I have been creating stat blocks for several NPCs in Strength of Thousands because my PCs interact with them more frequently, often side by side in additional encounters, than the adventure path anticipated. And I have used archetypes associated with that adventure path or the Magaambya for additional flavor. For example, I gave Teacher Izem Mezitani (NG male aasimar human archaeologist 14) the Magaambyan Attendant archetype and its feat Rain-Scribe Mobility to aid in his jungle archaeology. I gave my playtest runesmith Virgil Tibbs the Nantambu Chime-Ringer Dedication, because he serves as a Chime-Ringer.
Now I am statting out another teacher, Noor Inayat Khan, and I am considering giving her the Magic Warrior archetype associated with the Magic Warriors who founded the Magaambya. She is not in the adventure path; rather, I added her because I needed a 10th-level Magical Trickster rogue teacher for a Magical Trickster rogue PC. And I named her after a British resistance agent in World War II because away from the Magaambya campus Noor Khan serves as a spy.
Magic Warrior archetype says, "You mix magic and martial prowess, following in the tradition of the Ten Magic Warriors of Old-Mage Jatembe." The archetype does not grant any martial training. It gives animal morphing focus spells, much like an Untamed Order druid's focus spells, that can complement a martial character's existing martial prowess. A spy who can turn into an animal sounds good. Noor Khan has not been wearing an animal mask constantly as required for Magic Warriors, but since she is an NPC I can fudge the details and make her a part-time Magic Warrior. And by applying Remastered rules, I override that Magic Warrior does not supply its own focus pool.
Yet Untamed Order druid's morphing abilities appear stronger. For example, Magical Warrior Transformation focus spell says, "You gain the effects of animal form, heightened to magic warrior transformation’s level, and you can transform into only the type of animal your mask represents." That limits the Magic Warrior to one shape and the animal form spell to 2nd rank. The druid's Untamed Form focus spell says, "Heightened (2nd) You can transform into shapes listed in animal form." That means many types of animals and the animal form spell heightens along with the focus spell. Both have duration 1 minute.
I figured on giving Noor Khan the Eldritch Trickster rogue racket for a few cantrips to use with Magical Trickster feat, so she could end up with Druid Multiclass archetype and become an Untamed Order druid just as easily as she could become a Magic Warrior. Magic Warrior has an advantage in regional flavor, but that seems its only advantage.
Does anyone have experience playing a Magic Warrior to give me advice on the archetype and its flavor?
I read the threads Meeting Magic Warrior Dedication Feat Pre-Requisites as a Barbarian at Level 2 and Good, bad, and ugly Lost Omens World Guide mechanical options. The latter thread dubs Magic Warrior "the worst of all regional archetypes."
The change in my avatar picture above is a glitch.
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The change in my avatar picture above is a glitch.
But an amusing one.
Well, on one hand I agree with your assessment that Magic Warrior isn't as powerful as a full Druid multiclass archetype. I'm not sure that it is supposed to be though.
It seems to be a mashup of a limited version of the Animal form shapeshifting from Druid and a touch of Vigilante.
A lot of flavor, but not a ton of power. But it isn't bad for only four feats in total.
It does give full Animal Form transformation for one animal shape. And a second option focus spell to partially transform. And it gives some protections from identity detection magic.
If you need more than that, such as cantrips, and you are fine with the loss in flavor, then you would do better with Druid archetype.
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I truly wonder if anyone has taken Magic Warrior stuff... it's just not very attractive, and doesn't really do anything to promote the lore behind it mechanically. A real dud for me.
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I would say the Magic Warrior archetype belongs to the early era of PF2 archetype design when they tended to really lowball them. It seems more like something to showcase an NPC faction, than as something to really use as a PC.
I looked at the PF1 Magic Warrior. It is a Magus archetype because in PF1 archetypes modify a specific class. A magus already has a mix of magic and martial prowess, so the archetype did not need to provide that. The archetype appears playable though possibly weaker than a regular magus.
The PF2 Magic Warrior appears to be a port to PF2 of the unique features of the PF1 Magic Warrior with no support to its magical warrior lore.
I have been diving into Paizo's Magaambya and Mwangi Expanse lore for my campaign. Paizo's view of the Mwangi Expanse changed between their earliest adventure set there and the release of Lost Omens The Mwangi Expanse and the Strength of Thousands adventure path. The GameMastery Module W2: River Into Darkness published in 2008 appears strongly based on Joseph Conrad's story Heart of Darkness, so it is written from the point of view of outsiders devlving into the mysterious Mwangi Expanse. The PF1 Magic Warrior was first published in Inner Sea Intrigue in 2016, when Paizo began to seriously consider the Mwangi Expanse's own culture. That was a time to showcase Mwangi traditions in bits and pieces, such as regional archetypes.
Lost Omens The Mwangi Expanse mentions Magic Warriors only as the Ten Magic Warriors, historic heroes who lived 8200 years ago. It does mention a Magaambya mask tradition on page 244, "One of the privileges of full Magaambya membership is the right to wear a Magaambyan mask, and few students are willing to pass up the prestige." Kindled Magic, the 1st module in [b]Strength of Thousands[/i] says, " Attendants [undergraduate students] receive a wooden mask (typically resembling an animal) that holds a fragment of the student’s spirit and reflects their spirit face." The students sometimes wear their masks, "A tall young woman wearing the simple wooden mask of an attendant waits in the middle of the clearing," (page 39). At a mask-making workshop, teacher Takulu Ot declares:
Today you will make your first true mask. Each student’s mask is an embodiment of their learning and a reminder of the idea that, over time, people gain other names and faces. Although a mask is worn over the face, it is a reflection of who a person is underneath as well as a visualization of who the person hopes to become. The person beneath a mask has flaws, as all people do, but they also have hopes, dreams, and memories that define them.
A wizard PC in my campaign took the Magaambyan Attendent archetype as his free archetype and gained the ability to animate his mask as his familiar. Thus, he tends to wear, or at least carry, his mask everywhere. Teacher Izem Mezitani, to whom I also gave the Magaambyan Attendent archetype, skipped the Mask Familiar feat, because the adventure path never mentioned Izem having a familiar.
Kindled Magic also provided 9 enchanted masks in its Adventure Toolbox article: Goz Mask, Herd Mask, Mask of the Cursed Eye, Mask of Mercy, Psychopomp Mask, Rhinoceros Mask, Shapespeak Mask, Skittering Mask, and Tlil Mask.
I feel that a masked Magic Warrior can represent the Magaambya and the Mwangi Expanse in distant regions, but once at home in the Magaambya a Magic Warrior would be treated as a historic cosplayer dressing up as one of the Ten Magic Warriors or as a Magaambya student obsessed over their school mask. My NPC Noor Khan had been in distant lands.
As if somebody had read a Mandalorian story, decided to make an archetype about it and stopped after a first brainstorming.
For an NPC, i would declare them a Magic Warrior and homebrew a proper archetype, not use this rule-fragment.
The Mandalorian TV series came out in 2019, after the PF1 Magic Warrior, though the Star Wars novels had developed the culture of the Mandalorians long before the TV show. The show, however, made a never-remove-the-mask requirement more popular. The older PF1 Magic Warrior says, "The Magic Warrior cannot ever reveal her name or remove her mask in front of anyone who she has never met before." The newer PF2 Magic Warrior says, "Once you take this feat, if another creature ever learns your true face or name, you lose your abilities from this archetype. Close allies who knew of your decision to take the mask before your dedication don't break this taboo unless they tell someone else." Both offer restoring the Magic Warrior status by rededicating to a new mask.
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It looks like there's been a pivot about the underlying meaning of the mask-wearing tradition.
The original intent (PF1, Magic Warrior) seemed to be about hiding your identity and generally protecting against divination. Because you're wearing a mask, it's harder for enemies to get at you with magic because it's hard to target "the real you". This is the mask as a tool of hiding your real identity.
Maybe this hearkens back to the very early time of the Magaambya where the Ten Magic Warriors banded together with Old-Mage Jatembe to take on some really big enemies, and they needed to basically go "masked superhero" mode to protect their families and own souls from being targeted.
