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Shillelagh has its moments but only being able to target a nonmagical staff quickly becomes a dealbreaker.
At low levels you could just open up any combat by not moving towards the enemy, but casting Magic Weapon and using that to trigger Arcane Cascade. Let them come to you and give 'em the business.
And that just gets better when you get a Striking staff and Attack of Opportunity.
That said, I think magi are at their best as second row combatants. If there's no front row, then the Target or Iron (with reach and AoO) are probably better.
But in a group of six PCs with only two melee characters, you also need to do some expectation management: the backline needs to know that enemies will get past you often enough and that even when they don't, they'll occasionally need to step up and tank for a round if you're running low.
Pure clothie backliner is only going to work in a party with a really substantial frontline to hide behind.
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We are just kicking off Extinction Curse and we have relatively few front line characters - of our party of 6 we have only myself and a rogue in melee consistently. I wanted to play a Magus but am worried that as I will likely be taking the bulk of the damage that I will end up on the ground more often than not.
My thought was to go 18/10/14/14/12/10 and take Sentinel dedication at Level 2 along with either Sparkling Targe or Inexorable Iron (in which case I'd take Multitalented Witch at 9 for the additional spells to trigger Sustaining Steel.
What do people think, will this be enough to be soaking most of the damage or am I setting myself up to go down every combat as the Frontline anchor with a d8 HD?
6 players and only a Rogue and Magus on the frontline... Take a book for the game, you'll spend most of your time on the ground.
Rogues and Maguses are super squishy. On a 6 man-party, you will be overwhelmed nearly every fight.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What kind of healer support do you have? Helping a magus pretend to be a tank by dumping in heals isn't the most efficient thing in the world, but it's better than that Magus trying to do it without the heals.
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Yeah, that's a fragile party.
From experience on these boards, when I read someone talking about TPKs or how PF2's too hard, I predict it's for party builds that mirror yours. So far with complete accuracy; martial classes not built to tank attempt to tank. Tweaking a Magus, even with Sentinel or Bastion, will toughen you, but you'll still need a lot of support (which with this party will be quite taxing on the Oracle).
Being tank-less can be overcome with party tactics, mainly do not move forward! If anything, the party might want to backpedal a lot and set up ambushes where your ranged attacks force them to come to you at key junctures.
Also carry a spare shield.
Thanks for the thoughts (and book recommendations haha.) I like the idea of getting the core combo of Life Boost + Temp HP online ASAP. I'm planning on Human so can take Armor Proficiency at level 1.
The full party lineup is Oracle, throwing weapon Investigator, Gunslinger, and caster/buff-focused Bard (Plus me and Rogue.) So there's a fair amount of support and healing that we'll have access to.
My concept was a large-framed Fire Dancer/Fire Eater, who worshipped Yamatsumi the Tian-Min god of winter, mountains, and volcanoes, so Magus to ignite my weapons and spell support for things like Stoneskin/Enlarge seemed like a great fit.
Certainly other ways I could change it up a bit and be more traditionally tanky (Champion with Fire Domain, Fighter with Double Slice and Fire Poi, Monk with Mountain Stance) it but first trying to see if I can make Magus work :)
An Investigator and a Gunslinger are reasonably OK. Both can take shields if they want. They are quite good, or rather can be good in combat. The only real problem is if they refuse to hold when needed and let the Magus get surrounded. Ultimately they are of similar toughness to the Magus.
To me the problem is they + the Rogue might prefer to retrograde a bit, and that is a style that does not suit a Magus. I'd prefer a Monk over a Magus in this party.
I played an Inexorable Iron Magus with a polearm in a level 13 free archetype One-Shot and it is probably the tankiest character I ever played.
Had life boost from witch dedication, heavy armor from sentinel and Sustaining Steel. Early on you will be squishier but level 10 onwards the amount of self-sustain you can have is kind of stupid.
Without FA it would have been almost the same but with less low level spell slots to use with sustaining steel, so no big difference I think.
That said, with a Rogue as your only melee partner I would say a Champion is the ideal move. If Rogue goes down you will follow soon after.
Sustaining spell is not good enough to justify a lvl 10 feat, unfortunately ( with the basic witch dedication it would be 2/4/6 hp per basic spell slot, which is kinda low compared to what life boost does ).
