Customizable Magus

[Jedi Maester]

The default Magus from first edition was mix of fighter and wizard. In order to account for other combos, archetypes were required, like the Eldrtich Scion. This could be troublesome as archetypes were forced to play within the restrictions of the original class.

How would you design the new Magus to avoid this issue such that the class plays well with any spellcasting style now or future? What a about martial styles, like fighter or swashbuckler? Can the Magus be designed to handle any gish combo?

Or would it be better to have each combo be represented by a single class? Or use archetypes again?

[Salamileg]

I think it would be better to keep Magus at its core the classic wizard/fighter combo (with maybe a class archetype at some point to allow for Eldritch Scion) and let classes like Swashbuckler and Ranger get their gishy flair via Magus archetype.

[BACE]

Personally, I don't think there will be a satisfying solution for gishes outside of the upcoming Magus and what we currently have. There are just too many combinations. You can have Rogue/Bard. Rogue/Oracle. Rogue/Witch. Rogue/Wizard. Rogue/Sorcerer. And so on. And then repeat with each other martial class. It's just too much.

I think a generic "Magical Warrior" archetype that requires you to have, say, expert weapons and trained spellcasting would be the best overall solution. It could give you access to a number of Magus feats and features (through feats), and then we could call it a day. But hoping to get a hybrid class that gives you panache whenever you cast a hex seems like a bit much.

[cavernshark]

BACE wrote:

I think a generic "Magical Warrior" archetype that requires you to have, say, expert weapons and trained spellcasting would be the best overall solution. It could give you access to a number of Magus feats and features (through feats), and then we could call it a day. But hoping to get a hybrid class that gives you panache whenever you cast a hex seems like a bit much.

One would hope that the Magus Multiclass Archetype that will inevitably be created out of the play test would achieve this goal.