The newer approach, as seen in the Character Guide and later, is that the mask is actually letting you more fully express an identity. You're showing off a piece of your soul, perhaps growing it beyond what ordinary people might do, and developing a more unusual/supernatural identity.
For a hero of the first type, having their true identity revealed would be bad, they'd be losing a layer of protection. For the second type of hero, not having their mask would also be bad but more because they'd be incomplete.
I suppose there's room for both approaches to still be valid. Maybe the original magic warriors had to hide their identities, but the school that was founded afterwards was powerful enough to not need that. Instead, they discovered that the use of masks, modeled on their founding heroes, also let them develop their identities beyond the ordinary.
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Anyway, I think both the Magic Warrior archetype and the Magaambyan archetype branches are on the one hand really dripping with flavor, but on the other hand the mechanics leave a lot to be desired. They don't really look like they were properly validated asking questions like "is this playable", or "is it okay to ask people to spend valuable feats for what you're getting here".
The penalties for having your identity revealed seem badly engineered as game mechanics. I mean, after you've been revealed, and you get a new mask, isn't gonna be really easy for people to deduce that this new magic warrior that appeared might just be the same person as the magic warrior that was unmasked a week ago?
Likewise, the Uzunjati storytelling feats barely seem to do anything.
I'm gearing up to run Strength of Thousands myself, I'm considering if I want to just rewrite a bunch of these mechanics with homebrew because this doesn't seem like they're doing justice to the flavor.
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The change in my avatar picture above is a glitch.
I think there are some certain keywords (I don't know/recall which ones) that cause people's pictures to change to smurfs.
I recall seeing this before and having it happen to myself.
Edit: Hey look at that, the picture for this post has been changed to a smurf.
I'll just throw my +1 on the pile.
Count me as someone who read the archetype, and quickly dismissed it as "too bad to consider."
Random spitball hombrew idea: it might be easier / better overall to give a greater number of Magic Warrior feats per class feat spend than it would be to try to homebrew rewrite the entire Archetype's content.
Something like, every 1 feat spent on Magic Warrior, get 3 feats, etc.
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Pre-post edit:
Wow, I did not remember it being *that* laughably bad. At four feats total, this is legitimately a case where it might not have been worth the page space to print it into existence.
If a PC has some form of special narrative moment to earn & unlock this Archetype, you could honestly give them the option to gain all 4 M.Warrior feats for the cost of a single class feat slot. (I'm not joking)
That could feel super cool, thematic, and *feel* like a big "power up" moment for a story reward, without it actually being anything remotely close to a balance-disruption, lol.
Yeah the +2FP can be a real boon, but it'll be genuinely hard to have the other mechanical perks actually affect any math, lol. That flavor is just waaay to niche to ever get invoked.
My SoT Alchemist PC has the Animal Feature focus spell (for 1A!) from Ranger, and I have not yet found a chance for any of the options to be combat-relevant, even the wings.
I've cast it twice for the wings, and then spent the rest of the combat without benefiting from them, lol.
Yeah, everything about the Archetype shouts "free" to me, and even then its drawbacks are significant. I can't imagine building around it; even if I were roleplaying an actual Magic Warrior I'd take a different route to similar powers.
"Ha, ha, I've got your mask!"
"Oh no, not the briar--my mask!"
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It looks like there's been a pivot about the underlying meaning of the mask-wearing tradition.
Reading through the old Mwangi Expanse materials to supplement my Strength of Thousands campaign has been interesting. The entire Mwangi Expanse, originally named the Mwangi Jungle, has been pivoting.
Old-Mage Jatembe and his Ten Magic Warriors were first described in Pathfinder Chronicles: Heart of the Jungle in 2010.
Old-Mage Jatembe and the Ten Magic Warriors
Apart from the legends that circulate among virtually all of the Mwangi peoples, very little tangible evidence remains to inform modern sages of the identity and origins of Old-Mage Jatembe. Functioning for the Zenj tribes almost as an analog of Aroden or Azghaad, the first Osirian Pharaoh, in oral tradition he appeared during the Age of Anguish, when the fall of the Starstone obliterated the great Mwangi progenitor civilization and effectively reset humanity’s level of culture back to zero. Jatembe and his 10 disciples brought or reclaimed the trappings of culture and learning in the aftermath of systemic cultural collapse. All but Jatembe eschewed even a name and are now known only by their golden masks shaped to resemble fantastic creatures of the jungle interior.Legends say that Jatembe learned secrets whispered by the severed head of Ydersius before sewing shut its lips once more, slew the King of Biting Ants and sealed away the ruins of the Doorway to the Red Star, and communed with angels and demons alike as an equal, using any means available to ensure the safety and survival of his people. And yet, the legends provide little detail on Jatembe’s fate. He commanded his Warriors to remain behind and ensure the safety of their people, serving as protectors and advisors but never kings, and to watch and teach the children of man until he returned. Then he vanished from history. The legends end there, and no known tomb exists for either him or his Warriors, though artifacts linked to them remain as holy relics in Nantambu, Mzali, and Osibu. Some sages speculate that Jatembe retreated to the planes or may even have been the mortal incarnation of Nethys, but so far his departure, like his origin, remains a mystery.
Heart of the Jungle introduced the Mwangi Jungle as a jungle setting modeled after European tales of African exploration. The blurb on the back even says, "Heart of the Jungle is the perfect supplement for any jungle campaign." Yet over the years, the Mwangi Expanse evolved from a place to go for adventure, to a place where adventurers could come from, then to a place where characters could live and experience their entire campaign. The Magic Warrior from Lost Omens World Guide (August 2019) and Magaambyan Attendant and Halcyon Speaker from Lost Omens Character Guide (October 2019) fall into that "place where adventurers could come from" period. The Magaambyan Attendent archetype was good enough that one of my players chose it as the free archetype for Strength of Thousands, with plans to switch over to Halcyon Speaker later.
Anyway, I think both the Magic Warrior archetype and the Magaambyan archetype branches are on the one hand really dripping with flavor, but on the other hand the mechanics leave a lot to be desired. They don't really look like they were properly validated asking questions like "is this playable", or "is it okay to ask people to spend valuable feats for what you're getting here".
The penalties for having your identity revealed seem badly engineered as game mechanics. I mean, after you've been revealed, and you get a new mask, isn't gonna be really easy for people to deduce that this new magic warrior that appeared might just be the same person as the magic warrior that was unmasked a week ago?
I want to restore that particular flavor to my campaign, so I am figuring out how to give those archetypes to NPCs.
Lost Omens Character Guide, published two months before the Magic Warrior archetype in Lost Omens World Guide, does not say that the Magic Warriors had to always where their masks. Instead, it says, "Others, such as the Magaambya’s magic warriors, subsume their whole identity into the mask, disguising every other aspect of themselves." I am going to have to remove always wearing the mask to make Noor Khan playable.
I'm gearing up to run Strength of Thousands myself, I'm considering if I want to just rewrite a bunch of these mechanics with homebrew because this doesn't seem like they're doing justice to the flavor.
Strength of Thousands never mentions the Magaambyan Attendent, Halcyon Speaker, and Magic Warrior archetypes. Instead, it provides two new archetypes in the 2nd module, Spoken on the Song Wind, Folklorist and Nantambu Chime-Ringer. Those archetypes relate more to the city of Nantambu than to the Magaambya Academy.
Reading other accounts of Strength of Thousands in these forums, I see that the adventure path has enormous table variance created by a basic dissonance btween how Pathfinder adventurers typically act and how students typically act. The first two modules of Strength of Thousands take place at the Magambya Academy and its encircling city of Nantambu, totally civilized areas. Unfortunately, this is a school-based story rather than a typically urban adventure.
Instead, writers found a clever compromise between being adventurers and being students. The Magaambya regularly assigns service projects to its students to teach them the value of service. These service projects are problem-solving puzzles or adventuring missions. Thus, the PCs have adventures, some with combat. Alas, the adventures are disconnected (execpt that clues to the overarching full-module plot link separate projects) and not the PCs's choice.
