Nature-Bonded Magus

[ForestDew]

Hi,
I saw the Nature-Bonded Magus in the Utimate Wilderness and I got rather interested in statting one. However, I came to notice the archetype swaps out the arcane pool for the familiar arcana. Problem is, there's so many arcanas that require the Magus' arcane pool.
I wondered if it was an oversight and/or it would be possible to replace the 3rd level arcana for the arcane pool.
(Other stuff the chaetype does: A free druid spell per spell level. Merging with the familiar and getting half the natural armor adjustment/replaces Spell Recall. Woodland Stride/replaces Knowledge Pool. When merged witht the familiar, gets a bonus of +4 in strength and contitution/replaces Improved Spell Recall.)

[Xenocrat]

There’s no rules support for that, it would be a house rule between you and your GM. The archetype is...not great as written.

[Dave Justus]

Just because an archetype replaces X with Y doesn't automatically imply that X and Y have equal value. The development team tries to balance out the whole archetype, not necessarily each trade, so X for Y might be a bad deal, but later you get A for B and C for D which are good deals.

So no, you can't just say 'arcane pool is equal to an arcana, so I'll take arcane pool instead of an arcana'.

Now of course, just because they try to balance an archetype doesn't mean they succeeded, and I agree with Xenocrat that this archetype is pretty bad.

If I was a GM houseruling a 'fix' I'd probably at least let you take a feat instead of an arcana, since so many don't apply. I don't think that would balance out the horribleness of this archetype, but it would at least give you a few more options. Best option is take a different archetype, or not at all.

[VarisianViscount]

I'd work around the issue by stacking it with Magic Warrior. This replaces the 3rd-level arcana (among other things) and gives you one more druid spell per spell level at 19th level. Spend the remaining arcana (6th, 9th, 12th, 15th, 18th) on spell blending (to grab wizard spells like false life, heroism and contingency) or disruptive and spellbreaker.

After grabbing flame blade from the druid list at 4th level, you don't really need staple arcana like arcane accuracy/accurate strike to hit and your swift action can be spent on Arcane Strike for some extra damage from the flame blade (which may or may not be doubled by Spell Perfection). At 19th level, grab barkskin for your 2nd-level spell and cast it on your familiar before merging for some extra AC (up to +3, if the familiar has an uneven natural armor bonus).

Also, it's another nature-flavored magus archetype, not to mention the possibility of Contingency!Cyclic Reincarnation, which ignores the 5,000 gp DF, being an arcane spell for the magus. And you'd still have room for another 6th-level druid spell.

Only problem is that without Knowledge Pool, you really have to look after your spellbook, hang around a Magaambyan Arcanist, or only pick druid spells that are also on the witch spell list, since you can't learn spells from a divine scroll, even if it is on your class list.