[PF] Assist a Magus?

[nazgulnine]

Hello! My first thread in the discussion forum, mwahaha...

I was wondering if anyone could offer me some tips on overcoming a bit of a future challenge?
Our RL group has started getting up in the levels, and I've got a month to plan out some strategy until we get back to playing. Now the problem is that our DM has started throwing some strong baddies at our 4-man group, consisting thusly: 1 Dwarf Ranger (lvl7, focusing on archery, but the player hasn't been so we've been running around with a lv5 with some generic hp bonuses), 1 half-orc monk/shadowdancer (lvl5 monk/lvl2 sd), 1 human dervishdancing magus (myself, lv7), and 1 human female ranger/rogue (lv7, dunno the exact specs of her build). We've all just dinged up a level to 8, after facing a monstrosity of a fight that killed our lv5 npc companion and left the rest of our group feeling pretty worn out. The foe that done did this? A neothelid (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/aberrations/neothelid), a CR15 aberration. (Note: Our DM is not a huge jerkarse and actually limited the beast's abilities to 1/day and dropped its AC to 20... not sure what else was done to limit the beasty)

Anyway, the dm's mentioned we'd be facing these again in the future, full-strength, and I'm curious as to what methods of tackling one of these bad boys with our current ragtag party the playgrounders would have, as we've been trudging through some pretty tough "boss-level" fights so far, and I can only foresee further complications given the increase in game level and our dm's love of high level monsters.

For reference, I'm working with a high dex, high int-build scimitar magus and focusing on self-buffs and swordsaging. My spell list features castings of mirror image, magic missile, shocking grasp (intensified and how!), force hookcharge (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/force-hook-charge) (for playing indiana jones), enlarge person, haste, and some coincidentals.
Our shadow dancer's been using ki points like skooma to land some pretty heavy hits, our dwarf's been dwarfy, and our rogue-girl is still learning the ropes.
The DM is of the opinion that anything outside of the core book is fishy and possibly broken, so that would exclude anything 3.5-related, most homebrew/3rd-party, and things from Ultimate Magic/Ultimate Combat/Adventurer's Armory would need specific DM approval/houseruling.

So... any tips or suggestions to help a magus out?

[Duncan_Ruadrik]

My first reaction is to get a full caster... because if your DM is playing it well, this opponent is will be quite difficult... At will Detect thoughts, Clairvoyance, charm monster, telekinesis, TELEPORT, poison, and 2/day quickened suggestion.

Basically, without a method to prevent teleport, one of these could easily attack your party, and flee when things look bad, and wait to heal up. In essence, if played intelligently, or as a team with other such creatures, your party could NEVER kill one, and could be attacked by a new everytime one teleports away.

Also, your party no doubt has some weak will saves, which make the Neothelid's Mind Thrust and Psychic crush abilities (at 25 DC will save) brutal for your Ranger and Ranger/Rogue.

my tip at first glance would be to avoid fights if possible, because if you fight a full strength version, and its played intelligently by the DM, you'll probably die, especially at this level.

[nazgulnine]

Thanks for the response Duncan!
Yeah, the lack of a full caster has been pretty rough on our team. I've tried to explain to my group that a magus just isn't controlly or blasty enough to make up for the lack of one.

Another glaring problem I'm looking at is the lack of magic items for our frontliners, who've been running around with their initial equipment. So far, we've got a grand total of 2 items: a staff of illumination I managed to pick up in a chest somewhere and a longsword that exudes some "special properties" (dm wouldn't give us any more info other than "it's magic"... I scored around 30-something on my spellcraft check. So, to make things brief, we don't know what the hell the magic sword does)

We've been pretty good at finding niches for our half-caster and rangers to mete out damage against the bigger baddies while our monk pretends he's a barbarian. Now that I think about the problems we're going to be facing, I'm a little worried about this group. :smallfrown:

[Duncan_Ruadrik]

Now that I think about the problems we're going to be facing, I'm a little worried about this group. :smallfrown:

I would be too, if I were you. Assuming the DM knows how to intelligently play these creatures, it looks like you are heading for a TPK.

Given your limited resources, there is literally nothing i can give as advice to possibly prevent that. a mysteriously magic sword and a staff of illumination is not exactly tide changing, unless the magic sword is a macguffin, and has some epic powers. Of course, it could be cursed and cause nothing but problems.

So, once again, sorry I can't help you, you party just hasn't got enough to get by, as far as I am aware.

[Infernalbargain]

Basically your only hope it seems is to avoid the fight and gain another 5 or so levels in the mean time.