Some GMs treat this structure as the PCs are freelance adventurers who are running these adventures while incidentally enrolled in the academy. I myself treat this structure as the PCs are full-time students with a part-time job that provides adventures. The two styles and a spectrum of styles between them each have a different feel.
Five of my seven players told me that they want to roleplay as students, the sixth player wants her character to be a researcher, and the seventh player created an Ekujae elf starlit-span magus who is a adventurer who goes along with the class schedule. Thus, I invented classes for them to attend, with class trips based on old Mwangi Expanse Pathfinder Society scenarios for additional adventures. However, seeing themselves as students responsible to the Magaambya led to a derailment. The PCs where suppose to investigate an on-campus mystery on their own initiative, but they hesitated to destroy school property. Instead, they fetched a teacher for advice: Common Sense Versus The Plot.
My class field trips also mean extra work, because working side by side with the teachers means that I have to create stat blocks for the teachers, such as Noor Khan. Only Takulu Ot and Mafika Ayuwari already have stat blocks.
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I recall the Smurf stuff to be a thing the original coder of the forums put in for fun. I believe they keep it in as a reminder of them after they passed and incentive to keep their tradition of being playful and a bit silly while bringing the community together.
As for the archetype, it basically doesn't do anything you'd want to really live the fantasy it's trying to sell. Would be nice for all the maagambyan ATs to get some love to be more useful as well as better fulfil their intention. This also applies to a lot of "just flavor" ATs.
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Completely off topic...
Smurf it!
Heh. hehe. heheheheee.
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The change in my avatar picture above is a glitch.
It was this sentence.
Yet Untamed Order druid's morphing abilities appear stronger.
"Smorph" is one of the phonetically similar misspellings of "Smurf" that still triggers the Smurf Easter egg.
See my posts below for some examples. :)
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Smorph
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Smorf
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Smerph
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Smerf
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Smirph
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Smirf
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Smarph
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Smarf
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Smurph
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I have a 5th level PFS wizard with the magic warrior archetype. I chose it because I like the narrative of it, but I am fine with the mechanical benefits.
Getting a recall knowledge skill boosted to expert at level 2 is pretty decent for an archetype. The +1 vs divination needs a bit of tweaking post remaster.
At level 4 I took Magic warrior aspect. 5 minutes with scent, low light vision on a human and 50 land speed is actually pretty good for a focus spell, especially since you can keep casting/are not polymorphed into a battle form.
For this PFS character, I won’t take any other archetype feats so being stuck in Magic Warrior won’t be a big deal. In a campaign where I knew the GM was into playing smart enemy casters, I would happily take nameless anonymity, but in society it isn’t worth it. A free top rank spell every day isn’t a terrible class feat, especially one that lasts 8 hours and makes your invisibility spells much stronger. It heightens all the way to 10th rank.
I get the hate. I think it could use a remaster touch up, but it doesn’t need a lot more umph to it, nor a bunch more feats.
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...Lost Omens Character Guide, published two months before the Magic Warrior archetype in Lost Omens World Guide, does not say that the Magic Warriors had to always where their masks. Instead, it says, "Others, such as the Magaambya’s magic warriors, subsume their whole identity into the mask, disguising every other aspect of themselves." I am going to have to remove always wearing the mask to make Noor Khan playable.
Technically, I don't see the requirement that they must always wear their mask anywhere in the World Guide, either.
What it says is
Once you take this feat, if another creature ever learns your true face or name, you lose your abilities from this archetype.
So you could take the mask off if you are alone, and should be able to take it off around other people so long as doing so wouldn't reveal your "true face."
Revealing a "false face" doesn't seem to be an issue here so wearing a really, really good disguise under your mask or being under an illusion spell or polymorph spell that prevents people from seeing your "true face" might be considered sufficient to avoid the problem.
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Also, people who were already aware of your true face don't count.
So presumably your adventuring allies who have seen you before you took the mask are presumably still allowed to see your face.
Also, with downtime you can retrain to a different mask (technically retraining the archetype to the same archetype with a different animal).
There probably should have been some ability for characters to "add people to their circle of trust" but that could have taken a lot of words/page space to implement.
As a player ability, probably would have been better to not have the restriction at all or to say something like "if an enemy ever becomes aware of your true face and masked persona you lose your abilities".
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My current thoughts on the need for a Magic Warrior to always wear the mask are expressed below in my homebrew revision of the Magic Warrior Dedication.
Magic Warrior Dedication Feat 2
Archetype, Dedication
Based on Magic Warrior Dedication, Lost Omens World Guide pg. 95, and Vigilante Dedication, Player Core 2 pg. 218
Archetype Magic Warrior
Prerequisites Wisdom +2
Access You are from the Mwangi Expanse or attended the Magaambya Academy
You have donned a magical animal mask and learned the way of the magic warriors. You become trained in Crafting and Magic Warrior Lore; if you were already trained in Crafting, you train in another skill instead.
You hide your identity behind a mask representing an animal of your choice, corresponding to one of the general animal types in the animal form spell. Anyone who sees you or scries you does not recognize your masked and unmasked appearances as the same person, despite physical resemblance, unless they know both your masked and unmasked identities or succeed at a Seek action against DC equal to 20 plus your Crafting bonus. Donning or undonning your mask, which takes an Interact action, in sight of a person reveals both identities. A magic warrior can eat and drink while masked.
You have only one magic warrior mask unless a feat grants you another mask. If your mask is lost or destroyed, you can craft a replacement with the same appearance in one day of downtime.
You can cast spells on the primal spell list. You gain the Cast a Spell activity. You can prepare two common cantrips each day from the primal spell list or any other primal cantrips you learn or discover. You must wear your mask while preparing spells. You’re trained in the spell attack modifier and spell DC statistics, but you take a -1 penalty to them whenever you cast magic warrior spells unmasked. Your key spellcasting attribute for magic warrior archetype spells is Wisdom.
If you gain focus spells from magic warrior feats, your Refocus activity is wearing your magic warrior mask. Polymorphing while wearing your mask counts as continuing to wear the mask. You can extend the duration of a magic warrior focus spell as a free action by spending a focus point. If the duration of a magic warrior focus spell is 10 minutes or longer, you can maintain it indefinitely through continual refocusing.
Special You cannot select another dedication feat until you have gained two other feats from the magic warrior archetype.
I envisioned the Magic Warrior as an entire character class that grants primal spells and transformation-based focus spells. I figured out what it would need and what would carry over to a multiclass archetype.
The incentives for wearing the mask almost all day are:
(1) Need to wear the mask for daily spell preparation.
(2) -1 penalty for casting without the mask.
(3) Removing the mask could reveal your potential secret identity.
A typical adventurer would simply keep the mask on. A historic figure such as one of the Ten Magic Warriors might have spent significant downtime without their mask, but history would not record it because no-one recognized the magic warrior.
The last paragraph about extending duration of focus spells is because the short duration of polymorph spells in PF2 prevents a lot of fun for traveling or spying in animal form. Magic Warrior would be the class for long-lasting transformations.
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More recent archetypes tend to pick a couple of feats from existing classes to fill out their offering, often at a bit higher level than directly through the class, but faster than the half-level speed that you'd get through the class archetype.
With that in mind, here's a _very rough_ stab I took at modernising the magic warrior:
MAGIC WARRIOR DEDICATION (Uncommon)
Prerequisite: ?
Access: You are from the Mwangi expanse
You follow in the footsteps of the legendary Ten Magic Warriors who aided Old-Mage Jatembe. You have taken up an animal mask to shield your mundane identity, so that you may fearlessly oppose abominable enemies. While for many Magaambyan mages the mask is about projecting your soul more fully, for you the mask servers as a cloak and a protection.
You gain an animal mask representing an animal of your choice, corresponding to one of the general animal types in the animal form spell. Donning the mask or removing it takes an Interact action.
While wearing the mask, you assume an alternate identity. This alternate identity is just as true as your unmasked identity, and is separate. Checks to Recall Knowledge about one of your identities don't reveal information about the other unless the person attempting the check knows both identities are the same person. Effects that detect you based on your identity work only if you are currently presenting the identity the effect is trying to detect; otherwise, the effect fails as if the target didn't exist. This also appplies to long-distance magic that targets you based on identity rather than via sight.
