general term for making a caster who can fight good is "Gish," of which Magus is just one base class that allows you to start doing that from the getgo.
Given the nature of polymorph spells in Pathfinder, it's not really feasible to be a straight Wizard and become a melee beast. You can bring things which beat face on your behalf to the table, with things like (Lesser) Animate Dead, Carry Companion + Anthropomorphic Animal + footwork, (Lesser) Planar Binding, (Lesser) Geas, etc. I think there's some way for a straight Wizard to get a half-decent Mauler Familiar, too.
Your best bet to become a Gish is to sacrifice power for flavor by multiclassing and or otherwise qualifying for and then entering a prestige class such as the aforementioned Eldritch Knight.
You'll ultimately contribute more to your party's continued survival if you master the fundamentals of playing a controller, buffer, and/or debuffer Wizard with occasional dabbling in blasting, though.