I think you are severely understimating how valuable a heal that costs no actions and no additional resources is. Healing near 10% of your max HP for free when using your big guns is very impactful, specially when you are stacking it with regens and temp hp.
If you read my suggestion you can see I suggested 4x stoneskin.
Stoneskin is cast at the beginning of fight, followed by cascade, so no healing effect would be ever required.
By lvl 7 would be:
5/- physical DR
Fast healing 8
4 temp hp per round
1 shield block ( 10hardness ) per foghtIt's enough to survive.
Stoneskin blocking 2 attacks will already be better than sustaining steel ( regardless the level).
ps: in order to be even more tanky, you can forgo the versatile heritage to get the half orc one.
- Orc Superstition
- Pervasive Superstition ( +1 Circumstance vs all magical effects, which are spells, dragon's breaths, or anything with tag which involves magic )
- Spell Devourer allows you to get temp hp on a successful save against magic, which lasts until the beginning of your turn.
The temp HP are applied before the effect you made a safe for.For example:
- Enemy casts fireball
- You make a save
- You succeed
- You get temp hp = the creature level ( or the spell level x2 )
- You subtract those hp from any incoming damage from that effect ( if no damage or if some hp remains, they can be used as shield until the start of your turn as normal ).
You are completely ignoring the fact that having Stoneskin filling all your Magus slots means you don't have things like heightened Acid Arrow or Shocking Grasp. By being that defensive you are making combats take longer, which is everything but safe. I would much rather heal a bit while contributing a lot with reducing the threat of the encounter than being tankier on longer encounters at the expense of making those encounters harder for everyone else.
True Strike + Spellstrike using one of your top slots can consistently take enormous chunks of enemy hp, normally something worth 1, 2 or even 3 regular hits (and more on a crit). Downing an enemy faster is safer for everyone and coincidentally that goes really well with Sustaining Steel.
What you mentioned is a rare situation which would, eventually, involve extra help.
What is a rare situation? Needing to deal damage to an enemy?
TS + Spellstrike is super easy to set up if you are getting hasted or have some reach.
Being that defensive with a 6 players party is definitely ok ( with that setup, with 5 players, the magus wouldn't be able to stand a big guy on its own for more than 2 rounds, mostly because the low AC ), but I concede in a group of 4 players you might consider trading some stoneskin for other stuff.
Defensive buffs that only affect one player have diminishing returns the more players the party has. Stoneskin is impresive when you are 1 among 3 or 4 targets. If the enemy has 5 other targets to choose from, what's stopping them from completely ignoring you for a while, down your whole party and then gang up on you? Magus has not way to lock down opponents so what else can they do besides dealing quick with enemies so the encounter isn't a dangerous one anymore?
Stoneskin also has to be precasted to be useful, what do you do if the next encounter didn't excuse the use of an spell slot?
But in the end, it's up for what the player wants.
The TS asked for a tanky build, worried that them and the rogue couldn't have been able to withstand the frontline attacks.
And that's why I adviced them in the end to not go Magus at all with that composition in my first post. A Magus has no way of keeping enemies away from the rogue if they stay and their action economy and mobility doesn't allow for hit and run tactics.
Sustaining steel would result into 4/6/8 hp per cast (using hybrid study bonus slots ) for a true strike, twice per day.
And 10/12 hp from your actual Magus slots at level 11. You can proc it twice a turn. If you are going the witch route you can also have 1 extra spell due to your familiar and 3 slots from witch spellcasting. There you have 4 TS for your slots (There are also thingsl like Rings of Wizardry too).
Besides, I'm not saying that all your Magus spells slots should be Spellstrike ones, just that single target defense is not the move here.
Stoneskin also has to be precasted to be useful, what do you do if the next encounter didn't excuse the use of an spell slot?
Yes Stoneskin is useful, but its not that strong. You do want to be actually dealing damage if you can.
But in the end, it's up for what the player wants.
The TS asked for a tanky build, worried that them and the rogue couldn't have been able to withstand the frontline attacks.And that's why I adviced them in the end to not go Magus at all with that composition in my first post. A Magus has no way of keeping enemies away from the rogue if they stay and their action economy and mobility doesn't allow for hit and run tactics.
I'm really not understanding this desire for a character with d8 hit points to protect another character with d8 hit points and equivalent martial defences? The Rogue is as tough as the Magus or could be. ITs got a better ability score distribution for starters.