MAGIC WARRIOR ASPECT
(As written)
MAGIC WARRIOR TRANSFORMATION
(As written, plus some accomodation for keeping the animal form stats relevant at higher level, without necessarily having to go for huge dinosaur sizes.)
ADVANCED TRANSFORMATION
You can remain in the form granted by Magic Warrior Transformation for as long as you want. You can decide not to increase in size beyond medium if the form would normally increase beyond medium size. Your reach is affected by this appropriately, but you get the other stats based on the rank of the spell and what you transform into.
FIERCE TRANSFORMATION
(Scale up the Animal Form stats to higher levels, instead of having to migrate to Dinosaur Form shapes.)
LEGEND OF THE MASK
While wearing the mask, you are affected by a Veil of Privacy heightened to half your level rounded up. Onlookers don't normally notice you're actually a masked person. Unless they Seek to specifically inspect you and beat your Deception DC they don't realize you're wearing a mask. If you take a hostile action, onlookers realize you're wearing a mask, but the Veil of Privacy remains in effect.
MASK THE MIND
While wearing your mask you gain a +1 saving throw against mental effects. You gain resistance to mental damage equal to half your level. You treat a success on a save against any effect that would make you controlled as a critical success.
HUNTING MALEFACTORS
During your daily preparations, you choose a magical tradition to struggle against.
You gain an imprecise sense with a range of 30 feet that sniffs out that tradition: you detect things and creatures affected by magic of that tradition, items and ongoing spell effects of that tradition, and creatures that can cast spells of that tradition. (You don't automatically know which of these categories a given creature belongs to. You simply smell the type of magic on them.)
Using recognize spell to identify effects of that tradition is always a free action for you. Casting a spell of that tradition also triggers your reactive strike if it has a concentrate trait.
ADDITIONAL FEATS
recognize spell
magical sense
Trackless (ranger feature)
10 Hazard Finder (ranger)
4 Intimidating Strike (fighter)
6 Reactive Striker (fighter)
10 Blind Fight (fighter)
feats based on the specific Magic Warriors
4 Scroll Thaumaturgy (thaumaturge)
4 Talisman Esoterica (thaumaturge)
8 Scroll Esoterica (thaumaturge)
4 Animal Empathy (druid)
4 Poison Resistance (druid)
Feat to prepare defenses against a specific magical tradition
Sniffing out casters of a particular tradition
I mentioned my Magic Warrior difficulty in the thread Multiclass dedication feats could be improved in a number of ways, and some people had suggestions. I hope to move the discussion back to this thread.
For example, Loreguard said,
Here is a thought for your issue with Magic Warrior
Magic Warrior Dedication 2
Prerequisites ability to cast focus spells
+ Trained in Magic Warrior Lore; Arcana or Nature
Access You are from the Mwangi Expanse.Grants:
Magic Warrior Lore becomes Expert (this is really very minor boost for flavor, and should be negligible power cost)Pick your mask and associated creature.
Gain basic Spellcasting abilities, including Add one Variant Cantrip from the choice below:
Tame (variant is instead of being limited to any domesticated creatures is limited to creatures of the type selected by the mask)
Gouging Claw (variant causes damage is per spell save the damage type is per the primary damage of the animal aspect chosen)The Cantrip take the Tradition of your focus spellcasting from your prerequisite.
Not sure how one would translate the Divination bonus. Maybe an ability like:
Reaction
Trigger: a spell or magic ability is invoked that would reveal your location, name or information about your abilities.
Effect: Apply a +1 status bonus to the DC required for the spell, or +1 to any save to prevent its success.
Let me talk about the prerequisites, because that was a topic under discussion in the other thread. The proposal was that Multiclass Archetypes should have skills are prerequisites rather than attributes as prerequisites. If an archetype needs a skill, instead of training in the skill, it could require the skill as a prerequisite.
The PF2 Magic Warrior archetype as written before the Remaster is terrible about focus pools. It wants the Magic Warrior to gain its focus points to power its Magic Warriro focus spells from its base class. And some classes, such as Monk and Ranger, gain their focus points from class feats, which leaves fewer feats for archetype feats. Other classes never gain focus spells.
Fortunately, the Remaster fixed that problem. It simplified the focus pool so that each focus spell learned increases the size of the focus pool, up to a maximum of 3 focus points. Thus, the two focus spells that the Magic Warrior archetype gives, magic warrior aspect and magic warrior transformation now provide their own focus points. We no longer need the prerequisite, "ability to cast focus spells." Starting with a focus pool from the base class would be handy, but no longer necessary.
The new prerequisite of "Trained in Arcana or Nature" is fine. The Magic Warrior has expressed a pre-existing inclination toward arcane or primal magic.
The new prerequisite of Magic Warrior Lore and the granted ability of expert proficiency in Magic Warrior Lore is sad. The pre-existing inclination expressed by Magic Warrior Lore feels like a narrow childhood dream, "I want to be a Magic Warrior like grandpa." Unfortunately, the setting in Strength of Thousands does not support that dream, because no NPCs are Magic Warriors. More importantly, Magic Warrior Lore has no practical uses; instead, it was so that the character can recite the illustrious history of the Ten Magic Warriors for flavor. Expert proficiency adds nothing useful, either. Having a useless lore as a prerequisite is a skill tax.
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I'm wondering if one way to handle the Magic Warrior Archetype would be to have the dedication give the character the ability to make a special magic item (irrespective of crafting proficiency, etc) that would cost about half the cost of a spell heart, and would 'grant' certain abilities/activation. (cantrip and once per day spell perhaps) They have to invest the item, and they stick to the anathema/edicts about secrecy of identity, and it loses magic and would have to be re-crafted.
So the archetype might have room for a bit more power than an average archetype, because it has a GP and Investment cost to it that many archetypes wouldn't (in addition to the edict/anathema aspects)
I also wonder does the anathema of not taking off the mask count if you aren't in your Adventurer/Hero garb and around people you don't know so no-one would associate 'you' with the 'masked one'. Can you not wear your mask when you are wearing a disguise? (it seems really hard to 'successfully' disguise yourself as a random peasant wearing a big wooden animal mask in most cases, for instance) Or was it supposed to be more like the extremist interpretation of the Mandalorian never take your mask off in front of someone.
I am now remembering a thought I had for a suggestion for a benefit for wearing the mask.
While wearing the mask all recall knowledge checks are made as though you are at least Uncommon (like the mask archetype). Additionally the first item of knowledge gotten from any check may only be generic level, saves, or an ability from the Magic Warrior Archetype. Other abilities from their main class or identity are only possible to gather via critical success.
Would be a potential angle you could take.
Ascalaphus' suggestion is pleasantly reminiscent of the Vigilante. A complicated class, but was really cool concept. I'm wondering if the masks of the Magic Warrior was supposed to be similar to it. I wasn't aware of it when it came out.
I'm wondering if one way to handle the Magic Warrior Archetype would be to have the dedication give the character the ability to make a special magic item (irrespective of crafting proficiency, etc) that would cost about half the cost of a spell heart, and would 'grant' certain abilities/activation. (cantrip and once per day spell perhaps) They have to invest the item, and they stick to the anathema/edicts about secrecy of identity, and it loses magic and would have to be re-crafted.
So the archetype might have room for a bit more power than an average archetype, because it has a GP and Investment cost to it that many archetypes wouldn't (in addition to the edict/anathema aspects)
I also wonder does the anathema of not taking off the mask count if you aren't in your Adventurer/Hero garb and around people you don't know so no-one would associate 'you' with the 'masked one'. Can you not wear your mask when you are wearing a disguise? (it seems really hard to 'successfully' disguise yourself as a random peasant wearing a big wooden animal mask in most cases, for instance) Or was it supposed to be more like the extremist interpretation of the Mandalorian never take your mask off in front of someone.
I think these are great ideas because they are what I have been planning, except that I am going to greatly diminish the importance of wearing the mask all the time. The magic item will be the mask itself, which can have extra magical powers added to it.
