fanatic66 |
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Hey all, I posted a couple weeks ago about my experience trying the Magus out. My DM is running a conversion of the Ruins of Azlant adventure, and my party is level 3. He let me convert my dark elf wizard to a dark elf magus (slide). My character's load out is breastplate, magic longsword, Combat Assessment feat, 35ft speed, and Witch dedication (free archetype). For those that missed my last post, in the first session, my dark elven Magus did well, scoring a crit and hitting all my Striking Spell Attempts. Here's the rundown on how the last two sessions went since then:
2nd Session
There wasn't much combat that day with the party mostly RPing and exploring the island we are on. My character's high Int and knowledge of Azlanti lore/language became useful. Detect Magic is a wonderful cantrip. There were two combat encounters. The first ended before my turn. In the second encounter, my party fought the smoke monster from Lost, and my magus successfully Striking Spelled twice. No crits though.
3rd Session
This session opened with us in an old tower being ambushed by scrum. My magus did well again, with two successful Striking Spells (no misses so far!), including one of them being a crit! Produce Flame's persistent fire damage on a crit is really nice. Burn scum, burn!
Again, my Magus's magical and Azlanti knowledge came in use as we explored the lower level of the tower. We ran into some clockwork robots, and had a quick combat encounter. I only went once, but I flanked to crit on my Striking Spell with Produce Flame.
The last encounter of the night had us fighting a few more scum again. For the first time in 3 sessions, I hit with my sword but missed by cantrip for Striking Spell. Next turn though, I was able to get off my Produce Flame with another Strike, which killed the last scum.
Thoughts
I'm still enjoying my magus after 3 sessions. He does solid damage, with possible elemental damage being nice when monsters have weapon resistances. At this level, 3 spell slots is plenty, as I almost never use all my spells. I mostly rely on cantrips for Striking Spell. Being able to "cheat" the action economy by striding, striking, and casting a 2 action spell in 1 turn is really nice. No other gish can do that for 3 actions.
However, without Slide, the class wouldn't really work at low levels as a melee character IMO. Almost all my Striking Spells came from me using Slide to get into reach, often flanking too! If I went Sustaining Steel, I would have had way less Striking Spell attempts, which is sad considering its the class's unique feature. Once you get haste, Sustaining Steel makes more sense as you have an extra action to Stride.
Personally, I would give Striking Spell the ability to Step or Stride (half speed) as part of the base ability. The inclusion of new 1 action cantrips would also help.
Also, Magus Potency is frustrating. It was nice before I got a magic weapon, but now is useless. I would have preferred a more fun and useful focus spell. I haven't used Magus Potency in two sessions, so it feels like a waste of a core ability.
fanatic66 |
Do you have any backup weapons for dealing with physical resistances (bludgeoning, piercing, slashing)?
Well I'm using a longsword, so I have piercing and slashing covered, but I don't have a bludgeoning weapon currently. I have 7 prepared cantrips (2 from my Witch dedication), with 5 of them being combat related (produce flame, ray of frost, chill touch, electric arc, and shield). I'm hoping I have enough damage cantrip variety to combat most resistances.