To protect other characters, the Magus has Attack of Opportunity. It is a defensive power, in that it slows enemies moving past you. Aside from the spells I think that is it for the Magus. They are a Striker class, just like the Gunslinger and the Rogue.Sustaining steel would result into 4/6/8 hp per cast (using hybrid study bonus slots ) for a true strike, twice per day.
Its something.
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I'm really not understanding this desire for a character with d8 hit points to protect another character with d8 hit points and equivalent martial defences? The Rogue is as tough as the Magus or could be. ITs got a better ability score distribution for starters.
To protect other characters, the Magus has Attack of Opportunity. It is a defensive power, in that it slows enemies moving past you. Aside from the spells I think that is it for the Magus. They are a Striker class, just like the Gunslinger and the Rogue.
What I'm trying to say is that 2 d8 hp characters frontlining for a party of 6 and one of them being a Magus is a recipe for disaster. If the Rogue goes hit and run, the Magus gets surrounded and dies. If not, the magus, even if it is tanky enough to take severe punishment, has no means to survive alone in the frontline and has no way to ensure the Rogue, which we are assuming is not going hit and Run for the sake of the Magus, is protected in any way. And no, a Rogue is not as tanky as an inexorable Iron Magus. If it was, for example, a Rogue and a melee Gunslinger I think it would work as they are way more mobile.
As someone said earlier, magus are second line frontliners. With certain builds they can tank a lot, but their tactics are extremely disruptable if they are left alone on their own (AoO, grabs, trips... anything remotably disruptive hurts the magus more than other martials). Rogues are skirmishers, they don't want to be near the frontline at the end of their turn if possible. Those 2 do not mesh well together if there isn't a third martial there that can just frontlane normally.
In regards to AoO, it is great to discourage enemies from going to the backlane, but it does a middling job at best at keeping enemies from stepping and attacking the other frontliners (if people are not going hit and run and are keeping their ground, players tend to be at different ends of an enemy even if they are stepping out of enemy reach at the end of their turn. PC-Enemy-PC is far more common than Enemy-PC with AoO-PC, which is the positioning that gets the most out of AoO).
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I'd run the party as if there weren't a frontline; no defender, no tank, no point or line demarcating one's party's territory from the enemy's. There's really nobody to depend on holding it, so tactics should address that.
With so many d8 PCs, this isn't as difficult as it sounds, and it's quite unfair to assume that one d8 PC with middlin' AC (and a little damage mitigation) has to bear the brunt for so many other d8 PCs with middlin' AC. That PC cannot. Spread out that damage while using the party's range & skirmish abilities to focus fire in return. Focused fire is a big advantage that this party has; don't make the mistake of attacking separate enemies. Anybody that the Magus Spellstrikes should be dead if only due to getting hit by everybody else too.
And get many PCs w/ Battlefield Medicine.
Party tactics can definitely counter an inidividual weakness.
As an exemple:
We currently run a four PC all elf party in a homebrew, party is:
Elf Dragon summoner
Elf Armor Inventor
Elf Earth Druid
Elf Occult Witch.
You'll notice that the highest HP in there is the summoner, which has an AC penalty until 5 because of strenght array.
Also since we're all elves the highest starting Con is 12.
We've countered those weaknesses by favoring ambushes and stealth striking, our party is almost always avoiding notice when we can. We try to use our superior magic and scouting (through familiar and high perception/survival druid) to know where our foes will be and ambush them from afar there, focusing on control effects such as grease, entangle, wall of thorns and such to make them have to get to us.
The Inventor and the summoner can both have a 45 ft. speed (speed overdrive and evolution surge) on themselves so the heavy hitters can do a lot of hit and run, going to a position, inflicting massive damage, and then withdrawing back to the healers for quick healing if there's an issue (like a lucky crit) while other NPC's have to spend 2 strides for each of ours.
It's been great fun, but when we get ambushed it gets bad real fast for us.
Now in a more standard scenario like EC, if you PLAN for it and work around it, your party can work. But you'll be fighting a lot of intelligent ennemies (namely xulgath) who won't really care that you're ''the frontline'' and will actually go around you for a backline.
SO I wouldn't worry about tankiness, I'd worry about having enough stopping power to punish them for every step, such as AoO and reach.
Sparkling Targe magus with champion dedication could also work but requires charisma which is... meh...