I have a very strong habit if analyzing game balance to an extreme. I played in a few PF1 campaigns and ran three, so I am familiar with PF1 class archetypes. Each archetype features either substitutes for a class feature or delays a class feature. For example, the PF1 Magic Warrior’s Aspect says, "This ability replaces the magus arcana gained at 3rd level."
The exceptions are archetype features that are very weak or that balance an ability with a liability. The 1st feature of the PF1 Magic Warrior archetype for magus does not swap out an ability:
Nameless Mask (Ex): A Magic Warrior gains strength by hiding her identity behind a mask that represents an animal, but also suffers drawbacks from doing so. While wearing her mask, a Magic Warrior gains a +2 bonus on saving throws against divinations in the scrying subschool. However, NPCs who are unfamiliar with or have a poor opinion of the Magic Warrior tradition have a starting attitude of unfriendly toward the Magic Warrior while she wears her mask. If using the influence system (Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Intrigue 102), she requires one additional success to increase her influence level over such an NPC.
The Magic Warrior cannot ever reveal her name or remove her mask in front of anyone who she has never met before. If she violates this important taboo, she must discard her mask and create or obtain a new mask and wear it before she can gain any benefits that result from wearing her mask.
Thus, the PF1 Magic Warrior balances the +2 bonus against divination against the awkwardness of having to wear the mask all the time and have strangers suspicious about that masked adventurer, rather than swapping some 1st-level feature for the bonus. Ironically, that potential suspicion would not be a disadvantage in the 1st two modules of Strength of Thousands, because everyone is familiar with the Magic Warrior tradition.
In contrast, a PF2 archetype dedication costs a class feat, so it does not need a balancing liability.
And for my roleplaying needs, I need the teacher to be able to remove her mask rather than always flaunting that she is a Magic Warrior. She was seen without a mask before I had the idea of her taking the Magic Warrior archetype. But she also is an Emerald Boughs spy, so having a secret identity under the mask makes sense. Noor Khan needs the ability to walk as herself without a mask, wear her Magaambyan mask as herself for ceremonial purposes at the Magaambya, and slip into a secret identity as the masked Swimming Dog for secret agent missions (her mask is represents a damibwa, also called diving dog). Magic Warrior is going to be a lot like a Vigilante that way.
Here is a scene involving Noor Khan that I wrote up for an absent player. Noor was teaching a class called, "Contraceptive Magic and Other Health Concerns."
The Transformer's Lecture
Teacher Noor Khan stood in front of the lecture all, her belly protruding in her seventh month of pregnancy. "We have talked about elixirs, spells, amulets, and bracelets that pregnancy," she began, "but now we cover a more difficult subject: abortion.
"Sometimes contraceptive magic fails. Sometimes in the heat of the moment, people forget to use it. Sometimes a woman was raped. And sometimes a pregnancy goes wrong and has to be ended." She put her hand on her belly, "Don't worry. I am doing fine. This is just a lecture."
She reached into her bag and pulled out jars of herbs borrowed from the Magaambya's supplies. "Pennyroyal is a classic abortifact herb. And Satureja hortensis. Black cohosh and blue cohosh are related and both have the same effect. Rue, also called Ruta graveolens, is a tricky one. It has other medicinal uses, so the herbalist has to ask the patient whether she is pregnant before using rue for treating those ailments.
"Only a trained herbalist should end a pregnancy with unprocessed herbs. Improper dosages can lead to an incomplete abortion in which some fetal material remains within the womb. The symptoms of incomplete abortion are pain, cramps, excessive bleeding lasting more than a few days, high fever, or dizziness. Other possible complications are heavy bleeding and infection.
"Fortunately, the Elixir of Wound Closing, an alchemical elixir that stops bleeding will work on both incomplete abortion and heavy bleeding. It is also known as Elixir of Abortion, because by itself it can also abort a pregnancy. This is why the Elixir of Wound Closing is not commonly sold in shops, because of that side effect, and is replaced by the safer alchemical Blood Booster.
Noor reached into her bag and pulled out a handful of notes. After reviewing them quickly, she apologized, "Abortion has a religious aspect to it that is beyond my expertise, so I took notes. Unborn babies develop souls. This is fairly recent research from the last two centuries because our study of familiars, independent leshies, and awakened animals gave us a greater understanding of spirits. The baby's soul binds with the mother's soul to protect it. Extending this natural binding ability of souls allows us to bind with familiars, so studying familiars helped us understand the mother-fetus bond."
She stuffed her notes back into her bag and pulled a flexible, folded mask out of her belt pouch. As she pulled it over her head, the traditional styling of a Magaambya mask became evident. It represented a dog with unusually large ears. With the mask over her face she spoke, "This connection means that spells that affect the mother also adapt to affect the fetus in the most protective way." She performed magical gestures and transformed into a burly dog with large ears and a long wide tail more like a crocodile's tail than a dog's tail. This creature was also visibly gravid with its belly hanging low.
"Snabble!" the student Anchor Root declared.
"Snabble?" the dog-like creature asked. "Ah, Noxolo's pet damibwa. Yes, I transformed into a damibwa, a diving dog. And my unborn baby transformed into a damibwa fetus, so I remain pregnant."
"Damibwas talk?" student Menolly asked.
"No, my Magaambya mask is enchanted as a Shapespeak Mask, so that I can speak while in animal form. And I am going to stay transformed for the full ten minutes for the spell, because my back does not hurt in this form."
Student Idris glanced up from his note-taking. "The Animal Form spells lasts only one minute. Which spell did you use?"
The damibwas Noor paced as she answered, "Mask Transformation. It is an uncommon focus spell related to unusual tricks we can pull with our Magaambya masks, like your mask familiar. Let's save that discussion until after class." Noor stopped pacing to face the class.
"Transformations would not always safe for pregnancy, but the soul connection blocks the danger to the fetus. I could not transform into an ooze, because an ooze cannot be pregnant. I cannot transform into a male human, because a male cannot be pregnant, either."
"A woman can transform into a man?" student Laurie asked. "I thought that transformations kept the same sex."
"A transformation spell usually just alters the species and the other traits fall adjust into the corresponding roles on the new species," Noor declared. "But some disguise-level transformations that allow choosing features, such as Infiltrator's Elixir, can alter details such as sex." Noor paused, looking as thoughtful as a dog can manage. "However, Infiltrator's Elixir is designed to change appearance rather than nature, so it might hide the womb instead of transforming it. I have tried it, and it feels like a merely cosmetic transformation, despite creating a penis.
"On the other hand," Noor sighed and dismissed her transformation. She returned to human form and removed her mask, "Mask Transformation is powerful enough to truly change a person's sex. I have altered my mask to masculine human features and transformed into a man for missions too secret to tell.
"Also, Elixir of Gender Transformation is deliberately designed to alter sex. It is a very slow transformation over several months. Ordinarily a slow transformation would be terribly awkward, such as having hips to walk on four legs before the legs themselves transform. But sexual differences are fairly small and the intermediate forms would not be too bothersome. A woman can change into a man with Elixir of Gender Transformation and even sire children as a male.
"Back to discussing pregnancy, beyond male and female differences. There is one dangerous transformation that pregnancy does not prevent. I must avoid transforming into a egg-laying species, such as a tengu. If I do, I will lay an egg containing my fetus. When the transformation end, the fetus loses the eggshell and is born, or hatched, prematurely. I heard that the mother hugging the egg closely as the transformation ends can restore the original pregnancy, but I am not willing to test that.
"That's all for the overview. For those students who can brew alchemical elixirs, we will gather again in the alchemical lab to cover the formula for Potion of Wound Closing. The rest of the class is free to go. I will need a volunteer. I might be sensitive to the fumes released in the demonstration, so I have a scroll of Cleanse Air to remove the fumes. Is anyone willing to activate the scroll for me at the right time, so that I do not have to interrupt the demonstration?"
Potion of Wound Closing Item 3
Uncommon, Alchemical, Consumable, Elixir
Based on Misoprostol
Price 9 gp
Usage held in 1 hand; Bulk L
Activate [one-action] (manipulate)
This elixir contracts tissue to close off bleeding. When you drink this elixir, it stops persistent bleed damage and you are clumsy 1 for 1 round. Warning: it will induce miscarriage or premature birth in pregnant women.
I should have finished altering the Magic Warrior archetype before roleplaying that scene, but I was busy with other projects.
Strength of Thousands never mentions the Magaambyan Attendent, Halcyon Speaker, and Magic Warrior archetypes.Running Strength of Thousands, I should note the first two are very much untrue - SoT doesn't just mention them, they give them as free feats via the academic system! Assuming you're using the FA Druid/Wizard concept, I'd say you can take feats from those two archetypes as FA feats (once you reach the appropriate level) but even if that's not the case, getting the feats for free isn't nothing.
Ah, I had dropped the Life in the Academy system, so I had forgotten that it offered Magaambyan Attendent Dedication at the 3rd step on the Branch Benefits by Level ladder and some other Magaambyan Attendent feats later.
I don't see the Halcyon Speaker archetype there, though the last step in the ladder mentions halcyon spells. However, the teacher Mafika Ayuwari is a halcyon speaker in his stat block. On the other hand, that stat block is from his appearance in Fists of the Ruby Phoenix adventure path rather than Strength of Thousands adventure path.
I am using free archetype in my campaign, but I let my players take other magical archetypes besides druid or wizard. The two bards both archetyped to druid, the kineticist archetyped to wizard, the champion archetyped to magus, the wizard Idris archetyped to Magaambyan Attendent (which is why he has a mask familiar), the magus archetyped to Dragon Disciple, and the rogue with Eldritch Trickster (Sorcerer) racket archetyped to Gelid Shard to run two archetypes.
Yeah, the archetype is pretty smurfing awful. Just to break down all of its issues:
This archetype could easily use a total redo, in my opinion, and here's how I'd go about it:
And with that, you'd already have an archetype that would start to accomplish its intended function a lot better.
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Despite being the archetype you pick to pick up the legacy of the Ten Magic Warriors, the archetype doesn't actually let you access the feats that give you the mask powers of those warriors.In fairness, those feats came out considerably later than the Magic Warrior archetype did; Magic Warrior was from World Guide, while those feats are from the final volume of Strength of Thousands.
That being said ... I'm legitimately surprised this archetype was never touched again, or redone. We got both a book about the Mwangi Expanse, and an old school six volume AP set there; it feels weird that we never see the archetype touched up or changed.
I think Magaambyan Attendant/Halycon Speaker is considered the 'signature' Magaambyan dedication, so I would hold out more hope for masks with powers being folded into the mask familiar line than Magic Warrior ever becoming halfway workable.
... also, SoT gives you the one set of masks then drops it forever. None of the teachers or students wear masks, the masks don't have improved forms... my players have masks in their inventory that exist because they're L bulk and so keep forgetting to get rid of them.
That's a good point. I'm gonna put some work into making them more significant. Maybe something like:
- Swap one of the free feats from the "study" feats into "you now gain a unique power based on your specific mask, within reason for the level of this feat"- Make using masks part of expressing your spirit-face a part of all rituals
Weeks ago I grew busy and put this discussion aside, but now this thread is active again, I wrote down my thoughts for a rewritten Magic Warrior archetype. The work took two full days.
The major flaw in the PF2 Magic Warrior archetype is that it is almost entirely direct conversion of the PF1 Magic Warrior class archetype for magus.
PF1 Nameless Mask (Ex) became PF2 Magic Warrior Dedication feat 2.
PF1 Magic Warrior’s Aspect (Su), replacing the 3rd-level magus arcana, became PF2 Magic Warrior Aspect feat 4.
PF1 Nameless Anonymity (Su), delaying 8th-level improved spell combat to 14th level, became Nameless Anonymity feat 6.
PF1 Magaambya Spell Access (Su), replacing 19th-level greater spell access, was not ported.
And PF2 Magic Warrior Transformation feat 4 is new.
The Magic Warrior in PF1 relied on the spells and combat prowess of the Magus class to be a magical warrior. The Magic Warrior in PF2 has no options to provide spellcasting or martial proficiency if a player starts with a class missing either aspect. A Magic Warrior fighter would have no magic except for at most two focus spells, and not fit the "Magic" part of "Magic Warrior." A Magic Warrior sorcerer would be untrained in martial weapons, never expert in simple weapons, and untrained in all armor, and nit fit the "Warrior" part of "Magic Warrior."
Thus, the archetype needs feats that can provide the missing proficiencies. Magic Warrior Aspect could provide unarmed attacks that are as good as martial weapons. A new feat called Mask Armor would train in light and medium armor. And the archetype would have basic, expert, and master spellcasting feats. An archetype suitable as a free archetype needs 10 feats, one to take at each even level, but since some Magic Warriors will skip the feats that improve martial abilities and others will skip the feats that grant spellcasting, I needed to increase the Magic Warrior archetype from 4 feats to 14 feats. I went a little further and increased it to 16 feats.
A complicating factor is that I have a teacher at the Magaambya Academy whom I want to be a Magic Warrior. Noor Khan gives her lectures maskless. She will sometimes wear her mask for ceremonial occasions while still known by her maskless identity. Thus, the mask cannot be a constant identity. Instead, I will make a focus spell called Don the Mask that conceals the character's original identity to embrace a masked identity.
Have subsequent feats let you choose better martial training or spellcasting benefits, including flavorful options for combining both.
Include the mask feats as capstone options at 20th level, e.g. Cunning Trickster Mask, Sky Master Mask, Tireless Guide's Mask, and so on.
Thanks for the suggestion. I had skimmed the adventure in the 6th module, [i]Shadows of the Ancients,[/url] but I had not glanced at the Adventure Toolbox section that included those ten feats. They make a solid capstone to the Magic Warrior archetype. Without the Magic Warrior archetype they are weirdly out of place.
Arguably the least of the archetype's worries, but "Nameless Anonymity" is quite possibly the worst name ever conceived for a feat in Pathfinder. Anonymous literally means "nameless". It's like calling a feat "Quiet Silence" or "Powerful Power".
And the Ten Magic Warriors were not nameless. They had names such as Shifting Frog. I will change the name to Masked Anonymity.
Thanks to everyone for their help.
Magic Warrior Dedication Feat 2
Archetype, Dedication
Based on Magic Warrior Dedication, Lost Omens World Guide pg. 95, and Vigilante Dedication, Player Core 2 pg. 218
Archetype Magic Warrior
Prerequisites Trained in Arcana or Nature, trained in unarmed attacks.
Access You are from the Mwangi Expanse or attended the Magaambya Academy
You have donned a magical animal mask and learned the way of the magic warriors. You become trained in Magic Warrior Lore.
You make a Magic Warrior mask representing an animal of your choice from the Animal Companion list or similar to one of those animals, such as an Ibex instead of a Goat. You become trained in your choice of Acrobatics, Athletics or an additional skill listed on the selected animal companion. If you are already trained in all those skills, you may train another skill instead.
You have only one Magic Warrior mask, unless a feat grants you another one. You also name the mask based on the animal selected, such as Azure Leopard or White Bull. You cannot change the creature or name of the mask. If your mask is lost or destroyed, you can craft a replacement with the same appearance in one day of downtime. The mask is designed so that you can eat, drink, and sleep while masked.
You gain the focus spell Don the Mask. You Refocus by wearing your mask. If the mask is absorbed in a polymorph, that still counts as wearing the mask. Putting on the mask with an Interact action instead of Don the Mask does not changed your identity.
Special You cannot select another dedication feat until you have gained two other feats from the magic warrior archetype.
Don the Mask [one-action] Focus 1
Uncommon, Mental
Requirement You are holding, carrying, or wearing your Magic Warrior mask.
You mask your identity and become a mysterious figure. You Interact to put on your Magic Warrior mask. If you are already wearing your mask, you may Step instead. You assume an identity under the name of your mask. Your normal identity becomes obscured, except to people that you want to recognize you, as long as you do not remove your mask. That normal identity is not forgotten; rather, people remember it as another person. Effects that detect you based on your identity work only if you are currently in the identity the effect is trying to detect; otherwise, the effect fails as if the target didn't exist. No-one can discern the connection between your normal and Magic Warrior identities by observation, divination, or deduction from clues. Even people present as you put on your mask forget that your identity had changed right before their eyes. Likewise, if you remove this mask, people still do not connect your masked identity to your normal identity.
While in your Magic Warrior identity, you gain a +2 status bonus to saving throws against effects that try to detect you.
The Historic Ten Magic Warriors were Azure Leopard wearing cat mask, Black Heron wearing bird mask, Carmine Jaws wearing hyena mask, Elephant wearing elephant mask, Golden Snake wearing snake mask, Ibex wearing goat mask, Shifting Frog wearing a custom frog mask, Verdant Spider wearing custom spider mask, Whistling Kite wearing bird mask, and White Bull wearing custom bull mask.
I have no idea whether the original Ten Magic Warriors could use Mask Aspect or Mask Transformation, but here are the stats for the custom masks for Shifting Frog and Verdant Spider. White Bull's custom bull mask copies the rhinoceros animal companion.
Shifting Frog's Mask
Based on Capybara from Grand Bazaar pg. 54 and Animal Form from Player Core pg. 315
Size Small
Melee [one-action] jaws Damage 1d6 bludgeoning
Melee [one-action] tongue (reach 10 feet), Damage 1d4 bludgeoning
Str +2, Dex +2, Con +2, Int -4, Wis +2, Cha +0
Temporary Hit Points 6
Skill Survival
Senses low-light vision
Speed 25 feet, swim 25 feet
Verdant Spider's Mask
Based on Cave Gecko from Pathfinder #154: Siege of the Dinosaurs pg. 73 and Hunting Spider from Monster Core pg. 320
Size Small
Melee fangs Damage 1d4 piercing plus 1d4 poison
Str +2, Dex +3, Con +1, Int -4, Wis +2, Cha +0
Temporary Hit Points 6
Skill Stealth
Senses imprecise tremorsense 30 feet
Speed 25 feet, climb 25 feet
Magic Warrior Arcana Feat 4
Archetype
Archetype Magic Warrior
Prerequisites Magic Warrior Dedication, Trained in Arcana
You cast spells like the wizard Old-Mage Jatembe. You gain a spellbook with two common arcane cantrips and two common 1st-rank arcane spells of your choice. You gain the Cast a Spell activity. You’re trained in the spell attack modifier and spell DC statistics. Your key spellcasting attribute for Magic Warrior archetype spells is Intelligence. While wearing your Magic Warrior mask, you can prepare one cantrip and one 1st-rank spell each day from your spellbook. Also while wearing your Magic Warrior mask, you can use arcane scrolls and wands. You can add further spells to your spellbook through the Learn a Spell Activity
Mask Armor Feat 4
Your mask becomes armor. You are trained in light armor, medium armor, and unarmored defense. When you cast Don the Mask, the mask can transform to clothe you in explorer's clothing, leather armor, quilted armor, or hide armor for as long as you wear your mask. Removing the mask is still an Interact action, but casting Don the Mask again can make the armor disappear while masked. You may attach armor runes to the mask that become active when its armor appears.
Mask Aspect Feat 4
Archetype
Based on Magic Warrior Aspect, World Guide pg. 95
Archetype Magic Warrior
Prerequisites Magic Warrior Dedication
You can alter your form to gain an aspect of the animal your mask represents. You gain the mask aspect focus spell.
Mask Aspect [one-action] Focus 2
Uncommon Manipulate Morph
Based on Magic Warrior Aspect, World Guide pg. 95
Requirements You are wearing your Magic Warrior mask.
Duration 1 minute
You call upon the aspect of the animal from your mask, morphing to gain some physical features reminiscent of that animal. You gain the senses and the unarmed attacks of your mask's creature. You can Dismiss this spell.
Heightened (3rd) You also gain all the the Speeds of the mask's creature.
Heightened (5th) The duration increases to 10 minutes. You may automatically spend a focus point at the end of the duration to continue it for an additional 10 minutes indefinitely, even if unconscious.
Mask Transformation Feat 4
Archetype
Based on Magic Warrior Transformation, World Guide pg. 95
Archetype Magic Warrior
Prerequisites Magic Warrior Dedication
You can transform fully into the animal your mask represents. You gain the Mask Transformation focus spell.
Mask Transformation [one-action] Focus 2
Uncommon Manipulate Polymorph
Based on Magic Warrior Transformation, World Guide pg. 95
Requirements You are wearing your Magic Warrior mask.
Duration 1 minute
You transform into the animal from your mask. You transform into a battle form copying your mask's creature, following the polymorph rules. You gain the features and attributes in the creature's Animal Companion entry, except all the attributes are increased by 1, you keep your original hit points, and you do not gain the creature's Minion trait, Support Benefit, nor Advanced Maneuver. You gain the animal companion entry's initial hit points as temporary hit points. If your form has the mount trait, you do not lose an action when a character rides you. Handwraps of Mighty Blows still affect your unarmed attacks. You can Dismiss this spell.
Heightened (4th) Your animal form's Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Charisma increase by 1. This can increase a +4 into a +5.
Heightened (5th) The duration increases to 10 minutes. You may automatically spend a focus point at the end of the duration to continue it for an additional 10 minutes indefinitely, even if unconscious. This automatic extension renews the temporary hit points.
Basic Magic Warrior Spellcasting Feat 6
Archetype
Based on Basic Wizard Spellcasting, Player Core pg. 223
Archetype Magic Warrior
Prerequisites Magic Warrior Arcana
You gain the basic spellcasting benefits and you can prepare two cantrips each day instead of just one. You no longer need to wear your Magic Warrior mask while preparing your spells. The 1st-rank spell from basic spellcasting benefits is in addition to the 1st-rank spell from Magic Warrior Arcana. You gain your 2nd-rank spell at 8th level and your 3rd-rank spell at 10th level. At 6th, 8th, and 10th level, add two common spells of rank up to your highest Magic Warrior spellcasting rank to your spellbook.
Magic Warrior Expertise Feat 6
Archetype
Archetype Magic Warrior
Prerequisites Magic Warrior Dedication
You've dedicated yourself to the warrior side of Magic Warriors. Your proficiency ranks for weapons and unarmed attacks in which you are trained increase to expert.
Masked Anonymity Feat 6
Archetype
Based on Nameless Anonymity, World Guide pg. 95
Archetype Magic Warrior
Prerequisites Magic Warrior Dedication
Your mask protects you further from divination. If you cast Don the Mask during your daily preparations, you also gain the effect of Veil of Privacy for as long as you wear your mask.
Ancestry Mask Feat 8
Archetype
Archetype Magic Warrior
Prerequisites Magic Warrior Dedication
Another Magic Warrior mask lets you present a different face. You make another Magic Warrior mask representing a common or uncommon ancestry or a rare ancestry from the Mwangi Expanse (Anadi, Conrasu, or Goloma) to gain yet another name and identity. Choose a language that that ancestry typically speaks and a Heritage of that ancestry. You can speak that language while wearing the ancestry mask. When you cast Mask Aspect while wearing the ancestry mask, you gain the features of that ancestry and that heritage and the mask is absorbed to change your appearance. Mask Transformation while wearing the ancestry mask is the same as Mask Aspect and is a morph instead of a polymorph. You can have only one ancestry mask and cannot change its associated identity.
Mask Kinspeech Feat 10
Archetype
Based on Kinspeech familar ability Player Core pg. 212
Archetype Magic Warrior
Prerequisites Magic Warrior Dedication, trained in Nature
Your mask is in harmony with animals. While wearing your Magic Warrior animal mask, you can understand and speak with animals of the species represented by the mask. You can also cast Speak with Animals once per day while wearing your Magic Warrior animal mask.
Cosmic Mask Feat 12
Archetype
Based on Kindled Magic said on page 43, "Animals are the most typical shapes for Magaambyan masks, but other shapes (particularly celestial objects or supernatural beasts) aren’t uncommon."
Archetype Magic Warrior
Prerequisites Magic Warrior Dedication
Your mask taps into the cosmos mystery. Decorate your Magic Warrior Mask (both masks if you have Ancestry Mask) with images of the sun, moon, and stars. Learn one of the following focus spells spray of stars, interstellar void, and moonlight bridge. You can cast it while polymorphed with Mask Transformation.
Special You can take this feat up to three times, each time selecting a different focus spell.
Expert Magic Warrior Spellcasting Feat 12
Archetype
Based on Expert Wizard Spellcasting, Player Core pg. 223
Archetype Magic Warrior
Prerequisites Basic Magic Warrior Spellcasting, expert in Arcana
You gain the expert spellcasting benefits.
Magic Warrior Mastery Feat 14
Archetype
Archetype Magic Warrior
Prerequisites Magic Warrior Expertise
You've mastered the combat techniques of Magic Warriors. Your proficiency ranks for weapons and unarmed attacks in which you are expert increase to master.
Follow the Founder Feat 16
Auditory Concentrate Downtime
Based on Follow the Expert, Player Core pg. 438
Five of the Ten Magic Warriors founded the Magaambya and you can lead in their example. Any ally making a downtime skill check with a skill where you are Expert or better and in regular communication with you, gains a circumstance bonus to the skill based on your proficiency (+2 for expert, +3 for master, and +4 for legendary).
Master Magic Warrior Spellcasting Feat 18
Expert Magic Warrior Spellcasting Feat 12 (Spellcasting Line)
Archetype
Based on Master Wizard Spellcasting, Player Core pg. 223
Archetype Magic Warrior
Prerequisites Expert Magic Warrior Spellcasting, master in Arcana
You gain the master spellcasting benefits.
Legendary Mask Feat 20
You are inspired by the Ten Magic Warriors. You learn one of the following mask-related feats: Cunning Trickster Mask, Emancipator's Mask, Grand Medic's Mask, Protective Spirit Mask, Sky Master Mask, Stalking Feline Mask, Storyteller's Mask, Thick Hide Mask, Tireless Guide's Mask, Vigilant Mask.
Here is the backstory and build of Magaambyan teacher Noor Khan.
Vudrani scout Noor Khan and several other Vudrani volunteers sailed to Vidrian to assist in the Vidric Revolution. Arriving during the Free Captains’ retaliatory assault in 4717 AR, their ship participated in the naval battles. Alas, this gained them little recognition among the people of the new nation, many who looked upon them as outsiders. Most volunteers returned home. Noor, instead, traveled north to the Magaambya Academy to study medicine.
She returned to Vidrian as a physician and alchemist. Wearing her damibwaa mask from the Magaambya made her more accepted by the Vidric people, so that became her routine. She also found a growing magical connection between herself and her mask, granting her the abiltiy to cast arcane cantrips. Upon further study at the Magambya, she found tales of the the magic that developed in devotees of the Ten Magic Warriors. She joined the Emerald Boughs branch of the Magaambya, which focused on studying culture. Her research took her to other nations, where she adopted a dual identity: unmasked as an apolitical medical researcher and masked as Swimming Dog who rescued the downtrodden. She crafted a second mask of human visage for remaining anonymous.
She is currently on hiatus from field work and teaching at the Magaambya due to pregnancy.
Noor Inayat Khan Rogue 10
Human female sociologist
Ancestry Human, Heritage Skilled
Background Spotter
Racket Eldritch Trickster (Magic Warrior)
Perception +19
Languages Elvish, Garundi, Kelish, Mwangi, Osiriani, Taldoran, Vudrani
Skills Athletics +13, Crafting +16, Deception(m) +20, Diplomacy(e) +18, Emerald Boughs Lore +16, Intimidation +16, Magic Warrior Lore +16, Medicine(m) +19, Nature +15, Performance +16, Scouting Lore +16, Society(m) +20, Stealth(m) +20, Survival +15, Thievery(e) +18
Str +1, Dex +4, Con +1, Int +4, Wis +3, Cha +4
Items +1 ghost-touch striking shortsword, +1 rainment resilient leather armor, alchemist's toolkit, healer's toolkit (expanded), thieves' toolkit (infiltrator), Magic Warrior damibwa mask, Magic Warrior human mask, two moderate antidotes, two lesser elixirs of life, scroll of fireball, scroll of aerial form, 30 gp
Rogue Features Sneak attack 2d6, surprise attack, deny advantage, weapon tricks, debilitating strike
Class Feats
Eldritch Trickster Racket: Magic Warrior Dedication
Natural Ambition: Nimble Dodge
2nd: Magical Trickster
4th: Magic Warrior Arcana
6th: Basic Magic Warrior Spellcasting
8th: Mask Transformation
10th: Ancestry Mask
Ancestry Feats Courteous Comeback, Natural Ambition (Nimble Dodge), Sense Allies
General Feats Breath Control, Feather Step
Skill Feats Alchemical Crafting, Backup Diguise, Battle Medicine, Continual Recovery, Glad-Hand, Medical Researcher, Multilingual, Slippery Secrets, Swift Sneak, Terrain Stalker (underbrush), Underwater Marauder
AC 28; Fort +15 resilience, Ref +20 evasive, Will +17
HP 98
Speed 25 feet
Melee [one-action] +1 ghost-touch striking shortsword +19 [+15/+11] (agile, finesse, versatile S), Damage 2d6+3 piercing
Arcane Prepared Spells DC 26, attack +16
3rd dive and breach
2nd helpful wood spirits
1st admonishing ray, ant haul
Cantrip (5th) needle darts, spout
Magic Warrior Focus Spells (2 focus points) don the mask, mask transformation
"Swimming Dog" Animal Mask
Based on Wolf, Player Core pg. 210
Size Small
Melee [one-action] jaws +19 [+14/+9] (finesse), Damage 1d8+4 piercing
Str +4, Dex +5, Con +3, Int -2, Wis +2, Cha +2 (increases added already)
AC 28; Fort +17 resilience, Ref +21 evasive, Will +17
Temporary Hit Points 6
Skill Survival +14
Senses low-light vision, scent (imprecise, 30 feet)
Speed 30 feet, Swim 10 feet
"Goro Takei" Ancestry Mask
Ancestry human; Heritage versatile(Fleet); Language Tien
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Oh! New idea! What if Magic Warrior was a 12th level archetype which doesn't lockout Magaambyaan Attendant/Halycon Speaker, and that can be taken as a mythic destiny like Mortal Herald? That lets you put a lot more power into the mask if it's that high level, better matches the story of the Ten, and allows you to gate truly legendary stuff behind mythic point use.
This is a great idea. The Magic Warriors are legendary figures and there has been very few of them. Mythic would definitely fit.
Oh! New idea! What if Magic Warrior was a 12th level archetype which doesn't lockout Magaambyaan Attendant/Halycon Speaker, and that can be taken as a mythic destiny like Mortal Herald? That lets you put a lot more power into the mask if it's that high level, better matches the story of the Ten, and allows you to gate truly legendary stuff behind mythic point use.This is a great idea. The Magic Warriors are legendary figures and there has been very few of them. Mythic would definitely fit.
Magic Warrior archetype is not directly about the legendary Ten Magic Warriors. It is about newer heroes of the Mwangi Expanse inspired to follow in the footsteps of the original Magic Warriors. Requiring these inspired heroes to have earned their own prowess before donning a mask at 12th level to re-earn their reputation in a new identity feels like the wrong story.
I own a copy of Lost Omens Legends. Just because someone is a legend does not make them mythic. Most of the legendary people in the book are contemporary rulers of nations, such as Queen Abrogail Thrune II, ruler of Cheliax, and Nankou, Linnorm King of Icemark. A few figures in the book, such as Baba Yaga, are probably mythic, but most aren't. The Licktoad Goblins from We Be Goblins are in Legends. Some renown Legends figures have non-mythic stat blocks in adventure paths. For example, Kevoth-Kul, Black Sovereign of Numeria, is a male human barbarian 15 in Palace of Fallen Stars whose only amazing feature is that Numerian fluids have rendered him ageless. General Azaersi of Oprak is a female hobgoblin swashbuckler 20 in Vault of the Onyx Citadel.